Violence and repression directed against the world's minorities have struck hardest in Africa and war-affected areas of the Middle East, according to a report presented at the United Nations. Minority Rights Group International, a British advocacy organization, found that violence was targeted at religious, ethnic and other minority groups in three-quarters of the world's conflicts in 2005. "In every world region, minorities and indigenous peoples have been excluded, repressed and, in many cases, killed by their governments," Mark Lattimer, the group's executive director, told a press conference Thursday. "In war today, the targeting of minorities is no longer the exception, but has become the norm."

It is time for change because the African National Congress government has failed to deliver, African Christian Democratic Party president Kenneth Meshoe said on Monday. Speaking at a public meeting in Mitchells Plain, Meshoe said the ACDP is committed to a clean government because dirty streets reflect the morals of those in charge. On the running of cities, Meshoe said: "We often hear that we do not have the capacity, which means that there are people in charge who do not know what they are doing." He added that a lack of resources means that money is being wasted and/or pocketed.

This manual aims to help readers to design, revise, and implement project selection processes in North-South research partnership (NSRP) programmes. In particular, it addresses the complex challenge of dealing with the multiple objectives of NSRP programmes: scientific quality, development relevance, and adherence to partnership principles.

Democracy's recent proliferation has given millions a political voice, while revealing the difficulties of holding elected governments accountable. This book analyzes the worldwide wave of experimentation with new means of holding powerful actors - public and private, national and transnational - accountable. It traces the multiple deprivations faced by poor people in developing countries back to failures in conventional accountability institutions. The authors argue that a 'new accountability agenda' is in the making and consider whether the reinvention of accountability can make democracy work for the poor.

Plans to send a large contingent of Kenyan campaigners to the African leg of the World Social Forum (WSF) may be undermined by a lack of funding. Since this year's event was brought to Africa, many Kenyans thought they would take advantage of the proximity to attend. But this hope has waned and the number of those expected to attend has dropped due to inadequate resources, including a prohibitive airfare. It's cheaper to fly to Europe, than to Mali, from Kenya.
* Related Link
See http://sa.indymedia.org/features/wsfmali2006/ for the latest news from Bamako.

Ivory Coast's president urged his supporters on Wednesday to end a wave of attacks on UN peacekeepers in which at least four people were killed, after a lightning peace mission by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo, who is also chairman of the African Union, flew in to meet Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, whose supporters have staged three days of anti-UN riots to protest at what they call foreign meddling in the war-divided West African state.

Militants behind attacks aimed at disrupting Nigeria's oil exports said they will target all producers in the country, in a message singling out US-based Chevron. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which has caused major disruption at Royal Dutch Shell and kidnapped four foreign oil workers, said it has also attacked installations run by France's Total and Italy's Agip, a unit of ENI. "We have decided not to limit our attacks to Shell oil as our ultimate aim is to prevent Nigeria from exporting oil," the militant group said in an email statement to Reuters.

A Chadian rebel leader on Wednesday said insurgents seeking to oust President Idriss Deby have ‘friendly’ relations with Sudan and have met on Sudanese soil, but are receiving no arms or other assistance from Khartoum, as charged by N’Djamena. Abdelwahid Aboud Makaye, a leader of the newly formed United Front for Change and Democracy (FUC), said in an interview with Radio France Internationale that some meetings sealing the group’s formation in late December were held in El Geneina in Darfur, western Sudan.

Creation of a continental watchdog on education and culture, progress towards the African Economic Community and changes to the African Union corporate identity are expected to dominate this month's AU summit in the Sudan. Heads of state and government of the AU meet in Khartoum, Sudan, from 23-24 January for the sixth ordinary session of the continental body. The conference, to be held under the theme "Education and Culture", is expected to discuss the state of the continent's education sector and consider a proposal by Sudan for the establishment of the African Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (AFESCO).

Ethiopian government is using intimidation, arbitrary detentions and excessive force in rural areas of Ethiopia to suppress post-election protests and all potential dissent, Human Rights Watch said today (January 13) after a research trip to Addis Ababa and the Oromia and Amhara regions. “The Ethiopian government is violently suppressing any form of protest and punishing suspected opposition supporters,” said Peter Takirambudde, director of Human Rights Watch's Africa Division. “Donor governments should insist on an independent, credible investigation into abuses by federal police and local officials in rural as well as urban areas.” 

The foreign minister of Sao Tome and Principe has resigned after coming under widespread criticism for spending nearly US $500,000 of aid from Morocco without reference to other members of the government. Meanwhile, a group of disgruntled police officers firing guns in the air has seized the main police station in the capital to protest at unpaid salaries and poor working conditions, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa.

"The heart of the local government elections, then, is a contest over the politics of space," writes Raj Patel from the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Centre for Civil Society in a recent commentary about South Africa's upcoming local elections. "On the one hand are shack-dwellers who believed, and still believe, in the ideals of desegregation, of the possibility of rich and poor and black and white living side by side. On the other hand lie local councillors seeking to fence the rich from the poor - councillors who, faced by questions of redistribution from within their own party, can only remain mute."

Africa spends US$4 billion per year, representing 35% of total official development aid to the continent, to employ some 100,000 Western experts. These are recruited to perform functions generically described as 'technical assistance', which could have been done by African experts lost to the brain drain of the western world.

Research by Nkuzi Development Association and Social Surveys indicates that farm evictions continue unabated in the post-apartheid era. The number of people displaced from farms between 1994 and the end of 2004 was 1.8 million and another 942 000 people were evicted in the same period. Only 1% of evictions went through a court process.

The international commitment to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) presents both opportunities and risks for persons belonging to ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. Minorities are among the poorest in most countries and so attention to issues such as poverty, primary education, health and housing can help to improve minorities' human development. There is a genuine risk, however, that the strategies used to achieve the MDGs will be less beneficial for minority groups, might increase inequalities and may harm some minority communities.

The Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal is seeking applicants for the post of outreach officer, based in Durban. The outreach officer will do the following work:
* help coordinate Centre efforts in popular education.
* help steer the Centre's outreach work in local communities.
* contract and manage the writing or translation of one article for the CCS website per month.
* personally translate one article on the CCS website into a South African language other than English each month.
* liase with the editors of appropriate websites with a view to sharing information.
* assist community organisations, NGOs, labour and social movements with the development of websites.
* assist with the Centre's workshop and film projects and their proposed extension off campus and into communities.
* assist with management of the Centre's resource centre.
* participate in the intellectual life of the Centre.

EDITORIALS: Hopes are high that a new wave of women leadership will result in real changes for the life of African women. But will it? Salma Maoulidi investigates the case of Tanzania
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS: Focus on Free and Open Source Software (FLOSS)
- Soenke Zehle examines the practicalities, politics and debates surrounding the emerging FLOSS movement
- Sokari Ekine says switching to FLOSS is not so much a change in software as a change in culture
- Karoline Kemp looks at the benefits of freeing yourself from the grip of Microsoft domination
LETTERS: Readers debate the new Diaspora and South Africa under Thabo Mbeki
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine reviews what African bloggers are saying about Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajedeen Abdul-Raheem wants to know if Mama Ellen can deliver liberty to Liberia?
AFRICAN UNION WATCH: Irungu Houghton on civil society engagement with the African Union
CONFLICTS & EMERGENCIES: “We will shut you down,” militants tell oil companies in the Niger Delta
HUMAN RIGHTS: How can the African Union maintain its credibility in Darfur when it holds a summit in Khartoum?
REFUGEES & FORCED MIGRATION: UNHCR granted more time to interview Sudanese refugees in aftermath of Cairo massacre
ELECTIONS & GOVERNANCE: Calls to address Ethiopian post-election crisis; the politics of space in South Africa; on the campaign trail with the Ugandan president
WOMEN & GENDER: Campaign update from the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights Coalition
DEVELOPMENT: World Social Forum kicks off in Bamako, Mali; Africa Spends US$4bn a Year On Western Expatriates
CORRUPTION: Kenya spends 800 million on luxury vehicles
HEALTH & HIV/AIDS: Lessons from an African response to the HIV/AIDS crisis
EDUCATION: Chomsky joins academic freedom row in South Africa
MEDIA & FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Libyan cyber-dissident Al Mansouri completes a year in prison
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: Corporates and mainstream media gloss over Martin Luther King’s denunciation of America
INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY: Africa Open Source 11 wraps up in Uganda
FUNDRAISING & USEFUL RESOURCES: How to make the transition from fundraising to development
COURSES, SEMINARS & WORKSHOPS: Strategies for ratification and rights realization
PLUS…Jobs, Books and Arts

Soenke Zehle traverses the virtual world of Free and Open Source Software (FLOSS), examining the practicalities, the politics and the debates surrounding an emerging movement that rivals the multinational software companies.

With a host of corporations, foundations, and organisations active in the fields of advocacy and assistance, free and open source software (FLOSS) has become a dynamic area of info-developmental cooperation. In the eminently pragmatic approach adopted by many of these efforts, the intense controversy over free vs. open source software and the extent to which advocacy should stress freedom over commercial applicability somehow seems a thing of the past. At the same time, the focus on FLOSS as an economic strategy of autonomous development within a global network of capitalism rather than a post-capitalist practice of collaborative creation recalls some of the general ambivalences at the heart of software-political struggles (1).

