Pambazuka News 408: Zimbabwe: Towards a government of national impunity
Pambazuka News 408: Zimbabwe: Towards a government of national impunity
Internally displaced children in the Central African Republic face severe protection problems from ongoing insecurity and violence. They have witnessed extreme levels of violence such as the killing of family members when their villages were attacked by road bandits known as Zaraguina or coupeurs de route. Their basic needs remain largely unmet, and many displaced children have also suffered from economic exploitation, ethnic discrimination and recruitment into armed groups.
One after the other the women sat infront of the audience and TV cameras and told of their ordeal. Each story was as heart wrenching as the previous. The women told terrifying tales of how men in uniform broke into their homes, beat them and violated them.
Some of the poorest countries in Africa have put in place appropriate laws and policies to protect child rights than wealthier countries. The countries have allocated their limited resources to the provision of basic needs for their children and the funding arrangement has helped greatly in protecting the children against exploitation and harmful traditional practices.
As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, we pay tribute to the leaders in communities and nations who have promoted greater awareness and action to address the AIDS pandemic. If there is one lesson learned over the years, it is that success in responding to the HIV epidemic requires sustained leadership, community engagement and the involvement of people living with HIV.
The IFJ has condemned the killing of a journalist working for Radio Okapi who was shot dead in the town of Bukavu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the radio's website, Didace Namujimbo was shot in the head by unknown assailants on Friday night near his home. "We condemn strongly the murder of our colleague Didace which shows yet again the alarming lack of protection for journalists in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo," said Gabriel Baglo, director of the IFJ Africa office. "In the last three years, six journalists have lost their lives in targeted attacks."
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the arrest and detention of about 70 journalists on Monday, as they were demonstrating against the censorship practice and tactics employed by the Sudanese government. "We consider the arrest of the journalists on Monday by the Sudanese authorities as an act of intimidation aimed at preventing the media from reporting the truth in Sudan" said Gabriel Baglo, Director of the IFJ Africa office.
A senior United Nations relief official has urged donors to generously support the $550 million appeal launched earlier this week to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, which she warned will get much worse without “massive” international assistance. The Southern African nation is mired in a crisis brought about by a confluence of factors, including three years of failed harvests, bad governance and hyperinflation, among others.
The Security Council has strongly condemned the attempted coup d’état in Guinea-Bissau over the weekend and urged all political groups in the fragile and impoverished West African country to resolve their disputes peacefully. Dissident elements of the military launched an armed attack on the residence of President João Bernardo Vieira in the capital, Bissau, early on Sunday morning, using machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. But they were unsuccessful and Mr. Vieira survived the attack.
Rebels in the strife-torn eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) launched new military attacks today under the cover of a so-called police and pacification operation, breaking the ceasefire and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis, the United Nations mission has reported.
The leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army Joseph Kony is expected to sign the peace deal on Saturday after several months of unfulfilled promises. He was earlier expected to sign the peace agreement in April this year but failed because he was unsure of the status of his arrest warrant from the ICC.
Zambian President, Rupiah Banda, has requested Nigeria's assistance to tackle the effect of the global financial crisis on his country. He said the global crisis has hit Zambia's economy to the extent that the price of its main commodity which is copper had come down to $3,300 from $8000 per tonne.
Retribution against political opponents is continuing in spite of the on going negotiations to form a power sharing government between ZANU PF and the two MDC parties. The Tsvangirai MDC claim two more activists were abducted from their homes on Tuesday night, while the 14 activists and a two year old baby are still missing.
During this year’s Sixteen Days of No Violence Against Women and Children, Southern Africa has quite a bit to celebrate, though with some caution, as there is still much work to do to address the high levels of gender violence in the region. Though we all dream of a day when we have 365 days of no violence, Sixteen Days is an opportunity to see how far we have come, and what we need to do next.
In many ways, the media has been an effective way to reach and get information to women who are experiencing gender-based violence (GBV) and any other form of gender inequality. Moreover, the 16 Days of Activism against GBV underlines the importance of reaching women with these information campaigns. However, in many parts of Africa, there is a more complex aspect to having access to information. This includes the difficulties many women experience in gaining access to the means of information itself – be that a radio or television set, newspapers or magazines.
