Who will be elected President of the African National Congress (ANC) in 2007? Who will become President of the Republic of South Africa in 2009? These questions, and the speculation cast in their drift, have come increasingly to dominate newspaper headlines and the South African political imagination, says the latest edtion of ePoliticsSA, which tackles the issue.

This report documents the socio-economic and environmental impact of oil exploitation in the Melut Basin in Upper Nile State, Sudan, as told by inhabitants of the area and photographed from satellites. It focuses on the Melut and Maban Counties, Renk District, which fall into concession blocks 3 and 7, held by the Petrodar Operating Company Ltd. under an Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement with the Sudanese Government.

African Women of Distinction Program is seeking 10-15 Program Interns living in Africa, and 5 Interns living in the US (preference for New York, San Francisco, and Seattle areas). This internship is a great opportunity for young men and women or other professionals with development experience. The AWOD has immediate 6-month internships available starting September 2006. The internship requires a minimum of 8 hours per week commitment. Much of the work can be completed at home and on weekends.

The lone doctor on duty on a Sunday morning at the New Nyanza Provincial hospital's paediatric wing has to attend to some 100 patients. He tells his audience that he loses three patients everyday to malaria, just because they reach the hospital when their health status has deteriorated.

Dozens of armed men attacked a police station in Nigeria’s southeastern Anambra state leaving four people dead, among them two policemen, police said on Monday, July 24. The attack on the police station in the trading town of Nnewi on Saturday is part of a pattern of recent attacks on police stations in Anambra linked to a group campaigning for an independent Biafra republic for the region’s mainly ethnic Igbos.

The Ugandan government has started implementing a six-month emergency plan to resettle thousands of people displaced by the 20-year old conflict between the army and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the eastern region, a senior official said.

The Zimbabwean political crisis has reached boiling point with over 85% of the population unemployed and inflation above 1000%. Given the prominence and effects of the Zimbabwean case in Africa and specifically Southern Africa, it is undoubtedly a pressing issue which need the attention of the African Union. It is painful to note that the AU has only acknowledged the problem verbally and has never espoused to tackle it. A closer analysis shows that the AU is divided on how to address the Zimbabwean political crisis.

Not that what I have to say matters - since when has anyone cared to read what readers have to express. Pambazuka News: show me you are different. Ok, I want to find out from him why China can produce cheaply and not the Funtua Textiles he made mention of. (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/36045). I guess this is China's time in the serial rape of an ever-willing continent. The elites speak to themselves and the rest of the people are pre-occupied with finding what to survive on. I once asked a question no one bothered to answer: Why do you have China Towns all over the world and not one Naija Town is possible? I rest my case!

Thank you for the good editorial work that you are doing. I thank Mr. Yav Katshung Joseph for the informative and educative article. (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/33432). As you remember, DRC was formerly called Zaire. The reason why the name was changed; many of us do not know! Let us pray that someone will not start another war just because of the name. I agree with him in the conclusion, in fact many giant steps have been taken on the way to democracy. The international community should not be commended - these people are everywhere even where wars have failed to stop. Take the example of the Middle East, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. Thank you once again.

The successful applicant will have a commitment to international development; some experience of programme co-ordination; strong written and budget monitoring skills; and the ability to travel overseas for up to 8 weeks per year. S/he will have good interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively within a small and busy office.

Internews Network is seeking a Chief of Party to lead a USAID funded project focused on building community radio stations in Southern Sudan. The project will include (1) construction of three radio stations located in Southern Sudan and the Three Rivers Area, and (2) capacity building in the form of training of journalists and technical staff.

Good governance - the fair and transparent management of a country's resources and institutions - has become a key objective for European Union (EU) development assistance. Without practices that lead to good governance, donors are less willing to provide aid and for this reason the EU is supporting developing country programmes that focus on governance issues.

The Ministers of Education of the G8 nations met in Moscow in advance of the 2006 G-8 Summit set for July 15-18 in St. Petersburg, Russia. With 100 million primary school age children out of school, G8 members recognize that accelerated progress is required to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals set for education, reports the Development Gateway.

South Africa has blocked trials of genetically modified sorghum that leaders of a multi-million-dollar project hope can boost nutrition in Africa. Kenyan scientist Florence Wambugu, who heads the Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International, has secured US$18.6 million over five years from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop new sorghum varieties with elevated levels of iron, zinc and vitamins. But last week (12 July) South Africa rejected the application to set up a laboratory and greenhouse on its soil, reports SciDev.

Two initiatives launched this month aim to mitigate the 'brain drain' caused when scientists and others emigrate from African countries to work elsewhere. Last week (11-12 July) government ministers from 58 European and African countries met in Rabat, Morocco for the first Euro-African Conference on Migration and Development, reports SciDev.

Putting into practice the public broadcaster’s lofty ideals and the policies encapsulated in its editorial code of practice have been identified as weaknesses of SABC news and current affairs structures, writes Ron Derby in Business Day. Panelists at an Open Society Foundation for SA colloquium yesterday (July 20) dissected the conundrum that is the SABC, raising concerns over recent allegations of censorship and blacklisting of analysts, which they argued has tainted its image, reports Journalism.co.za.

