Pambazuka News 290: Haiti - killing the poor and protecting the death squads
Pambazuka News 290: Haiti - killing the poor and protecting the death squads
Reporters Without Borders has called for the release of journalist and human rights activist Marcel Ngargoto, who has been held by gendarmes in the southern town of Moissala since 31 January. Ngargoto works for Radio Brakoss, a Moissala-based community radio. He is also secretary-general of Human Rights Without Borders (DHSF).
China's President Hu Jintao has pledged to increase imports from Africa to narrow a trade gap with the continent and allay concern that China was developing a colonial relationship with the world's poorest continent. China also planned to increase investments in agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing and public welfare projects in Africa, Hu said in a speech in Pretoria yesterday.
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has given South Africa the assurance that its court challenge of India's Patent Act will not affect access to cheaper generic drugs. However, South African Aids and health care activists believe a successful challenge will limit competition and increase prices.
Anti-graft officials from the Southern African region are meeting in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, to formulate a code of ethics aimed at curbing corruption in the business sector, the Herald newspaper has reported. The two-day meeting, organised by the Southern African Forum Against Corruption, a regional anti-corruption body, is expected to come up with a code of ethics and strategies in which the private sector could help fight the scourge in the region.
Carbon offsetting refers to the process reducing the net greenhouse gas ("carbon") emissions of a party, by reducing the greenhouse gas emissions—or increasing the carbon dioxide absorption—of another party. The intended goal of carbon offsets is to combat global warming. Increasing concern about global warming and the inability of certain countries to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions has made the option of offsetting very attractive. As a result there is a burgeoning market in carbon offsets. Africa is particularly attractive for carbon offsets. Not only are the levels of greenhouse gas emissions relatively low, ecological and economic factors also favor the establishment of offset projects.
Planting of trees to absorb carbon has been the most common form of carbon offsetting, but by no means the only one. There are already several such projects funded either by countries or corporations to offset emissions.
Carbon offsetting has rapidly become the means by which a polluting world assuages its guilt and attempts to solve the problem of global warming. Proponents of carbon offsetting advance the argument that in a modern world where pollution is a given, it is easier to find ways to mitigate the damage than it is to reduce it. In other words, it is easier to do something to pay for the damage, rather than not to damage. Hence the proliferation of "carbon-neutral" products and companies that give consumers of their products a guilt-free buy, by promising, for example, to fund a stove-making project in Eritrea or the reforestation of the slopes of Uganda's Mount Elgon.
The question that begs is whether these projects promote sustainable development. In Africa, for instance, how does monoculture of trees funded through offsetting projects need balancing against the dire need for arable land for food production? It may be argued that with advancing desertification, any such initiative should be welcomed. Harsher critics of offsetting like Austin Williams, director of the Future Cities Project, have referred to the practice as 'Carbon colonialism', whereby wealthy nations continue to rapidly develop using technology and industry that pollutes while they consign the poorer ones to the position of mopping up the world's pollution through eco-friendly projects that hamper their ability to develop and the same rate.
Williams takes a dim view of carbon offsets, arguing that agencies involved in carbon offset schemes engage in low- or alternative-technology projects in the developing world, hence slowing the pace of development to benefit the same environment that the developed world is destroying. He states that the current system sanctifies the environment and 'keeps half the world in penury while the other half ponders their next purchasing decisions'. In his view, 'consumer choices and carbon offsets are designed to maintain the iniquitous status quo, and make you feel good about it'. (Read Austin Williams' article on 'Spike Online' – link below)
Carbon offsetting is being touted as an opportunity to generate much-needed revenue for poor countries. But is it a good thing? Aid to poor countries was touted as a good thing, and it probably saved millions of lives. However, today, it is debatable whether the people of Africa are better of for having received it, and if it did not in fact hamstring efforts at autonomous development.
Further Reading:
The New Internationalist
http://www.newint.org/features/2006/07/01/carbon-offsets-facts/
David Suzuki Foundation http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16908275/
Climate Change Action
http://climatechangeaction.blogspot.com/2007/01/carbon-offsets-development.html
Spiked Online
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1724/
IndyMedia Climate
http://www.dhf.uu.se/
Nigeria's ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) says it will replace all 52 of its candidates who have been accused of corruption by the anti-graft agency. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) released a list of 135 politicians it alleges are too corrupt to run in April's elections. Most prominent is Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, an opposition presidential contender, who rejects the accusations.
President Mwai Kibaki has dismissed speculations of an early election, saying the current Parliament will run its full term. The President said reports of an early election were misleading and that he had no plans to call a snap election until the end of the term of the current Parliament in December.
Kenyans are preparing to go to the polls at the end of the year and, as in past years, there is much horse-trading and jockeying among the key players. President Kibaki came to power on a massive wave of change that swept aside the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and former president Moi's strangle-hold on power. The National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) that brought Kibaki to power was a tenuous but resolute grouping of seasoned political players who had fallen out of favor and been sidelined by the former regime.
It was not long before the inevitable cracks began to show in the coalition, and in the space of one year, the alliance had fallen apart. Key players in the ruling coalition like political stalwart Raila Odinga, (of the newly –formed Orange Democratic Movement) felt that the president had reneged on pre-election promises in terms of allocation of key posts. Furthermore, Kibaki pledged to serve only one term in office, but it became evident very early on that this was not to be the case. Subsequently, further divisions have occurred to the point where the current field of political parties bears little resemblance to those that went by the same name four years ago.
What remains the same are the names and faces. The hallmark of Kenyan politics is the ubiquity of the same handful of individuals who have been in the limelight for the last two decades. In the running for the top seat are scions of prominent political dynasties like Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga and Musalia Mudavadi, as well as others who have served in previous regimes such as former Moi-era vice-president George Saitoti and Kalonzo Musyoka. Others like Musikari Kombo, Mukhisa Kituyi and William Ruto are rising contenders.
Kenyan politics remains largely ethnicity-based and politicians have always relied on voting blocks from their own and allied ethnic groups. This has largely obscured developmental issues that should take center-stage. Growth of the economy has remained modest at around 5% as has been development in major sectors of the economy such as agriculture and tourism. Corruption and crime continue to have a major impact on investment and national well-being.
It is likely that poverty will continue to have a major influence on the outcome of the elections. In the past, elections were decided based on who was able to buy the electorate with food hand-outs and promises of service delivery that are in reality the right of every citizen. With a little over nine months to go, the only thing that remains certain is that there will be more shape-shifting among the parties and players, empty promises to the electorate, and excitement in a population that is nevertheless proud to exercise their democratic right.