I was born 27 years ago in a little village called Gatumba, 15 km from Bujumbura in Burundi. I am a product of a teenage mother forced to marry the man who impregnated her and later had three more children with him. I grew up in a very violent home. Gender based and sexual violence was daily bread in my life. My father assaulted my mother every day in front of the entire family and no one said anything. Sometimes he would force my mother to have sex in front of me. This puzzled me because it didn’t seem normal, nor did my mother like it.
Delegates meeting at Sixth African Development Forum which closed last Friday have called for urgent and standardised laws to address human trafficking - the newest form of gender violence that, according to UNICEF, afflicts more than four-fifth of African countries.
This 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is even more relevant this year to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) than ever. While gender violence continues to be an unrelenting problem in the region, the August 2008 signing of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development arms gender activists with a powerful tool to lobby and hold governments accountable to extending 16 Days to year-long action to fight gender violence.
I was born 3 of July 1955 at Katlehong and grew up with polio after being diagnosed when l was eight months old. I stayed at the Germiston Hospital, Baragwaneth, and later ended up in Natal-Spruit Hospital where they kept disabled people. In 1993, l received an RDP house. It was nice because l was working and l could do whatever l wanted. My house was very beautiful.
Over 3000 people are feared to have died so far from a severe cholera epidemic plaguing the country. With Mugabe’s regime keeping a tight lid on the number of people who have succumbed to the illness, the actual number could be much higher. Our Harare correspondent Simon Muchemwa told Newsreel the figure of 3000 dead could most likely be for Harare alone. He said most people did not bother to register the deaths of their relatives and this provided an added challenge to accurate record keeping.
One of Robert Mugabe’s fiercest critics, the Botswana Foreign Minister, on Wednesday launched a stinging attack on the ZANU PF leader, suggesting that the Southern African region should close its borders in an attempt to bring him down. As pressure mounted on Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai to agree to form a unity government to avert the humanitarian catastrophe, Phandu Skelemani told the BBC that SADC nations have failed to move Mugabe with mediation and they should now impose sanctions.
Zimbabwe's political rivals have agreed on a draft constitutional amendment to allow them to form a power-sharing government, but obstacles remain, the opposition said on Friday. On-off talks between President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC have made little progress since they reached a deal in September seen as the best hope of pulling Zimbabwe back from economic collapse.
Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos called on Friday for a new constitution to allow the first presidential poll in almost two decades, a vote he is widely expected to win. Dos Santos, who has ruled the oil-producing African country for 29 years, said the new constitution would make clear whether the president would be elected directly by Angolans or by parliament.
Ethiopia said on Friday it would withdraw its troops from Somalia by the end of this year, piling pressure on Somalia's feuding government and African nations that had promised to send peacekeepers. Addis Ababa has sent thousands of soldiers to support Somalia's Western-backed interim administration, whose divisions have hindered its battle against Islamist militants waging an Iraq-style insurgency.
A little while back, we asked who is and isn’t fighting corruption effectively in Africa. This week, a number of examples bring us back to the subject. In Tanzania, two former ministers have been charged with flouting procurement rules over the award of a tender for auditing gold mining back in 2002.
The refusal of the Mbeki government to roll-out antiretroviral therapy and treatment to prevent mother-to child transmission in South Africa resulted in 330,000 needlessly premature HIV-related deaths and 35,000 avoidable case of mother-to-child HIV transmission according to estimates published in the December 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
A groundbreaking study published in mid-November by the Morocco section of the Pan-African Organisation for the Fight Against AIDS (OPALS) focused on an activity that is a major source of sexually transmitted diseases – prostitution. "Prostitution is closely linked with the economic, social and mental situation of those who are involved in it," the November 13th report said.
Mauritanian refugees considering whether to return home with UNHCR help received positive news at the weekend when the Mauritanian authorities gave birth certificates to two returnee children, paving the way for them to receive national ID papers. The documents were handed to the young boy and girl during an official ceremony on Sunday in the border town of Rosso.
The Kalahari Bushmen have appealed to the Pope to support them in their struggle to return to their land, as the Vatican established diplomatic relations with Botswana earlier this month. A Bushman spokesman said, ‘We beg the Pope to help, to pray for us so that the government changes its attitude towards us and respects our rights as indigenous peoples of this land.’
Still wearing a campaign t-shirt with the slogan "FED UP: with violence against women", Dlamini-Shongwe, the public relations officer for the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA) is fresh from the Nov. 25 launch of the16 days activism against gender-based violence at Jubilee Park in Manzini.