The real problem with the Darfur Peace Agreement, contends one of the advisors to the negotiations, is not its detailed provisions, which are both substantive and the result of significant input even from factions that eventually refused to sign. It is the lack of will to implement the accord, whether on the part of the government of Sudan, the rebels in Darfur, or the international parties that must guarantee its implementation.

A quarterly publication for professionals interested in the knowledge economy issues, including economic and institutional regime, education, innovation and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), this newsletter is published by the World Bank Institute.

South Africa deported more than 51,000 illegal Zimbabwean immigrants between January and June this year as floods of people fled economic collapse. The Department of Home Affairs says it is now deporting 265 Zimbabweans a day. Last year, 97,433 Zimbabweans were deported compared with 72,112 in 2004. The government is considering building a second detention centre in Limpopo to cope with the dramatic increase in illegal immigration from Zimbabwe.

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor on Friday (21 July) made his first court appearance in The Hague since leaving Sierra Leone last month. Taylor's lawyer Karim Khan told the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), sitting at International Criminal Court (ICC) facilities, that Taylor is unhappy with prison conditions at The Hague, calling conditions at the Freetown, Sierra Leone prison that formerly detained Taylor far superior to his current conditions, reports the Jurist.

There are at least 300 million acute cases of malaria each year resulting in over 1 million deaths, about 90% of which are in Africa. Malaria is Africa's leading cause of under-5 mortality and accounts for 40% of public health expenditure, 30 to 50% of inpatient visits, and up to 50% of outpatient visits in high malaria transmission areas.

This project provides orphaned child heads of households in Rwanda with a self-powered radio that is designed to provide distance education covering topics such as how to prevent disease, increase garden yields, and maintain goats. The radio is constructed to operate in harsh conditions and climates for many hours on wind-up energy or solar power; organisers describe it as colourful, easy to use, and able to receive excellent reception.

Namibia has the best solar reserves in the world and the country should become an international leader in the field of solar and wind energy use, an academic has said. Speaking in Windhoek at the launch of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Institute (REEEI), Polytechnic Rector Dr Tjama Tjivikua said fossil fuels like oil and coal would soon be exhausted and conflicts caused oil prices to rise. The use of cleaner fuel sources would lead to a less polluted world and better efficiency.

This Global Witness report highlights the corruption and fraud that plague mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo province of Katanga, one of the world's richest copper and cobalt producing areas. While the people of the Congo remain mired in poverty, government and security officials ignore or actively collude in smuggling large quantities of precious minerals out of the country.

The Corruption Fighters' Toolkit is a compendium of practical civil society anti-corruption experiences described in concrete and accessible language. It presents innovative anti-corruption tools developed and implemented by Transparency International National Chapters and other civil society organisations from around the world.

African leaders are busy signing agreements with major US software companies granting them long term monopolies in return for short term donations. They are proudly announcing the short-term benefits but remaining silent about any long term costs. Foreign corporations know well how important immediate benefits are to politicians and how difficult it is for them to resist such photo-opportunities.

The CIVICUS Nelson Mandela Graca Machel Innovation Awards are aimed at providing seed funding for innovative ideas emerging from organisations or groups of participants at the CIVICUS World Assembly. The broad idea is to support community based and grassroots initiatives with an emphasis on the overall WA theme: Acting Together for a Just World through one of the four sub-themes: Civic, Economic, Political and Social Justice.

Using data collected in 2001 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, this paper examines the factors associated with schoolgirl pregnancy, as well as the likelihood of school dropout and subsequent re-enrollment among pregnant schoolgirls. This analysis triangulates data collected from birth histories, education histories, and data concerning pregnancy to strengthen the identification of young women who became pregnant while enrolled in school and to define discrete periods of school interruption prior to first pregnancy.

The study demonstrates how the labour market and the world of work in general are clearly sex-disaggregated and how important it is to undertake analysis of the impact of macroeconomic policies on growth, employment and poverty reduction, with specific consideration of such segmentation. The study also demonstrates how different aspects of macroeconomic policies affect women's and men's work differently.

Talks among six key World Trade Organization governments collapsed, imperiling efforts to reach a global market-opening agreement worth billions of dollars. Ministers from the US, the European Union, Brazil, India, Australia and Japan remained deadlocked, prompting WTO Director- General Pascal Lamy to suspend the five-year-old talks to dismantle market barriers and lift millions out of poverty in the developing world, reports Bloomberg.

Congo’s elections on 30 July could become the root of renewed violence unless Kinshasa and donors increase efforts to create a transparent and accountable government. This is the country’s most promising moment since independence, but there are huge dangers as well because the poll will create a significant class of disenfranchised politicians and former warlords tempted to take advantage of state weakness and launch new insurgencies.