FOSSFA

In many African countries where computer users are not necessarily owners, important choices are often made by those in charge of establishing public ICT infrastructures. While many companies and organisations have chosen to adopt FLOSS on their own, the status of governments as the largest procurers of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) means that government action is bound to stimulate industry in various ways, including the provision of FLOSS training and support. The recently founded Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA), currently headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, has therefore identified national ICT policy and procurement procedures as major advocacy targets (2). For Bildad Kagai, co-founder and one of its secretaries, the licensing, localisation, and local skill building advantages of FLOSS, coupled with ‘leapfrogging’ technologies like wireless that help skip an entire generation of expensive infrastructural investments, offer an alternative to the technological dependency and resource drain associated with an exclusive reliance on mainstream proprietary software.

Given the many problems that beset the ICT sector in Africa, FLOSS advocacy is inevitably tied to political reforms in contracting, public services, and competition policy, as well as the creation of FLOSS related employment and business opportunities. FOSSFA has created an effective advocacy coalition: Kenya’s ICT policy now gives preference to open source (and open standards) over proprietary solutions, and FOSSFA also convinced the Committee on Development Information of the Economic Commission for Africa (CODI) to adopt a policy that prioritises FLOSS.

This is no small feat, given that many African states have yet to articulate any ICT policy whatsoever, and FOSSFA is also educating policy makers across the continent about FLOSS (3). The 2004 Idlelo meeting in Cape Town, co-organised by FOSSFA and the African Virtual Open Initiatives and Resources Project (AVOIR) at Western Cape University, was the ‘First African Conference on the Digital Commons’ (4). Bringing some 200 FLOSS activists and developers from across the continent together with international researchers, Idlelo emphasised the need to shift from the mere adoption of FLOSS to the local development of FLOSS applications, the use of FLOSS in education, and the development of non-proprietary open content alternatives. Hoping to be able to recruit government representatives from all 53 African states, Idlelo 2 has already been scheduled for 2006 (5).

South Africa Goes Open Source

The breakdown of Idlelo participants by country reveals the uneven geography of IT development in Africa: by far the largest contingent came from South Africa, followed by Nigeria and Kenya (6). South Africa’s influence in the African FLOSS movement is related to its dominance of the African IT sector at large. But there are other reasons, one of which is the impact of projects sponsored by Mark Shuttleworth (7). Shuttleworth, a South African celebrity entrepreneur known for his space travel – Shuttleworth was the first ‘afronaut’ – as well as his philanthropic ambition, has overseen the development of Ubuntu (an already-popular linux distribution updated in regular release cycles) and his Shuttleworth Foundation has co-launched a nation wide ‘Go Open Source’ campaign (8).

But is South Africa ‘really’ Africa? FOSSFA’s Kagai notes that ICT developments in South Africa are not representative of Africa at large, and some see in the ideas of an ‘African Renaissance’ less a new Pan-Africanism than a mere culturalisation of South Africa’s own economic and geopolitical ambition (12).

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, FLOSS has not been an easy sell. One reason, suggests Ethan Zukerman, might be the overemphasis on free beer at the expense of free speech; a reference to Richard Stallmann’s famous definition of free software (15). Zukerman, a co-founder of GeekCorps – ‘an international non-profit organisation that transfers tech skills from geeks in developed nations to geeks in emerging nations’ – and initiator of ‘BlogAfrica’, believes that many African users continue to associate ‘inexpensive’ with ‘inferior’, a legacy of technology transfer and appropriate technology projects that sometimes amounted to little more than the dumping of obsolete technology (16). And in areas where non-licensed copies of proprietary software are widely available as well as a great deal of corresponding ‘street’ expertise, comparatively expensive manuals and a lack of bandwidth for accessing online support can easily increase the total cost of ownership of non-proprietary alternatives generally assumed to be ‘free’. FLOSS advocates should stress the expandability, transparency and resulting high performance of their software instead.

While a growing number of studies make an empirically based case for FLOSS in general, less is known about the experiences of FLOSS adoption across Africa (17). One such report has been published by Bridges.org, an international NGO with offices in South Africa and the US (18). FLOSS, concludes the report, has become a mainstream alternative. Yet because of the level of expertise required to establish and maintain a FLOSS based computer lab, it tends to work better in large projects that have the resources to address the practical problems of migration, training, and support, in contrast to individual labs that can simply take advantage of proprietary solutions that are already in place.

Info-Political Visions

Beyond the issue of appropriate means, how do the local politics of software relate to competing visions of what ‘info-development’ is and should be about? In the larger info-political vision that frames local decisions over software and standards, questions of autonomy are central, frequently articulated in response to the hegemonic presence of corporate software and IT giants. FLOSS advocates have criticised the most recent wave of international public private partnerships in this area, for example, because they involve only the usual transnational suspects. Microsoft, HP, and Cisco are all well represented in the activities of major development agencies, advertising themselves as ‘partners in development’ to promote ICTs as the vehicles for ‘good governance’ and ‘effective service delivery’, but also to stake out their own commercial claims, crowd out grassroots or public sector alternatives, and subvert South-South cooperation.

Take SchoolNet Namibia (19). Having to work with substantially fewer resources than the Shuttleworth Foundation, SchoolNet has nevertheless set up FLOSS-based thin client networks in over a hundred schools, launched an ISP to offer subsidised internet service, and is exploring the set up of wireless access in rural areas. Once they had found that students were a lot more likely to embrace FLOSS than their teachers, and standard advocacy tools were not doing much to change that, SchoolNet launched Hai Ti (‘Listen Up!’), a comic strip that features real life FLOSS users (20). Its contractual agreement with schools specifies that the teams who manage the local computer lab include students as well as teachers. Yet occasionally, SchoolNet finds that their FLOSS-LANs remain unmaintained while students use equipment donated by Microsoft and administered with support from MS certified engineers. Executive director Joris Komen is convinced that Microsoft has targeted Namibian schools specifically because SchoolNet Namibia has become an outspoken critic of the company and its philosophy (21).

Commenting on recent agreements between Microsoft and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Bildad Kaigai of FOSSFA agrees that such deals work to confine the software choices these agencies can make and effectively transfer wealth away from an emergent local software industry. Kagai calls on African leaders to emulate the successful development strategies of Asian countries instead (22).

Other ICT analysts note, however, that African countries will have to do so under dramatically different circumstances. Yash Tandon stresses that “most of the so-called ‘technology transfers’ ... are essentially excuses for transnational corporations (TNCs) to take over local companies, or to carve out a share of the domestic markets” (23). Rather than “stripping naked” to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) from the North, Tandon also makes the case for the “creation of a home based Domestic Scientific and Technology Capacity (DSTC), including capacity to undertake relevant research and development, the actual purchase (as opposed to transfer) of appropriate technology from the open market, and a transfer of technology, preferably between South-South, only under certain conditions.”

It seems that third worldist strategies sustained by a generalised critique of neocolonialism have been replaced by the exhausting creation of advocacy networks that hold local governments just as accountable as transnational corporations (24). Yet while visions of Africa’s future have sobered significantly, the emergent dynamic of South-South cooperation still echoes a tricontinentalist spirit. Brazil’s official commitment to what its minister of culture, Gilberto Gil, has refererred to as a ‘tropicalisation’ of open source has been a major push for FLOSS advocacy in Africa (25).

An increasing “post-third wordlist” cooperation is visible in other international info-political fora as well. One example is the campaign for a “WIPO Development Agenda” and a Treaty for Access to Knowledge, supported by a broad coalition of southern governments as well as grassroots organisations (26). The World Intellectual Property Organisation is a UN agency whose current mandate is “the maintenance and further development of the respect for intellectual property throughout the world”.

In the eyes of its critics, this mandate limits WIPO to the role of an enforcer of Euro-American positions on intellectual property, supporting the WTO’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) as well as at least condoning the aggressive ‘TRIPS-Plus’ bilateralism both the US and the EU have engaged in to effectively bypass the ongoing review process of key TRIPS provisions (27). The access-to-knowledge campaign puts the question of FLOSS and the struggle over open standards in a much broader context. WIPO defines creativity in relation to the prospect of proprietisation, as culture is defined as the creation of private property. The FLOSS controversy, on the other hand, is not just about reducing the cost of running a computer lab, but over the implications of its approach to “commons-based peer production” (Yochai Benkler): i.e. processes of collaborative creation and an information and knowledge commons actively enlarged in opposition to the “second enclosure” (James Boyle) associated with an ever expanding IPR regime (28).

Take the role of FLOSS developers. Rishab Ghosh, FLOSS Program Leader at the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT), stresses that licensing costs do matter, especially when GDP is taken into account (29). But another key emphasis in his studies on FLOSS in developing countries is on the skills-building in FLOSS networks. In addition to standard developer skills, open source communities address, almost by default, questions of copyright law and licensing, and introduce users to new forms of collaborative creation.

Info-Political Pragmatism

Ghosh has been a major global FLOSS advocate, and his projects specifically address the use of FLOSS outside Europe. Yet some of his economic arguments are based on the assumption that proprietary alternatives are not locally produced. What Ghosh describes as the benefits of “deep access” offered by locally developed FLOSS applications – customisation, quick bug fixing, as well as the re-use of code in other applications – is exactly how Herman Chinery-Hesse, CEO of Ghana’s successful Soft Tribe, describes his own approach (31). All of Soft’s software is based on “tropically relevant” code, Chinery-Hesse’s reference to the full spectrum of constraints he associates with local computer use: frequent savings to disk help deal with power failures and work offline lowers costs for online access. In the case of Soft’s document management software for the Ghana Human Rights Commission, storage on remote servers addresses possible interruptions caused by a change in government. And unlike Ubuntu, Soft’s applications are optimised for the low-end hardware that dominates Ghana’s offices and cybercafés.