Efforts to improve agriculture in Kenya often miss the mark by targeting men instead of women. One woman spent 20 years organizing female farmers to share investments and training. Now men are joining too, and the women's work is paying off.
A basic income grant (BIG) is a universal transfer to all those with the right to be in a country (citizens by birth, by naturalisation, or persons with rights of permanent residence). The purpose of this article is to reflect not so much on the basic income grant (BIG) itself, but rather on the reasons why it is unlikely that any other policy can address the problem of mass unemployment and associated poverty in South Africa.
Forming part of a larger document looking at the development of sustainable media in Africa, this chapter focuses on progress in Malawi. Quantitative baseline scores were obtained and in-depth qualitative studies from a local perspective prepared to explain the numbers.
There is a ‘secret-cult’ silence on the issue of abuse of the elderly in Nigeria, argues the author of this paper. The victims of abuse and others are reluctant to talk about it, and there is constant denial by victims and abusers. Acts of abuse are usually regarded as normal behaviour within society. What can ordinary Nigerians, the government, families and communities do to assist the abused and abusers in prevention and intervention strategies that will benefit the elderly in Nigeria?
Umaru Yar Adua, the Nigerian president, has announced a list of ministerial nominees including a former Opec chief, almost three weeks after sacking half the cabinet. Yar Adua on Tuesday sent the list of 13 nominees to the senate for approval, in order to complete the cabinet reshuffle.
The influential European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, is reported to have been "shocked" by the rushed move of the Burundian parliament to criminalize same-sex relations. Michael Cashman, an MEP representing Britain, was surprised by the sudden decision in Burundi, immediately raising the issue with EU Commissioner Michel, asking him to bring the matter up with the government of Burundi.
Thousands of people are fleeing parts of the northeastern region of Mandera and neighbouring Somali border areas after Kenya beefed up its security presence to counter possible threats from Somali armed groups. "At least 1,500 families [9,000 people] have left Elwak [an area in Mandera] and its environs," Titus Mung’ou, Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) public relations officer, told IRIN.
As Aunesi Omari and her children cowered in her room in Philippi, a low-income section of the South African city of Cape Town, in Western Cape Province, she heard the armed men outside shout: "We're going to kill you because you don't want to listen." Omari's crime was that she had returned to her home after being run out of the community in May, along with thousands of other foreigners. The men outside made their point by firing two shots into the house she had lived in for five years.
While albinos in West Africa are not facing the violent attacks seen in recent weeks in other parts of the continent, people with albinism in countries like Senegal face grave and even life-threatening discrimination. In Senegal a lack of adequate health care, difficulties accessing education and employment, and social marginalisation mean many albinos are dying unnecessarily or are living in destituti
November, often the rainiest month of the year, has left most of Swaziland awash with flash floods: but in the eastern Lowveld, no rain has fallen, and the fear is of yet another drought year in which food aid will be needed. "Are we cursed, the people living here? Not a drop has fallen, not one drop," said Amos Zwane, a smallholder farmer near Lavumisa in the Shiselweni region in the south. The area is nearing its second decade of poor rainfall.
Pambazuka News 424: The global financial crisis: Lessons for Africa
Pambazuka News 424: The global financial crisis: Lessons for Africa
The 4th WAAD interdisciplinary conference will provide opportunities for constituencies inside and outside the academy—researchers, academicians, practitioners, policy makers, professionals, and students from various disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, pure and applied sciences, professional schools, etc.—to discuss the education of women and girls in Africa and the African Diaspora and explore its relationship to sustainable development in a rapidly globalizing, complex world.
Dibussi Tande reviews the following blogs:
Agendia Aloysius
Nigerian Best Forum
Gef’s Outlook
Tgoose's Blog
Scribbles from the Den
© Contrasting governments' public willingness to show revulsion to the practice of torture with their reluctance to offer redress for their own pasts, Nicole K. Parshall discusses the actions of the British colonial authorities during the suppression of the Mau Mau movement in 1950s Kenya. While acknowledging that the need for truth and reconciliation around state-perpetrated atrocities has seen increasing recognition in recent years around the world, Parshall argues that the reluctance of the UK government to face up to its past actions represents a clear example of not practising what you preach.
cc Many lessons can be drawn from the historic 2008 elections in Ghana, writes Mawuli Dake. Different campaign strategies yielded diverse results, and voters are now looking more at politicians’ character and conduct when choosing their preferences rather than mere appearances or the provision of gifts, Dake maintains. Ghana went through three contentious rounds of voting, which resulted in the opposition’s victory and the transfer of power from one government to another without a single loss of life. This is a positive not just for Ghana, Dake suggests, but for the whole of west Africa.