Further Reading:
http://www.eastandard.net
http://www.nationmedia.com
http://www.kenyanewsnetwork.com/
South African men are becoming more willing to take action against the growing problem of domestic and sexual violence against women, a recent study has found. A survey of 945 men in the greater Johannesburg area at the end of 2006 by Sonke Gender Justice (SGJ), an HIV/AIDS, gender and human rights nongovernmental organisation, found that 50.1 percent of respondents felt they should be doing more to end gender-based violence.
In spite of a global commitment following the 2002 UN Special Session on Children to end Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) by 2010, the practice is still widespread, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. To put an end to this harmful practice, UNICEF will spearhead a coordinated effort in 2007 to slash FGM/C in 16 African countries by 2015 – the target year for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
Ethiopia is lodging an appeal to demand the death sentence for the country's former ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam and his closest aides. Mengistu and his associates were found guilty of killing thousands of people by the country's high court during the regime's 17-year rule.
They have suffered marginalisation as well as discrimination because of their short stature and preference for a hunter-gathering way of life. Known as pygmies, they are among the 300 million or so indigenous peoples on Earth, according to Cheick Sangare of the Human Rights Section of the United Nations office in the Central African Republic (CAR).
Almost every African country today bears the stamp of China’s emerging presence, from oil fields in the east and west, to farms in the south, to mines in the centre of the continent. China has cultural agreements with 42 African countries. US$30 billion will change between Chinese and African hands this year. And China’s trade and economic assistance to Africa has grown by geometric proportions.
In this week’s issue of Pambazuka News, we bring you an audio broadcast produced to coincide with the launch of a an unprecedented text: African Perspectives on China in Africa, a collection of essays from the prize-winning weekly electronic newsletter Pambazuka News, published by Fahamu.
The contributors to the book - including Horace Campbell, Michelle Chan-Fishel, Daniel Large, Stephen Marks and Kwesi Kwaa Prah - present social, historical and cross-continental perspectives on Chinese involvement in Africa. They argue that although there is no single view about China in Africa within or outside the continent, Africans must organise their side of the story: together, in their own interests, and in the interest of social justice for all.
The book was launched at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya in January 2007. During the launch, Robtel Pailey of Pambauzka News spoke to participants about the book, and about China’s contemporary role on the continent. She explores China’s historical legacy in Africa, cultural exchange, economic assistance, trade, mining, oil and questions of human rights, notably in Sudan. The interviews are available for downloading, listening on the web, or for access as a podcast at:
For further information or enquiries about the book, please visit the Fahamu books page (http://www.fahamu.org/pzbook.php) or email [email][email protected]
Development in Practice, published by Oxfam, is offering free Access to recent Knowledge Management articles in the journal Development in Practice.
Pambazuka News 289: World Social Forum: Trade fair to left politics
Pambazuka News 289: World Social Forum: Trade fair to left politics
The mythological bird, the “Sankofa” is used as a metaphor for Africa. While it is important for the continent to remember the past it is even more important to look to the future and build on the positive aspects of the past, writes Emira Woods.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the end of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which ripped an estimated 12 million Africans from their homelands and transported them to lives of unspeakable suffering and humiliation in Europe and the Americas. It is important to reflect on this tragic history, but also, like the Sankofa bird, to look towards ways of abolishing the forms of slavery that still ravage lives throughout much of the African world.
Modern-day slavery takes many shapes. In Liberia, the Bridgestone/Firestone Corporation continues to profit from slave-like conditions in their rubber plantation. Firestone's operations force children as young as 11 years old to work in the fields from before the sun rises to the late day. Used as beasts of burden, these kids typically carry two 75 pound buckets of rubber for up to two miles to storage or collection tanks. Should the children refuse to work, their parents risk losing the measly $3.19 daily wage, all while Bridgestone/Firestone announces record level profits for 2005 and the first half of 2006.
In the spirit of Sankofa, an alliance of human rights groups and labor unions is fighting to end this disgraceful abuse, and the International Labor Rights Fund has filed a case against the company.
Trafficking
Another, and perhaps most overt, form of modern day slavery is human trafficking. Throughout the African world women and children face a murderous and exploitative system of servitude. There are the parents in Egypt who reportedly sell kidneys and other body parts to feed their children. And there are the teenagers forced into prostitution working in the “AIDS corridor” running through oil-producing areas of Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad. The millions of impoverished women and children in Africa make easy targets for a growing number of traffickers who push them into unpaid or poorly compensated labor or sexual services. This takes place often through trickery and, at times, kidnapping. In response, the anti-trafficking movement has gained strength and visibility in recent years. This movement which includes survivors is making steady strides to break the chains for women and children around the world.
In the Americas, where wealth is being accumulated into fewer and fewer hands, modern-day forms of slavery are easily visible, from the flower pickers in Latin America to the garment factory workers in Haiti; from migrant workers in fields picking tomatoes in the southern United States to African-Americans locked into poor work conditions with inadequate compensation for their labor. Within the U.S., African girls and women are being enslaved in homes as maids and nannies for diplomats, foreign nationals, and Americans alike. Reports of individuals being held against their will, made to work around the clock for little or no money are becoming increasingly common. Advocates using new strategies and unusual bedfellows from law enforcement are working in the U.S. and around the world to tackle these and other issues of modern-day slavery.
Jubilee Movement
Religious and other groups around the world have united in a Jubilee movement to liberate the African world from another set of shackles – the extreme burden of foreign debt. According to the United Nations, $100 million a day is squeezed out of Africa in debt service payments to the rich world, siphoning off scarce resources needed to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic and other key concerns of the continent. In exchange, African governments are further enslaved by stringent loan conditions that control everything from inflation rates to wages for teachers and doctors.
Last year, the Bush Administration agreed to a plan to cancel the debts of 18 countries, most of them in Africa. The Jubilee movement is working to build on that precedent by pushing for the cancellation of the debts of 50 or so additional countries that are in desperate need.
The egg of hope in our Sankofa year lies in another commemoration. This year also represents the 50th anniversary of independence for many African states. The movement for change that brought an end to the slave trade culminating in the Emancipation Proclamation’s abolition of legal slavery. The abolitionist movement later inspired a pan-African drive for political independence. It was visionary leaders like Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Guinea’s Sekou Toure, Cape Verde’s Amilcar Cabral, and Zaire’s Patrice Lumumba who in turn led a movement to throw off the yoke of colonial slavery. Today we have new inspiring leaders like the many women civil society leaders, cabinet ministers, parliamentarians, and yes even Presidents, reshaping Africa’s political landscape.
This Sankofa year is a vehicle to build movements for peace and justice. There couldn’t be a better time to focus the world’s attention on ending the economic scourge that has drained the African world since the days of legal slavery. Justice for the African world can only come by restoring the dignity of her people, wherever they may live. Seize the Sankofa year. End all forms of modern day slavery and secure reparations for all debts incurred.
