Pambazuka News 549: Special Issue: Tributes to a fallen fighter: Wambui Otieno
Pambazuka News 549: Special Issue: Tributes to a fallen fighter: Wambui Otieno
The number of underweight children as a result of malnutrition continues to rise in Karas Region, a recent weight monitoring study conducted by the Keetmanshoop health district reveals. A report that contains information over a six month period since January indicated that 145 children aged between zero and 59 months were found to be severely' underweight.
Africa must harness the potential of female agriculture scientists to revolutionise farming practices and rescue millions of citizens from hunger pangs. Experts contend that African women contribute 70 per cent of food produced yet they are grossly under-represented in research and policymaking as well as influential leadership positions in the agriculture sector.
Statistics show that chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes are on the rise in developing nations. A number of these nations are still battling infectious diseases such as HIV. Having to deal with both infectious and chronic diseases puts even more pressure on health systems that are already struggling to cope. Zimbabwe’s brain drain of medical professionals has further compounded this situation due to the shortage of nurses, doctors and specialists.
Organisations in Africa have been urged to develop and enhance partnerships amongst governments and other stakeholders in order to promote gender equality. International Federation of Journalists General Secretary Beth Costa made the statement during the All-African Conference on Gender and Media held in Kigali. Issues of gender inequality took centre stage as sexual harassment, poor pay, lack of training, unfavorable working conditions and little or no maternity leave were identified as some of the major challenges facing women journalists.
The mobile learning toolkit is an open source resource that can be used in the delivery of all kinds of training in any developing context. It has been designed to be as inclusive as possible, with most of the methods requiring only low end devices (basic mobile phones with voice calling and SMS capability). In this way the toolkit can be used to deliver interactive distance learning experiences to participants even at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP).
Over 200,000 people affected by the recent violence in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan face extreme levels of malnutrition and mortality after the government has denied access to aid agencies, the United Nations said.
China and Africa called for deeper and more frequent people-to-people exchange as they launched the first China-Africa nongovernmental organization (NGO) forum to bring together civil society actors.
This project was formulated by the EU Delegation with full participation of NAO, EPA, MoA and MoWE aims to contribute towards the construction of a carbon neutral and climate resilient economy through the corresponding socio-economic development program (CRGE). Identification of Services is a key aspect of the project which focuses advisory and support functions.
Gambian National Environment Agency, NEA said recently that the country is already facing the worst ramifications of the climate change. NEA’s executive director, Momodou B. Sarr said in Banjul that already climate change impact on agriculture is attributed to 40 per cent drop in groundnut yields due to rising temperatures and the disappearance of freshwater swamps, and soil salinization in lowland areas resulting from sea level rise is likely to impact negatively on rice production and the lives of women farmers in these areas.
Oracle Corp. is being investigated by US authorities on whether the business software maker violated federal anti-bribery laws, the Wall Street Journal reported.
This piece on the Women's News Network blog recounts that despite the country’s urban political turbulence, most rural communities in Zimbabwe are still governed under patriarchal rules that permit polygamy and exclude women from property rights.
Human rights advocates watching Gambia are worried that abuses against perceived dissenters will rise as the November presidential election nears, killing any chance of a free and fair poll. Already the official campaign period - the only time opposition parties are given access to the media and allowed to actively campaign - has been shrunk to 11 days from four weeks, sparking concern among political leaders.
A document shows that South Africa’s government is far behind land reform efforts, a setback that could prove explosive in a country with staggering inequality almost a generation after white rule ended.
It is not uncommon for elderly people on the streets of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (CRD), to be mistreated by their families. Unable to look after themselves due to a lack of income, most elderly people live with their children, where they encounter various forms of abuse, including at times, accusations of witchcraft.
Corruption is eroding the benefits of good health projects in Africa and governments must look inwards for funding, the World Health Organisation (WHO), has said. In a meeting with African Ministers of Health and Ministers of Finance in Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire, the organisation said solving the problem of funding was necessary for the health sector to thrive in the continent.
The Kenyan government is pushing fish farming to provide an alternative to small farmers who are scrabbling to eke out a living from poor soil.
A record number of African countries are set to hold elections throughout 2011. This article analyses the political and internal situation of different countries that are currently facing unrest and revolt. Protesters ask for better social and economic conditions, the respect of their civil rights and the implementation of political reforms. Leaders have often responded to the opposition with violence and repression. It remains to be seen if real changes can occur in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The National Secretariat (SN) of the Polisario Front has denounced the colonial practices of the Moroccan government, through the campaigns of brutal repression, arrests, abductions and transferring civilians before military courts, particularly since the forced dismantling of the camp of Gdeim Izik, November 8, 2010.