Soft trains the majority of Ghana’s programmers, often left to their own devices in poorly equipped computer science departments. Yet Chinery-Hesse thinks that FLOSS would impede the development of a local software industry, as developers would, he worries, be reduced to installers of pre-existing applications. His main concern, however, seems to be possible tampering with the code both by users and competitors – Chinery-Hesse fears internal mismanagement and has no interest in interoperability that could threaten Soft’s pole position in the local software market. Soft rarely releases beta versions, software does not have an auto-install function, and bug fixes are not generally released. Evidence of Chinery-Hesse’s entrepreurial pragmatism, he has also entered into a cooperation agreement with Microsoft, hoping to take advantage of its global distribution channels to bring an add on from Ghana to desktops around the world.

For Guido Sohne, a former Soft employee and vocal FLOSS advocate, Soft’s deal with Microsoft is a form of technology transfer rather than a simple sell-out, prompted by the departure of some of its key developers without whom their previous portfolio of applications could no longer be maintained (32). Sohne left in part because Soft did not want to explore FLOSS-based alternatives to address this development impasse. Microsoft is there to stay, but it looks like Soft’s emergent competitors are already relying on FLOSS. So while Ghana’s developer community as a whole has not yet embraced FLOSS, this is likely to change.

In the current ‘Africanisation’ of the politics of software, the proprietary/non-proprietary divide is but one of several vectors. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise, given the hybrid dynamic of FLOSS itself. In her analyses of the cooperation between corporations and the FLOSS community, techno-feminist Yuwei Lin describes this process as “hybrid innovation”, marked as much by a sense of interdependence and mutuality as by unease over the irresolvable tension between commercial and community-oriented practices (33).

The dependence on corporate support illustrates the paradoxes of immaterial labour and suggests that common assumptions regarding the relationship between FLOSS and visions of a post-capitalist future be revisited. Often understood in terms of an anti-monopolistic practice, FLOSS is not, as such, anti-capitalist. One of the reasons for the popularity of the FLOSS paradigm is that it appears to be able to accommodate a wide range of visions of cultural, economic, and social transformation, from cyberlibertarian views of natural capitalism to the post-autonomist vision of a coming communism, actively anticipated by way of multitudinal self-organisation. Countercultural cachet notwithstanding, the high visibility of FLOSS as a mainstream alternative to proprietary software is due in large part to the support from corporations like IBM or Sun Microsystems, and the commitment to openness reverberates with an info-capitalism attempting to reinvent itself around concepts of trust and transparency.

And while the controversies over software licenses are so intense because their clauses redefine what property means in the network society, not all of FLOSS is geared toward an enlargement of the information commons. Following the popularity of user-defined license provisions like Creative Commons, Sun Microsystems has announced its own “Open Media Commons” initiative to develop FLOSS based digital rights management tools (34). FLOSS, already adopted by cost cutting governments across the world, is also easily aligned with state power – South Africa’s FLOSS and open content strategy includes, after all, the migration to FLOSS of its prison management systems (35). This makes one-size-fits-all approaches to the politics of software almost impossible, even more so in the context of African ICT controversies.

While it is too soon to say what transformative impact FLOSS efforts may already have had, examples like FOSSFA or SchoolNet show that FLOSS is not reducible to an imperial voluntarism out of sync with the “real” Africa. FLOSS‘s collaborative ethic is not a post-materialist luxury limited to those on the sunny side of the digital divide. Instead, the Africanisation of FLOSS in terms of an ‘ubuntu’ philosophy of sharing may soon connect to other collective efforts in a larger Pan-African vision of renewal. This project driven mainly from below is rarely included in the sovereign perspective of afro-pessimist prophecies accompanying the current wave of imperial nostalgia (36).

In his documentary [email protected], Congolese director Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda retrieves the story of the Ishango Bone, the oldest known table of prime numbers, to suggest that mathematics, and by implication the network society as a whole, needs to be given a new, Afrocentric genealogy. FLOSS advocacy may not have to go that far. Yet perhaps a discussion of software politics in Africa should not begin with the question of software, but with the contradictory images of Africa that linger in the collective post-colonial imagination.

* Soenke Zehle (s.zehle AT kein.org) teaches transcultural media studies at Saarland University, Germany. This is a shortened version of an article that first appeared in Mute Magazine (http://www.metamute.com). It is reproduced here with permission of the author.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

FOOTNOTES

1 For an account of free software vs open source software in terms of a struggle over discursive hegemony, see David Berry, ‘The Contestation of Code: A preliminary investigation into the discourse of the free/libre and open source movements’, Critical Discourse Studies 1.1 (April 2004), 65–89, http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/berry1.pdf

2 http://FOSSFA.net

3 Bildad Kagai and Nicolas Kimolo, ‘FOSSFA in Africa: Opening the Door to State ICT Development Agendas – A Kenya Case Study’, SSRC The Politics of Open Source Adoption (2005), http://www.ssrc.org/wiki/POSA; CODI, ‘Resolutions of the Fourth Meeting of the Committee on Development Information (CODI-IV)’, UNECA Commission on Development Information (23-28 April 2005), http://www.uneca.org/codi/codi4/codi_iv_report.pdf. See the country policy tables at: http://www.bridges.org/FLOSS/index.html

4 http://avoir.uwc.ac.za/

5 http://www.FOSSFA.net/idlelo2

6 Derek Keats, ‘Idlelo: First African Conference on the Digital Commons’, Final Report to Department of Science & Technology South Africa (2004), http://www.catia.ws/Documents/Indexpage/IdleloFinalReport.pdf

7 http://www.markshuttleworth.com

8 http://www.ubuntulinux.org, http://www.go-opensource.org/

9 http://www.freedomtoaster.org/, http://www.go-opensource.org/go_open

10 http://www.edubuntu.org/, http://www.tuxlab.org.za/
A thin client is a computer (client) in client-server architecture networks which have very few resources, so it has to depend primarily on the central server for processing activities. A thin client network centralises maintenance tasks on a (remote) server

11 http://wiki.go-opensource.org/taskforce

12 For a middle of the road assessment of the African Renaissance, see Elias K. Bongmba, ‘Reflections on Thabo Mbeki’s African Renaissance’, Journal of Southern African Studies 30.2 (June 2004). For more critical views, see Neil Lazarus, ‘The South African Ideology: The Myth of Exceptionalism, the Idea of Renaissance,’ South Atlantic Quarterly 103.4 (Fall 2004), 607-28, and Neville Alexander, ‘South Africa – Example or Illusion?’ An Ordinary Country: Issues in the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa, New York: Berghahn Books, 2003, 137-73, 188-90

13 John Perry Barlow, ‘Africa Rising,’ Wired 6.01 (1998) http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.01/barlow_pr.html

14 http://www.balancingact-africa.com/

15 Ethan Zukerman, ‘Free Beer Doesn’t Sell’, Linux Journal 111 (July 2003) http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6785

16 http://www.geekcorps.org/, http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/

17 David Wheeler, ‘Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FLOSS)? Look at the Numbers!’, (May 2005) http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

18 Bridges.org, ‘Comparison study of Free/Open Source and Proprietary Software in an African context: implementation and policy-making to optimise community access to ICT’ (May 2005) http://www.bridges.org/software_comparison/index.html

19 http://www.schoolnet.na/

20 http://www.schoolnet.na/haiti

21 http://tatejoris.blogspot.com

22 Bildad Kagai, ‘FOSSFA responds to Microsoft-UNDP Deal’ (Feb 2004), http://FOSSFA.net

23 Yash Tandon, ‘An Alternative View on Technology’, SEATINI (Sept 2004), http://www.seatini.org/publications/factsheets/technology.htm

24 Thandika Mkandawire, ‘Good Governance: The Itinerary of an Idea’, D C Development and Cooperation 31.10 (01 Oct 2004) http://www.inwent.org/E Z/content/archive-eng/10-2004/tribune_art1.html

25 Rebecca Wanjiku, ‘Brazil opens its arms to Africa’, Highway Africa News Agency (05 April 2005) http://www.highwayafrica.ru.ac.za/hana/textviewer.asp?item_id=339

26 http://www.cptech.org/a2k/, http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/dev_agenda/, http://www.access2knowledge.org/cs/

27 Peter Drahos and John Brathwaite, ‘Who Owns the Knowledge Economy? Political Organising Behind TRIPS’, Corner House Briefings (Sept 2004), http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/briefing/32trips.pdf, also see http://www.bilaterals.org/

28 Yochai Benkler, ‘Coase’s Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm’ (2002) http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html; James Boyle, ‘A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism For the Net?’ (1997) http://www.law.duke.edu/boylesite/intprop.htm

29 Rishab Ghosh, ‘Free/Libre/Open Source Software for developing countries: skills, employment and costs’, 2nd National Congress on Software Libre, Buenos Aires, Argentina (07 June 2005), http://www.flossproject.org/papers.htm

30 http://www.eriders.net

31 G. Pascal Zachary, ‘The African Hacker,’ IEEE Spectrum Online (Aug 2005), http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/aug05/0805ahac.html

32 My assessment of Soft is based on an email exchange with Guido Sohne (Sept 2005). Also see http://sohne.net.

33 Yuwei Lin, ‘Hybrid Innovation: How Does the Collaboration Between the FLOSS Community and Corporations Happen?’ Knowledge, Technology and Policy 18.2 (Summer 2005), http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/lin4_hybrid.pdf

34 http://www.openmediacommons.org/. As the history of commons-based resource management systems shows, ‘commons’ doesn’t necessarily imply the free-for-all often associated with it, and it is not necessarily obvious – a point made frequently by advocates of indigenous and traditional knowledge databases, for example – that ‘commons’ and ‘access restrictions’ are mutually exclusive; what emerges instead are ‘hybridised’ commons that take the information needs of specific communities into account.

