I read with keen interest Charles Aburge's article on debt, aid and trade which appeared in Pambazuka News 240.

I enjoyed his strategic counselling and "scolding" of civil society in Africa for mindful engagement with African regional bodies in areas of debt and trade with Africa. I especially enjoyed reading his recognition that sometimes we in civil society unconsciously contribute to the erosion of sovereignty and the loss of self-worth in Africa. We are sometimes quick to demand or endorse "governance conditionality" where aid and debt relief is made conditional to progress in these areas.

This reminded me of the on-going row between the Government of Chad and The World Bank regarding the "Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline", where Chadian civil society activists are encouraging The World Bank to withold financial support from Chad.

Surely, who suffers? Should the role of civil society be to support global institutions at the expense of national programs? I am mindful of the governing record of the government of President Derby. However, to seemingly support a project which from its inception was de-cried for its erosion of the supremacy of Chadian Constitution in the interests of corporate law is worrisome.

The key element of contestation by the Chadian government is the off-shore account where oil revenues are kept for future generations. Wouldn't it be in the interests of Chadian civil society that in fact these funds are made available to the current generations from whom oil is extracted? Wouldn't a better role of Chadian civil society then be to monitor proper government use of these funds for education, health, environmental management and security of the nation? Surely, sometimes civil society in Africa must work for national and/or even regional prosperity, not against it.

Here in the US white people can talk about all the atrocities that happened in the past and atrocities that happen in the present, but you cannot get them to admit to slavery in the US as an inhuman act against African slaves.

When you bring up the effects of slavery on African descendants and how it robs the US of the total participation of all its' people, sometimes things are said like "when are you people going to forget slavery".

Whites are unable to understand that the wealth of the US was built on the genocide of its native people for free land and the enslavement of African people.

The other great damage of slavery is to internalize the self hatred of many African descendant people against themselves and other African descendant people.

As the chances of finding more survivors in the building that collapsed earlier this week in Nairobi moved from slim to remote, poor oversight and corruption were being blamed for the disaster. "It is not just a problem of a collapsed building. It is a much wider problem of a lack of capacity to handle the huge construction industry," said Abonyo Erastus, vice chairman of the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK), adding that the Nairobi City Council (NCC) had too few architects on staff to maintain building standards in the Kenyan capital.

Rival youth gangs have clashed at Seme, the main border crossing between Benin and Nigeria, killing at least four people and setting fire to cars. The violence broke out on Monday after Benin police tried to arrest a suspected Nigerian thief. Lagos State police commissioner told the BBC that security forces from both countries had now calmed the situation.

An estimated 70,000 people have been displaced by recent attacks on two towns in the war-ravaged Sudanese state of South Darfur, humanitarian workers in the region said. At least 50,000 were displaced in a series of attacks on camps for internally displaced people [IDPs] in Mershing town, while more than 15,000 were displaced in separate attacks on nearby Shearia.

Three members of a rebel movement from Sudan's Darfur region have beaten up two fellow rebel delegates at peace talks in Nigeria, in what mediators called a "barbaric" attack that aggravated ethnic tensions. The attackers and their victims were delegates of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of two rebel groups talking with the Sudanese government in the Nigerian capital Abuja in an attempt to end three years of bloodshed in Darfur.

This World Vision International Resources on Child Rights report documents the impact of the war in northern Uganda, where more than 30,000 children have been abducted and forced to work as soldiers and sex slaves, and includes new information about prospects for peace. The report looks specifically at the social and economic costs of the conflict, and processes to end the conflict. It argues that the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan increases the opportunity for negotiations and multi-lateral engagement in northern Uganda.

The Global Policy Forum reports that the Security Council adopted Resolution 1653 in a ministerial-level debate on regional dimensions of peace and security in the Great Lakes region of Africa. The resolution calls on the Governments of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to disarm and demobilize militias and armed groups, especially northern Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army. The resolution also acknowledges the link between the illegal exploitation of natural resources, the illicit trade of those resources and the proliferation and trafficking of arms as key factors fuelling and exacerbating the conflicts in the Great Lakes. Resolution 1653 thus urges the countries of the region to promote lawful and transparent use of natural resources among themselves and in the region.

This is the first formal publication of two early plays by Wole Soyinka, edited by Zodwa Motsa The Invention (1959) and The Detainee (1965). Widely regarded as Soyinka's first play, The Invention reflects the obsession with race that marked the apartheid regime, and prophetically depicts the beginnings of the crumbling of the apartheid system in the futuristic setting of Johannesburg in 1976. It expresses the concern of the African diapsora with apartheid, which was felt to be an affront to the entire race. The Detainee is a radioplay. The plot foreshadows the writer's own imprisonment and his now familiar concerns about the vagaries of African politics.

This World Bank report examines the impact of ambiguous and contested land rights on investment and productivity in agriculture in Akwapim, Ghana, showing that individuals who hold powerful positions in a local political hierarchy have more secure tenure rights, and that as a consequence they invest more in land fertility and have substantially higher output.

Women are discriminated against in many ways but if a woman is also a member of a minority or indigenous community, she faces multiple disadvantages. Despite some efforts, neither gender equality nor minority and indigenous rights are integral to international law or human rights. Ignoring this discrimination leads to a failure in recognising the many ways women are ill-treated. A report from the Minority Rights Group International (MRG) examines how factors such as gender, minority and indigenous status combine to affect women. The MRG encourages those working on minority and indigenous peoples’ rights to include gender issues. It also urges those working on gender equality and women's rights to include minorities and indigenous peoples within their remit.

'Growth isn't working: the uneven distribution of benefits and costs from economic growth', shows that globalisation is failing the world's poorest as their share of the benefits of growth plummet, and accelerating climate change hurts the poorest most. The report, the first in the New Economic Foundation's series of 'Re-thinking poverty' reports, reveals that the share of benefits from global economic growth reaching the world's poorest people is actually shrinking, while they continue to bear an unfair share of the costs.

Travelling through Nigeria recently, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem remembers how he was stopped by a crowd of people warning him that bandits has set up an ‘operation’ and were looting passing motorists. Abdul-Raheem assesses the state of lawlessness in Nigeria and the rule of Olusegun Obasanjo, who is moving ever closer to a third term bid and the possibility of becoming a “lame duck president with everything imploding around him”.

These days I have been spending more time in Nigeria. ‘Home', as they say, is indeed the best, but for most Nigerians it must be tough love. It is often difficult for one to say if things are getting better or if one is just getting used to it and lowering one's standards - while increasing one's tolerance levels of unfair situations and injustices on the many fronts of the multiple obstacle race that the country has become. Just when you think things are never going to get worse, Nigeria and Nigerians combine their unique capacity to find ways of digging deeper and sinking further.

The general insecurity across the country has proven so insurmountable that Nigerians seemed to have resigned themselves to it and put themselves on a permanent state of alert, hoping that lady luck, miracle prayers, or some voodoo or witchcraft or a combination of all these will see them through.

In addition to these, those who are rich buy themselves militias. Armed robbery, hired killers, political killings, and other forms of gratuitous violence are perpetrated both privately and officially by the police and other security agencies charged with public safety. The Inspector General of Police recently publicly apologised and promised to take action about a number of serving police men accused of 'hiring' their guns to gangs of armed robbers. And the Police write boldly on their vehicles ‘to protect with integrity and honesty’, either as a sick joke or as a mockery of Nigerians.

