PAMBAZUKA NEWS 165: NEO-LIBERAL GLOBALISATION AND ITS SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 165: NEO-LIBERAL GLOBALISATION AND ITS SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES
* Editorial: Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa – Update on progress
* Comment and Analysis: The AU and CSO’s: Learning to live in the same house?
* Conflicts and Emergencies: Core d’ Ivoire: No peace in sight
* Human Rights: Ghana: Powerful persuasion
* Refugees and Forced Migration: Nigeria: Displaced need sustained support to return and rebuild their lives
* Women and Gender: Peacewomen launches women, peace and security news source index
* HIV/AIDS: International Aids Conference news
* Land and Land Rights: Land reform in Southern Africa
* Media and Freedom of Expression: Sudan: Web site blocked from access
* Books and Art: Ayi Kwei Armah’s KMT: In the House of Life reviewed by Jacques Depelchin
Ongoing coverage of the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok is bewildering to those who are familiar with the current political battles in the HIV/AIDS arena, and no doubt disheartening or annoying to those reading from a distance. The AIDS industry is in full swing: government forces delivering glittering generalities; actors and ex-presidents discussing their "outrage" while eating five-course dinners in Bangkok hotel penthouses.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) provide some context and much confusion. Some, like Doctors Without Borders or Partners In Health, push a consistent line that demonstrates their commitment and closeness to the poor who suffer from HIV and its related social pathologies [1, 2]. Others seem to care more about winning New York Times headlines than about the implication of what those newspaper stories will have for the poor. The American Foundation for AIDS Research in Manhattan, for example, produced a report that should have provided an evaluation of Thailand's generic production facilities within the context of technical suggestions and cross-border comparisons with other nations' production centers; instead the report was publicized in a manner divorced from its technical minutiae and left the impression that generic medicines from Thailand would kill millions [3]. This, in a context where the US AIDS Czar Randall Tobias is looking for any means to undermine generic manufacturing and return to an oligopoly system in the pharmaceutical industry [4].
The heavy focus on drug access at the conference does, however, serve as one piece of good news, in spite of the fact that many believe it is "distracting" from other matters (an issue I will deal with later in this article). The fact that the discussion is not about whether antiretrovirals can be used in poor countries, but about how to get them there, is a marked shift from previous years. But that is not to say that efforts like the WHO's "3-by-5" Initiative (three million people gaining access to antiretrovirals by 2005) are not being undermined [4]. The battles will continue over this and related initiatives, but what are the rest of us to do as we watch the actors and ex-presidents deliver glittering generalities? What positive outcomes can come for the poor when the wealthy of Manhattan produce statements of "outrage" while consuming pad thai in the security-fenced sector of Bangkok?
* Please click on the link below to read the full article. Comments can be sent to
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 164: Peacekeepers and gender: DRC and Sierra Leone
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 164: Peacekeepers and gender: DRC and Sierra Leone
Multivitamins costing $15 per person per year significantly reduced the risk of HIV disease progression and death in HIV-positive pregnant women in Tanzania, according to a study published in the July 1st edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The investigators conclude that multivitamins would be a cheap, simple, and effective means of delaying the need for antiretroviral therapy in HIV-positive pregnant women in resource limited settings. An accompanying editorial praises the rigour of the investigators study, and although it calls for further studies into the benefits of multivitamins involving large populations it says that treatment programmes and doctors would be justified in offering multivitamins.
Nearly $6 billion is needed to reach the World Health Organization's goal of providing three million people with antiretroviral drugs by 2005, according to estimates published in a special July 3 edition of the Lancet devoted to HIV/AIDS, Reuters reports. The 3 by 5 Initiative also calls for training 100,000 health care workers, refocusing 10,000 clinics in developing countries to treat HIV/AIDS and using common antiretroviral drug combinations to treat HIV-positive people.
Briefing the U.N. Security Council on a council mission to eight West African nations, U.K. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said that a regional approach was needed for the area, which included several states emerging from conflicts that have spread over borders and brought instability to the region. "The regional approach is absolutely essential," Jones Parry said. "The countries, the different issues are so intertwined that regional success is a prerequisite for stability in one country."
The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged Eritrea and Ethiopia to resolve their border dispute, saying international peacekeepers could not remain in the region indefinitely. Speaking on Saturday in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, Annan said he was "optimistic" despite the deadlock over the dispute, but added that many crises around the world were stretching the UN's limited resources.
In a joint communiqué with the United Nations, the Sudanese government on Saturday formally committed to the immediate disarmament of Janjawid militias and other outlaws operating in the western Darfur region. The communiqué was issued at the end of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s three-day visit to Sudan and Chad, where he met and talked to internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees who had fled from the ongoing conflict.
Cote d'Ivoire's opposition leaders, disappointed by President Laurent Gbagbo's decision not to reinstate three of their ministers, held talks on Friday with Gabon leader Omar Bongo, who is trying to help the feuding Ivorian sides out of their political impasse. Bongo, one of Africa's longest-serving presidents, is trying to pave the way for a regional summit to resolve the 22-month crisis in Cote d'Ivoire, which has been split into a rebel-held north and a government-controlled south since civil war broke out in September 2002.
Close to five million South African school children rely on state-sponsored meals as high unemployment and the HIV/AIDS pandemic take their toll on families. Out of 12 million learners, 4.6 million children at about 17,000 schools across the country were receiving meals, the director of school nutrition, Cynthia Mpathi, told IRIN on Friday.
The Ugandan government said last Thursday that it would relax restrictions on political party activity and hold a referendum next February to decide whether the country should revert back to full multiparty politics. As part of the "road map", local, presidential and parliamentary elections were being planned for between February to March 2006, Justice Minister Janat Mukwaya said.
Four people have died and 540 others have been hospitalised following an outbreak of typhoid fever in northwestern Rwanda, Desire Ndushabandi, the health ministry's secretary-general, told IRIN last Thursday. "We have embarked on an intensive campaign to sensitise the population on the need to improve their sanitation," he said.
Ethiopia has appointed a human rights commissioner to investigate alleged abuses, parliamentary officials told IRIN last Thursday. Dr Kasa Gebre Hiwot was announced in parliament as head of the Human Rights Commission (HRC), along with Abay Tekle Beyene, as ombudsman. The government first announced its plan to effect these appointments in 2000. Earlier this year, Hilary Benn, the British secretary of state for international development, said he wanted to see progress towards implementation of the plan as he announced a tripling of aid to US $100 million over three years.