* Emira Woods is the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. She was born in Liberia. See http://www.fps-dc.org
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
The Shack dwellers in South Africa are one of the most marginalized communities, criminalised for being poor. Yet it is they who more often than not suffer from crime along with continued police harassment. These two factors have brought the shack dwellers of Durban together to fight the crime in their communities, says S'bu Zikode.
The poor were not born to be poor. We didn't become poor because we are lazy or stupid. In fact we have to work very hard and be very clever just to find a place for ourselves in this world that the rich have made for themselves. History made us poor and the history of our country is a history of crimes against the innocent. Because of these crimes millions of people are living in shacks and selling in the streets. The poor have the most to gain from an end to crime. More than anybody else we want a country where the human dignity of every person is respected. More than anybody else we understand that working for an end to crime is the responsibility of every one of us. It is our duty to God, to our country and to our children. We are prepared to do our part of this work.
But I feel oppressed when high profile people, including politicians, speak about crime especially since it is very unusual for anyone at their level to be a victim of crime. So few powerful people want to speak directly to communities. They prefer to make statements on the papers, radios and televisions. But when you make a statement there is no person in front of you to tell you about their lives. When you just make statements it is like you think that you already know everything. But when you humble yourself and talk to people you show that you know that you don't know everything. A proper understanding can only come from talking to everybody and for discussions to be open ended. That is why all the good leaders were humble. They were servants of the people, not masters.
Some kinds of crimes are planned in shacks. Others are planned in big conferences at the ICC. Both kinds of crimes make people suffer and must be stopped. However the truth is that with both kinds of crime, most of the time, the victims are not the powerful people but rather those with no power, the poor, the women and the children. Putting more poor people in prisons will only make them better criminals. The way to deal with crime is to invest our energy, resources and time in our communities. When human dignity is at the centre of our communities then our communities are places where crime is not accepted inside or outside.
There is a big problem with many local police stations. We will begin to deal with local crimes only when men like acting Superintendent Glen Nayager of the Sydenham Police Station can acknowledge that he and he alone can't deal with crime. If he keeps treating all the poor as if we are all criminals he will just be wasting his energy. He will just make us feel that the police are our enemies. He must acknowledge that he is too distant to understand the daily life at the grassroots level. He must understand that just because we can't address him like he can address us that doesn't mean that we are just rogues.
Prior to starting the struggle against the big crimes with Abahlali baseMjondolo I struggled against the local crimes. I joined the Police Reserve Force in February 2000 and I had been part of the Sydenham Community Service Centre. Before I entered I found an old African Mama with a baby on her back standing outside the door just helplessly waiting. When I asked her why she was just waiting there she told me that she had been chased out because she didn't speak English. None of the policemen on duty could speak isiZulu or even isiFanakalo and this hurt me. How can a police station serve the people when no one there can speak to people in their own language? I went inside with that woman to translate so that she could lay her charge and from there I decided to be a reservist. I underwent interviews, tests from the District Surgeon and trainings and worked as a Reservist at the Sydenham Police station.
Now that shack dwellers are fighting against evictions and for land and housing in the city we are all called criminals. The police think that they can arrest and beat us any time. They come when we are marching. Superintendent Glen Nayager comes when we are meeting and even when we are just living our daily lives. The Superintendent needs to understand that we are an anti-crime movement. We have a trackable record in working against all kinds of crime. He needs to think about the fact that although the police have arrested hundreds of us, the courts have dropped the charges every time. But we, the shack dwellers, have won a number of victories against the City in the courts. We work to make this a country in which there is respect for the human dignity of each person. We would be happy to work with the local police to make our communities and all the people around us safe if they recognised us as citizens. If our communities could work against crime in a partnership with police officers who treated us with respect, we could make our communities and neighbourhoods safe for everyone.
If the police continue to behave arrogantly towards the people like Nayager does, then I fear that incidents of people taking the law into their own hands, as it happened in KwaMashu recently, could happen more often. When police officers like Nayager take the law into their own hands thinking that they are above the law then communities start to do the same. We can only really condemn what happened in KwaMashu when our police force becomes a police service as Madiba instructed.
We need senior officers and politicians to make less statements and do more talking where people live and work. We need these discussions to be real discussions. We need the results of these discussions to be acted on. We need to build a country where the police serve all the people. If the police serve all the people then they will be trusted and it will be easy to marginalise the criminals in our communities and to organise not just against local criminals but also those high up who are using the country's money for themselves and making the poor poorer. Then we can make our country safe for everyone.
* S'bu Zikode is the elected president of the shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. On 12 September 2005 he and the organisation's deputy president, Philani Zungu, were arrested on a charge of 'assaulting a police officer' by officers from the Sydenham Police Station while on their way to an interview with iGagasi FM. They had just been warned to cease speaking to the media by a senior official in the provincial Housing Department. They were released the next morning and all charges against them were dropped. Zikode and Zungu have laid criminal and civil charges against Nayagar who they have accused of beating and abusing them severely while they were in his custody.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Everyone knows it is always the colonialists fault
Our mania for land is no different.
For the past forty years, we have blamed our bad habits on the colonialists.
We lived in a land of guiltless natives before they arrived!
Our fascination with land has joined the rank of one of our vices.
Kenyan vices.
Women, wine and land.
Not necessarily in that order.
We obsess about it, we want it, large tracts of it, small pieces, plots 4m by 4m.
Our fixation has become an irrational passion that we kill for.
Land is a soothing mistress.
A sense of calm soaks those who possess it.
Owning land gives me comfort. I know I won’t fall if I lean back.
My mother the land is there to catch me.
I don’t know how to be any other way.
When people from other states express astonishment at such an attachment, I am equally perplexed that it does not exist in their lives.
How can a person live without this ardor?
Without the satisfaction that comes with possessing your very own piece of land?
At such times I sense myself at an impasse trying to cross an unbridgeable chasm.
Me on this side with my land, and they standing there, puffs of smoke, with no substance at all.
II
I longed for land of my own even when I was a child.
When I was unhappy, I would dream of running away to my very own secret island.
To live off berries, rabbits and delicious little edible birds, the fruit of the land.
No prizes for guessing where I got those images.
The British are guilty - again.
This time as imperialists.
Enid Blyton, Robinson Crusoe, Paradise Lost, Lassie, Dr Bwana.
A mish mash of sources filling my head with the make believe adventures of white people in the bush.
Continuing the grip on my imagination.
III
But let’s not blame all the British.
The set that came to Kenya is guilty of this particular mania.
Lords and Ladies of the realm, from a tiny island only 244,820 sq. km. with 60million souls.
And those few still managed to own large chunks of it.
Can you imagine what they saw when they came to this country back then?