Not long ago I had a personal experience of the lawlessness. I was travelling home to Funtua, which is about 75 kilometres north of the University town of Samaru Zaria, at around 8pm. At a small town called Giwa we saw huge crowds of people lined up on the road and a row of different vehicles parked by the roadside. Everybody was shouting that we should stop. We did and we were told that 'there was an operation' ahead of us. This operation was not a security sweep or road check: armed robbers had mounted a road bloc and were taking whatever they could find from their victims. Confidently we were told the 'operation' was going to be over in about an hour. We were advised that once there were cars coming from the opposite direction it meant the road was clear. And within an hour, as we were advised, 'the road opened' and we drove home safely.

You will be forgiven for asking a number of obvious questions: Where were the police? If everybody knew where they operated and even the time and also the days (usually market days in surrounding trading towns) why were the police not doing anything about it?

Very legitimate questions but only a stranger will ask these kinds of questions in Nigeria. Everybody knows that the police and the army, if they are not doing the 'operations' themselves, are aiding and abetting the crimes because they share in the booty. It is not only their guns that they rent out - they also regularly parcel out sections of the federal highways so that these nefarious 'operations' can take place with impunity. Once they are done you will see siren blaring police vehicles rushing in at break-neck speed to the scene after their comrades in crime have bolted with the loot!

Yet this is a country in which Obasanjo and his acolytes delude themselves into believing the people have never had it so good. That is why they are orchestrating a constitutional reform that will make it possible for Obasanjo to stand for a third term like his good friend and ex-Comrade, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, in Uganda.

Obasanjo does not seem to have learnt anything from his previous experience as a military head of state, his stint in civil society as founder of Africa Leadership Forum and his horrible prison term under Abacha.

A friend who was present at a meeting between General Ibrahim Badmasi Babangida when he was head of state and General Obasanjo as a coup-plotter-turned NGO-activist narrated an interesting exchange to me that is relevant to this matter. Obasanjo had fallen into an armed robbery ambush on his way to a scheduled meeting with the smiling dictator, Babangida. Being the cautious general that he was he did not play any hero with armed robbers. He knew he was outgunned and saw no rationality in resisting so he surrendered the money he had and they let him go. They did not know and could not have cared who he was. If they had known it was Obasanjo they probably would have even killed him anyway. He became a victim like any other innocent Nigerian whose only crime was driving on the road. In narrating this experience to Babangida, citizen Obasanjo told him that he had no doubt that there was no political motivation to the crime. But if it had leaked out to the public immediately many would have jumped to the conclusion that - because Obasanjo had been openly very critical of Babangida’s policies - the government had a hand in it. Therefore he asked Babangida to take the issues of public safety and security seriously, otherwise the government was going to be held responsible for everything and anything.

It is a shame that the same Obasanjo cannot allow himself similar wisdom since he became President seven years ago.

As the tussles for power intensify at all levels of government, a spate of killings and fear of more violence has gripped the country.

By no means would all of the violence be politically motivated, but so bad are things now and so polarised has the country become that everything is blamed on Obasanjo and his government. The recent brutal murder of the wife of the 'former radical' governor of Kano State, Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi, was immediately suspected to be politically motivated because Rimi is one of the most vocal critics of Obasanjo’s third term bid. The available evidence so far from the investigations suggest that to the extent that politics was involved in the murder it had local dynamics rather than anything to do with Aso Rock. But who cares for such empirical details in a leader-centric system where the President is God?

It is not only killings that are blamed on Aso Rock. Many of those being investigated for corruption now claim that it is because they are opposed to Obasanjo's third term bid or because they are supporters of Obasanjo's estranged Deputy, Atiku Abubakar. The whole governance system is grinding to a halt so that even the good things that Obasanjo's regime has done and is doing are lost in the controversies. He is losing control of the machinery of the state and on his way to becoming a rogue President.

Yet he can retreat from the abyss and leave a more positive legacy by making a broadcast to the Nation renouncing any intention of amending the constitution to facilitate his self-succession in 2007. This will immediately drastically bring down the overheated political atmosphere of the country. It will also destabilise his many enemies who have built a coalition of convenience around anti-third term campaigns. More than that it will give him the opportunity to regain credibility for a lasting legacy in the areas of public safety, economic reform, the war against corruption and even more leverage in deciding who succeeds him. Failing this he will remain a lame duck president with everything imploding around him but travelling all over the world to fix everybody's problems without a clue on what to do about those he was allegedly elected to solve.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to

Sudan recently hosted the Sixth Ordinary Session of the General Assembly of the African Union. While the AU is seeking to claim its place in the international arena, a lot still needs to be done. But as the Chinese have always said, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The European Union was initially a coal-and-steel trading bloc; but today, it is a strong common market with 370 million consumers now footing the bills of the African Union in the peacekeeping operations in Darfur and elsewhere on our continent. What Africa needs is a sense of focus and belonging. The African Union Act, if well used, could provide for intervention in the affairs of member states on critical issues such as democratic elections.

Publishers: Mkuki Na Nyota Publishers, Dar es Salaam
DISTRIBUTORS: Africa Books Collective PRICE: £20.95 or $34.95

Jacques Depelchin's book, 'Silences in African History' was becoming the victim of a reviewer's silence. What you are going to read is but an initial reaction to reading this book of many parts, that reminded me of the lyrics 'coat of many colours that my mama sewed for me'. It is a very engaging book. Many readers may understand and sympathise with me, if I plead to having been very busy; leading to a pile up of must read books, journals and papers.

That's partly the reason why it took some time to get around to reviewing this book, but the main reason is that Jacques is a complex writer, who writes in the fast disappearing cross-disciplinary radical scholarship. This is from an era when intellectuals had the guts to call imperialism its real name, instead of the understated notion of 'globalisation' that is used these days.

Oppressors and exploiters were called their real names instead of the dubious notion of 'partners in development' that is foistered on us today. The book may be inaccessible to the faint hearted as it traverses history, philosophy, literature, social sciences, humanities, cultural studies, traditions, spirituality ,religion, economics, history of science and science of history, the historical method, the dialectical method. It is both about the methodology of history and the history of methodology.

In 10 chapters, written with economy of language but full of so much information that betrays the long period of gestation of the book, it is both a critique of received wisdom and contemporary practice not only about the history of Africa but the knowledge of and about Africa. While applauding the pioneering nationalist African historians of the postcolonial period for challenging colonialist constructs and exposing imperialism packaged as knowledge, Depelchin also confronts most scathingly the reversal of the nationalist gains in contemporary times, where the pro/reproduction of knowledge about Africa has again transferred back to the metropolis and predominantly non African scholars who call themselves Africanists. They are largely outside of Africa, in western and predominantly North American universities.

They are also cohabiting with an exponentially increasing number of African scholars from Africa. The contemporary African Diaspora of technicians of knowledge in these countries is beginning to dwarf that of any single African country, including Nigeria. For instance it will be interesting to compare the ratio of African professors per head within 100 kilometres of New York to those in a similar radius of Lagos, Pretoria, Nairobi or Dar Es Salaam. It is not just the big names of our intelligentsia that have emigrated, but several generations after them - and even now future generations are aspiring to jump ship.

Historical silences meet existential silences with the same outcome: transfer of power over our history to extra continental individuals and institutions. We have to wonder what will become of peoples whose cream of intelligentsia are removed from the social base of their knowledge production.

‘Silences’ is such a wonderful cocktail of gems around so many issues and concerns across so many disciplines that one is frustrated that Depelchin has written several books in one without completing any of them. It is the kind of book that a lazy student can struggle to read and get a general grasp of many issues and bamboozle his way around term essays.

