Both the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) have said that once a peace agreement has been signed, the return of the country's refugees and internally displaced to their homes will be a key priority. Both sides are keen to see people move freely after 36 years of conflict out of 47 since independence. But for the local authorities, donors, UN and aid agencies grappling with the prospect of 570,000 Sudanese refugees, and between 3 million and 4 million displaced returning home en masse, the challenges ahead are staggering.

At least 10,000 civilians fleeing skirmishes between former government fighters and MODEL rebels in Nimba County in north central Liberia, have sought shelter in the relatively unscathed town of Saclepea, relief workers said on Monday.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has launched a repatriation campaign targeting 80,000 Rwandan refugees, mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, the agency reported last Thursday. It said its representatives and those of the Ugandan government met on Monday and Tuesday with refugees at the Nakivale and Oruchinga camps, to discuss the first organised repatriation programme for 25,000 refugees.

It may become necessary to physically move some protected areas due to the impact of climate change, according to a paper from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). "Protected areas are rooted in the concept of permanence: protection works best as a conservation tool if the area remains protected for the foreseeable future. But under climate change, species for which a particular protected area was established may no longer survive there," says the paper.

A legacy of the apartheid era in Namibia is that in many areas, traditional mechanisms for land and resource allocation have broken down. With rapid population growth, there is a need for sustainable resource management to avoid environmental degradation and economic decline. How successful is the Namibian government's policy of devolving authority over natural resources?

Is neo-liberalism widening the differences between West African family farmers and agribusiness enterprises? Should regional agricultural policies focus solely on increasing production or should we value agriculture's role in the management of natural resources and the provision of employment? If so, how can family farmers and their representative organisations be offered greater security of land tenure and a voice in policy-making?

SABC News reports that last year's campaign "16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children" raised almost R2million. Rural community-based organisations dealing with violence against women and children have been prioritised in the allocation of the funds.

This glossary has been developed by Jill Ritchie of Papillon Press and Consultancy, in co-operation with Thusanang. Both Ritchie and Thusanang will add new entries to the glossary on an on-going basis. If you have a funding or fundraising term that is puzzling you, and which is not explained in the glossary already, please send it to us at [email protected].

The gathering presents a platform for participants from around the world to share information and insight on the impact of Information Technologies on Economic Development. It is a forum for professionals and executives to exchange information and identify new opportunities in today's highly competitive and rapidly changing world.

Human Rights Committee E-News features sections containing job, fellowships and volunteer postings, educational courses and conferences and human rights news.

CAFOD has been supporting peace and reconciliation work in DRC since 2001 and has recently secured funding from DFID for the next 3 years of its programme. This period will see the programme broaden its coverage within eastern DRC, and also expand into neighbouring countries in recognition of the regional nature of many of the underlying issues.

A prominent independent journalist has been forced to flee Sudan in the face of persecution by the Sudanese government, Human Rights Watch says. Nhial Bol, former managing editor and reporter at the Khartoum Monitor, Sudan's only daily English-language newspaper, fled Sudan to Kenya in late October following repeated government actions against the Monitor, and arrests and threats against his life.

In a 10 November 2003 letter to the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists' Association (EFJA), the Ministry of Justice's Associations' Registration Office banned the organisation from carrying out its activities. EFJA obtained official recognition seven years after its establishment and for the past three years has been carrying out its work under very difficult and challenging conditions.

The State Security Service (SSS), the Nigerian executive's security service, has banned three newspapers - "Nigerian Tribune", "The Monitor" and "New Age" - from covering events at Aso Rock, the seat of the Nigerian government. The SSS provided no reason for the decision but told affected reporters from the three papers that their names had been removed from the list of journalists who "deserved to continue reporting from the Villa."

Since the Supreme Court refused to hear The Daily News' constitutional challenge to the Access to Information Act until it registers with the Act's Media and Information Commission, the paper's publishers, the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, have suffered a number of legal setbacks in its efforts to obtain justice from the country's courts, details the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe.