The African Development Bank released a book titled 'China and Africa, An Emerging Partnership for Development?'. In recent years, China has been the prominent emerging partner for most of Africa and new China-Africa relations have generated heated debates. Is China really the sole winner in its relations with the African continent? This book challenges this idea by analysing opportunities and challenges for both parties.
The 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development finds that women's lives around the world have improved dramatically, but gaps remain in many areas. The authors use a conceptual framework to examine progress to date, and then recommend policy actions.
In any emergency, be it natural disaster or man-made, long- or short-term, people’s lives are turned upside down. Knowing what’s happening, where to go for assistance and who to call for help is crucial to their survival and recovery. As famine is declared in six regions of neighbouring Somalia, this edition of Mobile Message highlights the work of ActionAid in improving vital communication with drought-affected populations in northern Kenya.
Leading Malawi civil rights groups plan a new round of protests against President Bingu wa Mutharika, who received international condemnation after his forces killed 20 people when crushing anti-government rallies in July.
South Africa remains committed to resolving and stamping out the recurring problem of xenophobia in all its forms wherever it manifests itself within the Republic. This was the message from Minister for Public Service and Administration, Mr Richard Baloyi during his opening remarks of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) meeting of select Focal Points with African Peer Review (APR) Panel members.
Lifestyle influenced non-communicable diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer, kill about 36m people each year – 80 per cent of them in developing countries. The rate is growing fastest in Africa, where it will overtake the death toll from infectious diseases such as malaria and HIV by 2030.
The Egyptian military authorities’ expansion of the emergency law is the greatest erosion of human rights since the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year, Amnesty International said. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) broadened the application of the Mubarak-era emergency law following clashes between demonstrators and security forces at the Israeli embassy last Friday. The confrontation resulted in three reported deaths and some 130 arrests.
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works at the crossroads of livestock and poverty, bringing high-quality livestock science, communications and capacity building to bear on poverty reduction and sustainable development. ILRI seeks to recruit a senior Project Manager to oversee and lead all aspects of the implementation of the 5 year Livestock and Irrigation Value-Chains for Ethiopian Smallholders project.
It is time to challenge the conventional explanations of gender based violence. Patricia Daley argues that it can only be understood in association with contemporary geo-economic forces and the Central African experience of modernity.
South Sudan’s new minister of higher education said during a visit to Uganda that 'a lot of changes' will be made to processes of awarding scholarship to students due to lack of transparency and corruption at his ministry.
An opinion piece in the Herald argues that AFRICOM is 'undermining the African Union (AU) and its Peace and Security Council which deals with Peace and Security on the continent'.
Could blood transfusions have made such a contribution to the most serious HIV epidemics in the world? Often, it is said or suggested that transfusions were not common enough in developing countries, particularly the African countries that have experienced the worst HIV epidemics. But an article published by William H. Schneider and Ernest Drucker five years ago shows that this view is mistaken.
How can technology be used to fight food insecurity in a region as large and diverse as east Africa? Karen Peachey, the British Red Cross’ east Africa representative, gives a few ideas: 'Mobile phones are everywhere in east Africa, even in many remote areas. If mobile companies could improve access further then people’s lives can change. A mobile phone gives you access to information –you can find out that your goat is worth more money than the middleman is offering, meaning you have better access to food, medical care, and education.'
REDD+ intends to develop financing mechanisms that will compensate developing countries as an incentive for changing the way forest resources are used to curb CO2 emissions. The performance based compensation will pay for actions that prevent forest loss or degradation, conservation, the sustainable management of forests and enhancement of carbon stocks. Isilda Nhantumbo argues that REDD+ is now driving a race for land in Mozambique.
Cervical cancer is the most common women’s affliction in Sub-Saharan Africa and the third most common ailment in females, with 530,000 new cases and 275,000 deaths each year. About 80-90 per cent of women in the Region have never had a pelvic examination.
The United Nations and regional governments are deploying additional soldiers to Côte d'Ivoire's border area with Liberia after deadly attacks on villages in the densely forested West African region, a military official said.
Indian agribusiness companies are ready to spend $2.5bn buying, or renting for decades, several million hectares of cheap land in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda in what could be some of the largest farming deals struck in Africa in the last 50 years.
Amnesty International has welcomed the release of Kenyan human rights activist, Al-Amin Kimathi by a Ugandan court. The charges against NGO director Al-Amin Kimathi and four other defendants were dropped by the Kampala High Court at the start of their trial.
Agriculture, predominantly small scale, accounts for about 30% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP and at least 40% of export value. Having fallen out of favour in the development debate in the last decade, agriculture these days gets its own G20 summits and there are moves to make agriculture the centrepiece of the Rio+20 global development summit next June.
Africa Today speaks with Emira Woods on the upcoming Liberia elections, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and West African regional developments. Emira Woods is the Co-Director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies.