But in the hands of an inquisitive and enthusiastic reader it is both humbling and inspiring. It makes one wonder how little one knows but also challenges one to want to read more. But the theme of ‘Silences’ runs through all the chapters and gives it a coherence that its vast spectrum could have denied it. It is about how what we know is shaped by the methodology we deploy, but this methodology itself is not neutral but shaped by class and ideological interests of those in control of our lives and societies.

Intellectuals fancy themselves as being 'objective', others even see themselves as being above society, but Depelchin demystifies these fantasies in the Cabralist sense of posing the class interests that inform scholarship and how intellectuals are themselves part of the struggles they are interpreting. As partisans they make choices that determine what they see and what they refuse to see. Sometimes what they did not write about is more important than what they have written.

This book deserves wider reading. It is part of the power dynamics of scholarship about Africa that to be read and be popular, African authors or authors on Africa have to be published outside Africa and mostly in Europe and the USA. The publishers of this book, Mkuki Na Nyota, based in Dar Es Salaam, once a centre for radical scholarship and emancipatorary politics of the nationalist-developmental state, are one of the more veteran core of African publishers determined against all odds to publish about Africa in Africa, creating a space for African intellectual, cultural and political ownership of Africa.

The Director, Walter Bugoya, comes from the nationalist and liberationist tradition that have refused to surrender. If we do not patronise our own institutions and entrepreneurs how do we expect them to develop and compete favourably with the rest of the world? Depelchin has chosen not to be silenced by writing this book and he has also refused to allow African publishing to be silenced by choosing to publish in Dar Es Salaam even though he could have taken the easier option of publishing from the US where he is now based. In life there are always alternatives.

The organic intellectual in Africa or of Africa has to make the choice. The choice is either to continue to perpetuate the silencing of Africa and Africans, by only researching and publishing what is acceptable to the powers that be in academia and the ruling establishments generally or making a choice in favour of liberation scholarship.

Depelchin lays it out starkly: the choice is yours, but there is a price for standing up to tell truth to power even among academics.

* Reviewed by Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti reports that: "We have great news: Political prisoner Fr. Gerard-Jean-Juste, “Fr. Gerry” is right now on a plane in the air from Port-au-Prince to Miami. A cancer center in Florida has agreed to treat his leukemia, so he will get immediate attention for the cancer, as well as for the pneumonia he contracted this week. Fr. Gerry was granted a provisional release, which requires him to return to Haiti after the treatment to face the charges still pending against him. The current charges against him are as baseless as the other charges which have been dismissed."

2005 was supposed to be a year of action for Africa, with demands for “more and better aid, debt cancellation and more just trade policies”. What happened? Charles Abugre from Christian Aid offers some insights into the demands of the last year and provides pointers on where African civil society should focus their energies in the related areas of aid, debt and trade.

The rationale behind the “more and better aid, debt cancellation and more just trade policies” is that these will create the conditions to ensure adequate resources to finance Africa’s development. Undoubtedly, if fully addressed, these will put more money in the hands of governments and people and ease the resource constraint. We will argue however that on their own – never mind the quality of aid, the speed of debt cancellation, the degree of market opening in the north and the end of export subsidies - these demands will not provide the resources adequate for Africa’s development.

These demands, though relevant, are slightly misplaced in their singular focus on sources of “inflows” to the total denial of the mechanisms of “outflows”. It is the balance of inflows and outflows that create the net resources for development. We will also argue that the singular focus on “inflows” entrenches the sense of Africa’s dependence and perpetuates the myth of Africa’s resource poverty and powerlessness. In addition, in focussing on trade policy per se at the exclusion of what underlies trade, we miss a fundamental explanation for government’s persistence on liberalisation – beyond the view that they are reckless, ignorant, powerless or uncaring.

More and Better Aid

Our demand that governments in the north fulfil their obligation to deliver 0.7% of the gross national products for international development is right. It is indeed a right of African countries in particular, to demand it in view of the fact this promise has been used repeatedly in the past as a bait to secure economic and social reforms in Africa. But realistically, we know it won’t be delivered. The slow pace and low volume of aid increases committed at the 2005 G8 meeting in spite of all the noise, and the subsequent threat by the US to undermine the 0.7% target itself, shows how difficult and risky it is to rely on increasing volumes of aid for Africa’s development. The explanation is simple, to the extent that traditional aid continues to depend on taxpayers in the north, its ebbs and flows will depend on the political temperature and economic performance in the north, especially Europe.

But the key problems of aid are its purpose, its governance and its impact on the psychology and accountability of our governments and elite. Official development aid is hardly ever completely altruistic or single-purpose or hardly ever completely divorced from foreign policy. Consequently, we are constantly going from opposition to one thing or the other associated with the provision of aid, e.g. tied aid, policy conditioning; human rights conditioning, policy leveraging and more recently the increasing link with the war on terror.

Regardless of the rhetoric, aid cannot be separated from foreign policy objectives and to the extent that these shift, the purpose of aid will shift. In any case why not? Why shouldn’t taxpayers in the north demand that their taxes serve values and goals they hold as dear to them? Why shouldn’t they expect their governments to account for the impact of aid, therefore put in place measures to ensure that their money delivers the purpose for which it is given.

Conditionality is an important issue for Africa largely because aid forms too large a share of budgets, therefore risks associated with aid policy are more significant for African than other continents where aid forms a minuscule proportion. Whilst it is proper to keep ensuring that the conditions associated with the provision and management of aid do not exacerbate Africa’s development problems, the real challenge is to reduce its importance to Africa’s development.

The more debilitating impact of development aid is what it does to the mentality of the African elite and to the democratisation and accountable governance process. Governments have developed the myth that their economies cannot survive without aid. In reality it is their governments and the patronage systems that maintain them which are under threat without the aid machinery.

The competition among African governments for inclusion in the club of favoured nations leads to wilful abandonment, to donors, of sovereignty won at the cost of lives in the anti-colonial struggle. The multi-donor budget support arrangement is one manifestation of this loss of sovereignty. Without a break in the aid dependency mentality Africa stands no chance of building democracy based on accountability to citizens. Worst still, the imagery that aid agencies – private and official – find necessary to deploy in order to sustain domestic political interest for aid is often an affront to the African personality and spirit, diminishes the African self-worth and perpetuates negative stereotypes. Whilst we cannot ignore aid, we should not be glorifying it.

Sometimes we in civil society contribute unconsciously to the erosion of sovereignty and the loss of self-worth. We are sometimes quick to demand or endorse “governance conditionality” where aid and debt relief is made conditional to progress in these areas. To monitor compliance often requires even greater involvement and power of donors in domestic governance. It is like saying that new forms of colonisation are acceptable on human rights grounds. This is dangerous. Yet, there are cases where human rights abuses, dictatorship and corruption are at such a level that the impact of debt relief and aid will be to strengthen repression and enrich a few than promote development. What do we do under this situation?