The chairman of the African Union (AU) has called on the international community to "trust" Africa's leaders to solve the continent's many crises. In an upbeat message, Alpha Oumar Konare said that despite enormous problems, Africa's future was not all doom and gloom. "The situation of our continent is not in itself a fatality," Konare told African foreign ministers meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, ahead of a three-day AU summit intended to get African leaders to fulfil pledges made towards resolving the many problems facing the world’s poorest continent.
At least 26 independent members of parliament have joined the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF), making it Malawi's majority party. UDF spokesperson Ken Lipenga told IRIN that 23 independent MPs had joined the UDF on Wednesday, while "at least another three" crossed the floor last Thursday.
The African Union has continued to confound many Afropessimist critics both inside and outside Africa by making steady, even if very difficult and sometimes acrimonious progress, in the past two years since its formal inauguration in Durban, on July 9, 2002.
That progressive pull received a dynamic push with the election of former President of Mali, Prof Alpha Konare, as the Chairperson of the AU Commission and 9 other Commissioners (making a total of five men and five women each representing the 5 regions of Africa) at the Maputo Summit in July 2003.
Konare is a charismatic figure, convinced Pan Africanist and a man whose honesty of purpose and faith in Africa and her diaspora shows through easily. Despite being a former head of state, he does not appear to have lost his idealism. Many AU watchers are anxious that his idealism may not be shared by many of the heads of state and even those who do may not be willing to or are unable to put their money where their mouth is. The job of ensuring the union gets the proper political and financial support from our governments should not and cannot be left to Konare alone.
One fundamental difference between the old OAU and the new AU is that while the former was a Leaders' forum the latter envisages a people-driven Union with roles and various entry points for all sectors of our society. The potentially democratising institutions of the new Union have been taking shape in the past three years. They include elected Commissioners, the Pan African Parliament, the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), mainstreaming of Gender, etc.
Initially attention was devoted to the Executive bodies like the Permanent Representative Committee, Executive Committee, Assembly of Heads of State and Commissioners. Now the gear has shifted to the potentially democratic and democratising institutions such as the Pan African Parliament, which was inaugurated in March this year and the statute on ECOSOCC which is due for approval at the forthcoming summit and launching in November.
The Summit is also expected to approve the protocol on women. Further progress will be made as the African Court on Human and Peoples rights become a reality. The why and how questions will also be deliberated upon with the draft vision, mission and strategic plan of the AU being brought for approval at the Summit. The Summit will have to decide too on where the permanent site of the Pan African Parliament will be.
Initially the Libyan Jamahirriya wanted to host it and South Africa made its willingness to do so known. Eventually Libya dropped its bid and Egypt entered the race against South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa, is my favourite for many positive reasons. The country has a dynamic parliament which Egypt does not have.
In the past one-year Konare and his team have been busy consulting, brainstorming and building consensus around the various aspects of institutionalising and operationalising the noble ideals of the Union.
By no means has everything been smooth sailing but the pace has been most encouraging. There is a new optimism but more than that there is a developing critical mass of leaders both in government and Civil Society who want the Union to work regardless of what those who never wish Africa well or have given up on us in any case, may say. Others can give up on us but we should never give up on ourselves.
Initially many Africans were (rightly, in many cases) suspicious and cynical about the AU. The criticism was mainly based on previous experience of grandiose ideas that ended up in paper graveyards and also the legendary lack of political will by many of our leaders. However, one has seen a steady pool of Africans especially in organised sections of Civil Society including NGOs who have been engaging the process and expanding the frontiers of entry points offered through the Constitutive Act of the Union.
I was at a pre-summit meeting of the AU/Civil Society Forum in Addis last weekend. No AU summit is now complete without a Civil Society Forum. Once the Summit approves the ECOSOCC statute and it is launched later this year the informal linkages that began in 2001 (the first OAU/Civil Society Forum called by Dr Salim Ahmed SAlim) will be given autonomous legal and political framework. By no means are Civil Society linkages limited to the ECOSOCC. Every aspect of the work of the AU demands Civil Society engagement and the Commission is actively encouraging it. Civil Society in Africa does not have a monolithic outlook.
Indeed some are guilty of the various criticisms we daily make of our governments. Its diversity is its strength. There are dangers that some Civil Society individuals and organisations who have had privileged access to the old OAU may still use their influence with the rump of the old OAU bureaucracy to privilege themselves but I am optimistic that this will not last for too long.
The very high transparency and democratic credentials as provided for in the Act of Union and emerging protocols will weed out usurpers as more organisations from an ever wider spectrum of both organised and unorganised CSOs and individuals claim their right to participation. More democracy is what we can look forward to not less of it. It is most disappointing that even at this late stage some ambassadors were still trying to prevent the ECOSOCC statute from being passed because their distrust of CSOs and NGOs and mortal fear of their capacity to advocate for accountability from governments.
However it is an indication of how far we have travelled that such ambassadors were an insignificant minority.
Many people including ambassadors sitting on the permanent representative committee have been anxious about the draft strategic plan of the AU, believing that it is too ambitious and costly. No doubt there are challenges ahead. How can a new organisation, whose predecessor was starved of its meagre annual budget of $45 million by reluctant member states and indifferent heads of government, hope to raise an annual $600 million to support its new institutions and mandate. I take the concerns seriously but I think they are misplaced. Lack of money should not prevent us from having dreams and working towards their realisation. Those who do not have dreams suffer nightmares. Has Africa not suffered enough nightmares?
I can neither believe nor accept a situation where our governments can fight unjust wars without going to donors or the IMF/World Bank but cannot find the resources when it comes to building a peaceful and united Africa. We all have a duty to help build and sustain the popular coalition and movement necessary to ensure that the Union fulfils its mandate. The AU should not and cannot be yet another donor-driven agenda. The responsibility is yours and mine.
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, Kampala, Uganda and Co-Director, Justice Africa (London) ([email protected] or [email][email protected])
* Please send comments to [email protected]
Reading Nigerian newspapers online often requires a huge dose of patience lest you do severe damage to the computer staring you in the face. Doing this alongside an unrelenting assault by those I call Reaganistas in the US requires a greater dose of restraint to avoid jail on grounds of committing grievous bodily harm. While not unmindful of what they say about speaking ill of the dead, I believe we do need a balanced perspective in these times of effusive praise and fawning adulation for Reagan.