Miles and miles of empty land, owned by no one?
Would you endure the land lust that gripped them?
They had to have it. And they took it any way they could.
Purchasing it from owners who did not possess it.
Procuring with currency to captivate guiltless natives
Gunning down unyielding resistance
Conjuring up flocks of compliant faithful.
They carved out chunks of that long ago empty land, 100,000 hectares for this Lord, 200,000 hectares for that Lord.
Four of them ended up owning land the size of the original island.
They came and stayed for 120 years.
Enough time to infect us all with the contagion.
Like a genetic fever they passed on their obsession.
IV
After we got most of our land back, at independence, we discovered sadly there wasn’t much of it that was any good.
At least that’s what we were told in school, what was written in our books, what our government officers repeated in board rooms across the country.
What we came to believe.
Some facts and figures about Kenya. It covers 582,650 sq. km.
82% cannot support modern farming. It is incapable of growing cucumbers, carrots, cabbages and lettuce. The terrain is too harsh.
Only 18% of the land is any good.
So we are back to the small island after all.
Soon the new country was gripped by the same land-scarcity-fever of that original small isle.
Too-little-good-land chased by 30 million people growing ever more greedy by the day.
That’s why we kill for it.
V
It was predictable that we would soon start stealing land with the calm soig froid that other people pick pockets.
We even invented a special term for it.
“Land grabbing.”
That’s what we call it.
As if you could snatch a piece of land and carry it, unseen, wrapped up in your pocket.
Vehement denial follows the apprehended land thief when the pilfered land is pulled from its hiding place.
Loud protests of, “It’s mine! Here’s the title deed to prove it!” follow.
And indeed he has a genuine title deed just like yours.
Title deeds have became accidental pieces of paper drawn up by government officials gone seemingly berserk
One as real as another.
There is just one small problem. I am the one who has to pay the loan I borrowed to buy the land in the first place.
I have only reached half way; I still owe another five million shillings!
I can’t very well go to my bank and say, “Sorry I’m not going to be paying that loan now because the land has been stolen.”
I am afraid of looking sloppy.
All those years my mother would have been right.
I am careless after all.
The signs were there early on when I kept loosing my school sweater.
Now I have gone and lost my land!
Doreen Lwanga responds to a review of Blood Diamonds by Del Hornbuckle and contextualises the role of the RUF in the Sierra Leone civil war.
Del Hornbuckle’s recent review of Blood Diamond, “Blood Diamond…TIA (This is Africa)” in Pambazuka News 287 (2007-01-17)() offered me an inside look at the film without having to give my money to Hollywood. My reason for boycotting Hollywood movies on Africa was due to their deliberate refusal to get the story right and preferring sensational exaggerations and faces of miserable and chaotic Africa in need of a “white humanitarian”. The last Hollywood movie on Africa I watched was “Black Hawk Dawn”, expecting to see the gallant Somalis taking down the US military invaders. Instead, I was bombarded by pictures of Somalis handing roses to US marine saviours on the streets of Mogadishu. What part of Mogadishu was that? Ironically, many on the African continent anxiously await such movies (including the acclaimed Last King of Scotland) even when they depict Africans as brutal and bloodthirsty cannibals.
Back to Blood Diamonds. Although I learned a lot from Ms Hornbuckle’s film review, I was not convinced by the equation drawn (seemingly from the film), that is, the RUF war was about child soldiers and blood diamonds. It is easy for Hollywood to accuse the RUF of accelerating the war through illegal diamond mining and using child soldiers without putting all the facts together. For one, why was a movie based on events that occurred in Sierra Leone shot in Mozambique, a country in Southern Africa with no regional context? Remember that the Sierra Leone civil war involved regional players in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria. This reductionism of the Sierra Leone conflict to a “RUF problem” of greed, violence and conflict reminds me of Robert Kaplan’s thesis entitled “The Coming Anarchy” published in The Atlantic Monthly of February 1994. Kaplan claimed that scarcity of resources, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease in Africa where rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet. His essay was so influential that the US State Department faxed copies to all of its Embassies around Africa, undoubtedly shaping its Africa policy.
Fortunately for us, whose attention to context and historical understanding of events does not wither away, along came Paul Richards’ 1996 book ‘Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth & Resources in Sierra Leone’. Richards dedicated this book to critiquing the New Barbarism thesis espoused by the likes of Kaplan. He analysed the Sierra Leone civil war as deeply rooted in the troubled history of resource exploitation, involving slave trade, timber, ivory, and valuable mineral resource exploitation. Through dedicated scholarship and long-term residence in Sierra Leone, Richards conducted interviews with child soldiers, ex-combatants, youth, diamond traders, RUF members, government forces, village leaders and residents in mining areas and other regions with RUF incursions in Sierra Leone. Thus, he successfully contextualises the RUF struggle as a revolt against the patrimonial rule of Sierra Leone and marginalization of ordinary people rather than one driven by greedy and trigger happy illiterate people.
It is also true that RUF cut off people’s limbs but not necessarily as alleged by Ms Hornbuckle that, “the less desirables, one-by-one, have limbs chopped off when they’re not useful as child soldiers or mine workers.” RUF cut off limbs to stop people from going into fields for the harvest and to stop hands from voting in the elections of February 1996 (Richards, op cit. xx). However, RUF also had a disciplined and non-materialistic way of life, which involved sharing looted food and medical supplies to all recruits and punishing anyone who looted for personal wealth. According to Richards, RUF was a group of “excluded educated elites”, a product of intellectual anger making rhetorical point deeply rooted in the troubled history of resource extraction (pp. 25-27).
The RUF war in Sierra Leone included several professionals and school dropouts who joined as a protest against the socio-economic marginalization and corruption of the ruling government in the distribution of national resources. Schoolteachers who joined the RUF sought to avenge against the ruling government’s failure to pay their salaries while school-going youngsters in the diamond districts of eastern and southern Sierra Leone saw no future with schools broken down long before the RUF arrived (Richards, Chapter Four). Even conscripts terrorized in the process of capture, later discovered that RUF political analysis addressed their sense of exclusion and the rebels often treated them generously (Richards, p. xix; 53). Richards tells of girls who had never owned decent shoes, being offered a choice of shoes and dresses by the rebels. Others had a chance to resume their education, and received a good basic training in the arts of bush warfare (pp. 28-29).
