Were it not for the police men in blue tunics with a Botswana coat of arms patrolling the cordoned off area, most visitors to the Dukwi refugee camp would barely realize that they are in Botswana. The camp, which is synonymous with Botswana’s hard line policy towards refugees, is a grim hovel where those inside have different rights from those outside. Residents can not move out of the camp without an official pass.

£38,000
Central London
Permanent position

The Common Ground Initiative is a £20 million fund supporting African development through UK based small and Diaspora organisations. With the support of the Baring Foundation and working in partnership with DFID, Comic Relief aims to make grants that will bring sustainable change to some of the most disadvantaged communities in Africa. We will also create opportunities to influence international development policy as well as commission a major study to understand more about the contribution of the UK Diaspora in international development. Join us in this new role and help manage this strategic investment and in doing so, make a greater contribution towards a just world, free from poverty.

Working from our Central London office, you will project manage our work on supporting the Diaspora on policy influencing and advocacy work, and contribute to our learning in this field. You will also spend no more than one day a week carrying out grant making and management duties.

This influential role calls for experience of working in international development, a track record within policy influencing and advocacy work, proven project management skills and a passion for using learning to inform future work.

Apply online at or send a large SAE, quoting reference CR1028, to Recruitment, Comic Relief, 5th Floor, 89 Albert Embankment,
London SE1 7TP. Closing date: 21 June 2010

Please note that successful applicants must have the right to live and work in the United Kingdom.

Comic Relief positively welcomes, and seeks to ensure we achieve, diversity in our workforce and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability or nationality. We encourage applications from disabled people as they are currently under-represented in the organisation. We will guarantee an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the job.
registered charity 326568

We, representatives of organizations of farmers, fisherfolk, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, women’s groups, NGOs and other civil society organizations met on May 4 2010 here in Luanda to deliberate on issues affecting food security in Africa during the 26 FAO Regional Conference for Africa. The objective of civil society’s engagement in this process is to contribute critically and provide own perspectives informed by social organisations and communities experiences in their efforts to achieve food security and food sovereignty.

A group of Aids activists arrived in Johannesburg on Thursday afternoon after attending meetings related to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Dar es Salam. They had been detained by Tanzanian authorities in the country's capital and escorted to the airport.

The announcement that South Africa would host the 2010 World Cup prompted a whirlwind of heavy investment in infrastructure, with high expectations for an economic boom. Obviously, the 2010 World Cup will also boost tourism, but how far will these benefit society as a whole, not just a privileged few? asks Nasser Kigwangallah.

This latest background report from the International Crisis Group examines the historical relationships, strategic interests, and recent engagement of key regional states as well as their views on the possible independence of the South. Many of Sudan’s bordering states were involved in, or affected by its civil wars, and each would be directly affected by either peaceful separation or a return to conflict.

They may number as few as 100 men, women and adolescents, but Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) units scattered across the forests of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Orientale Province have sown sufficient terror to make some 318,000 people take flight, abandoning their homes and fields, in many cases to the uncertain sanctuary of urban centres.

The large-scale acquisition for industrial agriculture in African and other developing countries has been described as a global land grab, ‘threatening food, seed and land sovereignty of family farmers, social stability, environmental health and biodiversity around the world’, writes Joan Baxter. While it is understandable that investors deny that this kind of agricultural investment is a ‘land grab’, says Baxter, what is perplexing is that ‘the same kind of rhetoric is coming from some whose job it is to protect Africa’s farmers’ rights and their farmland from exploitative foreign takeover’.

With increased globalisation, urbanisation and growing prosperity, the world's ecosystems will continue to pay a high price as the toll has never been greater, according to two new UN reports.

Malawi is urgently looking for US$4.1 million to fight a measles outbreak that is on the increase in the southern African country. So far, according to Health Secretary Chris Kang'ombe, over 2, 000 cases have been recorded.

About 210,000 primary school students from eight of Angola's 18 provinces will benefit from two million text-books offered to the Ministry of Education by the European Union (EU).

In this week's roundup of emerging powers news, Zimbabwe and China sign $400m power plant agreement, World Bank unit to finance Chinese Africa venture, Indian IT firm set to invest in Uganda, Seychelles-China relations accelerate with new momentum, and Niger coup raises questions about China’s tactics.

More than 10 African heads of state and government were converging here Wednesday for the three-day conference of the World Economic Forum that is specifically dedicated to the continent's economic future. A brainstorming session on 'Turning Vision into Reality' was billed to kick- start the meeting by examining the current, changing global landscape and identify opportunities that can unlock Africa's growth potential and the barriers to social and economic progress in the coming year.

The Togolese Prime Minister, Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo, has presented his resignation and that of his government to President Faure Gnassingbé as a constitutional requirement following the investiture on Monday of the country's elected president for a second five-year term.

Zimbabwe's three leading figures have condemned international sanctions on the country at a World Economic Forum conference in Tanzania. In a rare show of unity, President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara appealed for investment. Only Mr Tsvangirai had been expected to represent Zimbabwe at the forum in Dar es Salaam.