I have been confounded by the unbalanced, uncritical and shallow tone of many articles on Reagan in the Nigerian newspapers and frankly stunned by at least two editorials in our more enlightened newspapers. Unlike op-ed articles, newspaper editorials ought to be more reflective, balanced and restrained in their judgment. Not so for the ones I have read.
Reagan has been credited with ending the Cold War; others have attributed as his greatest attributes the fact that he paid little attention to detail, got to work at 9 a.m., took a nap in the afternoon and retired at 5.p.m. He was not an insomniac like Nigeria's president, so the argument went.
To another set, it was the vision thing - a man of few beliefs - low taxes, less government, strong nation, who focused on them all like a beam and regained greatness for his country. And not to be accused of lop-sidedness, some feebly acknowledged that he may have plunged his country to its greatest economic recession in a period of unrivalled expansion and did not care much for African-Americans. Perhaps some of this is true, they may even all contain aspects of truth, but they are not the whole truth about Ronald Reagan's presidency. We may never agree on what the whole truth is, but we should also not let Reaganistas intimidate us into silence. Now, what, in my view, is Mr Reagan's record?
On the Cold War, I am not aware of any definitive documentary evidence that apportioned sole responsibility to Mr Reagan for ending the Cold War. Sure, if symbolism were the sole basis of the collapse of the Soviet Union, soundbite platitudes like Soviet Union is the “evil empire” or “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall”, might have sufficed, but discerning observers certainly knew that the Soviet Union of the 1980s was a deflated and declining power primarily on account of bad governance.
The fact is that most of what Mr Reagan did, such as the INF Treaty, was more a continuation of Mr Carter's policy rather than a rejection. However, some in the Reagan administration as well as right wing academics deliberately exaggerated the Soviet Union's power in order to get their “Star Wars” and padded contracts for America's military industrial complex. As James Schlesinger, jnr, America's erstwhile Defence Secretary said of Star Wars, “it was nothing but a collection of technical experiments and distant hopes” which Mr Reagan treated “as if it were already a reality.”
Even with this, partisan observers can only argue that Mr Reagan merely accelerated what was, at best, inevitability. As we grapple with the return of the Cold War under someone who thinks of himself as a clone of Mr Reagan, we should ask ourselves if the so called war on terror is not another agenda foisted on the country and the world by actors driven by dogma rather than common sense.
On his “voodoo” economics of low taxes, small government and strong nation, ask David Stockman, who was his Budget Director. In his book, The Triumph of Politics, Stockman had this interesting sentence about Reagan's supply side economics, “If the Securities and Exchange Commission had jurisdiction over the White House, we might all have had time for a course in remedial economics at Allenwood penitentiary.”
The deficit ballooned from $79 billion to $179 billion in his first year in office alone. He talked often about tax cuts, but eventually raised taxes through excise duties, but no, these were not taxes, they were merely “revenue enhancers”. By the time he left government in 1988, few would agree that American government was smaller than it was when he assumed office in 1980.
But for me as an African, my biggest yardstick for judging Mr Reagan's place in history was his foreign policy. A man not given to moral leadership, strategic thinking or deep introspection, he quickly embraced the false distinction drawn by his UN Ambassador, Jean Kirkpatrick, between “totalitarian” (left wing) and “authoritarian” (right wing) dictatorship, a thesis which soon provided the basis for crushing left wing despots whilst embracing right wing dictators and “constructively” engaging the apartheid government in South Africa became the first test of this thesis.
Soon, Reagan's CIA Director, William J. Casey began his assault on nationalist movements deemed to be close to the Soviet Union by providing financial and military support to their opponents. From Renamo in Mozambique to Unita in Angola, and from the Contras in Nicaragua, who Mr Reagan described as the 'moral equivalents of the American founding fathers', to the Mujaheedin in Afghanistan, Mr Reagan utilized proxy wars to sow the seeds of today's terror around the world in the name of fighting communism.
Even the New York Times mildly opined in its obituary, “The Reagan Doctrine…was to have lasting repercussions in the fight against terrorism”. And, those who want to know about the right wing dictators, who benefited most from Reagan in Africa should ask Liberians about Samuel Doe, the Congolese about Mobutu Sese Seko, the Sudanese about Nimeiry and the Somalians about Siad Barre - four countries which received 80 per cent of US aid to sub-saharan Africa under Reagan.
It is hardly a coincidence that Africa's most virulent and unrelenting post Cold War conflicts have occurred in these four countries. In my view therefore, Reagan failed the test of greatness as far as foreign policy was concerned and he was largely absent without leave in his domestic policies.
I don't begrudge Reaganistas for their efforts at pushing Reagan as a saint, and I have taken the daily assaults on American television with extra-ordinary equanimity - afterall, I am a stranger in this land - but I resent half baked analyses by my own compatriots that fail to advance our knowledge in any way.
Of all the obituaries I have read here on Reagan, allow me to quote at length Professor Thomas Cronin, McHugh Professor of American Institutions. According to him, “Americans evaluate the greatness of a President on criteria that are over and above popularity and re-election. Did Reagan expand opportunities for all Americans regardless of race, gender or income bracket? It is my view that Reagan has not enlarged the equity factor nor the educational opportunities for most Americans”.
On the global scale, he continued, “President Reagan was lacking in moral leadership, an essential quality for greatness. He was too late, too little, and too lame when it came to human rights at home and abroad.”
There is no doubt that Reagan admirers can quote others who hold contrary views and they reserve the right to do that. I might even agree with them that he projected and injected boundless optimism of America's greatness, which affected and infected his people during his time in office, but when it came down to it, Reaganomics left Americans with a deficit that succeeding generations will continue to pay, sowed the seeds of terror through his Reagan Doctrine, promoted irresponsibility and incompetence in government and showed a clear hostility to equality among the races. Now, this may be a harsh judgment but I hope it allows Reaganistas to at least acknowledge that the jury is still out on Reagan's greatness, and we should all await history's judgment on him.
* Dr Fayemi is Senior Visiting Scholar in African Studies at Northwestern University, Evanston, USA.
* Please send comments to
I would like to comment on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, which is to be ratified by member states of the African Union. While it is a known fact that women constitute the majority of this continent’s population (and indeed of the world!), very little is being done by African leaders to foster women's rights. For example, how can a leader talk about women's rights when girls who finish their secondary (pre-university) education are unable to pursue their studies at university level, due to financial constraints? Are they forgetting that to educate a girl (future woman and possibly mother) is to educate a nation? Without education, no adequate rights!