In the wake of a cross-party meeting of women ministers in Harare last week, Prespone Matawira discusses the continual absence of provisions to ensure equal numbers of women and men in positions of public and private authority, despite the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development and targets for 2015. While highlighting the political efforts of women MPs in general to struggle for women in Zimbabwe, Matawira contends that there are no ‘women’s issues’ per se, merely issues that have consequences for women, as for society at large.
The Sudan
That unknown village
Repugnant stage
A child killed
A mother raped
A father tortured
The whole world
Witnessed
Yet did nothing
I
You
Through silence
We all are accomplices
The Liberator at Markato
what is his motto?
The Liberator,
who wore camouflage
in lieu of Dr.'s gown
has put a red hat on.
That Liberator
rules at night
as Leninist.
The godless,
boorish but clever,
works day and night
sitting at the Addis Palace.
Effervescent and unflagging
he is finishing
the task
assigned by Isayas.
That Liberator,
who fought without
understanding liberty;
that dreamer
wanted the palace for eternity.
That Liberator
who is godless
knows how to govern,
massacre,
and silence
with the barrel
of a gun.
That Liberator
now like a mad dog
roams town,
his mouth foaming
with the blood of the young.
cc Exploring the Mau Mau reparations case and Kenya’s subsequent decades-long struggle with the politicisation of land, Leigh Brownhill advocates the importance of social reparations and individual compensation for atrocities committed under British colonial policies, programmes, soldiers and settlers. British land reform policies implemented to punish the Mau Mau ultimately contributed to the impoverishment and social inequality of wide segments of Kenyan society. Although Brownhill believes that individual reparations for Mau Mau survivors and their families are necessary and appropriate – particularly with regard to Kenyan women continuing to carry the burden imposed by British counter-insurgency – she argues a more inclusive, social reparations-based approach will curb inequality in a way faithful to original Mau Mau principles.
The ubiquitous mobile phone in the hands of millions of Africans working as the primary tool for communication is fast becoming the core technology for supporting social change and the empowerment of citizens. Mobile phones are being used in innovative ways. In agriculture and fishing they are used to provide farmers and fishermen with up-to-date weather reports, prices for their products and transport costs. They are being used to send money, provide rural communities with up-to-date changes in government policy and legislation, enable women to report incidents of domestic violence, to report human rights abuses, send questions to radio phone-in programmes and citizen journalism, to name just a few. In 2007 mobile phones were also used as a monitoring tool during and after three country elections: Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Kenya.
On the night of 18 February at around midnight and after Kenyans celebrated the 52nd anniversary of our hero Kimaathi Wachiuri, city council tractors embarked on demolishing all structures on Mwariro market in Kariokor. The land, measuring about 42 acres, has been supporting at least 3,000 poor Kenyans. By the next morning of 19 February all the structures had been brought down and the residents had lost all their wares. Several residents were shot at by administration policemen on that night, and were treated and discharged at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). The land is said to have been allocated to a private developer of Somali nationality by the former MP Maina Kamanda and the current Councillor Muchiri. On contacting the area the MP seems to have failed to secure the land on behalf of the residents. Today, the residents are being hoodwinked to move to another piece of land in Ngara, which is not empty… It is now a month since this demolition occurred. is calling for action to stop this continued harassment of poor citizens. We shall be mobilising locals in the area to stop the demolition and construction of any new property on this land. We are asking our friends of Bunge La Mwananchi to join us to restore the livelihoods of the Kariakor people. We will stop this by any means necessary!
For and on behalf of Bunge La Mwananchi – Kariakor network
* Francis Wambugu is with – Kariakor network, the Kenyan people’s parliament.
Following his involvement in a recent joint ECA–CODESRIA conference, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem reflects on his growing convictions around the importance of every individual doing their part to root out corruption in Africa. Suggesting that a collective policy of zero tolerance will be ultimately necessary, Abdul-Raheem urges Africa to look to many Asian countries for examples of how potential punishments can serve as effective deterrents.
