Pambazuka News 401: Mbeki, Zuma: a political earthquake
Pambazuka News 401: Mbeki, Zuma: a political earthquake
Community-based policing (CBP) is an approach to policing that brings together the police, civil society and local communities to develop local solutions to safety and security concerns. This paper, published by Saferworld, assesses outcomes of and lessons learned from two CBP pilot-sites supported by Saferworld as part of its broader programme of police reform in Kenya.
The individuals, who the scientists say have powerful antibodies that neutralise the virus, stopping it from infecting new cells, have neither used any antiretroviral drugs nor been attacked by opportunistic infections despite living with the virus for over nine years. On being screened, the individuals were found to possess high CD4 count- immune cells used to fight infections- and very low viral loads-amount of HIV in the body-, which were uncharacteristic of an infected person.
Despite difficult security conditions, ICRC staff are pressing ahead with their activities aiming at addressing the needs of the people worst affected by armed conflict and other situations of violence in eastern Chad. The lack of security remains the primary factor impeding displaced people from returning to their homes, and the main challenge for the delivery of humanitarian aid. ICRC activities from July to September 2008
The influence of the World Bank was felt in Accra when developing countries and donors met at a resplendent conference centre for the recent High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. The Bank, together with the OECD and the Ghanaian government, were the joint organisers of this event that hosted some 1,200 participants including 80 civil society representatives
Libyan prisoner of conscience Idriss Boufayed was released by the Libyan authorities on Wednesday 8 October.An outspoken critic of Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi and secretary general of the Libyan organisation National Union of Reform, Idriss Boufayed was arrested on 16 February 2007 for trying to organize a peaceful demonstration against the Libyan government.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed the provisional release of Moussa Kaka by authorities in Niger after the journalist spent more than a year in detention on charges that he was linked to rebels in the northern part of the country. "We believe that all accusations against Moussa Kaka are baseless and that he was targeted for his investigative reporting," said Gabriel Baglo, Director of the IFJ Africa Office. "
An $8.6 million grant to enhance agricultural production and provide food security for poor people in rural areas of the Republic of Congo was announced today by the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The initiative is part of a larger $18.7 million project in the Likouala, Pool and Sangha Departments, which aims to reach 250 villages and some 20,000 households, according to a news release issued by the Rome-based UN agency.
At least 5,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have arrived in South Sudan in the past two weeks after fleeing “ferocious” attacks by the notorious Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), the United Nations refugee agency reported. Ron Redmond, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters in Geneva that an estimated 150 Congolese are crossing every day into the villages of Sakure and Gangura, in the Yambio area of South Sudan.
At least one person was killed when police in Guinea cleared protesters from a railway carrying bauxite for Russian aluminium company RUSAL, police and industry sources said on Friday. The trains, which have been blocked since Monday, had still not restarted, the sources added.
The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Southern Africa Regional Office is planning a consultation meeting to develop a CEDAW project document. This meeting is scheduled to be held in Johannesburg from 4 to 5 November 2008.
Although the focus will be on CEDAW, consideration will be given to incorporating activities regarding the Women’s Protocol and the SADC Protocol.
For over a month now Antonio Angelucci, an independent photographer from Italy, has been visiting the community and working with the children here on Symphony Way. The kids have had to opportunity learn how to take photographs with both film SLR cameras and digital cameras. At the same time, the children have been teaching Antonio a thing or two about their lives and what it is like to live in an informal settlement.
Patients starting antiretroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa have a high rate of mortality, according to a review article published in the October 1st edition of AIDS. Many of the deaths occurred in the first three months of treatment, and there was also notable mortality in the interval between joining a treatment programme and actually starting therapy.
A meta-analysis of studies of circumcision in gay men and men who have sex with men (MSM) has not found sufficient evidence to show that being circumcised reduced their risk of acquiring HIV. Although it finds a small reduction in the risk of HIV infection in circumcised men, this is not statistically significant - in other words it could just be a chance finding.
Review and sign on to the letter below urging the World Health Organization (WHO) to revise its guidelines to recommend full-course antiretroviral treatment for all expectant and breastfeeding mothers worldwide, in place of short-course therapy. With a united voice, we can save the lives of scores of mothers and infants, and prevent millions of orphans.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has published a harsh new report on the condition of press freedoms in Tunisia. The study, released September 23rd on the group's website, found that press freedom in the country is in bad shape.
Members of Parliament from the East African Community (EAC) and the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) overwhelmingly recommended to reject the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPAs) framework initiated between EAC and the European Union (EU). The legislators’ views are contained in a joint communiqué which sealed a three-day 4th inter-parliamentary seminar in Kigali, Rwanda. The event brought together EALA and National Assemblies from the member states of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.
African farmers of the 21st century can decide what crops to plant by checking prices at local markets using their cell phones. Physicians can help nurses in rural clinics diagnose patients by “telemedicine.” In Nigeria, new subscribers are signing up with mobile phone services at a rate of almost one every second. In Kenya, they can transfer money, get exam results and even find dates using their phones.
The northern region of Diana is known for the beautiful beaches of the Nosy-Be district and the scent of fields of ylang-ylang flowers. But the political landscape of Diana is as extraordinary as its geography: the region's administrative head is a woman, Anjara Mantasara. Madagascar counts three women amongst its 22 regional heads, who are appointed by Cabinet and responsible for local development.
It was a sad occasion, and an occasion to rejoice. Sad, said Dr Ludeki Chweya, introducing Flora Terah's new book, because her heart-wrenching story shows that physical abuse and torture are a weapon of choice to deter wo
This report gathers together learning from primary research undertaken in thirteen developing countries and from other available national level research and international synthesis reports concerning the human resource aspects of quality education and in particular the role of teachers. The headline message of the report is that the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.
With a focus on Ethiopia, this paper identifies and analyses the types, prevalence, major causes and effects of violence against girls in schools. It also aims to assess the availability and effectiveness of policies, rules and regulations and concludes with recommendations on ways to reduce violence against school girls.