A solution could be based on the principle that regional political bodies are better placed to manage political problems in member states. This is the principle applied by ECOWAS, SADC and the AU in conflict resolution and peace building/keeping. This is also the principle underlying the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). We propose a Peer Trust Fund to be managed by the AU and used as the financial muscle behind the APRM. Debt relief and humanitarian funds meant for countries abusing the citizens will be paid into this Fund, to be held in trust for the country and be released by the AU as the country makes progress in the governance areas of concern. Such a mechanism will:

- Strengthen and give teeth to the AU’s desire and capacity to promote accountable and democratic governance in the region;

- Act as a muscle and an incentive for the APRM;

- Take away the excuse of creditors not to write off debts owed to Africa or withhold aid needed for humanitarian purposes but which, for reasons outlined above, cannot be channelled directly to an abusing country or to NGOs;

- Allow Africans and their political institutions to drive their own political reforms;

- End the arbitrary and selective means by which donors apply governance conditionality.
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So what should we do about aid:

- Support our northern partners’ efforts to make their governments fulfil their part of the global compact but scale down its importance in Africa’s plan of action;

- Support the establishment of a Peer Trust Fund to assist the AU to deal with the governance issue;

- Increase domestic CSO interests and involvement in budget processes so as reduce the influence of donors on budget governance and steer budgets to deliver public services and fight corruption;

- Oppose donor-driven budget management arrangements that undermine parliamentary oversight and propose parliamentary oversight procedures that are transparent and inclusive of civil society.

Whilst these actions are necessary to improve the quality of aid and reduce its damage, they do not address the resource deficit problem per se.

Debt

The issue of debt is not so much what we demand but whom we address with what messages. First the message of ending the debt burden has been directed largely at one direction – the creditors. The message itself has been one of appealing for understanding whether based on justice or empathy. There is nothing wrong with this in as far as this appeal is coming from our northern partners directed at their publics and governments. Whatever strategies they find as feasible to exert pressure for action should be welcomed by us as long us these strategies neither diminish the African dignity nor undermines the messages coming from Africans.

But directing our energies at appealing to northern creditors suggests our lack of belief in the power of the debtor. However, the Nigerian debt relief effort, no matter how unsatisfactory, and the Argentinean debt restructuring initiative suggest that debtors do have power and can force change. In the Nigerian case, it was the threat by Parliament to withhold appropriation for debt servicing and the subsequent road show that the joint committees of parliament undertook in Europe and America to drum home their threat that forced the Paris Club to rush through a debt relief package. In Argentina’s case, an economic and political meltdown resulting from years of faithful compliance with the IMF’s conditions and faithful debt servicing, forced Argentina to impose a unilateral moratorium on debt servicing and then subsequently unilaterally discounted its debt instruments by 75%. After heaving and puffing both the IMF and the private creditors accepted their lot and Argentina’s economy rebounded.

Africa’s debt overhang of over $200bn provides the muscle for a successful collective African threat. This is the task for the African Union and we should make that forcefully clear. The cancellation of $200bn poses no threat to the global financial system but can save millions of lives. Even a threat of a collective moratorium will send the message clear and loud, especially if this threat were accompanied by an enforceable commitment to transparency and anti-corruption and the channelling of the money so saved into revamping public services. We should not celebrate divisive debt relief initiatives like the one delivered at Gleneagles although we can celebrate the victory in terms of the comprehensive principle, i.e. that all debts, including the debt stock owed to the IFIs must be cancelled.

So where do we go from here in relation to debt:

- Welcome the principle of debt stock cancellation agreed at Gleneagles and at the annual meeting of the IMF/Bank but condemn the selectivity and divisive approach;

- Develop a strategy to pressurise the AU and its member states to adopt a debtor-led strategy;

- Campaign for an International Law to regulate international debt.

Trade

The trade policy focus has been in four areas:

- Defending our domestic markets from further harmful liberalisation;

- Defending our producers – especially our farmers – from demise resulting from “dumping” of subsidised imports;

- Seeking market access without reciprocal market opening obligations;

- Promoting regional integration.

These demands are relevant and we should continue to maintain a focus on them. We should prioritise, in particular:

- The defensive interests of our people: For example, our focus on agriculture should be driven by food security and rural development objectives rather than export promotion. Not only is the latter not realistically attainable in a significant way (except traditional commodities) but detracts from what Africa’s needs are at this moment. In this sense, the key policy focus is to prevent any further market opening (liberalisation) whether this is through aid and debt deals or through multilateral negotiations. Better still, the goal should be to protect the space for flexible policy whereby countries can vary tariff policy to meet development goals, starting with consumer goods and shifting to intermediary inputs of capital goods – whilst relaxing consumer good imports – as the economy develops. It is this flexible and progressive use of tariffs that is essential as an industrialisation strategy.

- Conditions for industrialisation: This intersects with the defensive interest. The key constraining factor for industrialisation is demand - the competition from foreign consumer goods which makes it impossible for local produce to carry on producing let alone innovate. Investing in infrastructure including roads and energy will contribute to reducing transaction cost but are not, at the most constraining to industrialisation. We should not be detracted by the so-called supply-side argument that suggests that investments in infrastructure will correct for competitive pressures. The policy demand is to not give any more market access through the Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) negotiations and others whilst securing the policy space necessary to allow for flexible use of trade policy.

- Defend public services: The aggressive push embarked on by the EU and the US at the on-going talks to open up the services sector reflects the shift in the structure of these economies into services. It also reflects the increasing importance of services for profits and services as a means of gaining control of scarce natural resources such as water. Without the universal provisions of public services by the public sector, Africa stands no chance of reducing poverty, managing inequality and conflict and growing the labour force of the future. We should put in all the energy we can marshal to campaign for the universal provision of public services by the public sector, the minimisation of commercial ethos in basic services and the avoidance of market opening commitments.

- Regional markets: The key issue here is to support the AU and sub-regional trading blocks to resist the pressure to make market opening and third-party tariff concessions before the dynamics of intra-regional trade are worked out, not least in the Singapore issues. This suggests the need to postpone the market access aspects of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the EU and to shift energy into campaigning for a reform of Article 24 of the Regional Trade Agreements component of the WTO in order to protect the principle of less than full-reciprocity. In the interim we should back the Stop EPAs campaign’s call for a reform of the rules of origin aspects of the Everything But Arms (EBA) to make it meaningful for African LDCs.

- The Mandate of the WTO and dispute settlement: Developing countries, and Africa in particular, stand to lose with a WTO saddled with a broad rather than a narrow agenda. This is because Africa has the least capacity to defend, let alone promote their interest in multiple negotiating forums. The continent’s heavy dependency on the IFIs for resources exposes it to unilateral liberalisation pressures. Once unilateral liberalisation has been embarked upon, there is always the risk of easily committing liberalised sectors to the lock-in mechanism of the WTO. In addition, making commitments at several fronts imposes an implementation burden, the cost of which is relatively higher for poorer countries than richer ones. It is therefore in the interest of Africa to see a slimmer WTO.

However, the decision to focus on trade to the exclusion of investments is a serious limitation. In the first place, the Services Agreement and the Singapore agenda are essentially about investment. It is important to note also that underlying the market access concessions that African governments give to the north, especially in services, is an expectation of foreign direct investments and its mythical value as the solution to underdevelopment. Similarly, FDI expectations underlie the anti-inflationary macroeconomic policies of governments and debt servicing compliance.

The belief in FDI is so strong that governments have happily adopted negative taxation policies to attract foreign companies. To have a chance of developing trade and macroeconomic policies that promote development, restrain our governments from giving away market access concessions recklessly and channel attention towards domestic resources for investments, we must first effectively champion a more realistic and less jingoistic expectations associated with FDI.

So what do we do in relation to trade and investment?

- Encourage national governments to be more proactive in protecting their markets especially in the area of consumer goods, agriculture and essential public services. They will not necessarily suffer punitive action. Even if they did, their economies may still come out better-off.

- Drum home to national governments that opening markets will not necessarily bring FDI and even if it did, FDI will not necessarily bring about development. Encourage the AU to promote a critical debate on the role of FDI in Africa’s development.

- Continue the campaign for policy flexibility and an end to coerced liberalisation. This is crucial for defending Africa’s producers.

