PAMBAZUKA NEWS 173: PUTTING AN END TO FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION: AFRICAN PROTOCOL ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 173: PUTTING AN END TO FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION: AFRICAN PROTOCOL ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN
The anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was marked with a stock take of the progress made towards achieving its goals. On paper, that progress has been impressive. Governments around the world have introduced legislation that reflects the ICPD's aims. But when it comes to turning policy into practice, “mixed success” is the verdict of a report card just released by Countdown 2015, a coalition of voluntary bodies involved in the field. Few poor countries have earmarked enough of their budgets to meet their citizens' reproductive-health needs. Nor have donors lived up to expectations.
AIDS prevention efforts and initiatives to support sexual and reproductive health would seem to be natural allies. Why is it then that projects to advance these causes so often proceed in isolation of each other? This question took centre stage recently at ‘Countdown 2015: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All', a three-day conference in London. The meeting, held under the auspices of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and other civic groups, analysed the extent to which goals agreed at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) had been implemented.
Heads of state from 17 African countries on Wednesday attended the opening of an African Union summit in Burkina Faso to craft a jobs creation plan to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. The summit was addressed by Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore, who welcomed his fellow leaders to the two-day meeting aimed at advancing development on the world's poorest continent.
With women at least twice as likely to become infected with HIV as men when exposed to the virus that causes AIDS - and six times as vulnerable in parts of sub-Saharan Africa - HIV vaccine clinical trials must be geared towards meeting their needs, the United Nations health agency said. "In spite of the epidemiological reality, women and adolescents, especially girls, have often had minimal involvement in clinical trials of HIV vaccines, as compared to men. This is in spite of the fact that they would be major beneficiaries of a future HIV vaccine," said Saladin Osmanov, Acting Coordinator of the HIV Vaccine Initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
"The resistance against corporate globalization is global in scope and is dedicated to international cooperation to achieve economic justice for every person on the planet," according to a paper by Barbara Kalima presented at the conference “Women’s voices on Alternative Globalisation Addressing People and Earth (AGAPE): A consultation of Southern Women on Alternatives to Economic Globalisation" held recently in Manila, Philippines. Kalima, from the organisation African Forum on Debt and Development, says in the paper: "The World Bank has recently responded to grassroots demands to allocate funds to restore environmental damage, and we see the emergence of community banks. These are promising trends, but the world economic philosophy needs to be reversed at its core, not just on the fringe."
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has said that attempts to hold third party talks with Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels are a waste of time. His remarks follow the latest mediation efforts by the African Union (AU) to end 18 years of fighting in northern Uganda. Talks set for Monday between Uganda's AU ambassador Joseph Ocwet and three LRA representatives were cancelled.
Separatists waging a low-intensity struggle against Angolan troops for control of oil-rich Cabinda have merged in a bid to engage the authorities in dialogue over the future status of the troubled province. The Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave (FLEC) and the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave-Cabinda Armed Forces (FLEC-FAC) would now be known as FLEC.
South African unions for nurses, teachers and police are preparing for a strike on September 16 after rejecting a government wage offer, union leaders said on Tuesday. The strike could involve up to 800,000 public sector employees, making it the largest among civil servants in South Africa since August 1999.
The families of 10 civilian political detainees who have been held without trial for the past nine months have submitted a petition to Guinean Justice Minister Mamadou Sylla demanding the prisoners' immediate release. The 10 men, who are mainly civil servants and businessmen with no background of involvement in politics, were arrested in December last year. They were detained following the arrest of dozens of military officers in November in connection with a suspected coup plot against President Lansana Conte.
The US has presented a new draft UN resolution to pressure Sudan to resolve the conflict in the Darfur region. The draft calls for an enlarged African Union monitoring force in Darfur, and repeats the threat of sanctions if the Sudanese government does not comply. US officials have denied they are "going easy" on Khartoum by allowing it a further 30 days to comply.
African Union mediators have watered down a security blueprint for Sudan's crisis-ridden Darfur province to try to keep rebels and the government at the negotiating table. Delegates at peace talks in Abuja said on Wednesday the mediators had dropped proposals that rebels confine their troops to base, and had not given a timeframe for the key rebel demand of disarming pro-government Janjaweed militia.
The World Bank's private sector lending arm has come under fire in an internal bank report which accuses it of attempting to dilute the environmental and social assessments attached to its lending. The proposed changes include a greater focus on project outcomes and the setting of objectives and monitoring performance, rather than the application of the strict safeguards used across the World Bank with government clients.
The International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience works to build the capacity of historic sites around the world to foster dialogue on pressing social issues and promote democratic and humanitarian values. It seeks to change the role of historic sites in civic life from places of passive learning to centres for active citizen engagement. It develops sites of conscience as places for communities to have ongoing dialogues about the meaning of their past and the shape of their future - as places to build a lasting culture of human rights. You can find out more or join a discussion on this issue by clicking on the URL provided.
Last week in Nairobi at a summit of the leaders of the East African Community (EAC) countries the envisaged political federation of the region was given a new push. A committee has been set up to look at the modalities and submit its report to an ordinary summit of the leaders to be held November 30 this year.
This is a landmark progressive development with implications for other regions of Africa (ECOWAS, SADC, IGADD, etc) and the whole of Africa through the African Union. It is a good example that should spread and do so quickly. Unfortunately the media in the region and outside of it are not giving the matter the due consideration it deserves.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a firm believer in the federation, was so incensed by the media's lukewarm attitude that he branded Ugandan journalism and journalists 'useless' for not giving proper coverage to the issue. As a freelance member of the profession I will not go as far as the president who is not known for saying 'room for improvement ' where 'very bad' will fit. I don't think the local media is 'useless' instead I will say that it suffers from two serious (but politically curable) diseases: petty localism and external ideological dependence.
One makes it grab as headlines any local issues no matter how silly. The other makes it victim of 'download the downloadable' from the internet about any other issues that are an 'inch' outside the national boundaries and even more embarrassingly sometimes, national issues outside of the capital city!
In the 1960s the former British colonies of East Africa through the East African Community (EAC) were a beacon of regional integration envied by other regions, not just in Africa but even internationally. This was a period of nationhood and nationalism as former colonies asserted their right to govern themselves and exercise sovereignty over their affairs. Supranational organisations that required loss of sovereignty were not popular. In practice they operated as multilateral bodies cooperating on specified issues rather than integration agencies.