The LGBTI community can, in future, expect to see key decision makers such as government officials in the annual Johannesburg Pride Parade. Its Marketing and Communications Officer and board member Luiz De Barros implied this after Behind the Mask questioned if the Pride Board is not inviting the already empowered gay community, instead of decision makers, service providers, and straight members of society who should be targets for anti hate messages.
The Ugandan government said Saturday it would strengthen anti-gay laws and step up police operations against homosexuals amid concern over the "mushrooming" number of gays and lesbians in the East African nation. "The state of moral health in our nation is challenging and we are concerned about the mushrooming of lesbianism and homosexuality," Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo told a news conference.
The number of Ethiopians needing emergency food assistance has jumped to 6.4 million from 4.6 million in June, the aid agency Oxfam said on Friday. Drought and high food prices have both contributed to the worsening crisis in Ethiopia and other parts of the Horn of Africa like Somalia and north Kenya, aid workers say.
The United Nations will do everything possible to stop Congo's eastern conflict from becoming a wider war after the government accused Rwanda of sending troops over the border, a U.N. official said on Friday. Democratic Republic of Congo has asked the U.N Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on what it says was a Rwandan military incursion this week into eastern North Kivu province in support of Congolese Tutsi rebels.
Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship they captured, saying the money will go towards cleaning up the waste. The ransom demand is a means of "reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years", Januna Ali Jama, a spokesman for the pirates, based in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, said.
Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that former journalist Andrew Mwangura, the Seafarers Assistance Programme’s representative in Kenya, was finally released on bail in Mombasa after being held for nine days. Mwangura said he was “happy” with the court’s decision and was ready to go back to work and to continue trying to combat piracy in the region.
Should Uganda care about how the Internet is "governed"? Should we be on the same page with much of the world which has placed issues such as Openness, Security, Diversity and Access among those that need to be addressed by the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and by respective national and regional bodies? Or should we have a set of other issues that should be a priority for Uganda?
Charges against one of the five men accused of killing and raping a Banyana Banyana player Eudy Simelane were withdrawn in the Springs Regional Court on Tuesday. The case against the remaining four men was then transferred to the Delmas High Court for trial due to the nature of the offences committed.
“Black cloud”, a mass of polluted air which darkens the skies of the Egyptian capital in October-November, is less severe this year, but efforts to reduce the pollution that leads to this phenomenon should continue if a disaster is to be avoided, an environment official said. “Last year the cloud appeared for 20 hours [in October-November] compared with more than 100 hours in 1999.
Sexual exploitation in African schools has become so widespread that children have come up with their own terms to refer to sexual relations with their teachers. From ‘Sexually Transmitted Grades’ to ‘BF’, or bordel fatigue, which refers to exhaustion from multiple sexual activities with teachers, this slang hints at the prevalence of exploitation in Africa’s learning environments.
The International Organization for Migration estimates that up to 35,000 sub-Saharan clandestine migrants leave for North Africa and Europe every year. But researchers concede the near impossibility to track what is carried out in secrecy, facilitated by family connections and favours, bribes and beatings. Despite increased security crackdowns and forced mass expulsions by North African security forces, thousands of West African migrants still attempt the desert crossing from northern Niger through the gateway town of Agadez.
Health facilities in Nyanza Province in western Kenya are struggling to meet the demand for medical male circumcisions since politicians threw their weight behind efforts to promote the procedure as a way of reducing HIV infections. The campaign initially faced opposition by community elders of the ethnic Luo community that makes up the bulk of the province's inhabitants and does not traditionally practice circumcision.
Grassroots AIDS organisations in Malawi are facing uncertainty as the National AIDS Commission (NAC) ends its dependence on international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for dispersing grants. The responsibility for channelling funds to more than 3,000 AIDS organisations working to alleviate the impacts of HIV and AIDS in Malawi has now shifted to local government authorities known as district assemblies.
On 24 September, almost six months after his arrest and detention, Mbanga (51) was found guilty of taking part in riots against the high cost of living in Cameroon in February and sentenced to three years in prison. The songwriter was convicted of three of the six charges against him: "complicity in looting, destruction of property, arson, obstructing streets, degrading the public or classified property, and forming illegal gatherings".
The Mmegi newspaper of 9 October 2008 has reported that the state owned media is being given editorial directives to advance government positions on civic issues such as its fight against alcohol abuse. The newspaper quotes 'reliable sources' saying the government has marshalled the state media to cover positively and extensively it's anti alcohol abuse. The directive was issued this week.
Kenya's Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, on Thursday blasted African leaders' fear of criticising each other, saying it was stifling the continent's progress towards democracy. "The African Union has fallen short, failing to condemn brutal regimes and sham elections, including the second round of elections in Zimbabwe. This has now become the norm.
Pambazuka News 400: Pan-Africa's new dawn: celebrating 400 issues of Pambazuka News
Pambazuka News 400: Pan-Africa's new dawn: celebrating 400 issues of Pambazuka News
Celebrating Pambazuka’s 400th issue is celebrating pan-Africanism itself. Through its half a million readership and one thousand plus contributors from all over Africa, Pambazuka has truly set ablaze an intellectual pan-African trail; ‘insurrection of ideas precedes insurrection of arms’, some militant is quoted to have said. Pambazuka is certainly not a call to (physical) arms, but one to intellectual and ideological arms. We need it if the pan-African vision – not a dream – is to survive and continue to guide our thoughts and actions as Africans. As Souleymane Bachir Diagne says, we should make pan-Africanism a category of intellectual thought.