The African Union (AU) is to launch the Pan-African Media Network (PAMEN), a platform run by the African Forum for Media Development of the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) and the African Media Initiative (AMI).
An Eritrean Ministry of Education statement issued in connection with International Literacy Day has found that the nation's illiteracy rate has been reduced by 45% and attributes progress to the preparation of textbooks as well as an adult education programme.
Mobile phone manufacturers, operators and Google have started a big push of the Android operating system into Africa this year. Samsung, HTC and Huawei are moving Android phones into the market and some operators are starting to subsidise Android handsets to get them to a price point palatable to a larger number of buyers.
The Mozambican government is providing large tracts of land at a symbolic price to Brazilian farmers to produce soy, maize and cotton, Mozambique’s agriculture minister, José Pacheco told Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.
The BBC has produced a podcast about Zimbabwe as part of their BBC documentaries podcast series Assignment. In 'Assignment - Zimbabwe's Child Migrants' (25min) Mukul Devichand goes on the road with young children travelling alone on a journey of desperation, danger and hope - south from Zimbabwe and across the border to South Africa.
Libya's interim prime minister says his administration will form a new government within the next seven to 10 days. Mahmoud Jibril spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He said Libya's National Transitional Council is finalizing decisions on the exact number of ministries and whether they would all be located in the capital, Tripoli, or divided between eastern and western Libya.
In this video interview, made by Francesco Fiondella at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), CCAFS theme leader James Hansen discusses the causes of the current drought plaguing the Horn of Africa. He points out that even if the lack of rain is a root cause of the crisis, it is still only one of many factors that has lead to the ongoing drought.
Sarah Costa, executive director of the Women's Refugee Commission, examines the plight of many in the Horn of Africa as thousands of Somalis, the overwhelming majority of them women and children, flee their country to find food and shelter in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia. Yet when they finally reach the camps, which are supposed to be safe havens, they find that the dangers continue.
Somalia has the world's highest mortality rate for children under age 5, according to data released by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.
Famine in the Horn of Africa and surging food prices are concentrating the minds of policymakers on the need for long-term solutions, particularly for small farmers. If they can become as productive as their peers in Asia, the argument goes, they can move from self-subsistence, make a decent livelihood, and ultimately drive economic development on the continent.
'HRCSL expresses deep concern over the recent spate of violence in the country and regrets the resulting loss of life and injuries to individuals and destruction of property. We refer to reports of political violence recently in Kono followed by the affray at the national stadium during the Egypt/Sierra Leone match and most recently the Bo incident. The incident in Kono and Bo involved political violence resulting in the discharge of firearms allegedly by the police leading to injury to individuals and security personnel.'
Women account for more than 60 per cent of the 1,2 million people living with HIV and Aids in Zimbabwe, a recent survey has revealed. The survey, contained in a report titled: 'Know your Epidemic - Know your Response', indicated that only 20 per cent of the adult population knew their HIV status.
The Brookings Institution finds that in January, the 10 longest serving African leaders included: Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi of Libya (42 years) , Jose E. Dos Santos of Angola (32 years) , Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mi of Equatorial Guinea (32 years), Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (31 years), Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (30 years), Paul Biya of Cameroon (30 years), Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (25 years), Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso (24 years), Zina el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia (24 years) and Umar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan (22 years). Within a short period of eight months, almost a third of them have been removed from power.
Investments in rural infrastructure, both physical and institutional, were needed to enhance the resilience of agriculture in the face of the uncertainties of climate change, South Africa's Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said at the African Ministerial Conference on Climate-Smart Agriculture.
Farmers’ organisations (FOs) are increasingly being asked to play a central role in driving agricultural transformation processes in Sub-Saharan Africa, despite their mixed record of success. As governments, donors and NGOs rush to promote the scaling up and diversification of FOs’ activities and membership, this policy brief draws on findings of a study of the roles, functions and performance of FOs in Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi to suggest some principles and practices for supporting FOs in Africa.
Educationists from the two sister Ministries of Basic and Secondary Education; and Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology recently stepped up efforts that seek to pave the way forward in achieving a more vibrant higher education policy road map.
According to United Nations figures, since 2010 some 30 refugees from Africa who have requested asylum from the Brazilian government are living in Amazon jungle states. The asylum-seekers are from Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria and Sierra Leone in West Africa, Kenya in East Africa, Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, and the DRC.
UNHCR has opened a sixth camp for up to 27,000 refugees from Côte d'Ivoire who have been living with host communities in eastern Liberia since fleeing their homeland.
More than a year after the launch of the Free Health Care Initiative, pregnant women and girls in Sierra Leone continue to face serious challenges in accessing the drugs and medical care crucial for safe pregnancy and childbirth, Amnesty International said.
The collapse of affordable schooling in Zimbabwe is leading thousands of children to make a perilous trek to South Africa. But some of those who make it, penniless, to Johannesburg, get what they want - a top-quality education.