Early one morning in April, a desperate young Algerian man slipped into a warehouse on the outskirts of Algiers and sealed himself inside a shipping container destined for France. The guard he had bribed to let him into the warehouse begged him to reconsider. Every year, tens of thousands of impoverished Africans lured by Europe's prosperity risk their lives attempting to reach the continent illegally. European Union officials estimate the number doubled this year, though they have no firm figures.

Gunmen have killed 682 civilians, including a foreign journalist, in executions over the past year in Somalia, a local rights group said Sunday (July 23). The killings took place largely in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Some came during battles for control of the city, others were due to clan differences, a few were kidnappings and some were for unknown motives, according to the report by the Dr. Ismael Jumale Human Rights Center.

With support from the governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom, the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) has developed a website that allows users to create ''what if'' simulation analyses for five different African countries. Each country micro simulation model provides users with the poverty, distribution, and budgetary impacts of their policy choices and compares the simulation results with the current state or the base scenario.

The gender aspects of climate change have generally been neglected in international climate policy. This report, produced by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), argues that gender, like poverty, is a cross cutting issue in climate change and needs to be recognised as such. Particularly in developing countries, women generally have lower incomes than men, they often have limited control of resources, and they have less access to information and decision making authority. Their ability to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change is thus lower than that of men.

Since 1990, a lot of noise has been made about the forests of the Congo Basin, both good and bad. Now a new environmental wave is descending on the Democratic Republic of Congo, of a scope very similar to that of the “Zaire boom” in the seventies. However, the question is: are the Central African forestry administrations - generally subject to insidious sociological factors - aligned with the aspirations and needs regarding welfare of the region’s inhabitants?

Two people have been found dead aboard a small boat that arrived in Spain's Canary Islands carrying 48 immigrants. The boat from Africa was spotted by a merchant ship early on Monday (July 24). Many of the illegal immigrants have been transported to local hospitals.

Clutching an assault rifle, Ekai Lokipeng shows off six marks on his chest, the result of ritual scarification ceremonies to indicate the number of people he has killed. The scars symbolise the pride that Kenyan pastoralists along the country's volatile border with Ethiopia take in protecting their herds from rustlers. But they are also a source of despair for Lokipeng who has grown tired of decades of constant cross-border raids and deadly inter-clan violence, reports the Mail and Guardian.

Rights groups in Burkina Faso say they are outraged over the dismissal of charges against the former head of the presidential guard in connection with the 1998 murder of prominent journalist Norbert Zongo. Prosecutors said they were dropping charges against warrant officer Marcel Kafando for lack of evidence. The prosecutor said a key witness failed to recall details of a meeting with Kafando days before Zongo’s murder.

Members of Parliament (MPs) meeting in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, to discuss the 2006/07 budget have called for the education system to be overhauled, with the abolition of community day secondary schools (CDSSs) as one of the options. MP Ishmael Chafukira told parliament that the mushrooming CDSSs, which evolved from distance education centres, had contributed to the poor quality of education in the country, and alleged that most of these teachers "do not have necessary qualifications to teach in secondary schools”.

Many journalists and opposition leaders are opposing a new law approved by parliament this week. They say the law fails to protect editors and reporters from imprisonment for so-called press violations. "The passage of this law actually represents a slight deterioration (of press freedom)," Hisham Kassem, vice-chairman of the leading independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm told IPS.

There’s a window of opportunity in Africa right now, says the blog White African. "Many of the 'big' web companies don’t realize the potential that Africa represents in the web and mobile space, so they ignore it. Those who act now have a chance to own that market and take advantage of Africa being an afterthought."

Following the success of the launch of its internet freedom campaign in the UK, Amnesty International is today going global with irrepressible.info. The campaign aims to claim back the web as a force for change in the face of an increasing willingness on the part of technology companies to aid censorship and repression.

Below is the latest quarterly update (April to June 2006) that Equality Now received from SOAWR members who are working on the campaign for ratification, domestication and popularization of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Also included is information on the status of ratifications, meetings attended by SOAWR members and upcoming events which may be of interest to SOAWR members.

During this quarter the Steering Committee approved one more membership application received from the Centre for Justice Studies and Innovations (CJSI) in Uganda. This brings the total of SOAWR members to 22. Two additional applications from Liberia and Somalia are being reviewed.

Country Level Campaigns

Burkina Faso

Voix de Femmes reported that the Chief of State of Burkina Faso signed the Decree of Promulgation of the law authorizing ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa on March 31, 2006. The only step that remains is depositing the instrument of ratification with the African Union. The deposit document has been prepared and was sent to the Secretariat of the Government and was signed by the Chief of State on June 16, 2006. Currently, the document is with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is responsible for sending it to the African Union Commission through Burkina Faso’s Embassy in Addis Ababa.

Meanwhile, Voix de Femmes continues with activities to raise awareness about the Protocol and they have integrated these activities within the scope of their program regarding women’s rights and violence against women. They hold 2-hour educational sessions three times a month on Thursday afternoons for women who have domestic issues including marriage, divorce and inheritance. Youth and students also benefit from these sessions.