Since I didn’t see the film myself, I am relying on Ms Hornbuckle’s account that leaves out the political economy context in which RUF incursion took place in Sierra Leone. That is, the patrimonial state benefited from blood diamonds and distributed national resources to political constituencies, thus accelerating social marginalisation, fuelling social grievances and the emergence of the RUF guerrilla movement. For instance, in exchange for security, the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) granted huge mining concessions in Kono district to the South African private security company, Executive Outcomes (p.17). The RUF joined the control of some mineral deposits and diamond resources as a means of obtaining basic subsistence and military equipment. Whereas the patrimonial government collected revenue for personal consumption from trade in diamonds with licensed dealers (mainly Lebanese), the RUF as an outlawed non-state entity could not legally trade in its diamonds. The act of criminalizing the activities of ordinary diamond traders in resource-rich communities denies them an income for school fees and family survival. Previously, communities in resource-rich areas of Eastern Congo, DRC have spoken out against international sanctions and boycott campaigns that criminalize their non-licensed batter trade in their minerals. This is perhaps what President Nelson Mandela meant to re-echo.
No doubt that the atrocities committed by the RUF undermined their campaign. They failed to take their protest to the central government in Freetown and mostly hurt those people sharing similar grievances against the ruling government – the rural population. However, the usual story Hollywood enjoys telling about Africa is a decontextualised one involving the evil (RUF represented by Captain Poison), the disposable (Solomon Vandy) and the saviour (a white journalist Maddy Bowen). Paul Richards book is a must read for everyone because it excels in giving a human face to rebels and guerrilla fighters, as members of a frustrated society, something continuously diminishing with our fascination with the growing global terrorism outlook.
* Doreen Lwanga is an Africa Scholar, Researcher and Activist working in the areas of African security, Pan-Africanism and Higher education in Africa. In 1993, Robert Kaplan, a US journalist wrote a book on the Balkan conflict and later expended his argument to African events in Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone in an influential essay in the Atlantic Monthly, February 1994. This essay was a reading for my graduate class in the US on Humanitarian Assistance. Paul Richards also sought to challenge the “Resource Curse” thesis advanced by World Bank economist Paul Colliers and others. Paul Richards (1996): Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth & Resources in Sierra Leone. Oxford: James Currey
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
ZMI is a summer school for media and politics started in 1994 by the cofounders of Z Magazine (1988) and South End Press (1977) to teach radical politics, media and organizing skills, the principles and practice of creating non-hierarchical institutions and projects, activism, and particularly vision and strategy for social change. Classes are held in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Ghana has been elected, by consensus, as the new chair of the African Union. Ghana is set to host the next AU Heads of State summit scheduled for July. Ghana’s election averted a potentially embarrassing moment for the AU after Sudan failed to relinquish its bid in spite of widespread disquiet and opposition over its complicity in the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Darfur.
Africa’s Foreign Ministers meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, were expected to agree on a draft charter setting out new benchmarks on democracy, good governance and respect for fundamental rights and freedoms.
China will lend African nations $3 billion in preferential credit over three years and double aid and interest-free loans over the same time, Beijing said on Monday ahead of President Hu Jintao's tour to woo the continent.
As Zimbabwe's disgruntled doctors and nurses continue their strike over low salaries and poor working conditions, concern is growing about how the prolonged stay-away is affecting HIV-positive patients. The strike by health professionals, now more than a month old, has left dozens of desperate patients without medical care in rural and urban areas.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila is being urged to release human rights lawyer and former presidential candidate, Marie Therese Nlandu and her associates from prison. The calls come following Nlandu’s trial before a military tribunal in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, on Jan. 24, according to a report by Ambrose Musiyiwa.
is a beautifully written blog by a South African Gay-identified man who writes about life, his partner, social justice and "We're different and that makes us a good match."
This week he is upset with President Mbeki who he officially declares is a "denialist".
"You have done a lot to get the economy where it is - but you are doing nothing to sustain it. Keeping the crime levels down is one way to keep the economy booming. Crime divides the country. I'm upset with you Mr. President. Without comparing you to any other head of State - but think of the legacy you are leaving as you are about to retire! Like Redi Direko said to you ‘Come on Mr President’ get your act together!"
Gradiose Parlor comments on Nigeria's latest census results for "sparsely populated Bayelsa State" in the Niger Delta and comes up with some interesting figures:
"The total population of Bayelsa state is 1,703,358; it’s the least populated in the nation. Bayelsa received 5,325,414,955.84 (Naira) in May 2004 from the federal account (PDF document); the second highest in the nation. This works out to 3,126.42 Naira per citizen. The highest allocation-per-citizen ratio* in the country. And this is just from federal account, the figure doesn’t include locally generated revenue."
The question is where has all the money gone because it has yet to reach the communities of the State?
"An aside: Maybe he should just send stuff to Mzalendo and KBW and we can spruce it up for him. It pains me to see people who should know better sitting with so much good info. (e.g. hello where is Gladwell Otieno?)."
Carpe Diem Ethiopia writes about Ethiopian novelist, Bealu Girma who he finds "extremely challenging": "For starters, out of his six novels: Kadmas Bashager (Beyond the Horizon), Yehilina Dewel (The Bell of Consciousness), Yeqey Kokeb Teri (The Call of the Red Star), Haddis, Derasiw (The Author), and Oromay ("Now, at this Moment"), I have only read three—Kadmas, Haddis, and Oromay. Second, the novelist's personal life and work deserve separate volumes of their own. Bealu's life and death are of Shakespearean proportions: Julius Caesar comes to mind - much like the Roman emperor's unprecedented expansion of his empire by his sheer ability to bend the will of men, the Ethiopian author reached the apogee of creativity by his ability to gain almost a cult following that allowed him to survive unscathed through much of his career despite his persistently harsh criticism of the societies in which he lived." Singing SouthAfricanness discusses being a white South African and compares living in the US to SA. "Quite simply, I feel safer here (New York), and that concerns me when I consider a future at home. I also feel hemmed in by my race at home. The fact that I am white has a very strong impact on how I am viewed, and what is expected of me, and what opportunities are available to me within my own country. Here, that matters less. What does matter is that I do work that people want to know about, and that is important." Colour in SA has an impact on everyone's lives, opportunities, imprisonment in one's community, economic advantage. All of these also impact on people in the US. Apart from other advantages, part of the reason being white in the US is easier is because as part of the majority population you are less conspicuous? Nata Village Blog profiles HIV lay counsellor, Kehumile Baganne. "When I first started working at the clinic, few people came into test. I would only test four people per month. People were afraid in those days and the only ARV's were in Francistown and Gaborone. We weren't even able to offer IPT (prophylaxis for TB) in those days so some of the people here could not access those services. So when IPT came to Nata and the ARV's came to Gweta, people were more willing to test. I do my counseling in a caravan and when we first started everyone was afraid to come to the caravan. Because when someone goes there, they know they have AIDS. They even called me the caravan girl. I didn't like that name at all." Annie writing on Black Looks writes about her two week experience in Cape Town, a place I have also become familiar with - looking for Africa in downtown Cape Town is not easy: "I want to be in Africa! CT is very ‘modern.’ Unfortunately, modern also means Western. The two words are synonymous all over the world, but never have I seen it as glaringly as here. Is it not possible to be modern and still retain that special quality of ‘African-ess?’ And this is not me pandering to a stereotyped view of “African-ess” with regards to drums and naked people. This is me re-living my own, PERSONAL, African experience, me chanelling Ghana and my high school with its 60% representation of students from over 20 African countries. This is me remembering the differences and yet that special quality that brought us together, that led us to sing in one another’s languages, that justified our motto: ‘Knowledge in the service of Africa.’ So be on my case all you like, but I do believe there is such a thing as being African, such a thing as being in Africa, indescribable as they may be…but CT leaves me homesick. I wound up in an Irish bar (don’t ask) with a Lithuanian friend who told me how at home he felt in this European-like setting. I hope my smile looked real enough." * Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, http://www.blacklooks.org and is Online News Editor of Pambazuka News. * Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org
The Women's Leadership Scholarship Programme (formerly the Native Leadership Scholarship) is accepting applications from women grassroots leaders, organisers and activists from the global south and/or from indigenous groups, who wish to pursue non-doctoral graduate studies in human rights, sustainable development, and public health at accredited institutions worldwide.