- Scale down the export focus of agriculture (market access in the north) and emphasise its food security and rural development objectives.

- Support the Stop EPAs campaign

Financing Development: Beyond aid debt relief and trade

What matters for ensuring that governments have adequate resources to finance development are net flows. This means factoring in not just inflows such as earnings from trade, or aid or remittances but also what is lost to the rest if the world. Debt servicing is one outflow. But there are several other ways in which resources are lost to the continent. Indeed, the reality of Africa is that the resources that leak out far exceed those that flow in. This is why Africa is a net exporter of capital.

And the sums are staggering. Njukumana et al estimate that between 1970 and 2000, whereas Africa received about $100bn id aid (including loans) it lost $274bn in capital flight induced by debt, trade mis-invoicing and imputed interests. Add cumulative losses due to terms of trade of non-oil producing Sub-Saharan African countries, estimated by the World Bank to be in the area of $400bn or 120% of combined GDP. Add also losses that African countries have incurred simply by opening up their markets.

Africa was made to reduce their rates of protection at a pace three times as fast the countries of the OECD. This has left the continent ridiculously open, relative to its stage of development. Christian Aid recently calculated that over the past two decades, Africa lost in income terms the equivalent of over $270bn from the negative growth effects alone of trade liberalization. This amount alone more than matches the accumulated value of grants, loans and net FDI channelled into the continent.

Add losses due to tax competition, tax evasion and tax avoidance. Taxation which has served developed countries well as a means of redistribution and source of investment capital but which has been undermined through the enforced deregulation which has promoted tax competition, tax avoidance and tax havens. As a result, whereas government revenue from taxation in developed countries average 30% of GDP between 1990 and 2000, in sub-Saharan Africa this has declined over the years to an average of 17.9% of GDP.

Losses from tax competition have largely benefited multinational corporations whilst the tax burden has been transferred to wage earners and small businesses. Some analysts suggest that African oil producers command less than 20% of the profits. The rest are lost to a complicated network of unfair trade practices. The transfer of revenues to tax havens by these corporations and rich individuals further exacerbates the revenue loss. It is estimated that at least $11.5 trillion is currently held in about 74 tax heavens – lost to tax authorities – by wealthy individuals. This does not include laundered profits of businesses which operate through tax havens to avoid tax, nor does it include money illicitly transferred abroad through corruption, drugs and money laundering. These latter elements in any case comprise a much smaller share of resources losses than is generally believed.

As is obvious from above, Africa is not as poor or as helpless as is often presented. Instead, it is a continent that leaks heavily. The task is to plug these leaks. To do so, African civil society must turn attention to addressing:

- Support for campaigns aimed at corporate transparency;

- Campaigns against tax concessions and for progressive tax policies;

- Work with relevant networks to campaign for the end to banking secrecy and tax havens;

- Follow-up on the recommendation of Africa Commission report to pursue and return stolen wealth from Africa and to put in place measures to discourage illicit transfers abroad.

Incidentally, taxation and reliance on domestic sources for financing development also provide a more conducive environment for promoting democratic accountability than the dependence on aid. We have an obligation to plug the leaks.

* Charles Abugre is currently the head of policy and advocacy at Christian Aid. He has been a development activist in Ghana and many parts of Africa and Asia. This is a shortened version of a paper presented to an Africa consultation of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, held in Harare, Zimbabwe from 7-10 November, 2005.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

In late 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund filed an Alien Tort Claims Act case in the US District Court in California against Bridgestone, alleging "forced labor, the modern equivalent of slavery" on a Firestone Plantation in Harbel, Liberia. The lawsuit states: "The Plantation workers allege, among other things, that they remain trapped by poverty and coercion on a frozen-in-time Plantation operated by Firestone in a manner identical to how the Plantation was operated when it was first opened by Firestone in 1926." Robtel Pailey investigates modern-day slavery in the "land of the free".

In the early 1820’s, Liberia transformed into a land of exile for repatriated American slaves. In fact, the country was a proverbial refuge from the dehumanizing, deplorable conditions of chattel slavery in the United States. So any mention of the word “plantation” should have Liberians visibly shuddering from the historical legacy that many of its descendants endured.

Ironically enough, a recent development suggests that Liberia itself has served as a breeding ground for modern day slavery disguised in the form of what some would call indentured servitude for the American corporation, Firestone. Declared Africa’s first republic in 1847, Liberia has been embroiled in an asymmetrical relationship with the rubber giant since the corporation first landed on the shores of the country in 1926. Eighty years later, human rights groups have sidestepped Firestone’s alleged abusive practices and lodged a class action suit against the American company for violations of child labour laws, cruel and unusual labour practices, and environmental degradation. Practices, they claim, are no different from the moment the plantation opened. Since 1926, Firestone has allegedly relied on forced labour, involuntary servitude, recklessness, negligence in hiring and supervision, unjust enrichment and unfair business practices.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of workers and their children at the plantation under pseudonyms, names Japanese parent company Bridgestone, Bridgestone Americas Holding, Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire and other units as defendants.

The International Labour Rights Fund (ILRF) filed the class-action suit in the name of 12 Liberian workers and their 23 children, who remain anonymous to protect themselves from retaliation. The plaintiffs are bringing their case to the US because the Liberian judicial system has been eroded in the mire of civil breakdown. “The plantation workers are stripped of rights, they are isolated, they are at the mercy of Firestone for everything from food to health care to education, they risk expulsion and certain starvation if they raise even minor complaints, and the company makes wilful use of this situation to exploit these workers as they have since 1926,” the lawsuit claims. ILRF and its allies - Liberian human rights lawyers and activists - serve as an advocacy apparatus for the health and legal rights of Firestone workers in Harbel, Liberia.

The history of Firestone in Liberia is revealing. In 1926, the company signed a concession agreement with the government of Liberia for a period of 99 years. That agreement covered one million acres of land, leased for six cents per acre for a total annual price of $60,000. Large sectors of the indigenous population were displaced to pave the way for setting up Firestone’s largest plantation in Harbel. Even in the company’s infancy, Liberians were recruited to provide forced labour to harvest and cultivate the rubber trees, after which they engaged in “tapping,” the labour-intensive act of using primitive tools to tap the raw latex out of rubber trees for export. Labourers were initially conscripted at gunpoint, and many of the descendants of those labourers serve as plaintiffs in the case against Firestone today.

Despite a surge of civil dissent and democratic outcries in 2005, Firestone signed a new 37-year agreement with the Transitional Government in Liberia to lease the land for 50 cents per acre, a “hike up” from the original leasing agreement. According to a recent report published by the Save My Future Foundation, Firestone exported 167,165 tons of rubber between 2000 and 2003. The price of rubber reaches astronomical highs today at $486 per ton. In the measurement of trade regulations at present, Firestone is receiving $81,242,190 from its production in Liberia. All of the rubber produced in Liberia is sent to the United States for processing into tires, and other materials. No processing, manufacturing, or other value added production is done in Liberia.

The level of poverty in Liberia is so astonishing that people flock to the plantation for a mere pittance. The average tapper generates $900 monthly for the company yet receives barely a tenth of that as compensation from Firestone once fees and services are deducted from wages. As a result, the tappers slog for a mere $3.19 a day. After having worked for Firestone for over 50 years, some retired plantation workers apparently collect less than $50 a month in pension earnings.