Authorities in Nigeria have dropped charges against the former head of the country's anti-corruption agency. Nuhu Ribadu had been accused of not declaring his assets while in office. He was named head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, but was removed when he stood down in 2007.

Twenty villages in Botswana have been evacuated after the Okavango River burst its banks. Water in the river, which starts in Angola, passes through Namibia and empties into Botswana's Okavango swamp, has reached unprecedented levels.

There are approximately one million, mainly black women, who are domestic workers in South Africa. The Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) is the overarching piece of legislation that regulates their wages and working conditions in addition to, broadly speaking, all unorganised workers in South Africa.

In a remote southern part of Chad, the UNHCR began this week the transfer of some 1,100 newly arrived Central African refugees from the border to a refugee camp where they can be assisted. These refugees crossed into southern Chad's Moyen Chari province two weeks ago, after violence forced them from villages in northern Central African Republic (CAR).

A United Nations-backed pilot programme that supplies electric generators to rural women farmers in Burkina Faso, freeing them from lengthy chores so that they can devote more time to education, childcare and health care, is to be adopted on a national scale.

Namibia and Angola have partnered to build a US$1.1 billion hydropower plant on a river that runs along their common borders. The move is to help end power disruptions that have plagued their economies for decades.

MDC provincial youth chairman for Mashonaland Central, Tonderai Samhu, appeared in court on Tuesday facing allegations of insulting Robert Mugabe. Samhu handed himself over to the law and order section in Bindura on Monday. Police had been hunting him down since he organized a rally in Mvurwi last week Wednesday to bid farewell to the late MDC provincial Chairman Biggie Chigonero.

Kountaya refugee camp"Kountaya was one of the biggest refugee camps in West Africa," Sheku said, pointing at the old buildings surrounded by the Guinean jungle. After a long pause, he added, somewhat nostalgic, "while UNHCR and the other agencies were here, we had schools and medical assistance; we had many cultural and sport events. I used to play basketball. But then they said that, since the war in Sierra Leone was over, we had no reason to be here. And they abandoned us."

Adult male circumcision appears to have some protective effect against high-risk strains of human papilloma virus, according to two studies published in the May 15th edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. In HIV-positive men, circumcision reduced the prevalence and incidence of multiple high-risk penile human papilloma virus infections. Circumcision also had these benefits for HIV-negative men, and was also associated with clearance of infections.

Government officials, civil society leaders and journalists from across the Maghreb gathered in Nouakchott Monday (May 3rd) for a large regional celebration of World Press Freedom Day, held under the banner, "Freedom of information and right to know, what future for the Maghreb?"

UNHCR has completed and inaugurated a multi-million dollar water and electrification project that will benefit tens of thousands of people, including Somali refugees and members of the local community, in a semi-arid region of eastern Ethiopia. The US$5 million Jarrar Valley Water Supply scheme in the country's Somali region is using electricity to pump 1.3 million litres of fresh water a day to 51,000 people, including 16,000 refugees.

Saeed El-Masry was born poor, raised poor and, unless he can get ‘kosa,’ will probably die poor. Kosa is the Arabic word for zucchini, but it also means someone in a position of power who can open doors to gainful employment. "There are no good jobs unless you know a cabinet minister or pay off a high-ranking official," El-Masry resigns. "That’s the way it’s always been in Egypt."

"After two heated debates during the recent African ministers of finance meeting in Malawi, national delegations from South Africa, Rwanda and Egypt succeeded in deleting any reference to budgetary targets for education, health, agriculture and water in the Common Position on MDGs and the conference report and resolutions. Their action brings into question the extent to which African finance ministers are committed to continental integration, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the declarations and resolutions of their own heads of state." - Geoffrey Njora

Samir Bergachi is unstoppable. Barely 23 years old, the young Moroccan is simply not content to live his homosexuality openly in a country where it is considered as a crime. For the past 6 years, Samir has been running the first Moroccan gay association, kif-kif. And only a month ago, he caused a real stir: the launching of Mithly, the first gay magazine in the Arab world. Some find his initiatives inadmissible. Others admire his courage.

Governments and charities have spent billions to try to wipe out poverty, but award-winning economist Esther Duflo says we really don't know if that money has been well spent. But as a result of Duflo's pioneering work, we may be getting some answers to that question. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor has led the way in showing how the scientific method can be applied to determining what policies actually work.

Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria's acting president, has been sworn in as the country's new leader following the death of Umaru Yar'Adua. Jonathan took the oath of office at a ceremony in the capital, Abuja, on Thursday, just hours after officials announced the death of Yar'Adua following a long illness.

Dozens of people are dead or missing after a boat capsized in a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The boat, carrying 125 people, overturned on Wednesday evening in the Congo River near the city of Kindu, the capital of Congo's eastern Maniema province.