I have asserted many times in the pages of Pambazuka and elsewhere that ‘new pan-Africanism’, rooted in social (popular) democracy, is African nationalism of the era of the so-called globalised phase of imperialism. African nationalism was born of pan-Africanism, not the other way round. Its genesis was rooted in democracy – self-determination and anti-imperialism. Self-determination and anti-imperialism are two sides of the same coin, none of which could be successfully achieved on the level of colonially carved territories. The first generation of African nationalists were deeply conscious of the dangers of territorial nationalisms based on geographical spaces designed as countries by colonialists. Nyerere derogatively characterised African countries as vinchi or statelets! African nationalism outside pan-Africanism is tribalism on the international level, he boldly asserted in the early 1960s. Both Nyerere and Nkrumah believed that without a continental unity, individual African countries would become pawns on the imperialist chessboard or degenerate into narrow cultural, racial, or ethnic nationalisms, or both. In this, unfortunately, they were prophetic as half a century of African independence has amply demonstrated.
On the morrow of receiving the insignia of sovereign states, a few of the ‘founding fathers’ genuinely set out to build nations within the colonially defined borders, which all of them, as heads of states, unanimously agreed were sacred, although unviable. Others set to build their power-bases on the colonially invented or re-invented ethnic ‘identities’. Still others did not survive long enough to do either, or something else, because they were overthrown (Nkrumah) or assassinated (Lumumba) by imperialist machinations. Whatever the case, they all failed to build viable, legitimate states and nations.
Kenyatta’s Kenya and Nyerere’s Tanganyika are illustrative examples. Anchored in ethnic power-bases, which also determined resource allocations, the darling of Western imperialism in this part of the world exploded following the 2008 general elections. The so-called government of the so-called ‘national unity’ was cobbled together by American pressure while pretending to be a miracle performed by the chairman of African Union, Jakaya Kikwete, the Tanzanian president. Tanganyika has not so far exploded, thanks to the legacy of Nyerere’s far-sighted policies, preaching and personal integrity helped by relatively undeveloped class divisions. That is proving to be fragile, thanks to extreme social and economic polarisation wrought by Mkapa’s neo-liberal polices, taken over by Kikwete, over the last 15 or so years. The 2000, and even more so the 2005, elections were marked by racial and religious animosity and ethnic based alliances and campaigning. Under the veneer of peace, unity, and stability, Tanzanian political and even intellectual elites are covertly and overtly involved in religious- and ethnic-based politicking. This came out openly in the last session of the parliament where honourable members were unashamedly polarised along religious lines on the issues of the possible membership of OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference) and the proposal to introduce Kadhi’s courts for the Muslim community.
Even more problematic is the union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar which this year celebrated its 44th anniversary. While the Cold War was the context and pressure from the West to meet what it considered a communist threat undoubtedly played a role, Nyerere’s was driven, at least partly, by his pan-African convictions. He would have preferred Zanzibar to be part of a greater East African federation but his colleagues in Kenya and Uganda were too enamoured with new power and state positions to relinquish it in the interest of a larger association. The failure to form the East African federation bore out Nyerere’s fears. He had argued repeatedly that once African countries went into independence alone, it would be too difficult to dislodge vested interests thus created.
Once you multiply national anthems, national flags and national passports, seats at the United Nations, and individuals entitled to 21 gun salutes, not to speak of a host of ministers, prime ministers, and envoys, you would have a whole army of powerful people with vested interests in keeping Africa balkanised.
While the political union of East Africa is still marking time forty years later, even economic integration has been in the doldrums. The East African Community collapsed in the late 1970s and was only revived 10 years ago. Ironically, therefore, the union with Zanzibar, whose future is being seriously threatened, and the fragility of regional economic integration, are proving Nyerere’s position in his debate with Nkrumah questionable. It should be recalled that Nkrumah stood for immediate political union of African states while Nyerere argued in favour of a gradualist approach against Nkrumah’s immediate political unification. Nkrumah dubbed Nyerere’s efforts at EA federation ‘balkanisation on a larger scale’ while ‘regional economic groupings,’ he said, ‘retard rather than promote the unification process.’
While logic was on Nyerere’s side, history has vindicated Nkrumah. All experiments at regional political unions did not survive. Senegambia, formed in 1982, was dissolved on 1989 because the Gambia refused closer union with Senegal. Formed much earlier, the Mali federation collapsed within two years. The only union to survive long was the unity of former British Somaliland and the Italian Somalia, which was formed in 1960 voluntarily by the people of British Somaliland voting in a referendum to join the former Italian Somalia to form the Somali Republic. With the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991 and the whole country breaking up into warlords’ fiefdoms, Somaliland withdrew to form the Republic of Somaliland, which to this date remains unrecognised. Though it remains shaky, this makes the Tanganyika-Zanzibar the longest surviving union between two African countries. The moral is that regional unities, of whatever kind, particularly political, have failed to make it.
Nkrumah’s vision of continental political unity thus remains a beacon of hope. More recently, Muammar Gaddafi has tried to take on Nkrumah’s mantle. But Gaddafi is no Nkrumah. The call for political unification from Gaddafi has found little support. The classical debate between Nyerere and Nkrumah has been resurrected but it is a pale shadow of its former self. There is no Nyerere to argue for gradualism with any legitimacy while Gaddafi is a wrong man to argue a right cause. His maverick tactics and twisting of arms has only resulted in rekindling the Arab-African cultural divide. That brings me to the cultural argument often deployed even by otherwise progressive intellectuals against continental unity.
Pan-Africanism was rooted in anti-imperialist politics. It was a political and not an economic, cultural, or racial project. At a public rally called by PAFMECA (Pan-African Movement of Eastern and Central Africa) in Zanzibar in April 1959, Nyerere said that he did not believe that an African was defined by the colour of his skin. An African, he asserted, is any one who has made Africa his home and is struggling for the rights of his country. This is a political definition of an African, not racial or cultural. Both Frantz Fanon and Amílcar Cabral saw culture as a form and expression of national struggle rather than an ossified custom or tradition. As Archie Mafeje argued, it is one thing to invoke culture – even invent it – as a counterpoint to the assertion and domination by European imperialist culture, it is quite another to make culture a reference point of (political) division.