The Free Trade Agreement between the EFTA States and Egypt was signed in Davos, Switzerland on 27 January 2007. The Agreement covers trade in industrial products, including fish and other marine products, and processed agricultural products. In addition, individual EFTA States and Egypt concluded bilateral agreements on basic agricultural products, which form part of the instruments creating the free trade area.
Pharmaceutical company Novartis is taking the Indian government to court. If the company wins, millions of people across the globe could have their sources of affordable medicines dry up. Novartis was one of the 39 companies that took the South African government to court five years ago, in an effort to overturn the country's medicines act that was designed to bring drug prices down. Now Novartis is up to it again and is targeting India.
Scaling up effective partnerships: A guide to working with faith-based organisations in the response to HIV and AIDS provides background information and case studies, dispels myths, and gives practical guidance for United Nations staff, government officials, positive people's networks, non-governmental organizations, foundations, and the private sector who want to collaborate with faith-based organizations on joint projects related to HIV and AIDS.
In his latest State of the Union message, U.S. President George Bush declared "To whom much is given, much is required." He went on to pledge to "continue to fight HIV/AIDS, especially on the continent of Africa." But while activists acknowledge the additional attention given to health in recent years, they say both African and international leaders are still falling far short of fulfilling their promises.
Stinging criticism from the world-renowned Reuters news agency, evidence from numerous analysts and a verbal lashing by President Thabo Mbeki himself have failed to penetrate Telkom’s impervious skin and force it to cut its prices. So what impact will come from 200 despondent consumers moaning about the high cost of a phone call?
The cost of international broadband is set to drastically reduce within 18 months after the Kenyan government confirmed that it is ready to adopt three different under sea cables provided through various routes. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Information and Communication said that Kenya was taking a three-pronged approach calculated to reduce the cost of international connectivity.
In line with the UNDP Corporate Gender Action Plan and to promote the achievement of MDGs, UNDP/Angola is making efforts to ensure gender is integrated at all levels of its operations and programme. The Country Office has just adopted a new strategy for programme and operations, which emphasizes the need to incorporate gender and capacity development in all its programmes, as drivers for development.
I would like to thank Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem for his candid and courageous piece on NGOs as paymasters of CSOs. I share his basic sentiments, and think it is important to have this kind of reflection. However, he makes certain underlying assumptions that need to be challenged, and I hope he won’t mind this deconstruction.
I disagree most with the sweeping statement that African participants “often become prisoners of their sponsors.” This is a gross and simplistic caricature of the complex relationship between the “foreign paymasters” and CSOs. It tends to portray the latter as an uncritical ‘rent-a-crowd’ unable to see what they are getting into, and blissfully oblivious to the manipulation of those who have money. It seems to assume that paymasters and CSOs have never known each other before, have not built relationships of trust over the years (and trust is earned, not bought), and have done the transaction of attending the WSF only in front of the airline ticket booth just before flying to Nairobi.
I certainly think the participants Dr Abdul-Raheem was referring to are not blissfully naïve. I would say they know their needs, they know exactly who they are dealing with, and they know the choices they are making -- most of it involves complex calculations of benefit and cost, of what one may get in return for, say, turning up at a paymaster-sponsored event. Some of them may even turn their heads around and ask, “Who is manipulating whom?” CSOs are struggling and are in a constant battle to raise resources, and dealing with paymasters is not necessarily selling out.
I agree there is a need to challenge, even constantly, the legitimacy of NGOs. But again, Dr Abdul Raheem resorts to simplistic caricatures when asking who NGOs are accountable to and whom they are loyal to. I thought he would have known better that many NGOs have complex (sorry for using this term again) governance structures. They have functional boards (some of which have a majority southern membership), transparent recruitment, periodic evaluations and open books of account. Fund-raising, especially with northern government sources, is governed by policy and legal documents, and clear terms of reference. While such funding relationships may not be ideal, remain far from perfect, and one can poke holes into it, a simplistic conspiracy theory just won’t hold.
I agree too that there are scams, and that these should rightly be exposed and opposed. Which is why some of these paymasters talk to each other, to sort out multiple accounting, bogus ticket refunds, etc. What I object to is the insinuation that nothing is being done about these serious issues, especially when the scams are brought out into the open. The problem with blanket accusations too is that it also smears those who are forthright and doing well. If there is a scam, the best way of dealing with it is to name and shame responsibly.
Another fundamental objection I would raise – do NGOs not have the right to make noise? Dr Abdul-Raheem seems to imply that simply because they are paymasters, NGOs do not have the right to speak in events like the WSF. NGOs do “crowd out” CSOs who have a greater legitimacy to speak. Mainly because they professionals, NGOs tend to be slicker, quicker to the draw, and often become too zealous in marketing themselves and in getting others to carry their agenda. But please don’t rush to the conclusion that they are not legitimate actors. I am sure that some NGOs can also be considerate when these issues are raised before their faces.
Finally, the most irritating question Dr Abdul-Raheem asks, “how come the nationalists freed this continent from the yoke of colonialism without writing proposals to any funder?” They may have not written proposals, but many anti-colonial movements, I believe, recognised the contributions of people-to-people solidarity to their success. Proposals, if we take a less cynical view of it, can simply be seen as mechanisms to manage solidarity. My bottom line is, please, let us not go to the extent of denying the value of solidarity. When proposals become too cumbersome and have turned instead into mechanisms for manipulation, then by all means, let us challenge it.