The late AM Babu, a radical icon in African Nationalism from Zanzibar and later a minister for Economic Development in Tanzania after his small island country was united with mainland Tanzania in the mid 1960s, used to reminisce about the early years of the East African Federation and the Pan Africanist dreams that inspired many of them in those days. He told us how ministers from the West European countries used to ask him and his colleagues how they were managing their federation without too much squabbles. These were days when the European Union was little more than a trading cartel around steel. By that time the EAC already had a common educational system and university, a common airline, and a communications and transport system.
Unfortunately, as the crisis of neocolonialism deepened across Africa the real gains of the union, rather than be a continuing source of further integration, became victim of bad politics and governance leading to its break up in the 70s. But even after its break up the remnants of the federation, in spite of division of assets, survived through infrastructure, both human and material. For instance telephones between the three countries remained local but more than this trade, commerce and movement of people have continued to defy the colonial boundaries and the internecine power struggles between the leaders over many years.
Indeed the political instability of a country like Uganda for most of the 70s up to the mid 1980s and Kenya in the Moi years succeeded in creating new regionally aware people who have had to live outside their countries among their neighbours. Many of the leaders were educated in each other's countries and therefore made friends across the region. This people to people contact and the force of interactive economic activities ensured that regionalism continued to survive in spite of the state elite. For instance Museveni remains popular in Tanzania especially in his old University of Dar es Salaam whereas Tanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa is more popular at Makere University. Many of the political leaders and activists were contemporaries at these universities.
After the overthrow of Idi Amin in 1979 mostly through the efforts of the Tanzania Army and Ugandan exile groups based in Tanzania it was hoped that EAC would return to its glory days. But those were times when Kenya was a cold war darling of the West and had delusions of surviving and doing better than her neighbours. So ideological suspicions did not help rebuild the Union. The Obote 2 regime was also too unstable internally to be a credible regional player.
However with relative stability returning to Uganda from the late 80s under Museveni the idea of a renewed EAC began to flourish. Moi's Kenya, though the regional economic power with more to gain from further integration, remained suspicious of its neighbours and for much of the 80s and early 90s Kenya's reluctance slowed the movement back to integration. But Kenya was fast losing its 'oasis in an ocean of crisis' status as Uganda under Museveni became a new darling of the West with Aid money and 'generous' IMF/World Bank facilities turning the once basket case of Africa into another 'miracle'.
At the same time the pressures of globalisation were beginning to take their toll just as the cold war was thawing after the collapse of the Eastern bloc. Like in all regions of the world the East African states were being driven by the forces of economic necessity in a predatory globalisation to move closer to each other. Consequently ideological and political suspicions were thrown aside as new efforts took place to restart the romance long suspended between the states. This culminated in the East African Cooperation treaty.
By this time Museveni's revolutionism that Moi had feared had become an economic counter-revolution with vestiges of his revolutionary past only surviving in his no party movement politics. Tanzania had also abandoned its Uhuru Na Ujama as privatization took roots and historical anti capitalist ideology of the country turned against collectivist solutions deemed socialist. The economic convergence of the states made it easier for them to see and deepen their integration efforts. Collective survival dictates the tempo.
There were cautious steps initially in order to avoid problems of the past and rebuild bridges but progress has been incremental since the late 1990s. The EAC has a parliament appointed from among elected legislatures in all the three countries. It has agreed to set up an East African court. It has signed Custom Union agreements and has a timetable for a common market and monetary Union. The final bloc in its regional integration efforts is a political federation of the states. It has also set conditions under which other states in the region can ascend, to membership. Rwanda, after its elections last year, should not have any obstacles in its ascension to full membership. If Burundi's peace process culminates in an elected government acceptable to the people it should also be able to gain full membership.
The bigger prize should have been the DRC but in the current circumstances one has grave doubts. However some of its regions, especially the volatile Eastern region, are culturally and economically part of the EAC therefore some real politic will be needed to accommodate that reality.
Uganda, that was the bane of the old EAC, has been very upfront and almost impatient in the current drive. In a twist to history, Tanzania that has been the home to both regionalism and Pan Africanism in the region, later became the one slowing down things. This was mainly due to the relative weakness of its emergent bourgeois interests who feared that Kenya capitalists would swallow them up.
There are many challenges ahead but regional federation is indispensable for a Pan African Union envisaged by the Constitutive Act of the African Union.
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa ([email protected] or [email][email protected])
* Please send comments to [email protected]
Global apartheid, like globalisation, is a buzzword that has evolved to describe a new global paradigm. Put simply, global apartheid is an international system of minority rule that promotes inequalities, disparities and differential access to basic human rights, wealth and power. Global apartheid is the opposite of global democracy. People like South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki, Fidel Castro of Cuba and the scholars Ali Mazrui, Richard Falk, and Patrick Bond, among many others, have used this concept in an effort to describe the global or economic injustice of our time.
Current manifestations of global apartheid are exhibited in the dominance of bilateralism and the hegemonic behaviour of the United States, the unbalanced and undemocratic processes in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the disproportionate power of multinational corporations and the Washington-based International Financial Institutions (IFIs).
In today's world apartheid is reflected in 'who gets what, when and how?' in the global system. Global apartheid offers explanations for the North-South polarization, the peripherization of Africa, the breakdown of WTO trade talks in Seattle (1999) and Cancún (2003), terrorism, endless conflicts and wars, problems with the free movement of labour between the South and the North, increased wealth in rich countries while resources are drained from poor countries, as well as the denial of life saving medicines and care for people living with AIDS.
Debt and Global Apartheid
Debt oppresses poor countries and it has taken on proportions so as to render its repayment almost impossible. The debt has become a self-perpetuating vicious circle where new loans are taken to pay off the interest on standing ones. It is clearer than ever that the debt is not an economic problem, but a political one, and it is as such that it must be resolved.
Global apartheid through the bondage of debt fuels cycles of poverty and plagues many poor countries in Africa. The debt issue is no longer confined to the economic and financial spheres; as is demonstrated through the application of conditionalities attached to loans and debt relief. These conditionalities were historically introduced through World Bank structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) that were 'designed to rescue debtors', but were in reality driven by the desire to assure that ailing debtor economies did everything possible to pay back their debts.
Like apartheid in South Africa, SAPs entrenched great disparities in wealth, living conditions, life expectancy and eroded national sovereignty in the majority of Sub-Saharan Africa. The introduction of conditionalities such as higher user fees in public facilities, subsidy cuts and lowering of budgetary allocations to social services has resulted in increased poverty and unemployment.