Mr President, two human rights defenders, Oscar Kamau King’ara and John Paul Oulu, were murdered in the streets of Nairobi, Kenya, two weeks ago. I was deeply saddened to learn of these murders and join the call of US Ambassador Michael E. Ranneberger for an immediate, comprehensive and transparent investigation of this crime. At the same time, we cannot view these murders simply in isolation; these murders are part of a continuing pattern of extrajudicial killings with impunity in Kenya. The slain activists were outspoken on the participation of Kenya’s police in such killings and the continuing problem of corruption throughout Kenya’s security sector. If these and other underlying rule-of-law problems are not addressed, there is a very real potential for political instability and armed conflict to return to Kenya.
cc Following a recent Tanzanian parliamentary session in which the minister of justice and constitutional affairs sanctioned a review of the Sexual Offences Special Provision Act (SOSPA) – with the intention of reducing the sentences of perpetrators – Salma Maoulidi examines the prevalence of gender-based violence and its impact upon women. Though a legitimate and profound issue, gender-based violence is rarely reported, and minimal action is taken against sexual offences at both the unofficial and official levels. Through a study Maoulidi conducted in Zanzibar, the author affirms that gender-based violence is frequently perceived as a moral rather than a legal crime, thus making prosecution difficult. Maoulidi is concerned with the influence which public officials and other figures of authority have in drafting and passing laws related to gender-based violence, and suggests that the minister did women and their struggle against sexual offences a disservice through his harmful and reckless remarks.
Women’s groups in Sierra Leone have signed a statement condemning the use of violence against women during a political clash which took place in Freetown on 16 March. The statement calls for the police to ensure that those responsible for the violence be brought to justice and for government and political party leaders to publicly condemn violence against women, including in a political context.
cc The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) issue of an arrest warrant against President Omar al-Bashir is a gamble with the future of Sudan, says Alex de Waal. De Waal cautions that with this warrant, the ICC – with its objective of representing principles upon which no compromise is possible – threatens to unravel eight years of efforts to accommodate diverse and distrustful people, all with the capacity to return Sudan to war. De Waal argues that there is little evidence for the effectiveness of arrest warrants in triggering regime change, and notes that since Bashir is not a one-man dictatorship, replacing him with one of his colleagues would not represent democratic transformation for the country.
cc A just world is a noble goal, but in a ‘power-asymmetrical’ world in which richer nations mete out inappropriate measures for developing countries – from sanctions to arrest warrants – international rather than home-grown attempts to deliver justice can themselves easily become unjust, cautions Vikas Nath. The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) recent issue of an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, for example, is widely seen across the African Union as likely to inflame rather than resolve the Darfur conflict. Nath underlines that each of the existing 13 arrest warrants issued by the ICC have been solely for citizens of four African countries, despite the perpetrating of crimes against humanity in Iraq, Gaza, Colombia and the Caucasus region, and concludes that solutions native to the African continent represent a far more appropriate means of resolving conflict.
cc Following the Pope’s discouraging comments in Cameroon over the use of condoms in relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Nathan Geffen and Rebecca Hodes of Treatment Action Campaign charge that such papal views are misguided and fly in the face of evidence around the efficacy of both condom use and sex education for adolescents.
cc Fearing for her life, South African activist Maureen Msisi is calling for support in the face of a petition from bond homeowners for her removal from Protea South, where she campaigns for fellow residents of informal settlements. Msisi’s efforts to ensure that residents can chose whether or not to be relocated elsewhere have put her in conflict with local government and middle-class homeowners in the area, who want to see all informal settlements eradicated. The petition alleges that Msisi is ‘promoting violence, only represents foreigners, and is blocking development in the area’. Msisi’s son, Bongani Xezwi, believes that her removal would not stop people from organising and fighting for their rights, but that without her community leadership abilities, chaos and aggression would be more likely.
cc In an interview with Pambazuka News, CODESRIA researcher Carlos Cardoso analyses events leading up to the assassinations of both Guinea-Bissau’s military chief General Tagme Na Wai and President Nino Vieira within hours of each other on 1 March, and charts out his thoughts on what lies ahead for the country.