Aside from dealing with the poverty of indentured servitude, Firestone labourers must contend with health-related infirmities. The tappers expose their eyes to the potentially blinding latex, applying dangerous pesticides and fertilizers to the rubber trees. The raw latex from the rubber trees is fatal when applied to the eyes, as there have been countless reported cases of workers suffering from permanent eye damage due to exposure. They are forced to carry 75-pound buckets overflowing with the collected latex quota of the day. Unschooled about the dangers of the products they are handling, the workers know not to ask for safety equipment. Many of the tappers have severe scars and bone muscle abnormalities as a result of the tapping.

The labourers work 12-15 hour days, then must enlist the help of their families (including young children and wives) to complete a daily quota in order to ensure a weekly wage. No days off, no paid holidays, no sick leave. A shameful phenomenon in the Firestone scheme is its implied support of child labour. Most of the children are working on the plantations instead of attending school. The few that do attend go to substandard schools in dilapidated conditions. Firestone claims that it provides free education to the children of its workers, but in actuality the workers must pay an income tax automatically deducted from their monthly wages to cover the costs of so-called educational expenses.

The children and their families toil on the plantation by day, and return to the squalor of primitive living conditions at night with no electricity or running water. Firestone blames the country’s more than a decade long civil war for the breakdown of infrastructure, yet members of the Firestone clan aided and abetted the rebel leader-turned president Charles Taylor so as to avoid damage to the plantation when the war raged on. Some of Taylor’s rebel armies were even stationed at Harbel, enjoying the fruits of their fellow countrymen’s literal blood, sweat, and tears.

Miles away from the deplorable living conditions of the Liberian labour force, the company’s managerial staff benefits from the rubber wealth, luxuriating in air-conditioned bungalows and even stopping from their “backbreaking” work as overseers to play a round of golf on the erected course nearby. Mud huts and shanty huts coexist with big, immaculate looking makeshift houses. Firestone claims that the mud huts that exist on the land were created by internally displaced Liberians who flocked to the plantation during the height of civil war in the country. Yet, Firestone owns the land and retains all the responsibilities of its upkeep. Furthermore, some of the conditions existed before the civil war and were entrenched for years.

The entire scenario represents a microcosm of inequitable trade rules benefiting large Western corporations that exploit raw material within the developing world, leaving the indigenous people with environmental spills, physical ailments, and broken morale. The Firestone case in Liberia is a microcosm of American corporate takeover and a flagrant disregard of indigenous rights. It is an extension of the transatlantic slave trade, and should be exposed as such.

* A native of Buchanan, Liberia, Robtel Neajai Pailey currently serves as Assistant Editor of The Washington Informer, a Washington, D.C. based community newspaper.

* Please send comments to

It is women who bear the brunt of the effects of trade liberalization on social development through a lack of access to basic social services. But, writes Jennifer Chiriga from the Alternative Information and Development Centre, one of the major impacts of trade on women is how the capitalist ethic plays into building masculinity while at the same time playing down the role that women play in society. Alternatives are in the offing, she argues.

The defining trends of current trade and economic relations across the globe and the process through which current international economic relations are played out, and markets for products and services are increasingly being defined, all fall under the rubric of globalisation.

International trade expansion has in the last few decades been manifesting a profound transformation, with the emergence of integration of economic activity, including elimination of restrictions on the free movement across borders of capital, goods, resources, technology and services. All regions of the world are coming closer together through intensified trade, investment, financial transactions, and information technology. Unfortunately the global expansion has not affected developing regions evenly, and Africa continues to lag behind.

The main feature of globalisation is a surge in the power of global capital and reorganizing of global production through multi-national corporations that wield tremendous influence over economies. Globalisation has been quite aptly cited as “largely the game of the powerful…the strong do what they will, and the weak must surrender what they cannot protect” (Tandon, cited in Vale and Maseko, 1998).

Other defining characteristics of globalisation are a more integrated global economy with interdependencies among nations, but the benefits of which accrue to developed economies; decline in investment in production, with companies moving more towards speculative investment, which brings faster and higher profits; diminishing public sector, with the state becoming more business oriented through privatisation of state enterprises, and the phenomenal power of multinational corporations that have the clout to drive global trade and influence governments, as seen by the power of the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The WTO is not just about trade, it is about power and control of resources. Developed countries shape and control the trade regimes that affect developing countries and that lead to de-industrialisation, job losses and worsening of poverty. This is evidenced by the experience of developing countries that are undergoing IMF/World Bank enforced trade through neo-liberal structural adjustment programmes, who have been forced to liberalise their external trade, and have subsequently suffered destruction of local industries leading to massive retrenchments.

In spite of the conventional understanding about the creation of an “open” global free trade system, there is very limited “free trade”, particularly for African countries. The relevance of the WTO in the world system is that it is seen as the central institution in a centralised global economy. This has major relevance for African countries as they grapple with huge development challenges. The external orientation of African countries has led to opening up of global markets, resulting in flooding of imports and domination of foreign products e.g. agricultural produce and textiles to name a few, and this has led to massive loss of jobs in rural and urban sectors, threats to food security and abandonment of the social development project. The effects of trade liberalisation on social development is evidenced by lack of access to basic social services, a scenario in which women bear the greater burden.

Gender and trade

One of the major factors in gender inequality relates to how negative perceptions mould gender differences and how the capitalist ethic plays into building masculinity while at the same time playing down the role that women play in society where they occupy the role of secondary earners. Gender is a key determinant of vulnerability to poverty. And women, due to their disadvantaged position in the labour market, hold lower paid jobs, which require lower level of skills etc.

Although gender analysts have for a long time emphasised the negative impacts of trade liberalisation, the link between gender and trade has been tenuous, largely because perhaps gender considerations have been perceived as irrelevant and having no place at the negotiation table where trade issues are discussed. Looked at through a gender prism, trade policies have grave implications for development and well-being of women, due to impact on employment, poverty and the social burden carried by women. Although women are an important and significant constituency, trade policy in the WTO is formulated with no evidence of a gender perspective.

A study on policy links between gender and trade (Informal Working Group on Gender and Trade, 1998) emerged with a number of “reality points” that link gender and trade, and make a case for the importance of putting gender analysis at the center of trade policy:

a) Changes in social service delivery affect women to a greater extent

Trade policies and trade liberalisation can affect the ability of governments to finance social sector expenditure. The observation is that any revenue shortfalls leading to reduction of government expenditure affects social service delivery, and the burden is shifted to the households and women. The study states that in 1993 women contributed over US$11 trillion worth of household work to the world economy, and that trade policy should therefore not ignore women’s unwaged work in social reproduction. Gender planning should be built into the design of trade policies. A very important point made is that social development should be the bedrock of trade policy since women’s traditional roles do not make it easy for them to access opportunities to engage in international trade.

b) Entrenched gender inequalities in the labour market are unfavourable to women

The labour market tends to be segmented on gender lines with inequalities in income, career advancement and conditions of work. Traditionally expansion of trade is based on access to low wage labour, which is mainly female labour. Liberalisation of trade and the surge of foreign capital and transnational corporations, maintain competitiveness through minimising costs of production, especially labour costs. While one can generalise the negative effects on the labour market, for women the impact is higher – they have lower wages and less bargaining power because unions tend to be dominated by male leadership. The danger of trade liberalisation bringing more hardship for women is very real – because sub-contracting and flexible work allows corporations to avoid direct financial responsibility for workers.

c) Women have lesser access to economic resources: credit, skills, technical assistance

Institutionalised discrimination affects women’s access to land and credit from financial institutions, and therefore impacts in a very fundamental way on their role in the economy. When trade barriers are reduced and an infusion of cheaper imports come into the market, women may lose out especially when quality control becomes an issue and introduces lack of competitiveness.