I have no answer to Dr Adbul-Raheem’s most insightful question – why are our peoples not willing or able to support our activism? It is spot on and a good point. Until someone else comes up with answers, I would argue that solidarity relationships shouldn’t be ruled out, even if there are, clearly, problems that need to be sorted out. I maintain my belief that southern organisations can stand their ground in dealing with paymasters. I respect and value Dr Abdul-Raheem’s sentiments, but his framing of the problem is flawed.
Gender Links, the lead agency for the policy arm of the Media Action Plan on HIV/AIDS and Gender coordinated by the Southern African Editor's Forum (SAEF), seeks a dynamic individual to fill the post of HIV/AIDS, Gender and the Media Manager as soon as possible.
A new report released by Friends of the Earth International shows that genetically modified (GM) crops have failed to address the main challenges facing farmers around the world, and more than 70% of large scale GM planting is still limited to two countries: the US and Argentina.
Interested in participatory governance - CIVICUS wants to hear from you! The CIVICUS Strengthening Participatory Governance (PG) Programme, is launching a new initiative which focuses on enhancing the capacity of southern civil society practitioners to promote participatory and accountable governance of public institutions at local and national levels. The Programme is conducting a brief online survey that civil society is encouraged to participate in.
A worldwide campaign for Decent Work was launched in Nairobi, Kenya at the World Social Forum by the Decent Work Alliance and with the help of Wangari Maathai, Kenya's 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner. It aims to place Decent Work, a concept covering equal access to employment, living wages, social protection, freedom from exploitation and union rights at the core of development, economic, trade, financial and social policies at the national, European and International level through public campaigning and lobbying.
The nonprofit sector has come a long way in its use of the Internet. In the last six years, funds raised online by nonprofits have grown 20-fold from $250 million in 2000 to more than $5 billion in 2006. The pace of growth today continues to be strong. In fact, estimates suggest industry average online fundraising growth continues to exceed 30 percent per year. Today, almost every non-profit has basic online marketing capabilities including a Web site and the ability to take donations and send email.
The Africa Regional Sexuality Resource Centre (ARSRC) calls for applications to its annual Sexuality Leadership Development Fellowship (SLDF) Programme. The Fellowship is scheduled to take place in Lagos, Nigeria from 9 to 27 July 2007. The course provides an academically stimulating environment that promotes cross-cultural sharing of experiences as well as individual study incorporating rigorous intellectual work and strategic field trips and events that brings participants in contact with leaders and organizations in the field of sexuality.
A new phenomenon is gaining currency in the country: Lesbians, gays and transsexuals are coming out openly to demand their rights. The group stole the show at the World Social Forum which ended at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, with their stand being a crowd puller.
The sustainability of pastoral systems largely depends on a balancing act between pastures, livestock and people. The mobility of pastoralists and their livestock is also a key factor. With climate change, the authors of this article speculate that this balance will be undermined. Greater herd mobility and diversification of pastoralists livelihoods will be required although diversification out of livestock production may be constrained by the environmental characteristics of most pastoral areas in Africa.
The African Research Association (ARA) seeks Project Director for their Community action project, Development in Nigeria. The NGO operates in Northern and Central Cross Rivers State with farmer and pastoralist communities for more sustainable natural resource management, conflict resolution and poverty reduction as well as HIVand AIDS awareness.
The African Union has already developed a reputation for charting an ambitious pan-African state-building project, yet very little is understood by policy-makers or citizens of how African countries prepare for the summits and their related ministerial meetings, and how they implement decisions and resolutions made in these fora. This report presents research on the preparations for and conduct of African Union summits.
Though women are the largest group of entrepreneurs in South Africa, black women still face unequal access to finance. This fact sheet describes some of the barriers they face and identifies actions required by government and financial institutions to ensure that women can access credit and business development services.
The G8 countries have committed to double aid flows to developing countries by 2010. Although these funds offer great opportunities to recipient countries, aid inflows of such magnitude pose significant macroeconomic challenges to low income countries (LIC). This paper considers how LICs should manage fiscal policy in a scaled-up aid environment.
The knowledge, priorities and aspirations of small scale producers are rarely included in policy debates on the future of food, farming and development. In response, a recent electronic conference, "The Future of Food and Small-scale Producers" sought the views of indigenous, small, and family farmers from over 30 developed and developing countries. The forum also included the opinions of landless people and fishing communities, as well as their representative organisations.
People in Africa are now increasingly competing to get access to arable land and pastures. Open land conflicts are becoming more and more common across the continent.
Nigeria confirmed the first human death from the H5N1 virus in sub-Saharan Africa on Wednesday (January 31) after tests on a dead woman showed she had contracted bird flu. The 22-year-old died after feathering and disembowelling an infected chicken. She was from Lagos, the commercial capital of Africa's most populous country, Information Minister Frank Nweke said. Test on three other victims, one of them the woman's mother, were inconclusive.
Since fleeing his home in northern Central African Republic (CAR) on 3 December 2006, Abdoulay Douga Mandja Noel, 40, has lived rough in a border town called Am-Dafock shared by the CAR and Sudan. Abdoulay fled months of fighting between the army and a rebel coalition, the Union des forces démocratiques pour le rassemblement (UFDR), which is seeking inclusion in the government of President François Bozize, whom they accuse of sidelining them.
President Hu Jintao became the first Chinese head of state to visit Cameroon on Wednesday (31 January), kicking off his latest tour of an African continent which increasingly supplies oil and raw materials to his country. Hu, who also toured Africa last year, met Cameroonian President Paul Biya to discuss social aid programmes to provide drinking water and cheap housing, as well as a greater role for China in the local oil industry and other resource sectors.
Local government officials in Nigeria's wealthiest oil-producing state have squandered rising revenues that could provide basic health and education services for some of Nigeria's poorest people, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today (31 January). Human Rights Watch found that the government's failure to tackle local-level corruption violates Nigeria's obligation to provide basic health and education services to its citizens.
More than 90 people were killed and at least 300 injured when security forces in Guinea opened fire to put down protests during a two-week general strike this month, a human rights group said on Wednesday (31 January).
Somalia's parliament elected a new speaker on Wednesday 31 January) to replace one ousted over his overtures to Islamist rivals defeated by government and Ethiopian troops during a two-week war in December. Members of parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of Justice Minister Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nuur "Madobe" who takes over from Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, voted out of office Jan 17.
Ivory Coast's cocoa merchants risk their money and their lives on the road as highway robbers increasingly target their cars to seize cash destined to buy beans, a senior police officer said on Wednesday (31 January). Millions of CFA francs have been stolen from cocoa buyers so far in this 2006/07 season by thieves who stop buyers' cars either by holding up the drivers with guns or by mounting fake police checkpoints and dressing in military uniforms.