Sign the petition on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa at:
I regularly receive your newsletter. Thanks for what you do for me.
Pierre Felix Kandolo, DRC
Having studied the Protocol and the rights of women in several African countries, the ratification and advocacy of the Protocol is absolutely vital to African women's rights.
Sign the petition on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa at:
This is a remarkable on your part regarding the much-needed advocacy for the formal commitment of states to the protection of the African woman's rights.
Sign the petition on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa at:
Guineans who have returned home following instability or persecution in neighbouring countries, are placing a critical strain on the already weak social services of the Region Forestiere, said aid workers and government officials. Between 75,000 to over 100,000 Guineans fled Cote d’Ivoire following a rise in anti-foreigner sentiment after a period of civil war between September 2002 and December 2003, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) 2003 survey carried out with the authorities’ help.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has closed a refugee camp in eastern Ethiopia where an estimated 250,000 Somali refugees once lived, after the last 719 inhabitants left the settlement to return home to the self-declared autonomous republic of Somaliland. The last refugees left Hartishek camp on 30 June in a convoy of UNHCR vehicles, heading for Hargeysa. They were being accommodated in a transit centre in Hargeysa while the authorities looked for an area to resettle them permanently, UNHCR said in a statement.
Over 17,000 children aged between seven and 12 years have fled from the Lord's Resistance Army rebels' captivity since 1986, a Northern Youth Connection (NYC) survey has revealed. The Aga Khan High School students, led by Darren Hynes, a teacher, initiated the NYC, a community service programme. Hynes said about 22,000 children have been abducted between 1986 and 2002, an estimate of 30 children per day.
Although the Namibian government is against the institutionalisation of orphans, some orphanages, or rather houses of safety, have sprung up to provide accommodation for needy children in the interim. With the Namibian population not too keen to foster orphaned children due to mainly financial difficulties, the kids need to be accommodated somehow. The extended family, many agree, remains the best choice to keep the orphans within the family set-up, but for the same reasons of resources, houses of safety and orphanages, where they collaborate with the line ministries, are necessary, some say.
United Nations humanitarian agencies say they are concerned by the Sudanese Government's abrupt transfer of more than 5,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in the war-torn Darfur region from one IDP camp to another without any consultation or advance warning. Between Wednesday evening and last Thursday lunchtime, about 1,000 families were transported by Sudanese authorities from a camp at Meshtel to a more established camp at Abu Shouk, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
More than 200 bushmen from the Kalahari desert are taking the Botswana government to court over their forced eviction from ancestral land. They are challenging a 2002 decision to resettle them outside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, which was their home for tens of thousands of years.
The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research is calling for Proposals (in collaboration with The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), to strengthen health systems, promote civic engagement, and make research matter. The aim of this exercise is to support the integration of political, economic, social and policy analysis into research on public health and health care systems and policies in Eastern and Southern Africa. Only proposals focusing on this region will be considered. The research should provide solid grounds for making informed and needs-based decisions on the equitable financing and functioning of health systems.
Angola's social assistance and reintegration ministry Friday started the repatriation of some 40,000 Angolan refugees from the DRC, in conjunction with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Out of these, 12,397 will return to the eastern provinces of Moxico, while 12,787 are expected in the northern provinces of Uije and Zaire during the second repatriation exercise since last May.
As part of celebrating the decade of democracy, the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa in partnership with the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, invites civil society organizations to submit proposals in respect of programmes that deal with violence against women and children and which supports the efforts of women to take charge of their lives. Closing date for applications: 15 July 2004.
This paper argues that efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on school enrolments through changes to education policy and increased funding are unrealistic and misguided. The paper predicts that, as with previous efforts to reach development goals, the international aid community will attribute the failure to achieve the education MDGs to the broken promises of donors. In conclusion, the paper recommends the creation of historically-grounded, country-specific education goals, and recognition of the broader economic and political environments which influence decisions regarding education.
The Ghana National Council of Metropolitan Chicago has announced the date for this year's Ghanafest as Saturday 31st July, in the city's Washington Park. This Cultural Exposition, featuring the Traditional Ghanaian Thanksgiving Celebration and music bands from the area, also embraces other cultures with a soccer tournament between 20 African and Caribbean Teams.
Figures released in the G8 summit show that Nigerians in the diaspora are sending home $12 billion annually - almost half of the total made by the country's largest export - oil ($30 billion). This follows last year's comments by Ghana's President, John Kufour, who thanked Ghanaians living abroad for sending home $1.3 billion - almost the same figure Ghana earned from its two biggest exports, Gold and Cocoa.
Against the background of demands for accountability with respect to the work of NGOs, this 30-page publication addresses the vexed question how best to measure performance in a variety of contexts.
Discussion is ordered within a clear and logical structure. In introducing the climate of need and demand for evaluation, a useful distinction is drawn between the purposes of evaluation in terms of (a) accountability, and (b) facilitating learning so as to improve practice. The potential tension between these two functions is usefully pointed out. We then move to a brief historical overview of the origins and evolution of performance management before specific consideration is given to developments in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. The historical perspective here is interesting and relevant, and the distinctions between the three sectors important in the light of their distinctiveness. An account of attempts to create alternative frameworks is then offered, with discussion grouped around the major methodological approaches. Assumptions underpinning these approaches are usefully identified. Operational challenges are then considered with suitable sensitivity to factors of context and culture in addition to the more inherent features of systems of performance measurement. Discussion concludes with the identification of trends in the development sector.
How successful, then, is the publication? In my view, it succeeds admirably. It has condensed and made accessible recent experiences in a convincing, lucid account. A wealth of current literature from a number of fields is cited in a way that inspires confidence in the analysis. At the end of the day, it makes accessible an understanding of the field in a way that makes the key issues clear. With this as a basis for judgement, practitioners are well placed to make informed judgements. This publication represents a very pleasant balance between being useful and practical, on the one hand, and thoroughly academically respectable on the other. One hopes it will be read by performance management practitioners as well as by corporate management and donor organisations.
* Reviewed by Professor Ken Harley
As part of its 25th year anniversary celebration, Studies in Political Economy: A Socialist Review has launched a major effort to make the journal a forum for discussion and debate internationally. New linkages to international scholars have been established through the creation of an International Advisory board that includes among others the noted South African scholar Patrick Bond. The journal is also attempting to become more accessible to readers in the South. To this end it is offering a special 50% discount on its regular subscription prices to Africa-based individuals and institutions.