Ethiopia

IAC is planning two workshops, the first in September 2006 for legislators and parliamentarians on the domestication of the Protocol and other legal instruments. IAC anticipates there will be 56 participates from IAC’s 28 member countries. The objective is to train the participants on advocacy for ratification or enforcement in their respective countries of the Protocol and other legal instruments which protect women and children. The second conference is a regional youth forum which will be held during 21-25 November 2006, and will include 56 youths from the 28 IAC countries. The objective is to reinforce youth networks which were established in 2000 to campaign against female genital mutilation, and to train them on communication and validate a youth training manual developed by IAC. A specific session on the Protocol and its application is also on the conference agenda.

The Gambia

In April, the African Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS) reported that the Gambia has removed the reservations that it has earlier place on four articles of the Protocol. The African Union Commission has, however, not officially received this revision from the Gambian Government. ACDHRS is following up on this.

The ACDHRS organized and hosted the NGO forum during the 39th Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). The Forum, which brought about 135 participants and facilitators together, noted that this year is the 25th Anniversary of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Forum addressed several themes including new developments in the human rights and democracy situation in Africa. While Africa has seen significant and positive developments in human rights and democracy in this time, improvement is necessary with respect to human rights, good governance, and the rule of law. The Forum commended the participation of civil society organizations working throughout Africa to encourage the African Union to take responsibility for the enhancement and promotion of human rights. It noted the significance of the entry into force of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, congratulated the countries which have ratified it, and urged those who have not yet done so to ratify without delay. Strategies for the ratification and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa were exchanged as a basis for future collaboration. The NGOs attending the Forum expressed need to collaborate on efforts to advocate for ratification, domestication, and implementation. In a statement read by Hannah Forster on behalf of the NGO’s, attending the Forum, at the opening of the ACHPR, the NGO’s congratulated The Gambia for lifting its reservations to the Protocol. The NGO statement urged States to implement the African Union’s Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa at the national level.

The First Meeting of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights - The office of the African Union Commission Legal Counsel convened a meeting during the African Union Summit for the purpose of swearing in the newly elected judges and to brief them on the African Union Commission’s work especially on its working relations with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The court has not elected a president yet which was deferred to September 2006 in Addis Ababa.

Guinea Conakry

Though Guinea was among the first countries whose Parliament approved ratification of the Protocol, thanks to the strong mobilization efforts led by CPTAFE and its partners on the ground, to date Guinea has not yet officially deposited its instrument of ratification with the African Union Commission. The delay is attributed to the current political crisis where the President has been ill for several months now.

Convinced that the Protocol must first be fully accepted by the community in general and women in particular, CPTAFE engaged in an immense sensitization campaign. It identified 30 young women, 30 young men, 30 older women and 30 older men throughout the country. These 120 people underwent a full day of training on the Protocol. Upon return to their communities, these trained people undertook a vast education campaign on the Protocol focusing on the following components: origin and genesis, contents, achievement in the field of women’s human rights, regional character, and necessity of personal engagement of women in the fight for their rights. Interactive broadcasts on community radio were organized in four regions of Guinea.

CPTAFE succeeded in including the popularization of the Protocol in all its social projects in Guinea. Parallel to this work in the field, staff and volunteers went door to door to the decision-makers and advocated for the deposit of the instrument of ratification. In the past year, Guinea has changed government three times and the Minster of Foreign Affairs, who is specifically responsible for the Protocol, has changed four times. CPTAFE met with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Health, Interior and Social Affairs and sensitized them all on the necessity to support the domestication of the Protocol.

On 12 May 2006, Guinean Radio and Television organized a large debate on the subject of the ratification and application of the Protocol in Guinea and Africa. This program, which brought together Guinean specialists from government and civil society, allowed for wide scale dissemination of information to the public on the progress that has been achieved for human rights in general and women’s rights in particular. Following the last meeting of the Board of CPTAFE and their partners held on 29 June 2006, it was proposed that CPTAFE would use theatre, a method of popularization which has had a lot of success in the fight against FGM, to popularize the Protocol in the public domain.

* Please click on the link below to read the full update.

Despite making some progress towards developing an inclusive process for women within the World Social Forum (WSF) movement, profound problems remain that are likely to manifest themselves in the lead up to the WSF meeting in Nairobi in 2007, says Onyango Oloo, in this paper presented at a public forum on “Gendering the WSF Process”. It’s not a lost battle, however. Oloo suggests that action can still be taken through which men can show solidarity with their women comrades.

Conceptual Underpinnings

First things first:

In talking about gendering the World Social Forum process, it is crucial for my readers to grasp what I am NOT talking about.

I am NOT talking about “women’s issues” nor am I trying to “solve” or “resolve” “The Woman Question”.

Rather, I am trying to explore the problematics thrown up by the age-old power dynamics between men and women and contextualizing this within the history of planning and organizing for successive WSF events.

And I have embarked on this task for reasons that are far from “academic”; I am not driven solely by theoretical and intellectual preoccupations about the subject of gender.

I happen to be right in the middle of the logistical, programmatic and other aspects of social mobilization, fund-raising, outreach and publicity for the next edition of the World Social Forum taking place in Nairobi, Kenya from January 20th to January 25th 2007.