35 http://wiki.go-opensource.org/taskforce/CorrectProj

36 Martin Meredith, The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence, London: Free Press, 2005; Seumas Milne, ‘Britain: imperial nostalgia’, Le Monde Diplomatique (May 2005). Also see Chris Landsberg and Shaun Mckay, ‘Engaging the new Pan-Africanism’, Centre for Policy Studies (Sept 2005) http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001537/CSO-Guide_pan-africanism_2005...

So you’re thinking of going open source? Karoline Kemp looks at the benefits of freeing yourself from the grip of Microsoft domination, touching on issues of cost, accessibility and participation, but also cautioning that issues of infrastructure and compatibility need to be taken into account. The article ends with a listing of useful resources related to open source.

Free and open source software is not a new concept or tool, but is only beginning to gain in popularity. This too is the case in Africa, where, by its very nature, it is beneficial for organisations working with few resources. By way of a brief introduction to Free and open source software (FLOSS), a definition may be useful. Wikipedia defines FLOSS as “computer software and the availability of its source code as open source under an open source license to study, change, and improve its design.” FLOSS has over the years become an area of increased interest, not least because, as University of California FLOSS expert Steve Weber has stated: “Software determines how information is manipulated, where it flows, to whom, and for what reasons.”

That said, FLOSS’s growing popularity can be put down to a number of reasons. These can be identified as the following:

- Reduced costs and less dependency on imported technology and skills;
- Affordable software for individuals, enterprise and government;
- Universal access through mass software rollout without costly licensing implications;
- Access to government data without barrier of proprietary software and data formats;
- Ability to customise software to local languages and cultures;
- Lowered barriers to entry for software businesses;
- Participation in global network of software development;
- Supplier independence;
- Patches or updates become available quicker, which limits breakdowns and security risks.

A further examination of these benefits reveals the following.

Free and open source software is free in the sense that its code is free, and can thus be changed and manipulated. The difference between FLOSS and proprietary software is that there are no restrictions coming from patents, copyrights, licensing fees, etc. Because the code for FLOSS is free, it can be run for any purpose and further, can be studied, adapted, improved and then redistributed. It may not necessarily be free monetarily, but is often much cheaper than proprietary software.

The potentials for FLOSS to NGOs to become autonomous from corporate providers are also notable. Not only does this address economic issues, but it also gives the freedom of self-reliance. This means that NGOs using FLOSS can reduce their dependence on external technology providers. They also own what they have developed, thus building on capacity development. If a community owns their resources – understands how it works, adapts it for their specific purposes and takes pride in the fact that they have reclaimed something that was once not a part of their own infrastructure, then capacity is built.

FLOSS also has a political role to play. Not only does it offer a commercial alternative to Microsoft domination, but it also puts software into the hands of people, making it a freely available public good. This increases the choices available to users and means that software can meet a diversity of needs.

One of the primary advantages of FLOSS is its capacity to be customized and localized.
FLOSS can be used by anyone, but can be advantageous to NGOs in a number of ways. Groups can run and operate computers with FLOSS that have been programmed to meet their specific needs and preferences. The possibilities for software customisation are unlimited.

Free and open source software can also be localized to meet local demands, including the use of local languages. This aspect has huge potential, as it makes accessibility to information and communications technology widespread. This involves writing software so that words appear in a different target language.

Governments are often the heaviest consumers of information and communication technologies in developing countries, thus their participation is paramount to the success of any open source initiative. Historically, research and development of ICTs have responded mainly to global market incentives. Because developing countries do not usually have the resources to invest in these sorts of schemes, they have often been left behind. FLOSS introduces the potential to close this digital divide, and this is one area where the government has a crucial role to play. In addition, both governments and non-governmental organisations in the developed world alike are increasingly becoming computer enabled, which means that they will favour interaction with countries in the developing world that are similarly enabled and can interact effectively with their information and management systems. FLOSS also has the potential to save governments large amounts of money, as well as make them less dependent on the developed world in general terms of technological and skills transfer. Long term cost savings may also occur as a result of reducing reliance on single sources and suppliers.

The development of FLOSS also represents a means for skills development and knowledge transfer. Local personnel can be trained in the field – organisations benefit, jobs are created and African programmers thus have the opportunity to participate in a global market. This potential also creates prospects for further involvement in creating and strengthening the traditional ICT field of a country - business opportunities are thus created.

There do exist certain problems with FLOSS in Africa. The primary pitfall of FLOSS is that it needs, from the outset, someone with enough IT knowledge to implement the software. Having the actual resources – computers and some initial software also pose challenges, as does the ability to pay IT staff. Having the appropriate infrastructure to support all of this is also a problem, but not one confined to FLOSS users. What is unique, however, is the problem of compatibility with other operating systems as well as hardware. Having to adapt software to make it fit with other operating systems poses a big challenge. Being able to find existing FLOSS is also difficult, as it is generally not advertised. Upon finding the appropriate software it is often accompanied by documentation that is not user friendly.

* Karoline Kemp is a Commonwealth of Learning Young Professional Intern assigned to Fahamu.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Sources/Further Reading:

Alternative Routes in the Digital World: Free and open source software in Africa. Victor van Reijswoud and Corrado Topi
http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/reijswoudtopi.pdf

Open Software & Open Standards in South Africa: A Critical Issue for Addressing the Digital Divide. National Advisory Council on Innovation (Open Software Working Group)
http://www.dst.gov.za/reports/discussion_docs/NACI%20opensource%20discus...

Open source software in Developing Economies. Steven Weber
http://www.ssrc.org/programs/itic/publications/ITST_materials/webernote2...

Open source software: Perspectives for Development. Paul Dravis
http://www.infodev.org/files/837_file_Open_Source_Software.pdf

Straight from the Source: Perspectives from the African Free and Free and open source software Movement. bridges.org in collaboration with the Tactical Technology Collective
http://www.tacticaltech.org/africasource/essay

The Politics of Open Source Adoption, NGO's in the Developing World. Gabriella Coleman
http://www.tacticaltech.org/SSRC_Report

Further links and reading:

NGO in a Box
http://ngoinabox.org/
(Offers peer reviewed and selected OSS tailored to the needs of NGOs)

Martus - http://www.martus.org/
(Offers software that allows users to document human rights abuses, upload them and store them on redundant servers around the world)

Nigerian Open Source Project
http://www.wazobiasoft.org/
(A Nigerian Open Source Project that aims to make software available in the three main Nigerian languages)

Ubuntu Linux
http://www.ubuntulinux.org
(OSS project based on the belief that OSS should be available free of charge, software tools should be useable in their own language and that people should be able to alter it)

Tactical Tech Conference http://www.tacticaltech.org/africasource2
Conference in Uganda in Free and Open Source Software in local communities. It is an eight day conference aimed at building the technical skills of those working with African NGOs

Open Source Africa
http://www.opensourceafrica.org
(Aims to bridge the information divide by raising awareness about the benefits (and pitfalls) of open source software on the ground in Africa.)

Open NGO
http://www.openngo.org/
(Builds OSS for non-profit, NGO and social sectors)

Freedom Toaster
http://www.freedomtoaster.org.za/
(Provides free OSS downloads across South Africa)

NonProfit Open Source Initiative
http://www.nosi.net
Informal group of non-profit sector tech providers interested in the way OSS could benefit their work

Source Forge
http://sourceforge.net/
Largest OSS website, hosting OS code and applications

Open Knowledge Network
http://www.openknowledge.net/
Among other things, OKN uses OSS for the creation, display and exchange of locally relevant information)

Linux Chix Africa
http://www.africalinuxchix.org/
(Linux training of trainers in South African Townships)

Resources:

Free and Open Source Software in Africa - http://www.FLOSSfa.net
(Promotes the use of OSS in Africa and partners with the Health, Education, and Government Departments to meet ICT objectives in Africa)

Shuttleworth Foundation
http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/
(Supports education and social development through technology, including OSS)

Opensource Initative
http://www.opensource.org/
(Non-profit corporation dedicated to managing and promoting OSS for the good of the community)

Association for Progressive Communications
http://www.apc.org/english/index.shtml
(International network of CSOs dedicated to supporting social justice through the strategic use of technology, including the internet)

Tectonic - http://www.tectonic.co.za/
(Source for African OSS news)

African Union heads of state and government meet in Khartoum, Sudan, from 23-24 January for the sixth ordinary session of the continental body. Human rights groups have protested against the decision to hold the summit in Khartoum, due to the continuing conflict in the Darfur region of the country. For the latest news, information and statements coming out of the summit, visit http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/ In the article below, Irungu Houghton tackles the subject of civil society engagement with the African Union, noting that as 2007 nears a series of important events offer the opportunity to “get things right”. He concludes that: “With the completion of the AU Strategic Plan, 2007 marks the first major review moment for understanding the progress towards the union. The year is also very powerfully symbolic in that it also marks the year in which the World Social Forum will take place in Nairobi, Kenya. It will also mark the advent of celebrations towards the 50th anniversary of Ghanaian and Guinean independence and 200 years since the abolition of slavery. Within this context, we cannot but remained inspired that Africa can, and must move to new heights of relationships between its states and its peoples before 2007.”