The Crisis Care Line, a Merebank-based community organisation, battling air pollution in south Durban has stated that the eThekwini municipality's efforts to curb air pollution through the importation of 'sniffing' machines were not good enough. Commenting on the announcement that the monitoring equipment had arrived in the city as part of a R28m plan to curb air pollution in the industrial basin, organisation chairman Ebrahim Sheik asked what the city authorities and the minister were now going to do to put a stop to the problem. According to Sheik the three main culprits of air pollution in the area - Engen, Sapref and Mondi - had promised two years ago to turn a classroom at the Settlers Primary School into a clinic, but has never fulfilled their side of the deal.

Zambia has been host to the first ever Southern Africa Social Forum held at the Mulungushi Conference Center, from Sunday, 9 November, till today, 11 November.

We have been meeting as anti-globalisation activists, social movements, NGOs and unions opposed to neo-liberalism and corporate-led globalisation. We have drawn our inspiration from the growing international anti-globalisation movement as symbolized in the form of the World Social Forum, and from its African counterpart, the African Social Forum.

Our gathering included women and men, youth and the more elderly, from Angola, the DRC, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean delegation demonstrated its commitment by traveling in large numbers by road. The Tanzanian and Malawian delegates also traveled by road. There were also participants from countries beyond Southern Africa. Participants from Kenya and Britain delivered messages of solidarity.

We unanimously agreed that the globalisation process, dominated by the giant transnational corporations from the North, is impacting negatively on the people in our region. We rejected the role played by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organisation in imposing the agenda of the governments and corporations of the North. We noted the ways in which many of our governments have supported this agenda. We rejected Nepad as an expression of support by certain leaders of our continent for the world's elite at the expense of the majority in the Southern African region and the continent as a whole. We noted with serious concern the role of the South African government and the expansion of South African corporations throughout the region at the expense of local economies. We rejected this new form of colonialism and sub-imperialism.

Over the last three days, we have deliberated on many themes, including: gender, HIV/Aids, debt, trade, governance, education, culture, labour, malaria, media and ICTs, land and environment, agriculture and food security, youth and peace and security. Some of the areas of agreement arising out of these deliberations include:

~ We reject HIPC and the PRSPs as nothing other than the continuation of structural adjustment. The debt owed to the World Bank, IMF and other Northern creditors must be be unconditionally cancelled;
~ Privatisation has put social services out of reach of the majority and must be vigorously opposed;
~ We must go beyond the demands for debt cancellation, an end to structural adjustment conditionalities and a reversal of privatization. Apartheid, debt, SAPs and privatisation have caused immense damage in the region, and those responsible, including those banks and companies that supported Apartheid, as well as the World Bank and IMF that have imposed their disastrous economic policies, must make reparations for the damage caused;
~ On HIV/Aids, the governments in the region must have comprehensive policies to address the issues of stigmatization, discrimination, prevention, treatment and care. In particular, we say: Treat the People Now!;
~ We must abolish inequality with regard to gender, and governments must introduce clear policies towards gender equality;
~ We insist on the right to free education;
~ We demand youth participation at all levels of society in the region;
~ We must put a stop to gun-running and the mercenary business;
~ There must be significant redistribution of land to the poor and, in particular, to women. The poor and women must be involved in decision-making in this regard; and
~ We must develop our sub-regional resource base to ensure the agricultural capacity to achieve food security, including developing our human resources, protecting our natural resources, developing infrastructure and ensuring access to finance.

During the forum, a delegation from the debt, trade and labour theme joined other civil society leaders in meeting the IMF mission in Zambia. They let the mission know that the IMF is not welcome in Zambia and Southern Africa. It was told in no uncertain terms: Pack Up and Go!

We are saying enough is enough! We have committed ourselves to build the social forum from the grassroots up. We will take on the task of building strong social movements to challenge the global system and the way it manifests in the region. This gathering of the social forum is an initial step in that process.

Another Africa is in the making!

This is our time!