In fuelling global apartheid, the IMF and World Bank have special functions to play: they police and facilitate global apartheid while they simultaneously assist governments in adapting to the process of globalisation, helping them cushion the impacts of these policies felt by the poor. One chief economist was quoted saying “it is important to send the “ambulances” (social programs) after the “tanks” (SAPs) have rolled through a country.” If a government strays from the path of globalisation the 'seal of approval' to borrow from public and private creditors is withdrawn by IMF and World Bank, causing the governments' sources of credit to eventually dry up.
Countries that implemented SAPs became accustomed to operating under an 'external policy command', which discourages national dialogue on societal reform. This process has destroyed the 'social contract' fundamental to ensuring government policies work effectively. Like former apartheid policies in South Africa, SAPs have been imposed upon the marginalized and materially deprived citizens of the Global South, eroding the capacity to develop their own development programs.
Debt has eroded the hard earned independence of African states. A crushing debt burden hampers poverty reduction and constrains development. Africa's debt crisis absorbs resources and energies that should be used to tackle urgent social problems.
Oloko Onyango's 1993 study of Uganda reveals that technocrats in the Ministry of Planning drew up national budgets that had to be endorsed by donors before their own parliament examined them. But even then, parliament merely acted as a rubber-stamp. Since the introduction of SAPs as a way of resolving the debt crisis, independent policy-making and national economic management has diminished and narrowed considerably. Like in apartheid South Africa, in which blacks had no say in the rules that governed their country, global apartheid strips autonomy from the state and its people.
International Financial Institutions continue to put pressure on African development through their conditionalities, using development aid and loans as a lever to impose the neo-liberal paradigm of privatisation and deregulation, liberalization and increased interest rates to control inflation. Under the newer Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), set up to replace the old SAPs, they impose the same neo-liberal framework through the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF).
Studies done by AFRODAD on the PRSP process demonstrate how the IMF and the World Bank imposed their macro-economic framework on the process. This meant that the PRSPs could not be reshaped at the level of macro-economic policy as the framework was already fixed. Thus the link between PRSP and SAPs is a continued imposition of the neo-liberal macro-economic framework. Segregation in policy formulation and standards of living was a key feature of the apartheid system in South Africa. This is reflected in the current global apartheid paradigm with unrealistic IFI conditionalities, stifling African development goals, especially when now-developed countries in the North used the very strategies now prohibited for their own development process.
Many development agencies and sceptics have expressed widespread doubts regarding the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) launched in 1996 to achieve the promised objective of a “robust exit from the burden of unsustainable debts” for developing countries. Problems associated with the design and implementation of the initiative suggest that the HIPC initiative has not succeeded in providing adequate response to the Third World's debt overhang. The segregated and selective nature of apartheid is also seen in HIPC. It is interesting to observe that although Nigeria's debt stock is the largest in West Africa and the country is experiencing growing poverty, the country is not recognized as a HIPC eligible country simply because it produces oil.
Despite the many arguments against the conditionalities attached to multilateral lending and development assistance from bilateral donors, the conditions have intensified. It has become increasingly clear that there is a hidden agenda for control by those who propagate such conditionalities. This cannot be anything less than global apartheid. The whole process has been much slower than expected and the HIPC initiative is suffering from problems of under funding, excessive conditionality, inadequate debt relief and cumbersome procedures and eligibility restrictions. Creditors have not put sufficient political will, resources and serious analysis into the debt reduction operations.
Aid and Global Apartheid
Within global apartheid structures and systems, aid has always been connected to politics. During the Cold War, for example, investment flows, development efforts and humanitarian assistance tended to reflect the changing pattern of superpower alliance and competition. It has been pointed out that tying aid to politics translates into “choice less democracy.” Thus, aid is a means of inducing policies and programs favourable to the donor countries, even though promoting economic performance of recipient countries is the given rationale for doing so. According to a World Bank report, “Aid can be the midwife of good policies.”
Aid to developing nations has not always been targeted towards genuine economic development efforts. Rather, in most cases, it has been given as an instrument of control under the global apartheid system. The current aid regimes undermine governance at the national level and impose conditionalities that lead to human rights violations. Adding to this, it is reliably estimated that for every dollar given in official development aid, three go back to the rich countries in debt service payments. Under the auspice of mandating policies for the good of the countries, aid actually decreases the level of control the government has over domestic expenditure allocation (both domestic and external).
Conclusion
The world has enough resources for everyone if we find the political will to eradicate poverty and hunger as well as put human life before profits. The debt must be cancelled to free up resources for equal development in both the North and the South. Kofi Annan's 21st Century Action Plan speech summed up what it will take if we are to replace global apartheid with global democracy, when he said:
“I would go a step further and propose that, in future, we consider an entirely new approach to handling the debt problem. The main components of such an approach could include immediate cancellation of the debts owed by countries that have suffered major conflicts or natural disasters; expanding the number of countries in the HIPC scheme by allowing them to qualify on the grounds of poverty alone.”
In the name of global democracy, the international community needs to negotiate new measures that go beyond existing initiatives in order to resolve Africa's debt crisis and end global apartheid. The debt is unpayable and rescheduling will only postpone the problem. The debt bondage is the new face of colonialism or even slavery. Debt is used as an instrument of domination. It is also an instrument used to plunder and exploit indebted countries' resources. Ultimately, debt is at the heart of the unequal power relations between the North and the South.
Recommendations
1. The total cancellation of third world illegitimate debts (as proposed for Iraq by the US) is a starting point in ending global apartheid.
2. There is an urgent need to address issues of unfair trade within the World Trade Organization.
3. Europe and the United States should stop using aid as a means of neo-colonialism or advancing their selfish ambitions.
4. There is a need to treat people of different geographical locations, race and origin equally when it comes to addressing global issues.
5. America's hegemonic wings need to be curtailed to ensure that it works within the framework of the United Nations.
6. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund's role needs to be revisited and redesigned so as to make these institutions people centred and pro-poor in their economic development policies. There is need to put an end to the co-modification of human lives through imposition of neoliberal policies that value markets/ profits before people.
* Charles Mutasa is Research and Policy Analyst at the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD). Please click on the link below for references to this article.
* Send comments to
Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), the publishers of the banned “Daily News” and the “Daily News on Sunday” have reportedly defied an order by the Retrenchment Board to pay 153 retrenched workers severance packages totaling ZW$ 2,3 billion (approximately 433 962 US dollars).
This research was commissioned by the South African National Department of Health to inform an appropriate and co-ordinated response to the needs of children made vulnerable in the context of the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa.
In July 2003 African Heads of States adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa at their summit in Maputo (full text of the Protocol is available at A little over a year later only four countries (The Comoros, Libya, Rwanda and Namibia) have ratified it. This is far from the required 15 ratifications for the Protocol to come into force.