As a man, I am keenly aware of the baggage of male privilege that I was born with growing up in a world defined by patriarchy, misogyny and other forms of oppression against and domination over women. As a Kenyan, I am also cognizant of the inescapable fact of the world capitalist economy buttressing these age-old oppressions by punctuating every thing with class and confining historically determined societies within an overall imperialist vortex which in the Kenyan and African context manifests itself as neo-colonialism.

Over the last quarter century or so, neo-liberal policies downloaded to Kenya and other African and Southern countries via multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) etc etc have worsened the already lopsided power dynamics between men and women in the spheres of the economy, political representation, social and cultural relations, not forgetting the ideological imperatives of the day.

As humankind struggles to realize and implement the vision of an alternative, more egalitarian and social justice oriented world, one is quite conscious that we are doing so within the context of class struggles and gender tensions which define our everyday existence. Progressive women and men continue the fight to build a better world even as we explore the stark reminders of persistent sexism, pervasive patriarchy and rampant misogyny that seep into our work despite our subjective commitments and best, sincere and earnest intentions against these manifestations of oppression, marginalization and even outright contempt and hatred towards women.

It should therefore surprise no one that the World Social Forum process, unfolding against the complex tapestry of real and concrete social conditions cannot be hermetically sealed and insulated from all the troubling manifestations of inequality between men and women and other aspects of the lopsided power dynamics between the two genders.

Before proceeding further, let me pause and share some capsules capturing various testimonies, perspectives and experiences from the World Social Forum process itself:

Testimonies and Critiques Regarding Gender and the WSF Process

1. …even while trying to build another world based on principles of participatory democracy and social justice, internal contradictions remain in the WSF. One of the most notable are weaknesses in maintaining gender inclusiveness. The majority of participants in the WSF are women, but most of the presenters on panels are men, continuing the stereotype that men are the producers of knowledge. The raises the question of what the WSF will do to assure more participatory democracy in terms of gender balance? - Marc Becker, April 12, 2006 (http://www.yachana.org/writings/beautyqueens.html)

2. Other aspects of the forum were more problematic. "One huge issue at the WSF was gender dynamics," Nadja Millner-Larsen, a recent graduate from New York’s Bard College, said. "There was an enormous lack of women on the panels at the social forum. I attended this one panel on the anti globalization movement and at the end of it a lot of women stood up and said "how can we create another world when we don’t have healthy gender dynamics in these panels?"

"Some of the men said, ‘Okay, we should pay attention to this.’ But others on the panel had this age-old response that been going on in the left since the sixties. They said, well, classes aren’t equally represented, nor race, therefore you shouldn’t be so outraged by the underrepresentation of women."

"This is skirting around the issue," Millner-Larsen continued. "If a black person in a white audience asked why there aren’t black people on a panel, the speakers wouldn’t say, ‘Relax there aren’t any women either.’ Here we are thirty years later and we are still arguing class and gender against women…it’s shocking. To allow this unequal gender distribution to be sanctioned within the official forum obviously has this kind of trickle down effect in the youth camp."

In addition to hundreds of robberies and numerous fights in the Youth Camp, rapes were reported there as well. "There was a high level of violence in the Youth Camp, Millner-Larsen explained. I felt more scared there than I really have traveling anywhere else. I got the sense that being alone in the camp was a really dangerous thing." - Benjamin Dangl, commenting on the WSF in Porto Allegre (http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/177/63/)

3. However, it was felt that the women's movement still rests on the margins of the WSF. In his testimony, Candido Grzybowski, Sociologist, Director of IBASE, and member of the WSF organizing committee, states that "women were just 43 percent of WSF delegates, although they make up over 50 percent of the world's population! It is sad to acknowledge, but WSF was still limited in terms of its social female face". He continues: "In the WSF, I'm learning something fundamental, that will certainly change my role in the Forum and at IBASE. Women are a 'minority' created by ourselves within civil society. With respect to that, there is no point in blaming capitalism, neoliberalism, globalization, exclusionary states, etc. This is a major problem that is engendered, developed, and maintained in the culture of civil society itself." -(http://www.dawn.org.fj/publications/docs/cardosawsf.doc).

4. Trains are a good example. Seldom have I been so scared as when I took the train to the forum one morning and did not go on the women’s wagon. There was no space there, I thought – before discovering that the space given to me in a wagon full of men was a form of hell.

In this appalling, everyday situation women struggle to find space for themselves, and somehow they succeed. The WSF is the same; neither women nor the gender issue in general was better represented in the official programme this year as compared to previous years. The same men dominated the ‘star’ panels; some, who clearly think too highly of themselves, participated in several seminars at the same time. Who (to name just one) did not see Walden Bello deliver a speech and then say: “excuse me, I have to go”, and run off to the next seminar?