One of the major gaps is that while WTO rules encompass all levels of economic development, there is no gender analysis that assesses these rules in a structured way. While there is a ready source of scientific research documenting the realities of women’s lives and how the economy impacts on them, the conceptual and policy links between gender and trade have to be given more attention and attempts to generate further analysis on the link between gender and trade policy, should raise the following questions:

- Are trade policies geared towards elimination of poverty and gender inequality?

- Do trade rules prevent government and private business from formulating gender-sensitive policies;

- Are trade policies based on competition, which ignores reproductive tasks i.e. reinforcing the masculine model of superiority.

Even as we grapple with the specific gender dimensions, trade policy should not be approached in isolation of macro level economic policy. In this context, the discussion on alternatives raises very broad issues.

Alternative strategies for development

Change is possible through a break from the mainstream model of dominant global capital. The emergence of national, regional and international forums such as the Africa Social Forum (ASF) and World Social Forum (WSF) is a sign that there is an increasing trend of organisations and social movements mobilising to reflect and exchange ideas on alternative visions and actions. The WSF was conceived as a response to the growing struggle against neo-liberalism and an alternative to the World Economic Forum where business leaders from all over the world get together to discuss the economic state of the world, and is an arena of debate, as well as an opportunity for social movements and activists from the north and south to meet and exchange ideas.

There is already a powerful discourse, which is however being undermined by concentration of wealth and anti-democratic power of powerful global corporations. Nevertheless, emergence of regionalism as an alternative, is gaining ground as a possible solution to the dislocation of Africa’s economic potential.

The questions to pose in any deliberations on alternatives are:

- how to engender the political will necessary for the regional project;

- how the geo-political concept of regionalism can be harnessed to engage and challenge the globalised system on a stronger footing;

- how Africa can turn regional integration and cooperation groupings into real frameworks for alternative models of development.

Africa already has some examples of a unique regional integration model that have roots in pan African solidarity. There is potential for strengthened regional blocs to encompass development needs of emerging economies. Regional integration has the potential to break the leverage that industrial countries have over Africa, whose governments need to realise that engaging the local with the regional and continental is the future in terms of economic development.

In response to the questions raised above, one of the key considerations is that social mobilisation of strong social movements and organisations can provide the pressure and impetus that will eventually cause a shift in the global balance of power. Social movements should be the foundation of a people-based process that promotes developmental regionalism, centred on human rights, women’s rights and social justice. Commitment should be to a unified region in which local and community-based development is the primary underpinning of national and regional development programmes.

Through strategic interdependencies we need to redirect trade to domestic and regional spaces, increase manufacturing and production and add value to our primary products. In addition the liberalisation and privatisation policies should be replaced and we should create trade and development cooperation agreements which reflect the realities and needs of the people, and which are not pre-determined or constricted by compliance with WTO terms and conditionalities.

Cooperative development would ensure, for example, that shared resources like energy, water etc, could be approached holistically for the benefit of the whole region. But as long as powerful economies like South Africa continue following a sub-imperialist agenda, it will be a lost battle. African governments must cooperate, coordinate and combine. As someone said at a workshop recently, “extroverted economies will get us nowhere".

* Jennifer Chiriga is Unit Coordinator, Globalisation and Alternatives Unit, Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC), Cape Town

* Please send comments to

Article traduit de l’anglais par Frances Chevalier et Kesini Murugesan, de l’Université du Cap, Afrique du Sud.

Pambazuka News launches French edition

Pambazuka News, the newsletter and website with a focus on social justice issues in Africa, recently nominated by PoliticsOnline and the 6th Worldwide Forum on Electronic Democracy as one of the top ten websites internationally “who are changing the world of internet and politics”, is to begin publishing of a French language version of it highly popular electronic newsletter on January 31, 2006.

“The newsletter has succeeded in creating a pan-African community, uniting people working in human rights, conflict prevention, health, social welfare, environment and social justice right across the region,” said Kenyan Director of Fahamu and Editor of Pambazuka News, Firoze Manji. “But there is a significant and unfortunate gap between those working in English-speaking and French-speaking countries, and we intend to bridge that gap through producing a French language version of Pambazuka News. ... But publishing in these languages is only the first step,” he said. “In the longer term we want to publish an Arabic edition, and then look at other African languages such as Kiswahili.”

Existing Pambazuka News subscribers are asked to:

- Inform Pambazuka News if they, as existing subscribers, would also
like to receive the French version of the newsletter by sending an email
to [email protected] with ‘subscribe French edition’ in the subject line and their full name in the body of the email.

- Inform French colleagues, networks, family and friends that they can subscribe to the upcoming French version of the newsletter by sending an email to [email protected] with ‘subscribe French edition’ in the subject line.

Watch out for more information in subsequent editions!

Click on the link to read the full press release.

The fight against the HIV/Aids epidemic in Africa goes well beyond lab rooms and hospital wards and involves social and political issues at all levels of society, particularly male-female gender relations, said a recent United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report on the role of men and HIV/Aids. Though women in areas of southern Africa are three to six times more likely to become HIV-infected than men, gender-related anti-HIV/Aids efforts need to avoid focusing solely on women, the UNDP report said.

The General Court Martial (GCM) does not have powers to try civilians, the Constitutional Court in Uganda has ruled. This renders presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye's case before it null and void. Dr. Besigye with 22 co-accused was facing the GCM on charges of terrorism and illegal possession of firearms. The hearing of the case was halted however after the High Court stayed proceedings of the case.

Kenya is unlikely get to debt relief, a confidential report by the World Bank says. This follows the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) rejection of the Government's appeal, last month, to benefit from multi-lateral debt relief even if Kenya does not qualify for the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC).The report says while anti-debt activists continue to press Kenya's case, the failure to secure debt relief is politically damaging for the Government.

Preparations for a meeting of Somalia's interim parliament in Baidoa have begun, following a decision by the president and the speaker to convene the house inside Somalia for the first time since it was created in neighbouring Kenya in 2004. Francois Lonseny Fall, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Somalia, welcomed the decision to convene parliament, describing it as "a very positive development".

With just months to go before construction of a hydroelectric dam gets underway along Cameroon's Lom river, environmentalists are raising concerns about the initiative. "While laudable, the Lom project in its present form could accelerate the decline in living standards of local populations," Dieudonné Thang, executive secretary of Global Village Cameroon, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in the capital of Yaoundé, told the Inter Press Service.

A land dispute that resulted from a river changing its course due to heavy rains some 50 years ago continues to vex neighbouring agricultural communities along the Burundi-Rwanda border. The latest incident in the Sabanerwa land dispute occurred in early January when Burundian farmers crossed to one side of the River Kanyaru in a bid to cultivate land at Sabanerwa. During the incident, Rwandan troops, accompanied by the governor of Rwanda's Butare province, massed at the riverbank to prevent Burundians from cultivating the land.

On 29 January 2006, the director of Radiotélévision LA COLOMBE (RTC) stationed in Rutshuru, North Kivu province, decided to suspend broadcasting for security reasons. On the evening of 24 January 2006, unidentified soldiers entered the RTC offices and confiscated a Pentium 2 computer, two Nokia cell phones and four dictaphones. Shortly afterwards, the same officers entered the guest house where four journalists from Goma were staying and took away their kitchen implements and luggage. Fearing for their lives, the journalists sought initial refuge in Rutshuru parish before making their way back to Goma.