One might ask why ratification of the Protocol is so important and what value it brings to African women. The Protocol offers women in Africa not only a bill of rights that addresses issues in the African context, but it also obligates states to take action and allocate resources to ensure that African women enjoy these rights. The Protocol offers a concrete blueprint to go beyond lip service and make states’ undertakings accountable. These rights will however remain fictitious until member states of the African Union ratify and implement the Protocol into their domestic legislation.
Amongst the rights articulated in the Protocol is the right in Article 5 “not to be subjected to harmful traditional practices including female genital mutilation (FGM)”. Female genital mutilation is a harmful traditional practice that afflicts an estimated 130 million girls and women around the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 6,000 girls per day are subjected to FGM around the world but mostly in Africa.
It is a practice that translates into the partial or total removal of the clitoris (clitoridectomy), the removal of the entire clitoris and the cutting of the labia minora (excision), or in its most extreme form the removal of all external genitalia and the stitching together of the two sides of the vulva (infibulation). The cutting is done generally without anesthetic and those who survive it experience lifelong health consequences including chronic infection, severe pain during menstruation, sexual intercourse and childbirth, and psychological trauma.
Communities that practice FGM defend it as a rite of passage and a social prerequisite of marriage. But it is also used as a way to control women’s sexuality by safeguarding virginity and suppressing sexual desire. We, at Equality Now (www.equalitynow.org), an international human rights organization that works to promote and protect the human rights of women around the world, consider FGM a human rights violation and an extreme form of violence and discrimination against women and girls. We welcome the Protocol as a new tool that has potential effectiveness in protecting the human rights of women in Africa.
What the Maputo Protocol offers is a comprehensive set of provisions that create a framework for putting an end to harmful practices. It goes beyond a call to ending harmful traditional practices such as FGM and directs member states to take concrete action by:
- criminalizing the practice and bringing to justice those who perpetrate it,
- providing counseling support and treatment to victims of FGM,
- initiating public awareness-raising campaigns to end the practice, and
- intervening to prevent FGM cases thereby saving girls before it happens to them.
African states must indeed urgently take responsibility to follow through with these obligations. Burkina Faso offers a good case in point, and is leading the way in the fight against FGM. Burkina Faso criminalized FGM in 1996 and followed that with national campaigns to inform its people about the law and why FGM must be ended. It also offered help-lines for potential victims and concerned citizens to reach the authorities in good time to prevent the crime, and has put in place harsh punishment to de-motivate those still persistent to carry on with it. Furthermore, arrests and prosecutions of those responsible for subjecting girls to FGM were and continue to be publicized through the media to discourage potential perpetrators. As a result, Burkina Faso has seen the prevalence rate of FGM fall considerably over the years.
In some other African countries, even though they have adopted legislation to ban FGM, they have not followed through with the full program of rights set out in the Protocol and so have not produced similar results as those in Burkina Faso.
To save the thousands of girls affected each day by this harmful practice (and 6,000 girls is an enormous number with which to contend), African governments have an affirmative duty not to delay any further the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women.
During September 16 to 18, Kenya is hosting an international conference on FGM titled "Developing a Political, Legal and Social Environment to implement the Maputo Protocol”. Hon. Linah Kilimo, Kenyan Minister for Home Affairs, and a long time activist against FGM is leading the meeting and has secured President Kibaki's support for it. At the end of the conference, it is anticipated that the President or his Foreign Minister would officially hand over Kenya's instrument of ratification to the Chair of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, who is invited. If this plan succeeds, Kenya would be the fifth country to ratify the Protocol following Namibia, which ratified it last month, and thereby laying out a legal framework to fight the practice and preserve the human rights of Kenyan women and girls.
Kenya appears to be on track and other African states also need to follow the example of the Comoros, Libya, Rwanda and Namibia in formally expressing their commitment to the human rights of women in Africa. As the continent next month gathers at the Seventh Conference on Women’s Rights in Addis Ababa to review progress made in honoring commitments undertaken in Beijing and Dakar 10 years ago, ratifying the Protocol on the Rights of Women could well serve as an achievement to bring to the table.
* Faiza Jama Mohamed is the Africa Regional Director of Equality Now
* Please send comments to [email protected]
The Namibian Farmworkers' Union (Nafwu) has accused the government of using land expropriation as a political tool and dragging its feet in giving land to the landless.
The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) and Open Knowledge Network (OKN) invites applications for the Yeomans Award for local content. Four Awards of US$2500 each will be made under the Yeomans Award in 2004. The decision on the winners of the Award will be made by an international panel of judges.
In December 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the establishment of the Gates Award for Global Health in the amount of US$1million. Any organisation from any country that is a charitable institution, a private company or a public entity that has contributed to the improvement of the health and lives of the needy can apply for this award.
A youth writing contest, Voices of Youth, requested youth of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) countries to write about their vision of an ICT-enabled future in the rural areas of ACP countries. An international jury selected 3 “Grand Prize” winners, 7 “runners-up” and 10 honourable mentions from 178 submissions.
Providing practical suggestions for applying for funding and proposal writing, this toolkit is based on interviews with experienced research fundraisers in both developing and developed countries. Obtaining funding for your research is a difficult achievement, so we hope this guide will help give your proposal the best possible chance of success.
Led by the President of the Nigerian Information Technology Practitioners in the Americas, Professor Manny Aniebonam, a group of Nigerians in the diaspora plan to invest in the establishment of 40 ICT parks in 39 universities across the country over the next three years. The newly created company, AfriHub Nigeria Ltd aims to increase the technological capabilities in Nigeria through the support of American universities and companies.
In order to take advantage of new ICTs that have been developed to combat poverty and achieve sustainable development in Africa, women in Africa need to actively participate in ICT initiatives. The Conference on Women and ICT is to be held at the Arusha International Conference Centre, Arusha, Tanzania on 18-20 October 2004 to draw a roadmap for the caucus that will enable effective participation at WSIS-Tunis 2005.
Bridges.org is facilitating the donation of 120 Hewlett Packard (HP) H4150 iPAQ handheld devices (handhelds) to support innovative projects in South Africa. The aim is to highlight the most exciting use of handheld devices for social or economic development in order to enable innovative projects to benefit from technology that might otherwise not be accessible to them. Winning projects will be captured in case studies to highlight how handhelds can benefit South Africa and the developing world. The deadline for submission is 8 October 2004.