“We continue to interact with civil society groups at various levels. On a generic level, a civil society desk has been established at the NEPAD Secretariat with a view to having a one-stop focal point for civil society. At a sector level, all programmes are being implemented in consultation with relevant civil society groups. However, it must be noted that the level and extent of civil society participation in the implementation of NEPAD programmes is largely dependent on the capacity of civil society groups.” - Prof. W.L Nkuhlu, Former Chief Executive, The New Partnership for Africa’s Development, June 2005

"The Economic, Social and Cultural Council of the African Union (ECOSOCC) must be against authoritarian regimes, hostile external efforts and the negative waves of globalization ...You should be by the side of those who suffer injustice and are deprived of their basic human rights." - H.E. Alpha Oumar Konare, Chairman, African Union Commission at launch of ECOSOCC, March 2005.

“Many colleagues in the NGO sector have cited instances when they have been asked if they would facilitate an interface between civil society and some public institution – at first because the institution wanted to look good in the eyes of some donor or other. More recently though, it appears that creative leaders are starting to recognize the value that comes from engaging broadly and seeking wide participation of all stakeholders.” - Ezra Mbogori, in Landsberg C. & Mckay C, Engaging the new Pan-Africanism: Strategies for Civil Society Paper

The establishment of the key facilitating structures for CSO and parliamentary participation within the African Union and NEPAD over 2005 come mid-way in the African Union Strategic Plan (2004-2007). Experience so far, suggests that the vision of a people driven Pan Africanism is yet to be translated into sustainable relationships in practice. The experience so far suggests that partnership between African CSOs and continental institutions would be more mutually respectful if they were re-designed around principles of solidarity, inclusion and autonomy. Until then, partnership will remain stuck at a very minimal level of the more comprehensive project of building a pan African consciousness and citizenship in Africa.

With the completion of the AU Strategic Plan, 2007 marks the first major review moment for understanding the progress towards the union. The year is also very powerfully symbolic in that it also marks the year in which the World Social Forum will take place in Nairobi, Kenya. It will also mark the advent of celebrations towards the 50th anniversary of Ghanaian and Guinean independence and 100 years since the abolition of slavery.

Making the links with Continental Citizenship, Public Accountability and Governance

Theories of citizenship often draw from the relationship between citizens and their rights and responsibilities and states and their duties and obligations on the other. Good governance is built on the understanding that the state is accountable to the public for the stewardship of public resources, public services and the upholding of the rights of its citizens (2). This model is only partially true for the path that the AU, NEPAD and even the RECs have embarked upon. In the absence of a basic state infrastructure such as the African passport, a Cape to Cairo driving licence, the Afro note, payment of taxes and delivery of public services, the concept of a collective Pan African citizenship seems remote. For this reason, it is in the development of a pan African consciousness and the willingness to struggle for the realisation of common continental rights standards such as the African Charter for Human and Peoples Rights and its Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa that African citizenship can be built. Nurturing and deepening actions by civil society organisations around the policies and programmes of continental integration is one important way of accelerating pan African consciousness. To illustrate this further, any observer of continental institutions can see the upward accountability to Heads of States. Yet, downward accountability is still very unclearly defined with certain consequences.

Travelling as a Kenyan, in Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Nigeria, I used to be struck by the negative comments of ordinary citizens to the travelling of their Heads of States. The Pan African project was often seen as competing for scarce national resources – the attention of the President and senior officials, the national budget and so on. With a number of active Presidents coming to the end of their terms or losing their credibility by refusing to keep to theirs, it is important to think about succession issues. Who will replace Mbeki, Wade, Mkapa and Obasanjo? Will it be Kikwete, Sirleaf-Johnson or Nkurunziza? Will public opinion demand that the new crop of leaders protect and expand the existing path or will it swallow them in a myriad of local and national concerns?

Background and the Promise

It is in the light of the quotes by Nkuhlu, Konare and Mbogori that the establishment of three critical structures namely the African Parliament (May 2004), The Economic, Social and Cultural Council of the African Union (ECOSOCC), (March 2005) and the NEPAD CSO Think Tank launch (December 2005) find their relevance (3). On the one hand, the urgency at which Africa must take new and radical steps towards the universal realisation of human rights, economic and social justice and on the other, the critical imperative for a form of governance that is accountable and consistently responsive to Africa’s 870 million people.

Elsewhere, Charles Mutasa has provided a useful history of AU-CSO relations going back fifteen years to the Arusha Charter on Popular Participation (1990). Despite it’s recognition of the need for African governance to fully integrate African civil society in order for them to define the long term development policies of the continent, “the charter of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) made no reference to African civil society and OAU ... invited African Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to participate in some of its meetings and structures as observers”.

This framework did not allow for direct participation of CSO representatives at the meetings and had no reporting or follow-up systems. Furthermore, it enabled the widespread perception of the OAU as a meeting of elite leaders to persist. More serious attempts to integrate public participation in the public affairs of the continent took form after 2001 with a number of Summit declarations and decisions that sought to make CSOs not be observers of the African Union proceedings but be an integral part of the organization's decision and policymaking process. The Economic, Social and Cultural Council of the African Union (ECOSOCC), established under the founding charter of the African Union, defined African civil society as an advisory organ and explicitly invites African civil society through its various organisations to fully participate in the institutions of the Union (4).

New Energies bring new Possibilities

In 2005, a small but growing number of African CSOs and alliances are at the forefront of advocating continentally and globally on a range of human rights and equity issues. They are currently engaging the African Union Commission, Pan African Parliament, NEPAD, African Development Bank and the offices of other regional and sub regional organisations such as IGADD, ECOWAS, and SADEC (5). It is clear over 2004-2005 that CSOs have been able to engage effectively to influence continental policies and practices in as diverse areas as HIV/AIDS strategy development (March 2005), Bejing+10 review (September 2005), WTO Inter-Ministerial Conferences (September 2003) and trade meetings (African Trade Ministers Meetings, 2003-2005).

Other important joint advocacy initiatives include work on human rights reporting and the state’s responsibility to protect civilians in Darfur, streamlining the establishment of an African Court of Justice, lobbying for greater protection for journalists and calls for an end to impunity for crimes against humanity and the arrests and indictment of Taylor and Habre among others. The coming into force of the AU Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (2004-2005) on November 25 within a remarkably short period of time is a good example of what can be done.

Together with their international allies, African CSOs are also campaigning for global economic and social justice at the various international Summits including the G8 Summit, the World Summit, the Information Summit, World Bank and IMF meetings and the 6th WTO Interministerial. Significant and progressive calls for alternatives to a world economic and political order that keeps Africa disempowered and economically unviable have emerged as part of the World Social Forum. Leading up to the WSF in Nairobi in 2007, their vision that “another world is possible” will become a central theme in Africa (7).

2005 saw also the emergence of the largest single anti-poverty alliance in the world, The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP). African civil society leaders have been instrumental in expanding the movement both in Africa to 17 countries and across the world (8).

The SOAWR campaign reflects important lessons for CSO-AU relationships. It is clear that the open door policy by the AUC office of the Cabinet, the Commissioner for Political Affairs and some key Ambassadors enabled an autonomous constituency of women’s organisations to amplify the AUC call for countries to sign and ratify the Protocol. The Protocol has now come to force, the fastest coming into force of a Protocol in the history of the AU/OAU. Members of GCAP successfully sought access to the working papers of the NEPAD Heads of States and position papers for the G8 Summit. Furthermore, NEPAD secured space for African CSOs to participate in the African Partnership Forum.

Current Circumstances and Challenges

Despite these new energies, it is clear that we are far from seeing them as mainstream to the affairs of continental institutions. During the middle of 2005, thirty African CSO leaders were interviewed at length on CSO-AU relations. Overall, the study revealed very limited knowledge among CSOs about the AU, NEPAD and other key organs, their roles and policy-making processes. Due to their proximity to the respective offices, Southern African NGOs are relatively more familiar with NEPAD, whilst NGOs in Ethiopia know relatively more about the AU Commission. When asked whether they were aware that the AU has opened political space for dialogue with CSOs most said they were, but had very little knowledge of how this has happened and what the entry points were.

Communication between CSOs and continental institutions was described as reactive and ad hoc. It was interesting to note that individuals from CSOs and pan African secretariats spoke about the other in non-institutionalised terms thus; “good communication depends on who you know”, but often there is “no feedback”. For these reasons, the current accountability mechanisms remain weak.

Despite good intentions, it would not be unfair to say that African CSOs have insufficient capacity to monitor the fulfilment of agreed promises, policies and commitments by the African Union and related institutions on the full range of issues that are vital to the people of the continent (9). There are few independent networks and mechanisms for monitoring the effectiveness and impact of the decisions by African institutions. If this is the case for a particularly well-resourced and better-positioned constituency, then the vision of a people-driven AU is even further.