Many panels consisted entirely of men. Some trendy activists, who think that they are super-feminists because they know a bit of gender theory, agreed to sit on panels without a single woman. Everywhere you could see “homosocial” relations: men preferring to talk to men, men favouring men when organising a seminar or editing a book. Women being forgotten and given the same proportion in a space as Indian women will get in the train. All of this has been there since the forum process started and was still there in Mumbai – but somehow it was challenged and overtaken by women who decided to occupy more space than they had been given.

I’ve heard so many people say: “something must happen to this WSF process. It can’t go on like this.” But, this year, something did happen.
A “new” issue – women’s rights – has moved into the centre.

Many “old” problems remain. The approach to solving them may be through proposals that some will find uncomfortable. It’s like the women’s wagons. I’m sure that many would oppose the idea of separating men and women travelers. Well, before judging you should be a woman traveling in a train in India. The wagons “for everybody” consist only of men, who will harass and molest any woman who ventures aboard. It was women themselves who fought to have the women’s wagons.

If the WSF panels “for everybody” consist only of men, who talk about and analyse everything, and the women-only panels speak solely of women’s issues – and that continues regardless of how many think it’s wrong – then maybe we have to make rules. One rule we could make for the WSF is that all-male panels are allowed only to talk about men’s issues.

If people refuse to understand the obvious, perhaps we need to make rules until they do? I’m not suggesting that that would be a positive thing, but the success of the women this year will have an impact that will mark the forum process for more than just a few days in Mumbai.

But this World Social Forum (Mumbai 2004) should not primarily be remembered as an event where we started to make rules, but as a beautiful political festival dominated by women. According to gender research, women are perceived as “many” or “in majority” when we occupy 30% of a space. At this forum, women were approximately represented in accordance with our proportion of the world’s population: around 51%. I think that is why many observers perceived women to be everywhere at this forum. - America Vera Savala (http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4910&sectionID=1)

Prevailing Gender Dynamics Within the Eastern African Context

Eastern African Women have played and are playing a crucial role in planning and organizing for the upcoming WSF 2007 event. In the host country of Kenya for example, the only member from Kenya of the International Council is a woman; two of the four Kenyan representatives to the African Social Forum Council are Kenyan women. The main representative of the Ethiopian Social Forum to the ASF/WSF gatherings is a woman; in Tanzania at least five of the leading WSF organizers in that country are women; in Uganda almost half of the representatives to the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee are women.

At the inaugural WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee held in Nairobi from April 22nd to April 23rd 2006 half of the chairs of the plenary session were women. At the same meeting, 27.5% (22 out of 80) of the participants were women. Women are also very well-represented in the overall Organizing Committee itself. Prior to and following that pivotal meeting, FEMNET, one of the leading African women’s civil society organizations (and represented in 3 Commissions for WSF 2007) initiated a series of meetings to bring together women involved in the WSF process.

At the same time, out of the 7 Commissions of the WSF Organizing Committee, only 1 is convened by a woman despite the fact that women constitute nearly half of the membership in those commissions. In one of the key decision bodies - the Nairobi Local Committee - 2 of the 5 members are women. The WSF Nairobi 2007 Secretariat is still very much male-dominated. At the inaugural WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee women called for the setting up of a Women’s Commission - although this issue was never resolved or decided upon.

From the above it is clear that Eastern African women are right in the thick of things when it comes to planning, organizing and mobilizing for WSF Nairobi 2007. Simultaneously the process to the 2007 Nairobi event remains male driven and centred. One can safely assume that the testimonies and perspectives shared in the preceding section will find their equivalents within our regional context. Most of the population in the Eastern African region remains rural-based. Over half of that population is female. Yet the organizing and planning for Nairobi 2007 is centred in the major urban centres like Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar town, Mogadishu and Addis Ababa. This has direct implications when it comes to ensuring effective participation of ordinary Eastern African working class and peasant women in the planning and execution for WSF Nairobi 2007. Young adult women (not just in Eastern Africa) have been complaining that there is an assumption that “Youth” = “Young Male” thus marginalizing female youth who in our local context outnumber their male counterparts. One could cite other examples, but suffice to say that the issue of women remaining at the margins of the WSF process is a reality within Eastern Africa as well.

At the end of the day, this reality of women’s marginalization should not be an earth-shattering shock to anyone. The WSF process is a microcosm of concrete conditions in the world today. The gender dynamics within the World Social Forum are a reflection of the actually existing power relations between women and men all over the world.

Just confining ourselves to the Kenyan situation for a few minutes, it is not contested that the prevailing grinding poverty in this country has a greater impact on Kenyan women - even though women are the primary producers of food, the main engines in the unpaid household economy, the chief child care providers, the ones who bear the brunt of taking care of the elderly, the HIV infected and AIDS orphans. There are only a handful of female cabinet ministers and their assistants in the bloated Kenya government.

Every single day there are literally dozens of stories in the local print and electronic media of women being killed, raped, defiled, battered, brutalized and otherwise assaulted by their spouses, fathers, uncles, brothers, sons and other men in their immediate lives as well as total strangers who see females (from babies under a year old to grandmothers pushing a century in existence) as vulnerable, “weaker” targets for their violence prone male power trips.