Without government support, a proposal to provide electricity to the informal settlements that ring the Namibian capital, Windhoek, is likely to be shelved because residents cannot afford the connection costs. A feasibility study commissioned by the Windhoek municipality found that income levels among the 14,000 people living in the townships were barely sustaining their most basic needs, leaving no surplus to pay for municipal services. The communities have complained about the lack of electricity, and street lighting in particular, because "dark neighbourhoods promote crime such as rape, murder and theft", a statement by the Windhoek Municipality noted.

The bulldozers are set to move in to clear a string of informal urban settlements as the Swazi government and local authorities clamp down on unplanned housing. Forty homes have been earmarked for demolition in the Madonsa settlement, a tract of peri-urban land bordering the central commercial town of Manzini, 35 km east of the capital, Mbabane. A further 100 homes at Ludzidzini royal village, 20 km east of Mbabane, also face destruction. The Ludzidzini residents are to be evicted to make way for an extension of King Mswati's home, to accommodate his growing number of wives and their children. The king now has 13 wives.

Educationists are concerned about the future of the Swazi language as the school examination pass rate in SiSwati as a subject continues to fall. "If the 2005 Junior Certificate examination results are any yardstick, then the SiSwati language is gradually being eroded," opined the Times of Swaziland when it reported this week that nearly a quarter of the students sitting the exam had failed the test. In contrast, 92 percent of students taking the crucial exams in 2005 passed English - a total of 10,235 students, up from 9,159 who succeeded in 2004. English is a "must pass" subject, while SiSwati is not. But this was not the reason for declining performance in SiSwati, educationalists told IRIN.

Several advertising organizations are conducting social marketing campaigns in Kenya that address the country's health and social issues - including HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and domestic abuse - Kenya's Nation reports. Kenya's advertising industry has developed many successful social marketing campaigns - including condom-promotion campaigns aimed at reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS - that are used throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

In a strongly worded statement, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has expressed concern over a decree issued by Cote d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo allowing parliament to remain in office beyond its official mandate. “The Secretary-General expresses his concern about the unexpected issuance of a presidential decree concerning the National Assembly,” said a statement issued on Sunday (January 30).

Chad's parliamentarians have voted to extend their own terms in office by over a year, saying the cash-strapped country cannot hold legislative elections along with the presidential poll later this year as scheduled. But opposition politicians say the law – introduced by President Idriss Deby’s cabinet – is a deliberate move by Deby to keep close allies in the government in troubled times.

This article, from J. Dickson of the New Zealand Journal of Adult Learning, aims to outline the political and social context of adult education in the Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. The author focuses on two different providers of adult education, namely C4L - Lowveld Centre for Lifelong Learning, and Mpumalanga Regional Training Trust. Both of these providers operate "under the radar" of most analyses of South African education, however, they typify something of the flexible and innovative response community based provision can make within a transitional context.

The Egyptian government has said that it will not deport hundreds of Sudanese detainees who lack status as refugees or asylum seekers. The detainees were arrested after a three-month sit-in protest in front of UN offices in Cairo resulted in a violent clash with Egyptian police on December 30, resulting in 27 deaths. The Sudanese protesters sought resettlement in a third country. The Ministry of Foreign Affair has said that following extensive interviews with the detainees by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, none will be deported to Sudan, and that Egypt will take steps to grant legal status to those who do not qualify for international protection. Egypt had earlier announced plans to deport 654 Sudanese refugees, but this was met with pressure from the international community, reports The Jurist.

Campaigns to fight HIV/AIDS often focus on the "ABC" strategy - or Abstinence, Be faithful and use Condoms. However, on the ultra-conservative, predominantly Muslim island of Zanzibar, the condom remains taboo and is rarely incorporated into public awareness messages.

At least 770 new cases of cholera were recorded in January in villages in and around Kinkondja, northern Katanga, raising fears that the epidemic - which has already killed 34 people - could spread throughout the province, Medécins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said. "We are seeing a similar pattern to the epidemic that infected 10,000 people in Katanga in 2002 and reached all the way south to Lubumbashi," said Roman Gitenet, MSF coordinator in Katanga province, southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

As illnesses go, Buruli ulcer does not receive the attention given to conditions such as AIDS or bird flu: the World Health Organisation (WHO) has even termed it a "neglected tropical disease". In the conflict-torn nation of Ivory Coast, however, matters are somewhat different. A survey issued by the National Programme for the Fight against Mycobacterial Ulcers (Programme national de lutte contre les ulcères à mycobactéries, PNUM) has shown that there were 22,000 cases of the disease in the country last year -- a marked increase against the number recorded in 1997.

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?

The educational level of adults is one of the most important indicators of poverty in Mozambique. More than a decade after the agreement that ended the 16-year civil war, educational levels remain extremely low. Getting more children, and particularly girls, into primary school is a major challenge. And the challenge does not end with getting children into school: it is also important to reduce drop-out rates and ensure that more children complete primary school.

Most of the children who come back to Burundi after spending years attending classes in refugee camps in Tanzania know no other school. But policies enacted by their government mean that those returning do not feel out of place in Burundian schools. Reintegration of repatriated schoolchildren into the school system of their country of origin has been made much easier by the decision in 2000 to harmonise classes given at primary and secondary level both in camps for Burundian refugees in Tanzania and in Burundian schools.

Malawi has launched a comprehensive five-year plan intended to foster rapid industrialisation through the use of science and technology. The plan, announced on 19 January, is the first of its kind, has a budget of one billion kwachas (US$8.3 million), and places a heavy emphasis on popularising science. The money will be spent in four main areas: capacity building (US$3.5 million), promoting and popularising science (US$2.3 million), developing and commercialising research (US$1.5 million) and administration (US$1 million), reports SciDev.

Every two years the Crawford Fund, through the Crawford Fund Fellowship, offers an opportunity for further training of an agricultural scientist, below the age of 35, from a selected group of developing countries whose work has shown potential. The training will take place at an Australian institution and will emphasise the application of knowledge to increase agricultural production in the fellow's home country.

The Treatment Action Campaign's newsletter (Equal Treatment) is now available to all organisations and individuals in South Africa working in the areas of HIV/AIDS, health, law and human rights. Parts of the newsletter are available online at www.tac.org.za. If you would like to be added to the mailing list for the full hardcopy please email Claire at [email protected]. Please include your organisation's name and postal address, and the name and title of the person the letter should be addressed to.

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has an opening for a co-coordinator of our APC Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) in Africa. As our project commitments have expanded over the past few years, we are looking to employ a co-coordinator to work with the current coordinator with a view to taking responsibility for certain work areas.

This article, published by the Institute of Development Studies, explores the way that women's sexuality is represented in the context of development programmes and AIDS prevention. It claims that, although much sex takes place in encounters where women are unable to control what they want, the tendency to represent women as victims can undermine the power that women have to exercise control over their lives and their sexuality. Treating women as victims also gives the impression that they only have unsafe sex because they lack power to negotiate with male partners, ignoring the possibility of women feeling and acting upon their own desires.

Liberia’s new president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, should take prompt action to ensure that former Liberian President Charles Taylor is surrendered to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Campaign Against Impunity said today (January 27) in an open letter to President Johnson-Sirleaf, who was inaugurated on January 16. The Campaign Against Impunity is a coalition of some three hundred African and international civil society groups that was formed to press for Charles Taylor’s surrender to the Special Court.

Key responsibilities of this challenging position based in Addis Ababa will include: the provision of vision and strategic leadership for the Ethiopia programme with full operational responsibility; articulating CCF’s vision and mission; designing and implementing a strategic plan to address the causes and effects of poverty and other adverse conditions on children in the country.