This book focuses on the democratic turmoil of African countries. It is arranged in four parts with the first part on the different types of democracy, the second on the international community and African governments, the third on human rights violations in Africa and the fourth on the painful truth of African democracy.
The past decade has seen tremendous development of international legal protections for the environment and public health. Many nations have ratified numerous multilateral environmental agreements to protect the air, water, land, and biodiversity. Despite these efforts to confront environmental and public health problems, the public concern over environmental threats seems to have increased rather than decreased. A key reason for this is the failure of many countries and their leaders to implement adequately or enforce the standards in these new MEAs to overcome the mounting problems that the MEAs were designed to combat.
Over 200 Africans and their organisations attended the third African Diaspora and Development Day in London's City Hall. The event was organised by africa21 (a consortium of nine African organisations) and focused on how Africans in the UK are promoting change both in the UK as well as in their regions of origin in Africa. Renowned West African gender activist, Yassine Fall, delivered the keynote address and numerous workshops enabled the participants to discuss key issues in depth, including the possible role for the diaspora in Tony Blair's new Commission on Africa. The Day also saw the official launch of African Voices for Africa's Development (ADVAD), a new coalition of African Diaspora organisations.
Dr Angus Hawkins, Vice-President of Kellogg College and Director of International Programme's at the University of Oxford's Department for Continuing Education, praised members of Diaspora organisations who had successfully completed a course on 'Fundraising and Resource Mobilisation' at an award ceremony at the African Diaspora and Development Day on Saturday 3rd July. Paying respect to the importance of the African Diaspora, Dr Hawkins said in his speech that it gave the University 'great pride to be able to contribute in a small way to the strengthening of the capacity of African Diaspora organisations to contribute to Africa's development.' The 18 week distance learning course is one of 8 developed in a partnership between Fahamu and the University. Whilst this is the first time a course has been delivered to Diaspora organisations, over 120 organisations in Africa have already benefitted from them.
On 1 July 2004, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court and Amnesty International launched a website action calling on the government of Cape Verde to ratify the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, as part of a campaign to lobby for the universal ratification of the Rome Statute. To find out more information about the campaign please visit the website of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (www.iccnow.org) and the website of Amnesty International (http://web.amnesty.org/pages/icc-010704-action-eng).
Education and training are fundamental prerequisites for development. The idea therefore is to provide the youth with basic IT and entrepreneaurship knowledge, and above all the practical application which would thus help them directly in living their own lives in Africa. The Progressive Educational Fund (PEF), provides support for up to three years of formal graduate-level study.
Do you have an innovative or entrepreneurial idea for a partnership project that may contribute to sustainable development? A new concept that brings together people and organisations from different backgrounds? A project that enables partners to pool their human and financial resources, experience, local knowledge and connections? That allows partners to meet goals they could not reach working by themselves? A new initiative is ready to help you implement your ideas and make them a success. The Seed Initiative (Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development) is a joint effort by a network of international organisations - from global organisations such as IUCN - The World Conservation Union, UNEP and UNDP to national organisations such as Development Alternatives and LEAD Pakistan, who are passionate about promoting the entrepreneurial spirit of partnerships for sustainable development at grassroots level. They have launched the Seed Initiative to recognise new partnership approaches and encourage entrepreneurs to take action for environment and development.
The UPEACE Africa Programme and the Department of Gender and Peace Studies, in collaboration with the Dag Hammarskjöld Center for Peace, Good Governance, and Human Rights of the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation (MEF) are organizing a Faculty and Staff Development Seminar on Gender and Peace Building, to be held in Kitwe, Zambia from the 26th to 30th of July 2004. Fahamu has been commissioned to produce a CDROM-based course on Gender, Violence and Conflict that is to be presented at the workshop. The CDROM focuses on masculinities and war.
The ForeignAID.com International Donor Directory Online features 700+ donors in the U.S., Europe, and abroad actively involved in grantmaking for international programs.
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), invites applications for the Transitional Justice Fellowship Program, a funded, four-month residential fellowship program in Cape Town, South Africa, for approximately 24 professionals from select countries. Over a four-month period, fellows will discuss multiple strategies to be deployed following a period of conflict or repressive rule in order to bring about a more just, democratic, and peaceful society in their respective countries.
Women'sNet, a non-profit women's organisation based in Johannesburg, is hosting a SADC regional workshop to build awareness of and the potential use of Free and Open Source Solutions (FOSS) in the non-profit sector, and women's organisations specifically. The workshop itself will be held in Johannesburg, and is scheduled for 6-10 September 2004.
The Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) encourages participation in their web-discussion forums as a way of exchanging views and ideas and enhancing networking activities. You can log on through the URL provided.
Information is power! The written word can persuade, assuage, motivate, subvert and change how we view the world. Anyone disseminating information needs to do so with integrity, accountability and responsibility. Zimbabweans have little or no access to objective journalism. But responsibility doesn't only rest with our journalists. Many people don't realise the power they wield with their email, their SMS messages, and their ordinary everyday conversations during which information can be manipulated or distorted.
Human rights lawyer Gabriel Shumba has taken the Zimbabwean government to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights to answer charges of torture by state security agents while representing an opposition legislator. Shumba, through his legal counsel, David Padilla, brought the action against President Robert Mugabe's regime claiming he was kidnapped, tortured and made to swear allegiance to Mugabe by Zimbabwean security agents while representing MDC St Mary's MP Job Sikhala in January last year.
Join the Kubatana mailing list for updates on activities and breaking news in the non-profit sector. The Kubatana Trust of Zimbabwe, incorporating the NGO Network Alliance Project (NNAP), aims to strengthen the use of email and internet strategies in Zimbabwean NGOs and civil society organisations. Send an email to [email protected].
United Nations University for Peace
The United Nations affiliated University for Peace (UPEACE) is seeking high calibre applicants for the position of Director of the Institute for Media, Peace and Security (IMPS), an autonomous centre operating within the framework of UPEACE. The director will be based in the Geneva office of UPEACE, and will be part of a unique university that functions as a global knowledge network, created by a General Assembly resolution of the United Nations two decades ago. The director will be responsible for the overall management of the IMPS and shall be responsible to the Vice Rector of UPEACE.
Deadline for applications: 21st July 2004.