Citizens of Africa have extremely limited opportunities to participate and/or scrutinise strategic continental policy documents and processes during their conception, drafting, implementation and review. Even relatively well informed and educated individuals working for African CSOs have frankly exposed how little they know about the AU and its functions and the work of other sub regional organisations. Consequently, this has hampered ownership building with wider constituencies and marred the outcome of important policy development. Currently, important debates on universalising access to essential medicine are taking place without the participation of people living with AIDs. This pattern robs the AU and specialised agencies of the possibility of building public opinion across Africa and safeguarding the emergence of new Pan Africanist leadership long after the current crop of leaders have gone.

Overall, CSOs and citizens in Africa are ill prepared to be able to articulate or express their needs, aspirations and policy priorities. The absence of pan African media (radio, newspapers and television), social and political divisions conspire to keep the pan African project too remote from the consciousness of the majority. Consequently, a large number of African citizens continue to hold onto the stereotypes that characterised the OAU namely, “as too remote”, “captured by political elites”, largely unaccountable and donor dependent” (10).

Old Contradictions strangle new Possibilities

The African Union Fifth Assembly of African heads of States in Sirte, Libya, 28 June to 5th July 2005 brought the momentum that was building up between the political leadership and African CSOs to a screeching halt. Discussions between members of ECOSOCC and the AUC revealed that there were no plans by the AUC to hold a civil society side-event that could feed into the Council of Ministers. Consequently there were no invitations for even leadership of ECOSOCC to attend the event. Through a separate process, Chairperson Hon Wangari Maathai attended and spoke at the meeting, but in the absence of a pre-consultation could not have been speaking on behalf of any specific constituency (11).

The failure of other activists to get visas to attend the AU Summit in Libya dislocated them from access to African political leadership three days before the G8 Summit. Attempts to request AUC help were met with this helpless response; “Dear colleagues, the Director has asked me to inform you that unfortunately due to host government guidelines, the AU will not be able to invite any more NGOs and other partners to the Summit in Libya. We hope to be able to invite your Group to such meetings in future”. (12)

Sankore and Odinkalu had sounded the warning bell nearly a month before the Summit in the following way. It is worth quoting extensively from their correspondence:

“Unlike with previous summits, there will be no AU facilitated civil society meeting preceeding the Summit in Libya. As there has been no official and public explanation by the AU, it is best not to speculate on why the expected meeting will not be holding.

The fact that it will not be holding it however raises important questions. The most obvious of which is - should African civil society be reliant on the AU to fund its pre summit meetings? A No answer has its implications, the major question being how then will it be funded. A Yes answer also has implications in respect of independence and ethical questions, especially given that the state, its agents and agencies in many African countries are the main violators of human, political, economic and social rights on the continent. This is not withstanding the fact that the AU as an institution has surpassed the expectations of many cynics in terms of its engagement with civil society and its vision for Africa. Nevertheless, the fact that the regular AU supported civil society meeting will not be holding will raise a question mark over the relationship of civil society with the AU with regards to summit arrangements. Will this be a one off situation? Will the next one be guaranteed to hold? How is it that African civil society's major annual meeting will not be holding in the very year when Africa and Africa's problems are the focus of the world? Is it that African civil society is so insignificant in the equation that the governments of Africa, Europe, America and the G8 can decide Africa's future without the input of civil society - even at a time when rock musicians and pop stars across the West can claim to have influence on the future of Africa. The issues of debt; gender equality; human rights and democracy; conflict, peace and security; HIV/AIDS; agriculture and food security and many more are too crucial to be left to drift for another year without African civil society input (13).”

It is partially this lack of engagement that led to the vast gap in the verdicts between African civil society and the African Union minutes after the G8 Communiqué was read (14).

This experience reveals areas of weaknesses in the relationship of CSOs to the AUC through ECOSOCC. It was unclear whether a budget existed for the pre-consultation or the process for laying claim on resources. There was not an alternative source of financing. The leadership of ECOSOCC were not sufficiently cohesive to act decisively and protect their space. Lastly, the host state was able to impose its very low public record of facilitating the inclusion of people and participation on the entire continent.

As the 6th Assembly approaches in Khartoum, Sudan, in January, many observers will be watching carefully to see whether pan African citizenship and democracy dies a second time. Should this be the case, then our resolve to resist the cynicism of one of my colleagues when she says “the African Union only exists in Durban, Maputo, Addis and Abuja, elsewhere, it cannot even operate towards the realisation of its own vision” will be further weakened.

Implications for new ways of working

For the remaining duration of the African Union Strategic Plan 2004-2007, the AU Commission, NEPAD, African Parliament, African Court of Justice and the Heads of State Summits are all expected to involve CSOs in their work. Yet for the AU vision of “an integrated Africa, a prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena” to become a reality, we need to realise some pre-conditions. Firstly, we would all require the principles of transparency and dialogue to become evident in the practise of these institutions.

Secondly, we would require the active and meaningful participation of civil society in African governance. If both pre-conditions were met and sustained, we could collectively, Governments and citizens, claim to have strengthened the accountability of the African Union and NEPAD to continental constituencies. Secondly, we would have increased the credibility of the political and economic integration process underway in Africa today. Over the next two years, great synergies could be harvested. We could see the Common African Position defined not as the position of African states but as the position of states and their peoples. To do this we must shift the current model of collaboration between continental policymaking institutions and African civil society organisations and their networks. Firstly, continental policy-making institutions have to see interaction with CSOs less as an opportunity for technical advise, funding and in-put on policy development but rather as the humble beginnings of a process that increases their own accountability to the public. Instrumentalising this relationship subverts the principles of inclusion and participation and reduces the desirability for expanding circles of influence and involvement to key interest groups such as associations of farmers, people living with AIDS, youth, women etc.

Secondly, lessons from ECOSOCC suggest that a more resilient model could be built around democratising information and resources. Bridging structures, in the case of NEPAD the think tank, must be enabled to in-put in the development of the annual planning and budgeting processes. Specific elements of this include the annual calendar, the overall budget and the specific budget for CSO engagement. CSOs need to be aware what spaces exist for participation, both at the level of the Secretariat as they prepare documents but also with the political leadership.

Thirdly, it should be recognised that in the light of the vast population of Africa, existing spaces and mechanisms are only minimum arrangements for people to speak at a continental level. Other mechanisms should be established for widening public feed-back. AU and NEPAD could explore with civil society organisations, the use of citizens report-cards, independent reports on the projects performance, public hearings and social audits among others. The language of roles and stakeholders displaces the language of rights, responsibilities and obligations. Partnerships will be more mutually respectful if we are able to establish greater predictability and agreement on what both parties are obligated to do. Applying this, it should be possible to answer for NEPAD and CSOs that engage it, what obligations must exist for public accountability to be nurtured and sustained? Does the AU and NEPAD have a duty to enable the independent voice of civil society? Do CSOs have a duty to respond the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes? If the answer to these questions is in the affirmative then African citizenship can emerge in this continent.

On the side of civil society, organisations must be more demanding on the continental institutions to go beyond providing invited spaces to ensuring that the obligations on public participation enshrined in all the documents that matter are upheld consistently. Making claims on how the institutions think and act (public policies and behaviour) is a tried and tested way of keeping these institutions relevant and responsive to the broader public. Maintaining an autonomous capacity is a pre-requisite for effective influencing and engagement. At this early stage, relying on the continental institutions to completely manage this engagement will more likely end up in the agenda of civil society being subsumed, subordinated or at best, reduced to what the people managing these institutions think they can manage. Independent budgets, constituency meetings and independent leadership structures are key to this.

Lastly, from an institutional design perspective on future CSO-AU/NEPAD relations, I would propose three values and make some suggestions on processes that would assist thus;

Values

Inclusion:

- AU/ NEPAD should include guarantees that civil society representatives and non-state actors will have access to establish side-events alongside the formal agenda of Summits and key conferences.

- AU/NEPAD should open up spaces within the formal meetings for civil society to speak directly to various fora including the African Partnership Forum and Summits.

- Annual calendar of events should be shared in advance.

- CSO participation should look towards widening the space and/or rotating involvement in a manner that consolidates a culture and experience of working continentally.

Solidarity:

- Expectations should be clarified in order to identify those that are shared and those that are distinct to either party. These should then be negotiated as agreements.

- NEPAD and AU Budgets and Plans should be accessible either through arrangements with CSOs or simply placed on the website.

Autonomy:

- NEPAD and CSOs should facilitate regular pre-consultations of civil society prior to important decision-making fora, but managed by the latter.

- CSOs should organise themselves to ensure that they have the capacity to deliver on the agreements it makes with NEPAD.

Conclusion

In the absence of increasing the number of voices and actions and improving the quality of CSO engagement at the continental level, there are two scenarios for us. Firstly, the Pan African project remains an add-on for “five star civil society” alone. AU and NEPAD staff manipulate CSO involvement and constrain them to what they can themselves manage. Secondly, even this privileged group gets frustrated and is inspired by more protest-based models to make their views heard. Insecurity and the fear of external challenges gives rise to eagles in the Secretariat who spend more time defending their institutions than promoting and expanding their interaction with African citizens.