Reporters Without Borders has expressed deep shock at the death in unexplained circumstances of cameraman Jerry Usanga of Channels Television, whose body was found on the roadside by passers-by, on 4 May 2010. The spot where Usanga’s body was found, in Calabar, Cross River state in the south-east of the country, is close to the headquarters of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).

Clinical research in South Africa is in serious decline because of two decades of "disinvestment" — leading to an ageing workforce, "chronic underfunding" of its Medical Research Council and "grossly insufficient" funding for research professorships, says a report.

The human and environmental disruption wreaked by drought in Somaliland, where more than 60 percent of people raise livestock for a living, means the self-declared, but barely recognized, independent state should draw up its own plan for climate change adaptation, according to a new report.

Thousands of security personnel have been deployed across northern Kenya to confiscate weapons after a voluntary disarmament exercise netted only a small fraction of the 50,000 guns thought to be in civilian hands. Firearms are widespread among pastoralist communities in east Africa, where police are rare and cattle theft and intercommunal conflict is common. Similar operations are taking place in neighbouring Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda. Borders between these countries have been temporarily sealed.

About half of Djibouti’s rural population will need emergency food assistance this year due to the combined effects of drought, livestock losses, unfavourable livestock-to-cereal terms of trade and high staple food prices, according to an assessment by the government and UN agencies.

Services to prevent the mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV are gaining ground in Malawi but the country continues to battle drug shortages and mothers and infants that disappear to follow-up and treatment. In 2005 only three percent of HIV-positive mothers were using PMTCT services, and mother-to-child transmission of HIV accounted for 30 percent of all new infections nationally.

With more than half of all Ethiopian adults tested for HIV in the past five years and a campaign for behaviour change in place, specialists are now calling for a more targeted approach. “Most-at-risk populations” (MARPs) have to be targeted through better understanding of how the epidemic is affecting them and in turn, to develop a more specific response.

China's financial behavior is increasingly important to the United States and the international community. The created by The Heritage Foundation is the only publicly available, comprehensive dataset of large worldwide Chinese investments and contracts beyond Treasury bonds. Details are available on over 200 attempted transactions -- failed and successful -- over $100 million in all major industries, including energy, mining, transportation and banking.

This conference took place on the second anniversary of the first India-Africa Forum held in New Delhi in 2008. Although India and the African continent have been closely linked through long-established trade roots, there has been too little debate and analysis on India in Africa and this conference was an effort to provide a platform for a more balanced and focused debate, away from the existing overemphasis on China and its efforts in Africa.

On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, Sokari Ekine reflects on the murders of three Nigerian journalists. She accuses the Nigerian press of colluding with government in its own oppression and presenting an illusion of the free press by failing to defend its own members.

The silent cries of the innocent,
Abandoned in the dark,
Stabbed in the night,
Shot by the wayside,
By masked men in ‘plain clothes’

We not know their names
We know their masters
Actions of intimidation
The voiceless cry!

Seekers of truth strangled
Maimed in daylight…

We have seen them,
We know them
But in little whispers we talk of them;

Intimidated by the lack of;
Crucified for the act of;

Bailing for the blood of the innocent
Kill and maim for what they cannot provide

The voice of the voiceless
Crying in the silent wilderness
Strangled by very powers we pay

We have seen them abduct kill and maim
We have seen them tap and disconnect
In fears we live
In confidence we cry

They abduct
They kill
And silence
Yet the voiceless die in the silent
Those with voice are now in borders
Those with voice never will return – Oulu, Kingara
Those with voice fear

When will the new dawn rise?

With Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's regime gearing up to set things firmly in its favour, Ethiopia's upcoming national election this month is already a done deal, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Zenawi's threatening gestures towards opposition leaders and dissenting political activists, Mariam stresses, are simply part of a broader campaign of pre-electoral intimidation and political paralysis.

Fiercely critical of the Nigerian political and business classes' perpetual money-grabbing and disenfranchising of ordinary Nigerians, Kola Ibrahim makes the case for Nigeria's Labour Party to develop into a 'mega-party' representative of the country's majority.

The large-scale acquisition for industrial agriculture in African and other developing countries has been described as a global land grab, 'threatening food, seed and land sovereignty of family farmers, social stability, environmental health and biodiversity around the world', writes Joan Baxter. While it is understandable that investors deny that this kind of agricultural investment is a ‘land grab’, says Baxter, what is perplexing is that ‘the same kind of rhetoric is coming from some whose job it is to protect Africa’s farmers’ rights and their farmland from exploitative foreign takeover’.

Marking International Workers' Day on 1 May, Horace Campbell argues that it is only through re-focusing on workers' rights and representation and genuine democracy for all that African people will be able to fully liberate themselves from the exploitation of international capitalism.

As millions of UK citizens cast their votes in the country’s general and local elections, Alex Free considers the attitudes of the three major parties – Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – towards engaging with other parts of the world as set out in their manifestos, for a sense of how the outcome of the election might affect Africa and the global South.

Democracy Now! producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous spoke with Nnimmo Bassey outside the World Peoples’ Climate Conference gates in Tiquipaya, Bolivia.