Africarecruit was launched in 1999 under findajobinafrica.com to target Africans in the Diaspora wishing to find employment on the African Continent and those Africans within Africa keen to work in another African Country. A selection of the positions it is currently advertising are below. In addition, it provides a meeting point for jobseekers and employers, African government’s, NEPAD officials, and members of the African Diaspora to discuss employment issues and to help address the challenge of the African Continent's brain drain.
Along ancient Saharan trade routes, 1,300 years of shared history that have mingled the faiths, cultures and skin tones of Arabs and Africans has left another, more vicious legacy: Arab-African slavery that has endured as long as the two peoples have been together, leaving black Africans fighting perceptions of themselves as lesser beings, and of Arabs as the civilizing, conquering force. Today, the old roles are playing out at their most extreme in Sudan's Darfur region.
The Sustainability Institute (University of Stellenbosch) and Sustainable Energy Africa (SEA) are offering an intensive 6-day accredited course on Sustainable Energy Planning - For Cities in September this year. This course can form part of the Masters Programme in Development Planning and Sustainable Development or it can be attended on its own as an Executive Course in the School of Public Management and Planning's Programme in Sustainable Development.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) invites applications to its Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program. Established in 2001 to enable activists, scholars, and journalists from around the world to deepen their understanding of democracy and enhance their ability to promote democratic change, the fellowship program is based at NED’s International Forum for Democratic Studies, in Washington, D.C.
Adonis& Abbey publishers in London publish books and journals on Africa. One of their journals, African Renaissance, is doing a special edition on African identity, Africanness, and the relations between different 'national' and 'cultural' Africans in the Diaspora on the one hand, and between the latter and the Continent on the other and would like to invite contributions for the August/September edition of the journal. The journal is a cross between an academic publication and any higher-end news features magazine. The deadline for the submission of articles, which should be between 1000 and 2000 words, is July 10, 2004. For more information contact Dr Jideofor Adibe on [email protected] or visit www.adonis-abbey.com.
The government of Equatorial Guinea, the rags-to-riches West African petro-state where major U.S. oil companies have invested billions of dollars in recent years, has violently put down the latest coup plot against it, summarily executing at least a dozen alleged rebels and rounding up and torturing relatives and associates of an opposition party accused of sponsoring the coup attempt, according to Amnesty International. The alleged coup attempt, which the government itself announced May 30, was the latest in a series of such efforts over the years directed against President Teodoro Obiang since he overthrew Macias Nguema.
On July 22, the World Bank will celebrate its 60th birthday. That day will mark 60 years of failed policies, 60 years of misguided loans, 60 years of increasing debt, and 60 years of dubious development projects. Join the Global Day of Action on J-22 and call for the World Bank to give communities the right to decide their own development path; stop investing in oil, mining and gas; respect human rights; exclude large dams from renewables initiatives;operate in full transparency; cancel 100% of impoverished country debt.
Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on anti-poverty targets, said Africa's heavy debt burden was untenable and urged the continent not to pay its debts if rich countries refused to cancel them. The U.S. economist, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, spoke at a conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on hunger on the eve of a summit of the heads of state of the African Union, which estimates sub-Saharan Africa's foreign debt at $201 billion.
The global AIDS epidemic continued to pick up pace last year as a record 5 million people became infected with HIV, more than in any other single year, according to a biannual report released by the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). The 2004 UNAIDS Report of The Global AIDS Epidemic found that the number of people living with HIV/AIDS has risen in every region in the world to reach 38 million. The report also found that while global spending on AIDS has risen 15-fold since 1996 - from $300 million to nearly $5 billion last year - it remains inadequate, since the world will need to spend $12 billion annually by 2005 and $20 billion annually by 2007 to fight AIDS effectively in developing countries.
The World Health Organisation announced it was sending a team of experts to Rogo, in northern Nigeria's Kano state, to investigate a suspected outbreak of new polio cases. Kano state officials halted polio immunizations in the region last year amid fears the vaccine could lead to female sterilization. Local Islamic leaders had also alleged Western countries were using the vaccination campaign to spread HIV and cancer in Nigeria to reduce the Muslim-dominant population.
Once considered a status symbol and the preserve of the urban elite, mobile phones are now changing the lives of rural Zambians. In a country with low telephone connectivity, mobile phones penetrate remote areas that have yet to be connected by landlines.
Ten APC members have created national ICT policy portal websites in their own countries in a joint initiative. The portals which are all uniquely adapted to address each country's particular situation all use free software that allows content-sharing in different languages and between multiple information databases hosted in different parts of the world.
Isolezwe, a Zulu-language newspaper, has launched online at http://www.isolezwe.co.za/. Readers can try out the new site by signing up for a one-month free subscription to the website. The new website is the world's first Zulu news site and aims to target the emerging, urban-based, aspirational and knowledgeable Zulu market. The website will mirror the print version in terms of content. Initially, online content will be available free to view as an incentive to encourage online user. Ultimately the site will be subscription-based.
Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has strongly condemned the Algerian authorities' decision to "temporarily freeze" the Arabic satellite channel al-Jazeera's activities in Algeria and called for an immediate lifting of the ban. "This unfair decision amounts to nothing more than censorship," said RSF. "This is the first time for more than ten years that a foreign television channel in Algeria has been banned from covering news in this way."
Increased international attention has yet to produce signs of an end to one of the world’s most brutal humanitarian crises, which has displaced 1.6 million people in northern Uganda. The rebellion by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been going on for 18 years. Their political objectives are unclear, but they seem bent on dismantling the camps where most of the internally displaced people (IDPs) live, seeing their inhabitants as tacit supporters of President Yoweri Museveni’s government. In what was the most vicious atrocity in nine years, the LRA massacred some 300 IDPs in Barlonya camp in February 2004.
A delegation of CREDO for Freedom of Expression & Associated Rights, FAHAMU, International Federation of Journalists, Justice Initiative and Media Institute of Southern Africa - Supported by writer and Nobel prize winner Professor Wole Soyinka - met with His Excellency, Professor Alpha Konare, Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union July 1, 2004 to discuss the urgent need for a legal and institutional framework for a conducive media environment in Africa. The delegation called on African Union member countries to repeal all media legislation inconsistent with the Constitutive Acts of the Union and to begin the process of adopting treaty level guarantees for media freedom. The delegation urged that this process should begin urgently and within a given time as the lack of press freedom and freedom of expression is holding back the development of Africa on a democratic basis. “In 2003, there were 170 reported cases of attacks on journalists and media houses by governments either through 'legal' and 'judicial' persecution or through harassment and intimidation by security agents,” stated Rotimi Sankore Coordinator of CREDO. “Many more went unreported. In June 2004 the figure for reported violations of media freedom already stands at 102. If this trend continues, there may be well over 200 such cases by the end of 2004, an increase of almost 20% on last year."