A series of important events towards 2007 give us an opportunity to get things right. With the completion of the AU Strategic Plan, 2007 marks the first major review moment for understanding the progress towards the union. The year is also very powerfully symbolic in that it also marks the year in which the World Social Forum will take place in Nairobi, Kenya. It will also mark the advent of celebrations towards the 50 th anniversary of Ghanaian and Guinean independence and 200 years since the abolition of slavery. Within this context, we cannot but remained inspired that Africa can, and must move to new heights of relationships between its states and its peoples before 2007.

* Irungu Houghton is Pan Africa Policy Advisor for OxfamGB and can be reached on [email protected] and Tel: +254-202820155. The author wishes to acknowledges paper by Wordofa D., Odete E. and Andipatin P. Report on the Consultative Process for African CSO initiative to establish an independent facility, 20 July 2005 in the preparation of this paper. This paper was presented by invitation to the Launch of the NEPAD CSO think tank and induction workshop, Nairobi, December 14-16 th.

* Pleased send comments to [email protected]

Notes:

2 See papers within Naila Kabeer (ed) Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions 2005, Zed Books
3 While this paper largely focuses on the African Union and its specialised organs, the author recognises the importance of avenues for dialogue that have opened up in the ECA, ADB and other regions
4 Mutasa C. Is the African Union ECOSCC: a new dawn and a new deal?
5 Wordofa D., Odete E. and Andipatin P. Report on the Consultative Process for African CSO initiative to establish an independent facility, 20 July 2005
6 You can read about and join this campaign at www.pambazuka.org or send an email to [email protected].
7 See www.africansocialforum.org or www.enda.sn
8 See www.whiteband.org or www.gcapsms.org
9 It should be noted that International CSOs with operational presence in Africa are not relatively better poised despite access to more flexible resources.
10 Oxfam GB From Unity to Union: The Changes we seek, October 2994
11 In the light of civil society concerns over the capacity of a sitting Cabinet Minister to represent a civil society platform, this had further ramifications. 12 Name of the author of letter withheld
13 Sankore R. & Odinkalu C. African Civil Society and the African Union: Time for Self-Organisation? www.pambazuka.org, June 2005
14 Linda Odhiambo Are the African Union and Civil Society Organisations failing to find common cause in approaching the international community? Unpublished paper, August 2005
15 Full copy of the statement available at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/panafrica/downloads/ african_orgs_statement_g8.rtf

Visit http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/ to read a submission of the Coalition for an Effective African Court on Human & Peoples' Rights in respect of the election of Judges to the African Court this January 2006 AU Summit.

"We the representatives of more than 50 human rights institutions and non-governmental organizations meeting in Nairobi, Kenya from January 13th to 14th, 2006 representing African Civil Society are honored to present our compliments to your high Offices. We wish to express our deep concern with respect to the ongoing plans by the African heads of state and government to confer the AU Presidency for the year 2006-2007 on Sudan; and in particular to President Omar El-Bashir. We seriously believe that such an action will deeply undermine and erode the credibility of the AU and at the same time compromise the authority of its institutions."

“The MDC as an institution is hardly what we must be fighting to preserve or protect but rather the values that formed its formation and the formation of the broader progressive forces in Zimbabwe.” These were the words of well-known political analyst and human rights lawyer Brian Kagoro. Kagoro was speaking on the programme Hot Seat on the political crisis in the country and on how to salvage the opposition after the devastating effects caused by the infighting within the six year old opposition.

WITNESS uses the power of video to open the eyes of the world to human rights abuses. By partnering with local organizations around the globe, WITNESS empowers human rights defenders to use video as a tool to shine a light on those most affected by human rights violations, and to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools of justice. WITNESS is an independent nonprofit organization with an annual budget of $3,000,000 and a staff of nineteen. The Finance Manager is responsible for full range of financial management systems including fiscal analysis, budgeting, internal controls, audits and reports. The Finance Manager is a key member of WITNESS’ senior management team but operates as the only member of the Finance team. S/he reports to the Deputy Director and works closely with the WITNESS Board Treasurer, auditors and other members of the WITNESS Finance Committee.

The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) of the Norwegian Refugee Council is looking for an experienced Training Officer to strengthen the IDMC's training team. Mandated by the United Nations, the IDMC is the leading international body monitoring internal displacement worldwide and providing training on the protection of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to field-based actors. Target groups of IDMC's activities include national and local authorities, international agencies (UN and NGOs), local NGOs and leaders of displaced communities, and national human rights institutions.

The Coalition for Peace in Africa (COPA) is a membership network of individuals and organisations working for sustainable peace in Africa. It aims to be a resource for African wisdom and expertise able to respond effectively to the conflicts besetting different parts of Africa. It connects people working for peace and development, human rights and related goals, in Anglophone, Lusophone and Francophone countries throughout Africa. Twice a year, COPA holds a 5-week training workshop. This course covers diverse aspects of conflict transformation and peace building, and is aimed at building the capacity of participants, mostly from the African continent, working for development, human rights, peace, justice and related fields.

Water ministers from the Nile Basin countries meet next month to conclude a new agreement on governing the use of the river's waters. The question of whether a country should notify other Nile basin states before starting a project on the river was unresolved after the seventh round of talks by the technical negotiation panel, which met in Uganda last September. The issue will be top on the agenda at the Nile Council of Ministers meeting due in Addis Ababa.

This report from the European Centre for Development Policy Management examines capacity building for decentralised education service delivery in Ethiopia. Main key findings on devolution and education services in Ethiopia include: the devolution of service delivery was included in the 1995 Constitution, which provides an unusual degree of autonomy to Ethiopia's 11 regional states. However, the administration appears to be more aligned to deconcentration below the regional level.

A boat carrying 110 Somali and Ethiopian migrants destined for Yemen went missing after leaving the northeastern coast of Somalia early this week according to sources in the port of Bosasso. No news has been heard from the missing boat, which was one of six vessels en route across the Gulf of Aden. The travelers had paid between US $30 and $50 each for the voyage to Yemen, which would be the point of departure in their search for work in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

I have completed reading the essay about the relationship between African Americans and the new arrivals from Africa. The geographical divide between Europe and Africa is not that far but the relationship between the Diaspora Africans and mainland Africans in London and Europe is the same. I would use the word contentious.

There are lots of anxieties expressed whenever two Africans from different groups marry. There are many harsh words and insults exchanged between and among Africans. Some of the unfounded opinions mentioned can be heard over here as well. The communication problems are getting worse. There is cooperation as well but, there is more insults, in-fighting and discrimination between and among Africans.

As SAP, IMF and WB programmes viciously squeeze the life- blood out of the Africa continent, new arrivals are becomming more and more desperate. When the majority of unskilled, manual workers and unemployed arrive here, they want their economic needs met first. Then, they look for people from their own country and then they form an exclusive church or clubs, which excludes other Africans. They practice a virulent brand of discrimination.

I have gone to clubs in London where only Ivorian or Congolese music is played. The myths, misinformation and ignorance run riot amongst the various communities. Unity is frowned upon. Open and frank discussions are ignored. When you people meeting here to compete for the lowest paying jobs in this declining capitalist island, you have a recipe for more in-fighting.

There is widespread evidence of disrespect especially when Africans talk to other Africans. Africans from the mainland tend to look down on the Caribbean born ones. The communication skills are quite poor. Illiteracy rates are high among Africans born in Britain/Jamaica. We as a people do not read, ask questions, explore other ideas, countries. Most Africans only know their country and London. I work with families so I suspect I have the most up to date information. The homes are always full of electronic/stylish furniture and other latest fads. However, the bookshelves are empty except for the revered King James Version. The parenting skills are better suited for the 16th century society. There is no realistic understanding of how capitalism works and no knowledge about colonial history. There are children born here who cannot string proper sentences in grammatically correct English. Some of our people are often very defensive and offended when they are challenged about destructive habits.

The author needs to come here and see London. It is not different to Washintgon DC, New York and the other cities in the USA. The most pleasant conversations I have had is with Africans from the continent who have read or have traveled around other African countries who do not live in a noisy church and who are curious enough to ask questions. So, all is not lost! We live in hope.

I would like to thank you for a fine job - in difficult times. As all of us grow increasingly concerned about the more and more desperate situation that so many fellow Africans are facing, it is immensely helpful to have such a valuable source of information, and it keeps up our spirits to see and be linked with so many people who are struggling fiercely to turn things around. Thanks to the Pambazuka team.

This vital original collection of interviews, poetry, and essays of the much-loved anti-apartheid leader is the first book of its kind to bring together the full, forceful range of his work. Brutus, imprisoned along with Nelson Mandela, is known worldwide for his unparalleled eloquence as an opponent of the apartheid South African regime. Since its fall, he has been a voice for justice and humanity, speaking and writing extensively on issues of debt, poverty, war, racism, and neoliberalism.

The Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF) has announced a unique initiative designed to help independent news media in emerging democracies. The program will allow investors to help foster press freedom and viability abroad by loaning money at low interest rates. MDLF is a New York-based nonprofit that offers low-interest loans to independent news media in developing countries.

More than 220,000 Sudanese from Darfur have fled the ongoing violence in their region and crossed the border into the desert of eastern Chad. Most of the refugees are now in camps; however, several thousand remain outside camps, waiting to be registered. With the crisis continuing, it is estimated that many more refugees will flee to eastern Chad. In the midst of this crisis is the education and reproductive health of adolescent girls being neglected?