Amnesty International is seriously concerned that Kenya's Suppression of Terrorism Bill 2003 contains measures that violate Kenyan law, human rights treaties to which Kenya is a party, and may result in human rights violations. The Kenyan government is presently gathering suggestions and comments on the Suppression of Terrorism Bill 2003 following widely expressed concerns and strong criticism that it contained measures that would impact negatively on human rights. The Bill, which was initially published last year, has now been shelved, pending presentation of a revised version to Parliament.
Guinea has agreed to hand back to Sierra Leone the disputed border village of Yenga. Guinea had occupied Yenga since 1998 in order to support the Sierra Leone government forces in their civil war against the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel movement and then remained there after the civil war ended in 2002. Despite previous border disputes between the two countries, they have now agreed that Yenga belongs to Sierra Leone.
SMS FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS
* CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Namibia has become the fourth country to ratify the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, joining the Comoros, Libya and Rwanda. Watch out for more details on Namibia’s ratification in next week’s Pambazuka News. Fifteen ratifications are needed before the protocol enters into force. You can help speed up the ratification process by signing a petition.
* Use your mobile phone to sign the petition in support of the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Send a message to: +27832933934, with the word ‘petition’ and your name in the message. You will only be charged the cost set by your network provider for sending an international SMS. More information http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/smssocial.php or sign online at http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/
* Sign up for FREE SMS ALERTS about the campaign for the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Visit http://www.pambazuka.org/petition/alerts.php
HOW TO SUPPORT THE SMS PETITION
* Send text messages to your colleagues and friends alerting them to the petition and informing them how to sign by SMS. You can also use email and word of mouth to help spread the word.
* Distribute leaflets about this initiative. If you work in a human rights or social justice organisation in Africa, volunteer to distribute leaflets for us about the petition to your networks and contacts. Send your details to [email protected] and we will post you pamphlets to distribute.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS ISSUE
* Conflicts and Emergencies: Prospects for peace in Sudan
* Elections and Governance: Food – the key to ultimate power in Zimbabwe
* Development: Towards alternatives to globalisation
* Health: A decade of hard labour on reproductive health rights
* Education: Commonwealth protocol to control teacher poaching
* Environment: Poverty, climate change and the energy revolution
* Media&FXI: Lawyers to discuss journalists’ rights in West Africa
* Advocacy and Campaigns: Worldwide days of action against the World Bank and IMF
* Books and Arts: A review of Faceless by Amma Darko
>>>>> Africa, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
Global Apartheid continues to Haunt Global Democracy
This year marks what many activists have dubbed the unhappy birthday of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. It is 60 years since the creation of these institutions in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and in that time period both have come to have a profound and controversial influence on the world.
Pambazuka News is profiling a series of articles that aim to examine the role of these institutions in the context of Africa. This week in our Comment and Analysis section we carry the fourth article in this series which looks at the phenomenon that many analysts have described as global apartheid in the context of third world debt.
Debt, argues the author, is the new face of colonialism and slavery. It is an instrument used to plunder and exploit indebted countries' resources and ultimately is at the heart of the unequal power relations between the North and the South.
Pambazuka News encourages activists, academics or anyone interested in the role of these institutions in Africa to respond to the articles or to submit articles for inclusion in the newsletter. Contributions can be sent to [email protected]
Following a two-day international conference on Information Communication Technology held at Hotel Africana, various speakers encouraged Ugandan universities to spearhead the use of ICT as it could promote national development to raise economic growth.
The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said on Thursday there was "no light at the end of the tunnel" in the stalled peace process between the two countries. It added that that there had been little movement over their contested 1,000-km border. "Nothing has changed," the UNMEE deputy spokesman, George Somerwill, told journalists ahead of a UN Security Council meeting to review and renew the mandate of the 4,000-strong force. The Council is expected to meet in mid-September.
Gertrude Mongella, the president of the Pan African Parliament (PAP), says she is looking to establish an organisation that meets the aspirations of the African people. Speaking in Johannesburg, Mongella said she hopes to put together an organ that promotes unity among Africans and also help its people move forward.
As part of the computer education initiative for Ugandan schools, "Fresh Start for Donated Computers Initiative in Uganda" software giant Microsoft will donate free licensed copies of its Windows 98 and 2000 operating system for personal computers. This programme will help to empower teachers and students to achieve their full potential by providing technology and training in education.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 172: LESOTHO HIGHLANDS WATER PROJECT: BRIBERY ON A MASSIVE SCALE
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 172: LESOTHO HIGHLANDS WATER PROJECT: BRIBERY ON A MASSIVE SCALE
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the City University (London) have embarked on research on the contributions Zimbabweans in the diaspora make or are interested in making towards the development of their country. The research is targeted at Zimbabweans living in the United Kingdom and in South Africa.
Zeinabou Baba had just about given up on the prospect of living a normal life by the time aid workers arrived in her village of Tera, west of Niger's capital Niamey. Married at the age 16, Baba had experienced four pregnancies that resulted in stillbirths - and the development of a condition known as obstetric fistula. Matters changed, however, when a team from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) arrived in Baba's village, offering assistance to women with fistulas.
Angola’s health authorities have begun immunizing 5 million children under the age of five against polio, part of a campaign by United Nations agencies to make sure the country is not caught up in the current wave of re-infections across Africa. Backed by officials from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation, as well as several non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 12,000 vaccination teams will fan out across the country, the UN agencies said in a statement.
A cholera outbreak in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, has killed 40 people so far this month, a senior government health official told IRIN on Friday. He blamed overcrowded slums, torrential rains and infected traders arriving from neighbouring Guinea into Sierra Leone for the country's first cholera outbreak in five years.
Four days after officially suspending his participation in the coalition transitional government of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Azarias Ruberwa, one of the four Congolese vice-presidents and leader of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) has announced he will return to the capital, Kinshasa. "The vice-president [Ruberwa] will return to his usual duties tomorrow, [Saturday]" Francis Bedi Mabele, the RCD-Goma secretary-general, told IRIN on Friday. Ruberwa is also scheduled to meet with South African President and mediator of the DRC crises, Thabo Mbeki.
A dramatically lower number of Swazi teenage girls are being infected by HIV than was previously estimated, suggesting a turning point in the battle against HIV/AIDS in a country with the world's highest HIV infection rates, a new report has revealed. The findings in the report, 'A Baseline Study on HIV Risk Factors', commissioned by the UN Childrens' Fund (UNICEF) are derived from interviews and blood tests of over 1,000 Swazis in two rural areas and revealed that only six percent of girls aged from 15 to 19 were found to be HIV-positive, with most of the HIV infections occurring among older girls.
When Agade Busaka came to Australia to study in 1998, he was excited. Now the 25-year-old cannot wait to leave, and alert his friends to the racism he has experienced. He and his colleagues are so concerned, some have called for warnings about racism to be placed in literature advertising courses.