On 4 July 2004, a group of police officers beat Bernard Warity, deputy information minister for administration in the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) headed by Charles Gyude Bryant. Warity sustained bruises on his body and is being treated at the St. Joseph Catholic Hospital in the capital, Monrovia. Speaking to Media Foundation for West Africa-Liberia from his hospital bed, Warity explained that the incident occurred at 6:00 p.m. (local time), when he was returning from watching a World Cup qualifying soccer match between Liberia and Togo.
Panos has launched a new resource for journalists. The Panos Media Brief gives journalists an outline of the key debates on a topical issue, facts & figures, case studies, a glossary, upcoming newspegs, weblinks to free downloadable graphics, useful links to key organisations worldwide plus additional resources. All in an easy-to-read, full colour, 4-page format. The first Media Brief, ‘Telephones in Africa: Mind the Gap’, accompanies the Panos Report, ‘Completing the Revolution’, which highlights the threat of a growing 'communication gap' between urban and rural Africans.
Gender violence causes as much of a burden of ill-health and death among women aged 15 to 44 as cancer, and more than malaria and traffic accidents combined. A new report from the Panos Institute (London) reveals that such violence also occurs in the very places where girls and young women should be safe - in schools, universities and higher education institutes. The report, 'Beyond victims and villains - addressing sexual violence in the education sector', cites extensive case studies from around the world to show that girls and young women are subjected to a wide range of violent and aggressive behaviours, from verbal abuse and being groped in the cafeteria queue, to rape.
Angolan Foreign Affairs Minister, João Miranda, on Sunday, in Addis Ababa, refuted strongly the allegations from the African Union commission for human and people's rights, which qualifies as xenophobic the repatriation of illegal foreigners, that has been carried out by the Angolan Government.
The Shuttleworth Foundation, with its partners, has committed R18mn in funding to promote the use of open source, reports the Mail and Guardian online. This marks the beginning of the “Go Open Source Campaign,” which aims to make the average computer user more literate to the benefits of open source software.
Colonel Bokeone of the Kasongo garrison in Maniema province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was dismissed from duty on 20 June 2004, following a brutal attack on a radio director that left him in the hospital with severe injuries. Modeste Shabani, director of the Kasongo-based Sauti ya Mkaaji (The Voice of the Farmer) community radio station, was attacked earlier that morning by a group of armed men under Bokeone's control. According to a JED representative who was able to visit Shabani on 29 June at the Goma hospital in North Kivu province, eastern DRC, where he had been transferred earlier that day, the journalist reported fractured hips, broken ribs, terrible pains at the base of his neck, as well as large lesions on his buttocks muscles.
The United Nations urged Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday to protect vital ape habitats on their borders after a huge swathe of forest was cut down on the Congolese side. The U.N. was responding to reports that six square miles of mountain gorilla habitat had been cleared in the Congo part of Virunga National Park, threatening one of the planet's rarest and most magnificent wild animals.
World Vision
The grant manager will be responsible for all accounting and budgetary functions for World Vision's grants. The position holder must ensure procedures conform with World Vision International reporting requirements and the compliance standards required by each donor/government/regulatory agency.
Agriculture is the most important user of environmental services, including water, forests, pastures, soil and nutrients. Poorly managed agriculture can lead to environmental degradation and pollution, deplete natural resources and compromise food safety and human health. Sustainable agriculture provides environmental services that are important to society in urban and rural areas, locally and globally.
Rare species like the black rhino are being wiped out in Zimbabwe because of rampant poaching and human settlement on private game reserves seized by the state, a conservation group said last Thursday. "At the moment the situation really stinks," said Johnny Rodrigues, the head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, a wildlife advocacy group. "The reports we're getting from the guys on the ground are that all the wildlife stocks have been completely wiped out in the private conservancies. There's nothing left," he said from his Zimbabwe home.
Many countries and civic society organisations have been campaigning for global targets for energy efficiency. However, not all countries agree on the targets, despite an almost universal recognition of the importance of renewable energy. The move towards global targets has been slow. After a failed attempt to reach consensus at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, many countries and civic society bodies pinned their hopes on the Conference on Renewable Energy, which was held in Bonn, Germany, earlier this month.
Twenty-three countries in sub-Saharan Africa are facing food emergencies for the summer season, according to FAO's latest Africa Report, issued on 6 July. Despite an overall decline in the region's food aid requirements, poor rains, internal conflicts, HIV/AIDS and a locust invasion have exposed millions of people to serious food insecurity and the need for emergency food assistance, the UN agency warned. Sub-Saharan Africa's food aid requirement for 2004 is estimated at 2.9 million tonnes, compared to around 4 million tonnes last year.
UNICEF
The Senior Project Officer will be responsible for the development, design, implementation and management of the programme for HIV/AIDS within UNICEF's Country Programme.
Houses, cars, pets and irate residents were sprayed with crude oil from the Caltex oil refinery in Cape Town on Sunday, after a pressure valve popped during routine maintenance. According to refinery manager, Steve Woodruff, more than 100 angry residents arrived at the Caltex refinery to find out where the oil was coming from. Woodruff acknowledged the refineries responsibility, and recommended that residents contact them regarding claims.
Africa is facing a dramatic increase in air and water pollution, drought and wildlife extinction unless immediate action is taken to clean up the continent's environment, says the United Nations. A report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) calls on African leaders to pursue environmentally-friendly development as well as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid irreparable damage to Africa's environment.
Canada's Tiomin Resources has signed a controversial deal with the Kenyan government to mine titanium in Kwale, near Mombasa. The project has been vigorously opposed because nearly 5,000 people will have to abandon their homes. Environmentalists have also raised fears over radiation and harm to forests and marine life.
Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP)
The Officer will be responsible, amongst other duties, for the design and implementation of all capacity building activities, the training of trainers courses and for working closely with stakeholders in the community to address the issue of domestic violence.
Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP)
The position holder will be responsible, amongst other duties, for the development and implementation of all advocacy activities and for the raising of awareness within the stakeholder community of human rights and domestic violence.
Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP)
This position is open to male candidates only. The holders responsibilities will include the design, implementation and monitoring of the organisation's new program focused on men and domestic violence.
Political prevarication and weak management has hampered the implementation of the Operational Plan for Comprehensive HIV and AIDS Care, Management and Treatment for South Africa a new report has found. The preliminary report, released at the Treatment Action Campaign’s Health Summit at the weekend, is the first in a series that will monitor the implementation of the Operational Plan. The report, researched and produced by the AIDS Law Project and the TAC, deals with the first seven months since the Department of Health’s announcement of the Operational plan in November 2003.
Generic combination HIV/AIDS drugs formulated into a single pill are "at least as [effective] as highly active antiretroviral therapy in industrialised countries", according to research published in this week's issue of The Lancet. Christian Laurent, of the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and his colleagues took advantage of a pilot project on access to antiretroviral drugs in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, to test the efficacy, safety and quality of one of the most commonly used fixed-dose combination (FDC) therapies used in Africa.
This Médecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) paper looks at how patents adversely affect access to affordable medicines. Although effective medicine is available to treat many global diseases, one-third of the world's population lacks access to these basic, but expensive, drugs as a result of patent rights. While the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is meant to ensure that patent protection does not limit access to medicines, the ability of national governments to implement TRIPS in a way that ensures access to medicine is highly problematic.
African countries are failing to win the war against malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, the African Union (AU) plans to tell the continent’s leaders on Tuesday. A report to be presented to AU leaders says insufficient progress has been made in combating disease despite major increases of financial support from the Global Fund, World Bank and Western countries. Limited capacity and underdeveloped health systems, it notes, are largely to blame for the "slow progress" made by governments in this respect.
Remote health posts providing basic primary health care in Angola's Bie province are saving lives among many of the country's rural poor. Run by the Angolan Ministry of Health with the support of the international medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the posts are having a particularly positive impact on the health and wellbeing of children in Angola's central highlands province.
A Nigerian student said on Friday he had been booted out of a Lagos journalism school after he told the director he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS and would need to miss classes one day a month to get treatment. Fredrick Adegboye, 45, said he planned to take the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) to court if he was not readmitted by the end of next week.
Health authorities have introduced a new treatment for trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness, in the eastern province of Haut Mbomou in the Central African Republic (CAR), an official told IRIN on Saturday. Dr Carlos Recio, the coordinator of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in the CAR, said the new drug had been introduced after a significant percentage of patients developed resistance to Melarsoprol, the drug that had previously been used.
Reporting on the worst corruption scandal of President Mwai Kibaki's Government, a watchdog committee of MPs has demanded that the Kenyan Finance Minister, David Mwiraria, should be held responsible for involving the Government in the Sh2.7 billion passport scandal. In addition, the committee has urged that three former Permanent Secretaries should face fraud and conspiracy charges and that other deals involving the UK firm Anglo Leasing should be investigated.
Transparency International is using the forthcoming AU meeting in Addis Ababa as an opportunity to call upon the African Leaders to sign, ratify and begin putting in place structures which would allow for the implementation of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption and the United Nations Convention against Corruption. To date 30 countries have signed but only 3 (Comoros, Libya and Rwanda) have ratified it. The convention requires 15 ratifications to enter into force.
Mary Wandia (FEMNET) and I have worked closely with the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women, Commissioner Angela Melo, in lobbying the governments and regularly exchanged information and ideas. The AU Commissioner for Political Affairs also went around speaking to countries about ratification. We got two ratifications (Libya and Rwanda) since coming to Addis Ababa.
Yesterday [06 July] the President of Botswana [Festus Mogae], during a debate on gender, announced that his country will sign, ratify and implement the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa.
The Assembly is adopting a declaration on gender and it includes a commitment to ratify the Protocol by the end of 2004; and no country objected to this deadline.
We reached out to all the countries that have signed the Protocol as well as most of those who didn't. The news is encouraging. Most countries seem to have started the process of ratification though they are at different stages of discussion. Mary and I are very optimistic that it would come into force by December 2004; but a lot also depends on the national campaigns. Mary will send around the declaration that is being adopted by the heads of state and that could be used in the national campaigns to remind the authorities of their commitment.
The Special Issue of Pambazuka News (Pambazuka News 162) to support the campaign on ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women was a very useful campaign tool. It became popular at the African Union meeting.
Aside from lobbying we did several interviews with the press highlighting the campaign. As you all would agree, media is a powerful tool to use for the campaign and we hope that everybody will be engaging the national media to keep up the pressure on governments. Feel free to use information from the special issue of Pambazuka News. Likewise, you can reproduce the petition and make it specific to your country. Please continue to spread the petition to publicise it and get as many signatures as possible.
Faiza Mohamed
Equality Now
Female journalists are often excluded from informal networks within newsrooms and from access to information about training and resources. For example, while male journalists may enhance their visibility and career opportunities by socialising with colleagues after work, this kind of networking is still considered inappropriate for women in many cultures. In light of this type of "culture", this resource directory is designed to help these women reach out to their colleagues by linking them to institutions and opportunities that can offer them support, training, knowledge, and connections.
One person was killed and several others were injured on Wednesday when police clashed with demonstrators who took to the streets in the western Kenyan town of Kisumu to demand a quick enactment of the new draft constitution. The confrontation between the demonstrators and police was the first public show of frustration with President Mwai Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) government, which came to power following a landslide electoral victory 18 months ago.
A Nigerian appeals court has quashed a lower court judgement that nullified the election of a state governor from the ruling party, saying there was inadequate evidence to prove opposition allegations of vote rigging. Announcing the unanimous decision of a panel of five appeal court judges sitting in the central city of Jos, Justice Pius Aderemi said on Monday they were overruling an electoral tribunal judgement which had voided the election of Boni Haruna as governor of Adamawa State in eastern Nigeria.
Donors have expressed concern over alleged malpractices in the awarding of government contracts, and warned that Kenya risked losing donor support unless authorities intensified the fight against corruption. "This is a key moment in Kenya's fight against corruption. What is required is intensification of effort and purposeful commitment," said a joint statement issued on Monday by the embassies of Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.
African leaders on Wednesday pledged to place women at the heart of their development agenda, and to intensify the fight against disease. In an 11-point action plan agreed at the African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, they set out a strategy for improving the women's rights on the continent. The newly elected AU chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, told leaders that many African countries still held negative attitudes towards women.