SANGONeT is a national NGO providing various information communication technology (ICT) services to civil society organisations. This position presents a vital opportunity for an individual passionate about shaping the role and application of ICTs for development through policy advocacy and sensitization. The incumbent will be responsible for informing the strategic ICT policy focus and activities of the organisation; networking and liaising with key government, private sector and civil society stakeholders; and developing, planning and hosting ICT forums in various Southern African countries.

SAT was established to support civil society to engage effectively in regional level public policy processes aimed at reducing poverty and inequality in southern Africa. SAT is making an initial call for proposals for once-off grants to promote innovative regional-level work that supports these goals.

The aim of the World Bank Small Grants Program is to strengthen the voice and influence of poor and marginalized groups in the development processes, thereby making these processes more inclusive and equitable. Thus, it supports activities of civil society organizations whose primary objective is civic engagement of the poor and marginalized populations.

This article discusses how most NGO's begin with a visionary individual who identified a need that wasn't being filled and obtained enough funds to start a small organization. The visionary then raises more money, hires more project staff, and grows the organization by working extremely hard and relying on a growing circle of funder contacts. The article goes on to discuss how to make the transition from fund raising to development.

Simon Maxwell's recent posting in the ODI weblog contends that the WTO is certainly complicated, and not just because of the profusion of acronyms and the arcane detail of trade policy. The real complexity lies in the way many different issues are brought to the table, with the idea that losses in one area may be offset by gains in another. He argues that there were some obvious examples in Hong Kong - the best known being the EU demanding better access to developing country markets for its manufactures and services in countries like Brazil, as a quid pro quo for reduction in its agricultural subsidies and for further reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The inauguration of Mrs Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been the focus of a number of African bloggers this week.

writes that he was deeply moved by the inauguration ceremony. He makes a link between the inauguration and the celebration in the US of Martin Luther King, which took place on the same day.

“It was also not lost on me that January 15th is our (USA) national holiday for remembrance of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. According to the Reverend Samuel Sumo Payne, a Liberian immigrant to the United States who will be participating in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration activities this year in Ohio, Dr. King’s impact on social justice and civil rights reverberated far beyond the shores of the United States.”
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Jewels comments that President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is determined, like Dr King, “to heal a nation and move forward and build bridges between former combatants and victims of the brutal conflict”. Although I appreciate what Jewels is saying here, I do think the linkage with Martin Luther King is somewhat tenuous. The Liberian President, for all her qualities which I sincerely admire, has not been involved in a protracted civil rights or liberation struggle. We are all very excited about having a woman leader in Africa and have high expectations. Nonetheless I believe we should wait and see how she proceeds and deals with these issues before likening her to Dr King or other liberationist struggles.

Fire Angel writes on how excited she was:

“When I first heard about it, I jumped up and down like a little school-girl…At the same time I'm trying not to turn my excitement into wishful thinking, because Sister Ellen has one heck of a job in front of her. Besides having the enormous task of bringing Liberia ‘back to life’, she ultimately represents the African woman and her role in today’s African society.”

Black Looks looks at the impact on African women of Mrs Sirleaf-Johnson’s Presidency. She writes:

“We should not underestimate the significance of this Presidency to all African women. The only event that comes close was the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Wangari Maathai. Just as the Nobel Prize was for Kenya and for Africa, so too is the election of Johnson-Sirleaf for Liberia and Africa. It is not just Liberia's future at stake. The stability of the whole region very much depends on the success of Liberia.”

Continuing with the subject of women in government, Mental Acrobatics writes on the appointment of two women by the newly elected Tanzanian President to two of the most important ministries -

Zakia Meghji, the Minister of Finance, and Asha-Rose Migiro, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

However it is not all good.

“Of the 29 ministers and 31 deputies in his new Government, only five women were appointed cabinet ministers while 10 others were made assistant ministers. That is better than Kenya. Kibaki’s government has 34 ministers and 49 assistants. Only two women are ministers, Martha Karua of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and Charity Ngilu of Health and five women are assistant ministers. This is a drop from pre-referendum levels.”

On a completely different note, Africa Unchained points to an article by Stella Orakwue, “Not in Black or White” who calls on Africans to return home.

"What are Africans doing in Europe? Can someone tell me, please? I was brought here as a four-year-old child. If you are reading this and you are an African in Europe, I ask you this: Why are you here? Why did you come? Why did you stay? What are you doing?”

With considerable bitterness she goes on to say:

“I know everything I need to know about Europe: everything that 40 years of hard-won knowledge can bestow about European cultures, English people, British attitudes. And I know this: Europeans do not deserve Africans. We’re too good for them. But hear this, get this: Without us they would be unable, incapable, of running their own countries! How’s that for you. We work, they play. But they treat us like we are nothing, nobodies, dirt. And now they want to destroy our minds so that we can continue to ‘work’ for them like 21st century plantation slaves. Were we ever supposed to live among them?”

Chippla's Weblog also focuses on Europe, this time the myth of Egalité France. He refers to an article in the Washington Post:

“…that calls into question the fabulous concept of egalité in modern France. Yes, egalité does exist but to enjoy its fruits you must be lily white. A golden, brown or dark brown skin is enough to shut you off from certain jobs especially in the service industry. Having the requisite skills is simply not sufficient, one must also have the right skin colour.”

He concludes that racism in Europe is no less than the US and may in fact be worse.

Finally AFrican Bullets and Honey comments on the latest “save an African from poverty” scheme. This one is advertised at Lastminute.com under their “Feel Good Gifts” section called Farm Africa. Here you can “Buy a sheep, a goat or some chickens”.

“So you’re not Gordon Brown and you can’t cancel the debt of the Third World. But with lastminute.com and Farm Friends you have the chance to do something amazing, just by buying a gift for a friend (or even for yourself). You can choose a sheep, a goat or a brood of chickens. Of course, they won't be delivered to you or the person you're buying the gift for. Instead, they'll get a really cute model of the chosen animal, while Farm Africa will give the real animal to a poor African farmer, who is struggling to feed his family. Just a few pounds buys the greatest gift of all - a happier, healthier future. A goat, for example, provides milk to fight-off malnutrition and any excess can be sold to pay for medicine or schoolbooks.”

Bullets & Honey comments: “Imagine how good you will feel when you add a good deed to your vacation. Not only will you be helping a worthy cause like poor African farmers or abandoned kitties, but your lucky recipient will receive a gift pack with information about the charity and a unique gift to open on their special day.”

You could of course change the name from “Farm Africa” to “Do good and be guilt free”!

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, [email protected]

A major study based on evidence gathered from the Tanzanian island of Pemba has concluded that giving generalised iron and folic acid supplements to young children in malarial areas increases the likelihood of those children dying.The London-based medical journal "The Lancet" has published details of the trial which points out that the World Health Organisation still recommends routine supplementation with iron and folic acid in countries where anaemia is widespread - despite growing scientific opinion that anaemia could be a natural defence against the malarial parasite.

At least 800 million Kenyan Shillings was used by the Narc government to buy cars for Cabinet ministers in its first two years in power, a State-owned human rights watchdog says. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights says the money was also used to buy sleek cars for assistant ministers and permanent secretaries. Commission Chairman Maina Kiai, says the findings are contained in the organisation's yet-to-be-released report: "The Culture of Wastage and Conspicuous Consumption Portrayed by Senior Civil Servants and Politicians."

Cheap shoes from China have nearly crippled Kenya's shoe manufacturing industry. Shoemakers in the country blame the government for failing to protect local jobs. But as with most developing countries, the reality of free trade means juggling the arrival of more imports with the chance for more exports. Industrialised countries are putting pressure on African governments to drop import tariffs and open their markets to manufactured products from industrialised countries.

President Kibaki has okayed a demand by the country's anti-corruption chief for Kieni Member of Parliament, Chris Murungaru to declare and account for his wealth. The sacked Transport Minister has further been summoned to appear before the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission on February 16 as it probes the mega-billion shilling Anglo Leasing scam, the biggest scandal in President Kibaki's tenure so far.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, with Ethiopia's major October to December rains having failed, an additional 1.75 million people will require food aid up to June, bringing the number of people receiving food assistance in the Horn of Africa country to 7.25 million. Drought has devastated the economies of many pastoralist groups in East African countries this year, especially Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya, leaving 11 million people at risk of food shortages.

A pledge by the Nigerian government to provide all anti-Aids drugs for free has not been met as some hospitals impose service charges, activists say. The government vowed in December to provide anti-retroviral drugs, needed to combat HIV-Aids, free of charge. The drugs have always been free, but many hospitals run by individual states still demand service charges for treating patients.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, who has promised to crack down on corruption, has appointed Suzanne Rich Folsom to head the bank's anti-corruption unit, according to a notice to member countries. Folsom, a US national, has been acting director of the World Bank's Department of Institutional Integrity since October 2005 following the departure of Maarten de Jong .She joined the bank in 2003 as counsellor to then World Bank President James Wolfensohn and will retain that post as well under Wolfowitz.

“I entered parliament having been elected as an independent candidate. I thought and hoped there would be a chance to raise and debate substantive issues that matter most to the people. I expected to air them fully in the parliament and transmit my concerns to the public through the media. But currently what is happening in parliament is that we, non-EPRDF parliament members, are blocked. We are not allowed to propose motions and raise issues for discussion. We cannot put issues on the agenda. We are not given enough time to make our different voices and opinions to be heard. We have no opportunity to transmit our views to the people through mass media. Taken together, the parliamentary working procedure is wholly non-accommodative and uninviting”.