In conclusion, I return to the point that pan-Africanism was a political project for the first generation of African nationalists and remains so. Africa is at crossroads. We either rise to the progressive, anti-imperialist pan-Africanism as a continental political project of national liberation and social emancipation, or descend into narrow chauvinist nationalisms, be they racial, cultural, or ethnic. I believe we are at the dawn of a new era of pan-Africanism. We have to re-appropriate the pan-Africanist vision, and make it a category of intellectual thought and a guiding post of political struggles.
* Issa G. Shivji is one of Africa’s most radical and original thinkers and has written frequently for Pambazuka News. He is the author of several books, including Silences in NGO Discourse (2007), published in Fahamu Books.
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
As Henning Melber underlines in his discussion of Pambazuka’s commitment to social justice, solidarity is a multi-faceted notion of shifting meaning and use for its appropriators. Reviewing the experiences and intellectual traditions of figures such as Frantz Fanon and John Sanbonmatsu, Melber argues that while solidarity will never be a fixed state of mind, the goal of mediums like Pambazuka will always centre on the struggle for equality, justice and human dignity.
Reviewing the historic role of African and African-American publications in the struggle for representation and access to information, Walter Turner situates Pambazuka News in an established line of liberatory writing. While illustrating the ability of publications like Pambazuka to catalyse social change, Turner stresses respect for the history of activist media and the importance of continual support to sustain their future vitality.
As he salutes the ground covered in Pambazuka’s first 400 issues, Jacques Depelchin argues the publication should continue its work as a tool for emancipatory politics in the next 400 and beyond. Drawing in particular on the example of Haiti, Depelchin stresses that new emancipatory politics are being generated all the time, but their potential must be actively harnessed if governmental indifference and hostility is not to overcome the promise of healing histories.
In a comprehensive review of the latest global capitalist crisis and its consequences for African populations, Patricia Daley explores how greed has continued to hinder African educational opportunities and the realisation of a Walter Rodney-esque development rooted in personal freedom, well-being and security. With the hegemonic narratives of the West failing to improve the lot of the majority, Africans must return to creating their own narratives of development, central to which will prove the more effective use of technological change and the access to information offered by media outlets such as Pambazuka News.
... Pambazuka has over the past few years established an unrivaled and authoritative voice on contemporary African issues. The pace and quality of its production, and its ability to keep abreast of events is remarkable and deserves abundant congratulations. It is our firm hope that it continues to march forward and produce these vital insights on African affairs ...
This is the 400th issue of Pambazuka News. As if to mark this occasion, we received news today that, for the fourth year running, Pambazuka News has been voted amongst the top 10 websites “who are changing the world of Internet and Politics” by PoliticsOnline and eDemocracy Forum. But to make this really special, we learned that, thanks to you – our readers, contributors and supporters – we received the highest number of votes cast, more votes than Barack Obama’s entry in the competition! (17 October: well, that is what we were told by the organisers - but at the award ceremony held in Paris we learned that Obama won this competition. Still Pambazuka News did well to have still been in the top 10 despite the stiff competition)
Pambazuka News was established to provide a platform for nurturing the (re)emergence of a progressive pan African movement. Over a period eight years, some 1,200 citizens – academics, social activists, women's organizations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators – have contributed to Pambazuka News to produce insightful and thoughtful analyses that make it the most innovative and influential sites for social justice in Africa. It is this community that have made Pambazuka News ‘successful’.
But, as the contributors in this special celebratory issue point out, there remains much to be done. The growth of Pambazuka News has to be seen in the context of the struggles of the emerging movement in Africa. We are living in a period of an unprecedented upsurge of social movements across the continent. The last popular upsurge in the post second world war period swept the continent with cries of freedom from colonial oppression, bringing about political independence to every country on the continent. But one form of oppression has been replaced by another – the neo-colonial yoke. The leaders in whom we had such faith have sold our heritage in a manner predicted by Frantz Fanon at a time that few of us had any inkling of what the new post-colonial world would look like. In most countries, the majority of people are poorer today than they were 20 years ago. ‘Development’, that euphemism for the re(construction) of a modernised capitalist world, has brought untold impoverishment and misery to the many, and unprecedented wealth to the few, a feature exacerbated by the period of 'globalisation'. The record of the last fifty years provides ample evidence. The implosion of the financial markets today in the US and in Europe is an inevitable consequence of the free-market policies that have been touted as being the panacea for all the world’s ills by the neo-liberals and neo-cons as well as by our own governments who have so willingly colluded in the implementation of these disastrous social and economic policies. So what is to be done?
As with every major significant transformation in history, the building of an alternative, another world, is not going to be achieved by empty declarations of dogmas, however attractive they may be to us and to those who propound them. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the collapse of credibility of alternative ideologies to the mantras of capital. At the same time, the vacuum created has forced many to think more deeply about the way forward, based on concrete analyses of the conditions facing our continent, based on connecting with our own histories, and based on the need to engage in dialogues that reflect the diversity of thinking, imagination and creativity with which this continent abounds.
Pambazuka News has, we believe, made a small – and we hope important – contribution towards nurturing analysis, creativity, debate and discussion in Africa and amongst the diaspora, that will help give birth to a strong progressive movement for equality, justice and freedoms. For us, the key to that has been to facilitate solidarity and joint actions in support of the oppressed and exploited, and providing a space through which their voices can be heard above the cacophony of the market. There are many voices that remain under-represented in the pages of Pambazuka News, especially those of peasants and workers movements, refugees and displaced people, and the mass of the disenfranchised. Our efforts in the coming period will be directed towards overcoming these shortcomings. Our role will continue to be to promote emancipatory politics.
But if Pambazuka News has ‘done well’, it is because of you, dear reader, and all you who have contributed. So join us in celebrating your 400th issue and for voting Pambazuka News as the top website that is changing the world of politics and the internet - the only African website to have been nominated in the competition.