Recently there was a huge national furor when a Kenyan woman MP introduced a bill to legislate against a huge array of sexual offences including marital rape. Male Kenyan MPs led the charge in ridiculing and rubbishing the Bill with one notorious MP quipping that African women mean “Yes” when they say “No” to uninvited sexual advances. The newspaper columns were full of commentaries and letters to editors from battalions and garrisons of Kenyan men feeling threatened in their bastions of male privilege and therefore unwilling and/or unable to appreciate the terror of rising rape incidents and manifestations of violence against Kenyan women; radio stations were bombarded with phone- calls and mobile text messages from across the country as the male backlash against the Njoki Ndung’u Sexual Offences Bill intensified with gusto.

Notwithstanding the fact that sections of the bill were poorly drafted (as in the startling shifting of the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused) Kenyan male MPs managed to weed out many of the path-breaking recommendations of the bill. For instance, these male MPs and their non-parliamentary brothers in arms across the country considered it a huge “triumph” when the clause criminalizing marital rape was excised from the final, hugely diluted Act of Parliament.

A couple months ago this writer was horrified at the way the crowd at a certain Mombasa night club approvingly cheered when a stand up comic gleefully made fun of a Kenyan woman who had been viciously gang-raped just the previous week. Listening to the sports commentaries on the radio or browsing through certain weekly columns by male writers, it is evident that sexism and misogyny in Kenya cuts across age, class, tribe, race, religion, creed, urban/rural divides and other cleavages in society.

One should therefore not be surprised to see manifestations of these unequal power dynamics between men and women in the actual WSF process itself. If anything, the situation as far as the planning and organizing for Nairobi 2007 seems to reflect a reality that stands a cut above the day to day interactions between men and women in Kenya and the rest of the Eastern African region.

Towards WSF Nairobi 2007: Learning from Past WSF Gender Pitfalls

When one looks at the gender dynamics informing the WSF 2007 process, one is filled with optimism and left brimming with hope. This despite the parlous panorama painted in the preceding section; this despite the unflattering global audit of power relations between women and men around the world.

Why then the optimism? From which spring gushes the hope?

The optimism comes after taking stock of how women around the globe involved in the WSF process have been successfully challenging the bastions and assumptions of male privilege; the optimism is inspired by the fact that an increasing number of men in the WSF family are self-critically re-examining their own roles and seeing how these roles keep women marginalized. The hope emanates from Dennis Brutus’ (a WSF veteran in his own right) poetically dubbed “stubborn hope”: the stubborn hope of the oppressed and marginalized to reclaim centre stage through determined collective struggles. On the Eastern African plane, the optimism and hope comes from the presence of many strong feminists who have helped to build the Social Forums in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia and a core of progressive men who realized early in the process that the active participation of women and interrogating assumptions of male domination and female marginalization are key indicators of the growth and maturity of the Social Forums in this part of Africa.

Despite these plaudits, the path ahead is rocky; it is hilly and it is thorny.

Speaking as a man anxious to contribute towards a reconfiguration of this lopsided gender equation, I strongly feel that it is about time Eastern African men started a deeper process of questioning ourselves.

One of the places to begin this reflection and rectification has to do with the question of taking up space. One of the mantras of the World Social Forum is for people to claim their space. But in doing so, as men, suck up all the oxygen? Do we stifle others? Do we silence others? Do we literally take up TOO MUCH space? How often do we speak? How long do we speak? In speaking often and loudly, do we perhaps silence others - especially our sister comrades in struggle for a better, more alternative world?

When women speak, do we men listen? How often do we fidget, start side conversations with “our brothers” or interrupt our sisters when they are speaking? When women are through with their presentations do we as men acknowledge what they are saying or were we waiting for OUR chance to speak without bothering to switch on our active listening ears? Do we question the socially determined gender roles at such meetings (as in who takes the minutes, prepares the tea and cleans up)?

It is not once when I have heard concerns raised by women in the WSF process dismissed by otherwise very progressive men as yet one more instance of the often derided “Western bourgeois feminist” contagion - a charge that often silences even the most articulate of African women.

By making that anti-feminist charge, even some of the most overtly “progressive, radical, anti-imperialist ” Eastern African men are often guilty of consciously or unconsciously participating in a covertly sexist attempt to belittle the concerns and demands of women.

The F-word – FEMINISM - is surprisingly dreaded even by dyed in the wool “socialists” “Pan Africanists” and self-declared “revolutionaries” - which is a pity because in my opinion one CANNOT be a socialist, a Pan Africanist or a self-declared revolutionary and hold as anathema the straightforward credo of feminism: equality between women and men.

Sadly, sometimes the most implacable foes of the feminist idea in the Eastern African region are some African WOMEN who in a weird sense of bonding with their African BROTHERS rush to take up cudgels against their OWN SISTERS IN STRUGGLE who insist on pointing out gaps and flaws in the gender dynamics of a given process like the WSF.

Being part of the WSF 2007 Secretariat I am confronted with the practical task of practicing what I preach.