Pan-African Awards for Entrepreneurship in Education is a competition initiated by Teach A Man To Fish and generously sponsored by partner organisation Educating Africa. It continues to reward organizations in Africa that use innovative and entrepreneurial techniques to fill gaps in educational services across the continent. The competition is open to all organisations based in Africa working in education, from primary through to tertiary, as well as in non-formal and adult education.
The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, US officials said.
This is a startling and disturbing statistic. The reality is: these 130 people were originally found guilty based on eyewitness testimony. Once physical DNA evidence surfaced, it turned out that the eyewitnesses, who testified against them, were wrong. There is no DNA evidence in the case of Troy Anthony Davis.
'Two bus operators have died after having been shot by police in Swaziland,' Morten Nielsen from Danish NGO Africa Contact reports from the small kingdom. The shootings come in the wake of widespread police violence throughout the country during recent weeks, as well as in April, where thousands of Swazis marched for democracy and socio-economic justice.
Frank Mugisha, a Ugandan LGBTI human rights defender has been selected for the 2011 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. He has been commended for his work in the LGBTI community especially in Uganda. Mugisha is the Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), an umbrella organisation that protects and recognises LGBTI people in the country.
Burundian NGOs say at least 20 people have died as a national shortage of antiretroviral continues. 'Some have died, others have turned to traditional healers, and all of them [HIV-positive people] are discouraged,' said Jeanne Gapiya, who heads Burundi's largest HIV NGO, Association Nationale de soutien aux Seropositifs et Sideens (ANSS).
Egypt's army will stop trying civilians in military courts when it scraps the country's decades-old emergency law, a top general said, as activists tried to build momentum for a mass protest against military trials. Rights groups say Egypt's army rulers have used military courts to imprison as many as 14,000 civilians as they try to deal with follow-up waves of street protests since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
In April, the Columbia Journalism Review raised the question of whether non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Africa benefit from particular representations of the continent as conflict and poverty-ridden.
President Robert Mugabe has sworn in Zimbabwe's anti-corruption commission in an effort to stem graft in the southern African country, state media reported.
Robert Mugabe’s continued grip on power in Zimbabwe, and ZANU PF’s ongoing failure to properly govern the country, is causing growing impatience among African governments, the details of which have been revealed by the whistle-blowing group WikiLeaks.
Google has added more than 40 new domains on Google Maps, including six African countries: Somalia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Lesotho, Mali and Niger.
Thousands of children die each year in Zimababwe from HIV-related illnesses, often because they have no access to life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs, the state-run Herald newspaper reports.
The Sudanese government has banned and closed the offices of the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), a major opposition party, a senior SPLM-N member says.
In a bid to stop millions of people dying and suffering every year from malnutrition, WHO is launching a new web-powered initiative that clarifies guidance on life-saving nutrition interventions, and assists governments and healthcare providers to better scale up action against all forms of malnutrition.
The race to feed more than 12 million people facing severe food shortages in the Horn of Africa has seen humanitarian agencies make several funding appeals. Donor governments have contributed more than US$1.46 billion out of the required $2.48 billion. So far, so traditional. What has not been counted has been the response of ordinary people in the region to the disaster unfolding on their TV screens. Here is a round-up of some initiatives that have tapped into popular philanthropy.
The latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines voter registration and the beginning of the campaign on the ground in the Kivu provinces and the Ituri district and highlights the electoral stakes in a region that remains fundamental for durable stability in the country.
Nigerian authorities have in recent days deported 115 illegal immigrants from the northern city of Kano amid increased security after an attack on UN headquarters in the country, an official said.
So far more than twenty Cameroonian political and civil society actors have indicated their intention to run for the country's top job, the president of the republic. As Cameroonians look forward to the 2011 Presidential Poll, due October, the aspirants have also been making public what they will do for the country, but some observers hold that the presidential aspirants are not proposing issues, which are realistic.
The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, has requested Nigeria and the African Union (AU) to intervene in his country's pre-elections disagreement in order to rescue it from becoming 'another Ivory Coast.'
The food security threat posed by climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the African continent, says Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson. 'Climate change is a serious threat to the agricultural field in the African continent,' Joemat-Pettersson told BuaNews at a breakfast briefing with African ambassadors to solicit support for the planned meeting on climate-smart agriculture.
Political parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo are struggling to recruit women into their ranks to run for parliament, despite a legal requirement to do so and a belief that greater numbers of female parliamentarians are critical to advancing women’s rights.
The abuse of women's rights in Africa is an issue which is close to blogger Glynnis Cummingsjohn's heart. Abuse against older women is common across Africa and in African communities abroad, yet it receives very little attention. People give many reasons for it: culture, religion, politics, etc... all in the hope of legitimising this abuse, which is totally unacceptable.