* Firoze Manji is founding editor of Pambazuka News and executive director of Fahamu - Networks for social justice.
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
The Mo Ibrahim Foundation, an organisation founded by Mo Ibrahim to promote better government in Africa, has published a survey called ‘Ibrahim Index of African Governance’ in which nearly two-thirds of sub-Saharan African nations between 2005 and 2006 have improved their quality of governance especially in participation and human rights. However, another analyst contends that rather than seeing improved governance, the continent is facing a new scramble without resistance and revolt from the ruling African elite - the comprador class – who are active participants in the process of re-colonisation of their continent. The new colonisers are not interested in redefining national borders but the continent’s national resources such as oil, diamonds, timber, gold, uranium, ivory and natural gas, among others.
The African Union (UA) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Association of Peace Support Training Centre for the training of African military personnel. The learning will focus on peacekeeping operations, given that every region of Africa is expected to establish a stand-by brigade that could be deployed to trouble zones at short notice. The AU has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the World Bank, which is aimed at deepening collaboration in the areas of regional integration, governance, post-conflict situations, relations with the Diaspora, HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. This AU-World Bank partnership is anticipated to be results-focused with the World Bank’s technical expertise complementing the African Union’s political lead. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture organised the first Pan African Banana Conference during which banana farmers, buyers, trade officials, donors and scientists gathered in Mombasa, Kenya in an effort to transform smallholder banana production in Africa by linking farmers to regional and global markets.
In peace and security news, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) asked President Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa to request his predecessor Thabo Mbeki to continue as Zimbabwe’s mediator following a deadlock over the allocation of ministries between rival political parties. The move came after the Movement for Democratic Change formally wrote to SADC regarding the impasse. In his statement, South Africa’s new leader backed former president Thabo Mbeki as the mediator in Zimbabwe, saying that his ‘government has full confidence in Mr Mbeki’s ability to build on the historic successes already made in the power-sharing negotiations under his mediation’. According to the executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States, the community intends to implement, by the end of this year, the legally binding convention aimed at ending the continued proliferation of small arms within the sub-region.
In other news, Uganda hosted the first Justice for Women’s forum to address issues affecting women in war in northern Uganda, Sudan and the Central African Republic. The President of the Commission of the AU, Jean Ping, took part in a joint meeting of the AU and the European Union to discuss, among other issues, the request by the French government to suspend the judicial proceedings against Sudanese President Omar El Bashir for genocide and war crimes committed in Darfur.
Finally, the Democratic presidential election candidate in the United States, Senator Barack Obama, is said to have outlined his fundamental policy objectives for Africa once he is elected to the White House. These are: ‘to accelerate Africa’s integration into the global economy’; ‘to enhance the peace and security of African states’; and ‘to strengthen relationships with those governments, institutions and civil society organizations committed to deepening democracy, accountability and reducing poverty in Africa’.
Pambazuka News 398: Primary health care: the global orphan?
Pambazuka News 398: Primary health care: the global orphan?
The 2008 Conference on Refugee Warehousing presents a unique opportunity to learn about the issues and join the global movement to end the human warehousing of refugees. Learn from experts and activists in the field. Keynote speakers Dr. Barbara Harrell-Bond of the American University in Cairo and Merrill Smith of USCRI and will kick off the conference with an inspiring talk about how you can help stop this inhuman practice.
I stopped reading at the end of the first paragraph Oloo's .
Oloo forgets alot of things, or maybe he just tries to ignore them. I might be wrong, but i do not think any African in a slum situation cries, nor will he go to his family and whiningly narate his ordeal if he knocks his toe on a stone. (English uses the word tripping for such.)
Of course some do cry. But they know the reason why. (As selfish as it might be) but if he is a perenial crier everyone will know and it will be upto the particular.
It is time all people who describe complaining people as people who do not know what they are saying put some reasearch to back their theories. If that is the way to go. Let us listen to complaints and use our knowledge or education to provide a respectfull way forward. Please.
The under-Secretary-General and UN special adviser on Africa called on world leaders gathered at the United Nations (UN) high-level meeting on African development to ‘streamline actions and upgrade priorities towards the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’ as Africa’s economic development still faces enormous obstacles. African leaders present at the summit, worried that the international financial turmoil menaces efforts to fight poverty in underprivileged countries, urged developed countries to honour their aid commitments in order to tackle hunger and poverty. The African Union (AU) Chairman and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete told journalists that developed nations have a moral obligation to assist the poor. Still in development news, heads of states and governments of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group will meet in Accra to review the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, the accord that defines their relationship with the European Union (EU). They will also discuss the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, rising food prices, energy and Economic Partnership Agreements. Elsewhere, the EU announced a €1 billion plan for African countries to expand their energy sector, launch a renewable energy co-operation programme between the AU and EU and support Africa’s participation in the Global Gas Flaring Reduction partnership of oil and gas producing countries. Meanwhile, a four-day inaugural China-ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States) economic and trade forum opened in Beijing with the objective of elevating the existing bilateral relations between China and ECOWAS to a strategic partnership by exploring and concretising agreements for Chinese investment in critical sectors and to use such investments towards the realisation of the ECOWAS development vision.
In peace and security related news, representatives of the EU and the AU met in Brussels to discuss the crisis in Darfur and universal jurisdiction. While some African countries have argued that universal jurisdiction is used by the West against Africa, Human Rights Watch said that the ‘meeting was an opportunity to bring justice to women, children and men who are abused every day across the world’. The International Criminal Court chief prosecutor was to meet with UN and AU officials on the need ‘to protect the civilians in Darfur, stop the crimes and ensure the execution of the court’s judicial mandate and decisions.’ Further, the Peace and Security Council of the AU has reiterated its clear condemnation of all acts of violence in Darfur and violations of human rights and stressed the need to bring their perpetrators to justice.