I agree with the author, we know the and we know that women can make a difference. We have know this for a long time, but somehow our organising has not been succesful. We can not wait to say the same in 2013, we need to fill the gap that has made women not access these positions, we need a woman president come 2012, but more so we need women who are leaders of integrity as being a 'woman' is not enough platform. There are many many qualified women, what we need is a strategy that is different from the past.
sure faces up to the position in Zimbabwe and makes it clear that the MDC needs the support of the world and particularly the neighbouring SADC Governments. South Africa has been the creator of this "mule" and should be the country now supporting the MDC and a proper legal system. Currently S Africa refuses aid to Zimbabwe because it knows ZANU PF corruption and power is still overwhelming and aid money will dissapear. If S Africa is unwilling to commit funds how can you expect the rest of the world to do so. Currently thousands of Zim refugees are treated like criminals in S Africa. (However),
cc As the international financial crisis points to the collapse of laissez faire economics and discredits market fundamentalism, Africa and the global South should break free from failed neoliberal policies and the institutions that have promoted them and define their own paths to development, writes Demba Moussa Dembele, director of the Forum for African Alternatives.
The crisis provides fundamental lessons, says Dembele, the first being that markets do not have self-correcting mechanisms, and that market failures are not less costly than state failures. Secondly, "the collapse of the neoliberal dogma is a major blow to the international financial institutions. What is even more devastating to them is the reversal of most of the policies they had advocated for decades in Africa and in other ‘poor’ countries under the now discredited SAPs (structural adjustment programmes). The IMF and the World Bank are supporting fiscal stimulus – expansionary fiscal policies – in the United States, Europe and Asia."
Thirdly, its clear that the state remains a central player in solving crises caused by markets, and is not the sole cause of economic and social problems in Africa that neoliberal policy has categorised it as. Dembele notes that many development agencies do not have Africa’s best interests at heart, citing failures to cancel debt and to dedicate 0.7 per cent of GDP to official development assistance budgets, along with restricting the access of African exports to Western markets. In contrast, US$4 trillion was made available in matter of weeks to tackle the international financial crisis, 45 times the total aid budget of the European Union and the USA for 2007.
Dembele calls for Africa and Africans to forget neoliberal capitalism and explore new paths to ‘an endogenous development for and by its people’, recommending that Africa should restore capital controls and reject unfavourable trade liberalisation policies, as well as reversing the privatisation of key sectors and natural resources. Likewise, the author calls for African governments to restore the role of the state in the development process, reclaim the debate on African development while learning from the experiences of other countries in the global South, and to build an alternative means for financing development including South–South co-operation and the integration of diaspora remittances into a coherent strategy.
Following the assassinations on 1 March of Guinea-Bissau’s President João ‘Nino’ Vieira and military chief General Batista Tagmé Na Wai, the Goree Institute’s Waly Ndiaye analyses some of the underlying causes of the country’s troubled history since its independence in 1974, and asks whether the deaths of these two men – whose personal rivalry helped tear apart political life – have created an opportunity to build Guinea-Bissau into a modern state.
This is a call for materials for a contemporary Reader on African sexualities, which is being developed and edited by Prof. Sylvia Tamale-outgoing Dean of Law at Makerere University and Coordinator of the Law, Gender and Sexuality Research Project at the Faculty of Law. This seminal work will be a compilation of diverse populist and academic pieces that either engage with or inform sexualities enacted all over the African continent.
The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in partnership with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) are pleased to announce the second call of the African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowships (ADDRF). The 2009 ADDRF seeks to facilitate more rigorous engagement of doctoral students in research, strengthen their research skills, and provide the fellows an opportunity for timely completion of their doctoral training.
This collection provides a sampling of available Online Learning Tools with subject matter related to violence against women prevention and intervention. Materials included in this collection have four key components: they are 1) free, 2) available online, 3) interactive, and 4) self-guided. The resources listed here can be used for the purposes of staff development (by individuals), or as tools for trainers (in groups)
The latest update on the telecommunications markets of East and Southern Africa contains revised mobile market growth forecasts for all eight of the countries surveyed. In each case, the authors have also extended their forecasts to the end of 2013. The new forecasts are based on an assessment of Q308 subscriber data published by the region's telecoms regulators and by its various mobile operators.
The African continent has been central to the project of capitalist globalization, and the dominance of Western economic and geopolitical interests continues to profoundly shape Africa's internal dynamics in the postcolonial period. This collection of essays and interviews from leading activists and socialists offers critical insights into class struggle and social empowerment across the continent.
The African Research and Resource Forum last year held a 3 part seminar series on Discourses for Strengthening the Civil Society in Kenya. As a result, a book ‘Discourses on Civil Society in Kenya’has been published. The book is currently on sale at the ARRF Offices, African Book Services alongKoinange Street and Simply Books at ABC Place.