The government of Mauritania has accused Libya and Burkina Faso of backing an attempt to topple President Maaouiya Ould Taya earlier this month and has announced the arrest of 31 military officers in connection with the alleged putsch. The first news of a fresh attempt to topple Ould Taya emerged on August 9, when military and political sources reported a new wave of arrests within the armed forces.
The Kenyan government plans to provide anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs) to 181,000 people living with HIV by 2005, a government statement said. The number of beneficiaries would rise to 250,000 by 2010, it added. Health Minister Charity Ngilu said the strategy would be achieved through the implementation of a National Social Health Insurance Scheme, which the Kenyan parliament is due to debate this year.
Former government leaders joined human rights attorneys in criticising officials perpetuating Swaziland's rule-of-law crisis at a conference sponsored by the Law Society of Swaziland this week. The crisis began two years ago when the royal government refused to obey High Court rulings limiting king Mswati's power to rule by decree.
Tanzanian wildlife authorities have expressed fears for the survival of thousands of hippos due to acute shortage of water facing the country's southern western Katavi National Park. "We are concerned with acute shortage of water flowing into the park. If the river dries up, thousands of hippopotamus might die," the park's chief warden Stephen Quoli told AFP on Sunday.
“The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) is an international Animal Welfare organisation with a regional branch in Mombasa, Kenya. WSPA deals primarily with animal protection, legislation, campaigning and education in animal welfare and humane education. Our education department is responsible for producing materials for schools and communities such as newsletters, teachers’ resource packages, and guides on animal care amongst other things. Last year we compiled poetry from members across Africa and published a small in-house anthology which was then distributed to members across Africa.”
This new publication from HLRN Middle East/North Africa provides a guide to the meaning of the human right to adequate housing as it applies to children. It also serves as a tool for assessing children’s housing rights conditions and addressing problems and violations. Building on the experience and activism of members in India, HIC-HLRN commissioned the initial research from “Haq Center for Child Rights” (New Delhi), in 2002. The present edition updates and adapts al-Atfal wa al-Haq fi al-Sakan for the benefit of the Arabic-speaking public. The book has been designed for use by its members and the public as a reference work, a means for awareness raising and a training manual.
The current situation in Zimbabwe under the ZANU-PF government shows increasing signs of abuse of power by those in political control. They also direct their desire to suppress criticism towards the media. Press organs in private ownership have been closed down and journalists have been physically harassed, arrested and expelled. Laws are abused to regulate and manipulate public opinion by a policy of banning. Worldwide condemnation of the growing restrictions upon the freedom of expression goes hand in hand with the protests inside the country against the growing tendencies of totalitarian rule.
"This volume offers access to a unique aspect in the history of the Namibian struggle for self-determination during a crucial period of time. The testimony is aimed particularly to serve a new generation in Namibia, who has not lived through this important part of our history. The re-publication will help them to achieve a fuller understanding of a difficult and bitter time. It will also foster a better and clearer perspective on events in our present societies. Given our current rite de passage or interregnum, the insights presented in these republished texts are more than historical evidence. They offer lessons from the past for the present and the future." - Dennis Brutus
For a moment, the Ethiopian-born activist seemed to melt into the crowd, blending into the sea of black professors, health experts and community leaders. But when he suggested focusing some attention on African immigrants, the dividing lines were promptly and pointedly drawn. The focus of the campaign, activist Abdulaziz Kamus was told, would be strictly on African-Americans. "`I said, `But I am African and I am an American citizen; am I not African-American?' '' asked Kamus, an advocate for African immigrants.
The UN Security Council should consider and act on the recommendations of United Nations reports on economic exploitation and arms flow and place particular emphasis on isolating the armed groups in Ituri and applying pressure on neighbouring governments to cooperate in the elimination of such activities from within their borders in accordance with existing UN Security Council Resolutions. This is according to an International Crisis Group report 'Maintaining Momentum in the Congo: The Ituri Problem', which notes that the "international community is slowly awakening to the grim realisation that collapse of the Congo peace process and return to war are real prospects."
Sudan has agreed to consider the asylum claims of 76 Eritreans who forced a Libyan plane to land in Sudan because they feared returning home, a U.N. official said on Saturday. Libya had denied the Eritreans refugee status. The Libyan military transport plane took off from the town of Khufrah and was heading for the Eritrean capital Asmara when some of the angry deportees moved into the cockpit and forced the plane to land.
Security sources said that two illegal Egyptian immigrants died and 18 others were injured from excessive heat after being deported by Libyan authorities. The Egyptian sources told United Press International the immigrants, trying to sneak into Europe through Libya, were deported by Libyan authorities to the Egyptian border.
The presidents of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda on Saturday agreed at a summit in Nairobi to move faster towards creating a political federation. “The summit resolved to expedite and compress the process of integration so that the ultimate goal of a political federation is achieved through a fast-track mechanism,” they said in a joint statement issued after a three-day summit.
Coalition For Peace in Africa (COPA), a regional membership organization with a secretariat in Nairobi Kenya will in the month of November 2004 offer a one-week training to organizational leaders and programme managers seeking to develop their organization's capacities to address conflict. Specifically, the training will run from 15th to 19th Nov 2004 at the Corat Training Centre in Nairobi. The training is ideal for practitioners serving in the fields of Human Rights, Relief & Development, Religious organizations, and also personnel from other fields operating in or around conflict areas.
The battle of wits between the Federal Government and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) over the Labour Bill being processed by the National Assembly has shifted to the international arena as labour organisations in several African nations have started mounting pressure on government not to go ahead with the proposed law. COSATU's secretary general, Zwelinzima Vavi said the union would compile a list of local companies operating in Nigeria and lobby them to put pressure on the government to withdraw the bill.
The head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) criticised donors last Thursday for failing to fund the resettlement and retraining of former combatants in Liberia once they had been disarmed. "Much effort has been put into disarmament and demobilization, but not as much effort has gone into funding reintegration and rehabilitation...and that is worrisome," Carol Bellamy told reporters at the end of a three-day visit to Liberia to assess the reintegration of former child soldiers.
An estimated 3,000 civilians were displaced on Saturday following fighting between rebels and government troops in the northwestern province of Bujumbura Rural. The displaced sought refuge in the commune of Kabezi in an area under the control of UN peacekeepers. Kabezi already hosts some 30,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) as a result of persistent insecurity due to fighting between the army and the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) led by Agathon Rwasa.