In other news, the legislative elections recently held in Rwanda saw women taking 56.25 percent of the contested parliamentary seats putting the country on the world record of having 44 parliamentary seats held by women. Meanwhile, experts and officials attending the third and final conference of the Africa Green Revolution Conference affirmed that Africa’s food crisis could be alleviated by ‘modernising agriculture and reforming supply chains so that small-scale farmers get cheaper fertiliser and high-yield seeds’.
Angolan authorities filed legal action to close down the Angolan non-profit AJPD – Association for Justice, Peace and Democracy. AJPD is one of the non-profits most committed to the development of culture of human right in the country. The State's lawsuit is based on unconstitutional arguments and invalid proceedings.
AJPD CANNOT BE SHUT DOWN!
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
1) Send a message to [email][email protected] showing your solidarity. The messages will be printed and delivered to Angolan authorities that do not have an email adress. Suggestion of writing: “Such an active civil society organization towards the practice of human rights in Angola cannot be closed down! Let AJPD keep doing its work!
2) Contact the diplomats of your country in Angola and ask them to express to the Angolan government their solidarity to AJPD. This kind of support has borught great success in the past. Suggestion of writing: “Dear Mr./Mrs., the Angolan government is threatening to close by judicial means AJPD – Association for Justice, Peace and Democracy-, one of the most active human rights non-profits in Angola. I ask you to please express your solidarity of our country to the NGO, once the lawsuit contains unvalid proceedings and unconstitutional arguments. AJPD has shown for several times its commitment to democracy and fundamental rights.”
Here at the link below, please find more information on the case.
This latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the political and economic implications of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) departure from Ogoni land and gives recommendations on resuming peaceful oil operations in the economically strategic and politically volatile region. “If handled carefully, this transition could persuade some of the Delta’s armed groups that non-violence can produce progress on their demands”, says François Grignon, Crisis Group’s Africa Program Director.
Trade Union affiliates of Public Services International (PSI) in Southern Africa, Africa Water Network and Civil Society working on water met in Johannesburg, South Africa in a workshop organised as per the PSI project on Water.
As to be expected South African bloggers are focused on the forced resignation of President Thabo Mbeki. Most bloggers whether supporters of Mbeki or not are concerned with the precedent set by “recalling” a president in the manner in which Mbeki was particularly as a further 11 minister have followed him and also resigned. Sokari Ekine reviews:
My Haven
Commentary South Africa
YBlog ZA
The Moor Next Door
Black Looks
The purpose of the Break the Silence Congo Week is to raise awareness about the devastating situation in the Congo and mobilize support on behalf of the people of the Congo. It will take place from Sunday October 19th to Saturday October 25th. The key organizers are students from North Carolina A&T , UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Greensboro, University of Maryland, Howard University, Bowie University, and Cornell University.
With progress towards quality primary health care still slow some thirty years after Alma-Ata, Anthony Seddoh writes that an effective global alliance of global and country actors needs to set positive and realistic paths to implement the declaration’s intentions. In light of the continuing absence of a conceptual framework for addressing longstanding debates and organisational issues, the author considers whether primary health care represents a global orphan in need of fresh guardianship.
Thirty years after the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata, it seems the world is still at odds on how best to implement the principles of primary health care. The slow progress in improving health outcomes for all raises questions about the effectiveness of current ways of doing business. A concerted global alliance of global and country actors needs to set positive and realistic paths to implement the intentions of Alma-Ata.
Sixty years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated in its constitution that health is ‘a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing, not only the absence of disease or infirmity.’ Thirty years later, the Alma-Ata declaration on Primary Health Care (PHC) declared among other things that ‘health is a fundamental right’ and created a thirteen-point outline to ensure this right. This outline captured concepts of essential care, universally accessibility and affordability for individuals and families within communities, who would be able to participate fully in a spirit of self-determination. It located PHC as an integral part of a country’s health system involving all related sectors and aspects of national and community development.
The WHO constitution’s definition of health and the Alma-Ata declaration together prompt a diametrical but complementary state to be addressed concurrently in the promotion of good health. The first deals with the clinical determinants of health, pushing for the absence of disease in individuals. The second addresses the determinants of health that predispose or prevent individuals from attaining a state of mental, physical and social wellbeing as a fundamental right. These include appropriate governance, the absence of war, economic and infrastructure development, adequate infrastructure and aid policies. A unique moment occurred in 1978 to bring these complementary understandings together.
Even before the ink could dry on the Alma-Ata declarations it had however already generated polarised antagonism. From a capitalist standpoint, it was a ridiculous proposition, both too costly and defying economic reasoning, and too socialist in its excessive emphasis on state-managed intervention. The conservative duo of J.A. Walsh and K.S. Warren launched the Selective PHC debate, arguing that it would probably more be efficient to save children and limit population growth, while the two main PHC proponents, WHO and UNICEF, soon drifted apart, with UNICEF promoting a selective package of low cost interventions. With resource flows following Selective PHC, Primary Health Care translated in most countries into a basic collection of services to be delivered at district and community levels based on a select number of interventions with some outreach services, with an accompanying watered-down district health package.
Why nobody asked at the time whether there was any moral significance to be attached to a person’s life or pointed out that choices based on state preferences for total health gain can be justified over financial resource allocation efficiency is difficult to comprehend. Aside from efficiency-based arguments being ridiculous propositions founded on utility-based preferences or embodying unattractive equity assumptions, the economic bargain in a healthy population should at least have also appealed to responsible international choice.
Much has since been achieved from the advance in technology in dealing with specific clinical determinants of specific diseases. It could be argued that a saturation point has been reached, where increases in financial and human investments in existing technologies are yielding less than proportional gains. Despite this the selective interventions approach continues to define health and health services delivery. It was given a new lease on life by the World Bank through its 1993 World Development Report, entitled ‘Investing in Health’. This report, which scarcely acknowledged PHC, commoditised and de-linked health from development and moved the world closer to an interventionist approach to health; intervening at a selective point in the epidemiology of a disease or health system.