In other words, what concretely can Eastern African men involved in the WSF process do in re-gendering the planning process in order to engender more equal and equitable relations between women and men?

One take off point I believe, is in more and more Eastern African MEN supporting the calls of sisters like Roselynn Musa of FEMNET who have called for the establishment of a Women’s Commission as one of the sub-structures of the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee. The arguments I have heard AGAINST the notion of a Women’s Commission with regards that women are represented in ALL of the Commissions and that gender is a cross-cutting concern in the whole planning process is an argument that can NOT be sustained upon further reflection. Youth too, are represented across the board and youth issues are cross-cutting as well. Yet, there is in fact not just a Youth Commission but a whole process of setting up and running a Youth Camp.

Another place to begin taking action is in devising strategies, policies, instruments and structures that will help reduce the level of violence against women attending the WSF event in Nairobi next year. I am zeroing in on the incidents of rape at past WSF events and how we can all work together to turn around this situation. We must go beyond treating Rape as a law and order problem that can be ameliorated by deploying more cops to the WSF site. To do so is to betray an insufficient understanding about the complexity of rape and other instances of violence against women because it reduces the issue to a one –dimensional phenomena of women being accosted and ambushed by “strange men” prowling the Kenyatta International Conference Centre and Uhuru Park for foreign and local female victims.

If we were to adopt this blinkered approach for next year’s WSF event, we would be letting off the hook other potential and actual assailants of WSF- attending women. I am talking about the scientifically proven and documented reality that more often than not, women are raped and assaulted by men they know, men they work with, men they are familiar with. How do women guard against fellow WSF male participants or even fellow delegates from the same organization and the same country. Rape is the extreme, but how about under-reported cases of sexual harassment, unwarranted touching and groping, offensive sexist jokes and exposure to pornography?

These are not problems that are easily amenable to mechanical legislation or a reductionist resort to more police presence - forgetting that all over the world police forces are often implicated in rapes and other forms of violence and harassment against women.

I suggest that in combating rape and other manifestations of violence against women during the next edition of the WSF scheduled for Nairobi in January 2007, men and women can work together, in first sensitizing ALL delegates about rape and violence against women as a manifestation of sexism, misogyny and patriarchy - concepts that are totally alien to the WSF Charter.

Beyond the sensitization should be put in place enforceable sanctions for people who are caught in perpetrating these outrages. In addition to this, the Program, Methodology and Content Commission can send out a specific call for workshops, panels, seminars and teach-ins that address questions of rape, sexual harassment and violence against women. The Logistics Commission could set up banners, stickers, brochures, leaflets and banners campaigning against rape and sexual harassment within and among the WSF delegates.

The Youth Commission could organize an orientation session with the same themes heavily represented. The Culture Commission can organize screenings or performances that highlight the experiences of rape survivors and women who have been through wife battery and similar forms of violence.

The Social Mobilization Commission can carry out a campaign to identify and recruit women and men who have worked in rape crisis centres and counseled victims of violence so as to set up such centres within the sites of WSF Nairobi 2007. The Media and Publicity Commission can come up with special pamphlets or produce short video documentaries campaigning against rape and violence against women.

The Resource Mobilization Commission can try and mobilize funds to recruit and train in house security organized to deal with incidents of rape and violence against women. Perhaps there should be special provisions for women who are survivors of rape and sexual violence to get housing and accommodation that lowers their fears of a repeat occurrence - by opting for billeting (solidarity accommodation) with other women, living in secure female only hostels etc. And yes, deploying more police and other regular security personnel can help reduce the number of rapes and incidents of violence against women during the WSF event next year.

In doing all this, the WSF Nairobi 2007 Organizing Committee should and must work with organizations like the Coalition on Violence Against Women, FEMNET, FIDA, Equality Now, AWEPON, Sahiba Sisters Foundation, TAMWA, Five Centuries Theatre Group, WIPPET, ENDA-Ethiopia, Kenya Human Rights Commission, OXFAM, Action Aid, MS Kenya, Heinrich Boll Foundation and other civil society bodies that have a proven track record in these areas.

What else can Eastern African men do in terms of changing the gender dynamics of the WSF process for the better?

Perhaps I will pause here.

I fervently urge everyone reading this to get hold of Roselynn Musa’s presentation on the same subject during the recently convened Heinrich Boll Foundation supported forum on “Gendering the WSF Process” held at the Ufungumano House on Thursday, May 25, 2006.

* This paper was first presented at a public forum on “Gendering the WSF Process” held at Ufungamano House in Nairobi on Thursday, May 25, 2006 and financially supported by the Heinrich Boell Foundation. Onyango Oloo is the National Coordinator, Kenya Social Forum

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The Chadian parliament voted late on Wednesday to meet a demand by the country’s main union for a five percent wage hike, putting in sight an end to the strike which has closed down government offices and healthcare facilities in the capital since early June. “The ministry of finance, sharing the concerns of the finance commission and taking into account the unhealthy social environment, has agreed to a five percent wage increase, backdated to January 2005,” the parliament’s president, Nassour Guelengdouksia, said in a statement.