The prospects for workable social security systems in sub-Saharan Africa do not appear encouraging. This paper argues that in the current circumstances of widespread economic crisis (and the demographic impacts of the HIV/AIDS pandemic) both formal and informal mechanisms have to be combined. The only practicable way forward is to combine these approaches, and devise a new division of responsibility between public and private provision.
A new research guide to Ethiopia has been added to Forced Migration Online. It provides an overview of key information on forced migration issues, and gathers together important resources available online and elsewhere.
In the aftermath of this month's massacre of 160 Congolese refugees in a temporary camp in Burundi, some advocacy groups say too little is being done to ensure the rights of refugees as outlined in the U.N.'s 1951 convention. "The massacre is the latest in the region's history of refugee camp disasters," says the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR). "It highlights yet again one of the dangers of refugee warehousing, the practice of confining refugees to camps or segregated settlements or otherwise depriving them of basic human rights."
UNICEF in Uganda urged civilian and military authorities responsible for receiving 47 formerly abducted children - repatriated from southern Sudan by the International Organization for Migration, after their abduction by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) - to ensure the children’s rights remain protected. The 47 individuals, reportedly including 12 under the age of 8, were abducted from their families by the LRA during the ongoing armed conflict in northern Uganda.
In Ethiopia, thousands of women each year are left with injuries following childbirth, which, for the most part, go untreated. As the problems get worse, the women are shunned by husbands and families, cast out of villages and left to depend on charity. Their condition is not life-threatening, and would be easily patched up in Britain but, in one of the poorest countries of the world, leave women scarred for life.
Strategies must be identified and implemented to bring healing and reconciliation between Africans in the homeland and in the Diaspora, a government minister has said. Government was encouraging the return of those in the Diaspora, because by knowing their roots and knowing what actually took place during the slave trade, the healing and reconciliation process would have begun, the minister said.
Almost 200,000 refugees have found a safe haven in Guinea as the wars in West Africa were at their worst, mostly from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire. Now, almost all Sierra Leoneans have been repatriated and those few remaining will be offered Guinean citizenship. The repatriation of 73,000 Liberians is to start in October this year. Guinea has been the West African country that hosted most refugees during the end-1990s.
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) invites proposals for its Poverty Reduction Outcomes Through Education Innovations and Networks (PROTEIN) programme. COL-PROTEIN is seeking to support initiatives that will adopt open and distance learning and information and communication technologies (ICT) to help build rural capacity under the following areas: Food Security, Environmental Protection, Rural Development, Nutritional Education and Micro-Enterprise. Limited financial support up to CAD20,000 will be granted.
The Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) invites funding applications from arts and culture organisations, foundations and NPOs, for joint arts and culture projects between Sweden and South Africa for grants for a maximum of three years. The main goal of the Swedish/SA Culture Partnership Programme is to promote freedom of information, freedom of expression, and capacity building through cooperation between the two countries.
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), invites applications from post-doctral African scholars for its Advanced Research Fellowship Programme for 2004. Candidates from all disciplines of Social Sciences and Humanities interested in advanced research of any African social reality will be considered for this award to the value of US$10 000.
The Global Development Awards, the largest international contest for researchers, offering prizes to scholars and practitioners based in developing countries, is inviting applications for research on development. The Medals for outstanding research on development are worth USD 75,000.
The Department of Health (Intersectoral Aids Unit) and the Aids Consortium invites proposals from training service providers to develop a capacity building programme for their partner organisations. This request is limited to members of the Aids Consortium and grassroots organisations only.
The displaced inhabitants of the Sudanese region of Darfur are traumatized and humiliated, and remain at constant risk of rape, violence and pressure to return to their homes, a United Nations humanitarian official told reporters after visiting the war-torn area. Dennis McNamara, the Director of the UN's Internal Displacement Division, told a press conference that rape and sexual violence against women and girls in Darfur was an immense problem.
Mango provides financial management services to relief and development organisations. The link below contains information on venues and dates for Mango training for September 2004 to January 2005.
TRANSCEND Peace University is the world's first global peace university for policy makers, practitioners, scholars, students, UN staff and others working in peacebuilding, conflict transformation, post-war reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation, development, human rights, and other related fields. The link below contains information about the university's September Semester 2004.
Telkom workers in South Africa are facing a new wave of retrenchments. The telecommunications giant plans to shed another 4,181 workers in 3 years, despite its record R4.592 billion profit for the 2004 book year - in a country with an unemployment rate of 42%. You can help by signing a petition.
The Khartoum government has failed to comply with the terms of a UN Resolution aimed at ending the violence in Darfur. The members of the UN Security Council must now deal with this reality and take immediate action to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur. You can sign a petition to the UN by clicking on the link provided.
Radio LabourStart is playing all 15 songs from an album produced by the Congress of South African Trade Unions. The songs will be played, three every day, repeated throughout the day. Among the artists featured here are the COSATU Peforming Band, the POPCRU and SADTU Choirs, Ihashi Elimhlophe, Chicco Twala/Nokwazi Dlamini, Busi Mhlongo, Phuzekhemisi, Hugh Masekela, Bambata, Sibongile Khumalo, Jonas Gwangwa, Kutu, Letta Mbulu, Vusi Mahlasela, and Jabu Khanyile.
The Parliamentary Briefer is prepared to inform organisations, particularly Civil Society Organisations, what is happening in Parliament in order to encourage more timely engagement with legislative and other processes. If you would like to be added to the list, please send an email to [email protected]
Two weeks have passed since 160 Banyamulenge refugees were killed in this desolate transit camp, which lies under the shadow of the Democratic Republic of Congo's Kivu mountains. They had come here to the Burundian border seeking respite from the war that continues to ravage the DRC, hoping if not for peace, then at least for a temporary rest from the horrors they have grown up with. They found instead that war cannot be outrun.
All those who were arrested on charges of public violence at Intabazwe in Harrismith, in the eastern Free State, have been released. Around 40 youths appeared in the Harrismith Magistrate's Court. Violence erupted when youths protesting about poor service delivery and a lack of development, barricaded streets and burned tyres.
The oil giant Shell is challenging the authority of the Nigerian Senate by rejecting an order to pay compensation of $1.5 billion to communities in the Niger Delta affected by oil pollution. In an advertisement published in Nigerian newspapers the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) claims the Senate failed to follow "due process" in imposing the fine, announced last week. Friends of the Earth Nigeria reacted angrily to the advertisement, saying it showed that the oil giant was yet again trying to avoid facing up to its responsibilities to the local communities.
Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has welcomed reforms passed by the Togolese National Assembly amending the press and communications law so that press offences are no longer punishable by prison terms. In a 24 August 2004 extraordinary session, Parliament unanimously adopted the draft law. The new text replaces the 25 September 2002 law, previously considered one of the most repressive in Africa. Thirty-four of its 112 articles were amended and four repealed.
On August 27 2004, the Lusaka High Court dismissed an application by the state arguing that six media organizations that sued the state had wrongly commenced the matter of challenging the legality of government's decision not to take all the recommended names appointed to sit on the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and the Zambia National Broadcasting Services (ZNBC) boards to parliament for ratification. In his ruling in chambers, High Court Judge Gregory Phiri said the matter was properly commenced before the court and could therefore be heard by judicial review.
Southern Africa's largest association of independent grassroots publishers will be formally launched at a small media summit near Johannesburg on September 16. The new Association of Independent Publishers of Southern Africa (AIPSA) is expected to launch with a membership of 120 rural, township, and neighbourhood publishers from across the region. The new body will incorporate the 126-year-old Community Press Association (CPA) and the Independent Media Alliance (IMA), and will automatically gain membership of the umbrella Print Media South Africa (PMSA) association.
Even by conservative estimates, less than a quarter of Ghana's pre-colonial forest remains. Loggers and politicians caused most deforestation, though they like to shift the blame to farmers. But the fact is that throughout the Twentieth Century farmers have had little control over the trees on their land.
Concern Worldwide
The position holder will be responsible for the management and provision of technical support to Concern's nutrition programme in Eritrea and for the preparation of donor proposals and reports. The successful applicant will have at least three years field experience in managing emergency and on-going nutrition programmes. To apply, send your CV to:
Christian Aid
Christian Aid is seeking applications from individuals to lead the development and management of the organisation's programme in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania). You must have at least five years experience of international development work, including project management and have experience of working with a local organisation in the south, ideally in Africa.
Save the Children, UK
In response to the current humanitarian emergency, you will be responsible for ensuring that health and nutrition systems are implemented and standardised in the region of Eddaein and for supporting SC UK's emergency preparedness and response. To fulfil the role you will have at least three years of international experience in health and nutrition, preferably gained within the context of an emergency programme.
Oxfam UK
The position holder will be responsible for leading the ongoing development of a humanitarian protection strategy for Oxfam's response in North Sudan. The successful applicant must have at least three years experience working on issues related to the protection of civilians during conflict and have strong familiarity with international law, namely in the area of refugee and humanitarian law.
International Rescue Committee
You will be responsible for the supervision of all programs at the field site and for IRC Sierra Leone's compliance with USAID's grant regulations and conditions. The successful applicant will have three to five years experience working overseas in a humanitarian setting and experience with implementing USAID projects.
Action Aid
Action Aid is seeking applications for the position of country director in its Nigeria programme. The holder will be responsible for managing and strengthening the organisation's work with marginalised communities which aim to help advance human rights and social justice. The successful applicant will have a proven track record in leading development programmes, advocacy activities, fundraising and organisational development.
Nigerian mobile operator M-tel has introduced a N250 mobile phone recharge card into the market to create better access for subscribers. The move follows its market survey which revealed that most subscribers in the country could not afford the N400 recharge card and needed a lower tariff.
The Internet Society of South Africa (ISOC-ZA) has joined other organisations in calling for the government to urgently address the high cost of bandwidth in the country. In a statement, the organisation said that the true cost of bandwidth is clear from the dramatic slow-down in the growth of Internet users in SA. A recent report shows that growth slowed to 6% in 2003. At this rate, only one in ten people in SA will have Internet access by 2006.
The Nigerian Minister of Science and Technology, Professor Turner Isoun, has stated that it would benefit Nigeria tremendously if it joined the Global University System (GUS). According to the GUS, the system "helps higher educational institutions in remote and rural areas of developing countries to deploy broadband internet...and act as the knowledge centre of their community".
Ahead of this week's FOSS Day in South Africa, history is being made with the release of computer software which has been translated into a number of South Africa's official languages. Translate.org.za has spent two years developing the software in Zulu, Sepedi and Afrikaans. Speaking before the launch, the organisation's director said that "this is the first Africans-helping-Africans, no strings attached, Free Software word processor."
The International Veterinary Science and Medicine School of Dakar, Senegal, has launched an initiative to help pastoralists avoid conflicts, environmental problems and animal diseases during their annual migrations. Instead of relying on conversations at weekly markets, the initiative enables pastoralists to track the movement of herds and obtain information on the state of different pastures by using mobile phones, the Internet and global positioning systems.
Orphaned youngsters, they fled their villages in Sudan in the 1980s, afraid they would be slaughtered as many of their families were by government troops. The lost boys - so called because they had to fend for themselves without parents or elders - set out on an extraordinary journey across Africa that took them to Ethiopia, back to Sudan and to refugee camps in Kenya. Three years ago, the United States government agreed to allow 3,600 of them to begin new lives in America.
This paper suggests that the aspirations of NEPAD's initiators, partners and stakeholders for progress, peace and poverty-reducing growth should find their foundation in Africa's human capacity development, which in turn must start with Africa's children. It reviews what has worked and what has not worked for children in the last decades; proposes strategies for human development within the framework of NEPAD, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and national Poverty Reduction Strategies; and identifies priority actions for and with children and young people which, in the favourable macroeconomic and institutional climate sought by NEPAD and the African Union, will help ensure sustained progress.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has congratulated Mauritania for becoming the first country in North Africa to adopt a national refugee law. In a letter sent to the Mauritanian President, Maaouye Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya, High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers said the law would "pave the way for the establishment of a national legal framework for the protection of refugees and returnees, and national asylum structures that can assume responsibility for managing refugee affairs in Mauritania."
A Costa Rican professor and adviser with a long record of advocating for the protection of human rights has been selected by the United Nations to serve as the world body's Special Rapporteur on the right to education. The UN Commission on Human Rights, based in Geneva, announced that it has appointed Vernor Muñoz Villalobos to the post - which examines obstacles to the right to education and identifies ways to remove them - initially until 2007.
A new push to reproductive health services planned at a London conference next week will have to work in Sierra Leone if anywhere. Sierra Leone, a small West African country on the Atlantic bordering Liberia and Guinea has the unhappy distinction of the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. ''That's about 2,100 per 100,000 births,'' Yvonne Harding who works with Marie Stopes International in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown told IPS.
Education officials from around the African continent unanimously support abstinence messages but argue over condom distribution at schools. While schools are under pressure to distribute condoms at schools, not one of the 12 African countries represented at a high level meeting in Durban is doing so and most education officials felt this would be inappropriate.