The global financial and economic system is in crisis. Existing economic policies and institutions have overseen an economic system scarred by high levels of poverty and inequality, which is contributing to an environmental catastrophe. Blind faith in the virtues of markets, and inadequate public control, regulation and accountability of finance are at the heart of the financial crisis. Before the financial crisis, people across the world and in Britain were already suffering from the effects of rising food prices, inadequate essential services and the threat of climate chaos. There can be no return to business as usual. Fundamental change is needed.
The Brown Summer Institute on Development and Inequality will bring together a group of young scholars, mainly from the Global South, for a two-week workshop. The workshop will focus on sharing knowledge about cutting-edge interdisciplinary research on inequality in developing countries and about methodologies for studying inequality. Emphasis will be placed on the differences in the definitions of inequality (and therefore need for distinct methods and approaches) across regions of the Global South.
Rights & Democracy (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development) presents the John Humphrey Award each year to an organization or individual from any region of the world, including Canada, for outstanding achievement in the promotion of human rights and democratic development. The Award consists of a grant of $30,000, and a speaking tour of Canadian cities to help increase awareness of the recipient’s human rights work. It is named in honour of the late John Peters Humphrey, the Canadian human rights law professor who prepared the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Finance ministers from the G20 grouping of nations issued a communique after a meeting in Britain Saturday, saying they would help emerging and developing countries to cope with the reversal in capital flows and would mobilise international financial resources to help these countries. !n an apparent response to a meeting arranged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Tanzanian government in Dar es Salaam this week, the finance ministers said there was a need to boost IMF resources "very substantially."
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce its 2009 Child and Youth Studies Institute and invites interested scholars to send applications for consideration for selection as laureates’ resource person and director in the session scheduled for September 2009. The Institute is an offshoot of the Child and Youth Studies programme and is designed to strengthen analytic capacity on all questions affecting children and youth in Africa and elsewhere in the world.
Hundreds — or even thousands — of Kenyans and Ugandans may have been told that they are infected with HIV when they are not, thanks to faulty rapid, 15-minute tests administered at VCT centres. Many others may have wrongly been declared negative, clearing them for unprotected sex, when they actually are HIV-positive. That is the worrying conclusion of a study involving 6,255 people carried out in Uganda and Kenya, which bluntly says that the misuse of rapid tests at most VCT centres makes them fraught with error and that they cannot by themselves alone determine whether one is HIV-positive or not.
A forum of civil society organisations from the Great Lakes region have converged in Gulu town to craft fresh efforts towards a peaceful solution to the LRA conflict in northern Uganda. The call comes days after the Uganda People’s Defence Forces abruptly ended its three-month old military offensive against the LRA rebels in Garamba.
In a reaction to the alarming data released in the 2009 State of the World's Forests report by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Friends of the Earth International and the Global Forest Coalition, two leading networks of environmental and Indigenous Peoples' Organisations, called on world governments to take immediate action to halt deforestation and forest degradation.
When we were told that Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga (Principals to the Kenya National Accord) had settled on a Kenya Cabinet size of 43, Mars Group told Kenyans to prepare themselves to pay through their noses, unless Kenyans managed to convince these two men to see what was obvious: That Kenya could not afford such a large Cabinet and that Kenya did not need such a large Cabinet. This very bad start for the Grand Coalition has bust the bank less than 12 months after the Grand Coalition Cabinet was appointed. And for what?
Black activists around the country will hold simultaneous press conferences on Saturday, March 21, 2009, also the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racism. The December 12th Movement International Secretariat will hold a Press Conference in New York City to protest President Barack Obama’s threat to boycott the United Nations World Conference against Racism - Durban Review being held in Geneva Switzerland next month.
Health, Politics and Society constitutes one of CODESRIA’s research clusters for the period 2007-2011 as articulated in the latest Strategic Plan for the Council. The theme is pursued within the framework of the Council’s overarching objective of reviving and consolidating development thinking in Africa. Within the broad framework of the mandate defined for the Council in its Charter, various research and training programmes have been developed over the years for the purpose of both mobilizing the African scholarly community and responding to its needs.
African leaders have warned that parts of the continent could be plunged back into conflict if they are not helped to recover from the global downturn. The stark warning came as they gathered in London to put their case ahead of the G20 summit next month. The scale of the crisis faced by Africa because of the economic downturn is only now becoming apparent.