This approach has since had wide global appeal. Currently there are over thirty WHO resolutions on AIDS, TB or Malaria alone; more than all other subjects. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have further entrenched this disease-specific approach to resource mobilisation. There are over 80 major global health initiatives linked to the health MDGs, providing over US$100 million annually. The Italian Global Health Watch reported in 2008 that the Global Fund has allocated approximately US$3.5 billion to countries for interventions on AIDS, TB and Malaria, mainly in Africa. Together, these initiatives have thrown billions of dollars at addressing diseases and improving clinical health conditions and made up a significant part of health sector budgets.
PHC is hardly mentioned in these initiatives, seldom highlighted by member states outside of anniversaries of the initiatives or occasional references to district health system strengthening. For various reasons the world assumed an emergency mode to address what are considered new and urgent public health issues. Single disease interventions that lend themselves to easily recognisable financial accountability, quantitative monitoring and evaluation held greater appeal for funders, especially when twinned with arguments of weak domestic governance and public policy failures and capacity limitations.
While these initiatives on clinical determinants hummed with measurable outcomes on specific diseases, the nexus of poverty and ill health was exacerbated. On the back of a growing trend in urban slum development, decline in state services, market failures in privatised economies, growing food insecurity and massive deprivation of rights to health care, inequalities in health have deepened to a significantly greater level over the past 30 years.
Hence while a lot has been done to deal with disease in individuals, the unique opportunity provided by the Alma-Ata Declaration to also address the determinants of health have largely been lost. Thirty years later we see the costs of this omission in levels of poverty which belie the levels of knowledge and technological advance achieved globally.
As we approach another anniversary for PHC expectations are high. People expect that their physical and mental health will be promoted in a safe social, economic and political environment. They expect to have quality health systems that provide preventive services, and which diagnose, treat and manage disease injury and reduce the severity and repeated occurrence of disease. They do not expect to see wide social and economic disparities in these basic entitlements. In Africa, the region furthest from delivery on these expectations, the Ouagadougou declaration on Primary Health Care issued on April 30 2008 called for a renewal of the Principles of Primary Health Care and its implementation in developing countries and by the international community.
Such declarations are encouraging, yet their implementation calls for resolution of longstanding debates of the past 30 years. These debates are not academic. In choices made over policy measures, relative allocation of institutional, social and financial resources and complementary systems for dealing with the social determinants of health (mostly dealt with by actions outside the health sector), they present social and economic inequalities that arise due to the burden of disease (mostly dealt with within the health sector). There are no clear answers for how a conceptual framework of Primary Health Care in 2008 will address this.
And while there is a massive coalition of global initiatives dealing with diseases, there is no clear coalition of global institutions supporting or funding the determinants of health, the second factor in the PHC equation. At a global level, the Bretton Woods institutions and OECD initiatives for debt relief and poverty reduction have in some African countries led to short-lived increases in spending on health and education, with no global initiatives so far adequately addressing the determinants of health.
This leaves PHC as an orphan with no global guardian. The WHO’s attempt to foster PHC is inadequate given the pluralistic global environment. The state of poverty and the winds of change in international health resource priorities will make rational choices among the various dimensions impossible and predispose countries to the dictate of new interventions and their implementation. While debates over the conceptual understanding of PHC will not end in 2008, this year could at least mark the turning point for a new institutional response, one that builds a global alliance to generate the momentum and support for countries to implement PHC and that provide policy learning based on practice from the bottom up, reminiscent of another basis for the Alma-Ata declaration.
A WHO or UN resolution creating such a global alliance would be a befitting PHC birthday gift for the millions of people seeking more than another conference. It will squarely put implementation right at the doorstep of a recognisable entity that can mobilise the needed funds and offer effective support to individual countries.
World Health Organization Africa region inter-country support team, Harare, Zimbabwe
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
Thirty years on from the Alma-Ata Declaration, Chan Chee Khoon explores the history and continuing influence of biomedical science on public health care in the 21st century. With many African countries still facing burdensome infectious disease, the population health perspectives pioneered and promoted by McKeown and the Lalonde report continue to be relevant in addressing contemporary epidemics.
Through exploring the importance of sustainable and long-term health financing, Rotimi Sankore argues that effective primary health care will only be achieved when key obstacles in the shape of a lack of clear policies and Africa’s critical health workforce shortage are addressed. He stresses the debate around ‘health systems versus disease specific interventions’ to be a phantom one akin to asking whether food is more important than water to human life, arguing that the real challenge for the future will lie in creating and implementing effective policies that tackle persistent institutional and resource-based issues.
The main factors behind Africa’s health tragedy are the lack of foresight and political will required to ensure sustainable health development, financing and universal primary health care, argues Rotimi Sankore. Through exploring comparative statistics for African and Western health systems and by underlining the effects of institutional under-funding and the brain drain, the author contends that future generations of Africans may yet look back and conclude such policy to be the equivalent of institutional ‘manslaughter’.
Through examining the experience of the Ugandan Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development (HEPS-Uganda), Rosette Mutambi highlights the extent to which ordinary Ugandans remain without effective official health care. While stressing the role of government in empowering local communities, she argues that genuine improvement in primary health care rests on involving an informed population in the planning and implementation of the system overall, a consideration of even greater importance in a resource-poor nation like Uganda.
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Alma-Ata Declaration on Universal Primary Health Care celebrated this month, and as world leaders gather at the United Nations this week for the UN General Assembly on Africa's Development Needs and mid term MDG Review, Pambazuka News, in collaboration with , publishes this joint special issue reviewing the state of health in Africa underlining Africa's survival imperative for implementing Primary Health Care, Health MDGs and the AU Africa Health Strategy, and the key role of health workers.
Citi and Ashoka's Changemakers are leading the way to unearth the the best solutions to make financial opportunity a possibility for all. The advent of new financing methods - from mobile banking to peer-to-peer lending - are changing the way we access, spend and save our money. "Banking on Social Change: Seeking Financial Solutions for All" aims to unearth the most innovative and cutting-edge methods that allow financial security to become a reality for everyone. The deadline is just days away on October 1st!
Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, partnering with UNDP is looking for consultants. If you think you are qualified, or youth think you know someone who can do it, kindly disseminate and/or send at CV to: - [email][email protected] Kindly specify the tasks you are applying for.
We are meeting at a difficult time for many Kenyans. In fact we are meeting at the crossroad of the history of our country. We are here to decide our future path as delegates of an important convention. We have been brought here because of the acts and omissions of an older generation. A generation that was born before our country was freed from colonial rule, and which has since Independence run the affairs of this country.
Free the Slaves created the Freedom Awards to celebrate today’s anti-slavery heroes and to catalyze additional innovation and resources to end slavery once and for all. The Awards program will define what successful, sustainable anti-slavery work looks like and build a vision of freedom for change-makers to adopt. The Freedom Awards are an outgrowth of Free the Slaves’ role within the global anti-slavery movement as an organization seeking to provoke innovative ideas and thoughtful reflection on what techniques have worked and which ones still need to be tried.
Independent Advocacy Project, IAP, Nigeria’s leading governance group has called on the federal government to immediately lift its suspension of the independent Channels TV, free staff members being detained and make a public commitment to restrain its agents from further clamping down on the media.
Things have come a long way since 1973. For a start, many of us now have mobile phones, the most rapidly adopted technology in history. In what amounts to little more than the blink of an eye, mobiles have given us a glimpse of their potential to help us solve some of the most pressing problems of our time. With evidence mounting, Ken Banks asks one question: If mobiles truly are as revolutionary and empowering as they appear to be – particularly in the lives of some of the poorest members of society – then do we have a moral duty, in the ICT for Development (ICT4D) community at least, to see that they fulfill that potential?
Extreme incidents of violence in post-Colonial Africa have frequently been explained through the discourses of tribalism and ethnic hatred. A variant of this narrative is the obsession with Africa’s ‘failed’ and ‘collapsed’ states that are said to be paralysed by kinship and ethnicity-based patronage politics. However, systemic violence has far more entrenched structural causes and the scholarly eye searches for these underlying conditions.
Gugulethu — About 50 residents from Thambo Square informal settlement have been displaced from their homes to a local community hall as a result of flooding in their shacks (Cape Town’s heavy rain this winter has left a lot of people homeless in the City.
One month before it will appear before a federal jury in the landmark human rights case, Bowoto v. Chevron, facing charges of torture and wrongful death, Chevron, along with other leading extractive industry companies, will come under the scrutiny of the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law. In the hearing, “Extracting Natural Resources: Corporate Responsibility and the Rule of Law,” witnesses will bring to light oil, mining and gas companies’ complicity in human rights abuses perpetrated by public or private security forces in Nigeria, Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Indonesia.
In China, an estimated 13,000 children have fallen ill since the tainted milk scandal broke. Chinese influence has grown in Africa, as have imports of all kinds products, from running shoes to instant noodles. Bloggers as far afield as Congo and Senegal, concerned about the safety of Chinese products in their countries, are closely following the story.
South African Aids campaigners have serenaded the new health minister and rejoiced at the departure of her controversial predecessor. A group of activists sang outside the Cape Town flat of Barbara Hogan and drank champagne.
World leaders and philanthropistshave pledged nearly $3bn (£1.6bn) to fight malaria at a summit in New York. The meeting, at the UN, is looking at ways of meeting the Millennium Development Goals - targets on reducing global poverty by the year 2015. Donors hope the money will be enough to eradicate malaria by that time.
Nigerian police have arrested more than 200 suspected militants in raids in the oil-rich Niger Delta, authorities say. Some suspects are accused of recruiting youths to target oil installations around Port Harcourt. The military commander in Rivers State was cited as saying his men had found almost all militant camps there, and he would mount a campaign to destroy them.
Some 75,000 people have fled attacks by Ugandan rebels in northern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Catholic aid agency Caritas has said. Fighters from the Lord's Resistance Army are reported to have killed villagers and abducted children during recent attacks. The rebels have moved from their original bases in Uganda to north-eastern DR Congo and South Sudan.
Thousands of people have turned out to vote in two by-elections in Kenya's Rift Valley Province. The parliamentary seats fell vacant after two ministers from the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) were killed in a plane crash in June. The by-elections come a week after an inquiry into the disputed December elections called for radical reforms of the country's electoral system.
The son of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor has gone on trial in the US accused of torture. Prosecutors says Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr led a unit that tortured and executed government opponents in Liberia between 1999 and 2003.
Over a billion people will continue to face desperate poverty and starvation in 2015 as a result of governments’ failure to crack down on corporate abuses and eradicate global poverty. This warning came today from global justice charity War on Want as British prime minister Gordon Brown joined other international leaders at the UN summit in New York on the anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals.
With Robert Mugabe begrudgingly accommodating Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara at the bridge of Zimbabwe’s sinking ship, there is at last hope that the once proud country will soon find its way to calmer waters. Although anxious of snags ahead, no one is more relieved than the millions of Zimbabweans both in and outside the country who have suffered through more than eight years of violence, persecution, and economic tragic-comedy.
The story of displacement and death in the Darfur region of Sudan is indeed horrific. And, since Sudan is one of the few countries in Africa which has been off-limits to US oil deals and capital penetration, the crimes of the Sudanese government have a special resonance in U.S policy-making circles.
Renewed combat in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has caused a drastic deterioration in the humanitarian situation and immense suffering for civilians, the Congo Advocacy Coalition, a group of 83 aid agencies and human rights groups, has said. The coalition called for urgent action to improve protection of civilians and an immediate increase in assistance to vulnerable populations.
The Ministry of Health in conjunction with Marie Stopes International-Uganda (MSI) today launched a project to treat sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and reduce maternal and infant mortality among poor people in western and southern Uganda.