Egypt will not end militancy in its Sinai peninsula, where bombs have killed more than 100 people since 2004, until it tackles political and socio-economic grievances there, a report said on Wednesday (31 January). The International Crisis Group said that Egypt's response to bomb attacks that targeted Red Sea tourist resorts had focused almost exclusively on security, rather than on trying to resolve simmering tensions among the Sinai population.
FIDH and its member organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have welcomed the decision adopted today (30 January) by the Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to confirm the charges against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo and refer the case to a Trial Chamber.
On January 26 2007, a leading Zimbabwean politician warned journalists from forming an independent media council without the approval of the government, which has closed newspapers and arrested reporters. Leo Mugabe, a nephew of President Robert Mugabe and a member of his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), told about 200 journalists at a meeting to launch the council that they should avoid confrontation with the authorities.
Ahead of the Senegalese presidential elections on February 25, ARTICLE 19 publishes a report on the state of freedom of expression in Senegal. The legal, political and institutional framework for freedom of expression in Senegal must be reformed, urges a new report published by ARTICLE 19 just ahead of February 2007 elections. The report outlines key challenges and obstacles to freedom of expression in the lead up to presidential elections.
Some members of Liberia's lower house of Parliament, opposing the leadership of Speaker Edwin Snowe on 23 January 2007, threatened to bar two independent FM stations and a pro-government radio station from covering their sessions. Star Radio and Radio Veritas, two independent, Monrovia-based stations and Truth FM, a pro-government radio station, were accused of bias in the coverage of the ongoing leadership conflict in the country's legislature.
Radio Victoire, a privately-owned FM station in Lomé, that was suspended for 15 days by the media regulator, Haute Autorité de l'Audiovisuel de la Communication (HAAC), on 24 January 2007, resumed operations after serving the full term of the suspension. On 9 January, HAAC suspended the radio station for an alleged professional misconduct.
Reporters Without Borders has called on the Ivorian authorities to withdraw all charges against journalist Claude Dassé of the privately-owned daily "Soir Info", after he was held for five days at Abidjan investigative police headquarters on a contempt of court charge brought by the state prosecutor.
Startling new evidence from a three-year survey shows that HIV is now growing fastest among those who are wealthier and educated. “Our belief that HIV is a disease of the impoverished, the unemployed, the uneducated is actually wrong,” says Professor Carel van Aardt, Director of Research at UNISA’s Bureau of Market Research. “It seems that the most rapid growth at the moment is among the educated, among the employed, among the people with higher incomes, and also the people in high class in society.
The US government broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) is launching a new daily radio broadcast in the Somali language to the Horn of Africa, writes Eric Nyakagwa. The daily half-hour broadcast will start on February 12, and will rely on a group of Somali broadcasters at VOA's headquarters in Washington, DC and freelance reporters in Africa and elsewhere.
Thanks to an ambitious organising campaign by women throughout the country, women’s participation is on the increase in unions. This is the first report on a very promising campaign.
The first Education for All (EFA) goal calls for ‘expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education (ECCE), especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children’. Enrolment in ECCE programmes has tripled since 1970, but access remains limited in most developing countries. Children most exposed to malnutrition and preventable diseases are least likely to have access.
Unjust land distribution is a legacy of colonial policies that took resources away from indigenous groups. At independence, many states had a minority of white settlers owning large commercial farms while the indigenous majority were left with small plots of land. Land redistribution has been a policy of many governments.
Aid is a major source of government revenue for many developing countries. Senegal, which has also built up a large country debt, receives a significant proportion of its government revenues from aid. But is aid the best way to support economic growth in countries with large debts, or could debt relief be a better policy?
Illegal logging is a major problem in many developing countries. However, current attempts to enforce forest laws do not always target the causes of illegal logging. Instead, they persecute poor rural people living in forest regions.
In developing country universities women staff are under-represented in senior teaching and management positions. Enrolment of female undergraduates is increasing but far too few are studying science and technology subjects. Research and action are needed to identify the factors that slow or promote gender equity and identify examples of replicable good practice.
International aid allocations are increasingly linked with assessments of performance in developing countries. Donors have become concerned with how to work with a group of countries that have been labelled as ‘poor performers’. But does a group of poorly performing countries really exist?
An important component of peace-building is maintenance of livelihoods during conflict and to ensure sustainable post-conflict recovery. The role of private individual support to war-torn communities is little researched and poorly understood by those who plan peace-building programmes and post-conflict assistance strategies.
Learning begins before a child walks through the classroom door. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) supports children’s survival and cognitive, social, physical and emotional development. ECCE guarantees children’s rights, opens the way for the Education for All (EFA) goals and contributes to reducing poverty. Why, then, is it so low on the education agenda?
The United Nations Office of Drug Control claimed in 2006 that 'Drug control is working and the world drug problem is being contained'. Yet the scale and diversity of the illicit global drug trade has increased in the last decade, as have rates of drug use in most countries.
Save the Children UK's south Sudan programme concentrates its efforts in two regions: Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile. In the context of south Sudan, making a reality of children's rights is achieved through an integrated programme of work in the thematic areas of food security and livelihoods, basic education, child protection and preventative health.
Campaigners are to protest outside of the French embassy in London this week (Friday 2nd February) to urge the French government to stop representatives of the Zimbabwean government attending an international summit. Union members, Zimbabwean exiles and human rights campaigners are joining protests outside French embassies across Europe. They are calling on the French government to apply a European Union ban on Zimbabwean government members and prevent them from attending an African summit the French government is hosting in Cannes next month.
Save the Children UK has started working in Niger in July 2005, due to the ongoing food crisis which is affecting millions of people. Community-based therapeutic nutritional care (CTC) and primary health care (PHC) to children under-five year’s old in Maradi and Zinder Regions are so far the main intervention domains. SC UK is now about to launch a new food security and livelihood programme in the same areas. This new programme will be a pilot one for the Sahel region and will be therefore highly supported by the Regional and London Offices.
Africa must work towards providing home-based rapid diagnostic test kits and give more consideration to gender issues in the fight against malaria, a new report recommends. The report, commissioned by Femmes Africa Solidarite and released at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last week (25 January), explores the issue of gender in malaria policies.
Developing countries must adopt effective policies on technology transfer that meet the needs of all social classes, including the poorest. There is a common misconception that the single most important factor in science and development is the need for adequate funding for relevant research. This type of thinking — sometimes described as the 'science push' model of development — tends to focus on the proportion of a country's gross national product spent on research and development.
Creating Local Connections West Africa (CLC WA) aims to realize the potential of youth for improving their communities, countries, and region. CLC WA will achieve this through peer-led trainings, media creation, and strategic use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) during its implementation in: Sierra Leone Nigeria, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, and Liberia. The project will run over a 15 months period (February 2007-april 2008).