* For more information, visit http://earth.prohosting.com/sasf2003/mission.htm

One of the world's leading electrical companies, Schneider Electric, has been implicated in a R16 million bribery case in the Lesotho High Court. The alleged bribery relates to the construction of the now-completed Lesotho Highlands Water Project. French-based Schneider calls itself one of the world's leading manufacturers of equipment for electrical distribution, industrial control and automation. It boasts operations in 130 countries.

Andre Tarallo, 76, nicknamed "Mr Africa" for his close ties to several African leaders has been sentenced to four years in prison and fined two million euros. He was among three former top executives of the French oil firm Elf sentenced to terms of up to five years in prison on corruption charges in a Paris court.

Last month the World Health Organisation declared the HIV/AIDS epidemic a global health emergency. Should governments go one step further and treat it as a disaster? Over the past 20 years, the public health community has learnt a tremendous amount about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Yet, despite widespread discussion about the epidemic and some measurable progress, the overall response has been insufficient: globally 42 million people are already infected with HIV, prevalence continues to rise, and less than 5% of those affected have access to lifesaving medicines, according to the British Medical Journal.

The government of Burundi launched a new malaria treatment, a combination therapy of artesunate and amodiaquine, on Monday, and announced the stoppage of chloroquine and fansidar, which have become resistant to the disease.

In Somalia, if parents do not take the initiative their children will not get an education. Only 17 per cent of school-age children attend school in this war-scarred country. Yet, in the small village of Bansofe, its 270 families banded together to make educating their children possible.

Gender parity in education remains a distant prospect in 54 countries, including 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa as well as India and Pakistan, despite worldwide focus on Education for All, specially on girls’ education. Girls continue to face “sharp discrimination in access to schooling” in a majority of developing countries, even though slow but significant progress was achieved in the 1990’s, says the Global Education for All monitoring report for 2003/4.

An international environmental journalism conference is scheduled later this month in South Africa as part of "Earth Festival," hosted by the city of Cape Town. Journalists from Africa and beyond will meet on November 20 and 21 at the Nelson Mandela Gateway Auditorium in Cape Town to explore pressing issues facing people, the planet and their profession.

Meaza Ashenafi founded the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) in 1995, of which she is still the executive director. After returning to Ethiopia from the US, where she received the Hunger Project Award – known as the African Nobel Prize – for representing women in Ethiopia, she told IRIN about the difference her organisation has made in ensuring women’s rights, but also why Ethiopia is still an extremely difficult country to live in as a woman.

West African heads of state on Tuesday urged the United Nations to consider deploying peacekeepers in war-divided Ivory Coast to reinforce and eventually replace a stretched regional force. The leaders' appeal was issued after a one-day summit meant to ease regional tensions aggravated by the civil war that exploded in Ivory Coast after a failed rebel uprising last year.

Another leader of Lesotho's Factory Workers Union (Fawu) was arrested on Wednesday following a strike earlier this week that left two dead and scores of people injured. Police reportedly arrested Willie Matheo, Fawu's deputy secretary-general, at the union's headquarters in the capital Maseru early on Wednesday morning.

The government in Zimbabwe has ordered police to arrest all doctors on strike at government-run hospitals. Last week a tribunal ruled that the action was illegal, but doctors say they will not return until their demand for large pay rises is dealt with.

Kenyan prosecutors on Wednesday charged a businessman at the centre of Kenya's biggest fraud case with trying to bribe a judge, intensifying a crackdown on high-level graft in the judiciary. Prosecutors said Kamlesh Pattni, a well-connected Kenyan whose fraud trial in the so-called Goldenberg case has dragged on for years without resolution, tried to bribe a judge to induce him to release his passport, which is held by a court.

Nigeria has reacted furiously to reports that the US has posted a $2m bounty for the capture of Liberia's exiled former leader, Charles Taylor. A Nigerian spokesman said the US offer verged on state-sponsored terrorism and they would resist any attempts to seize Mr Taylor. He went into exile in Nigeria as part of a plan to end Liberia's civil war.

A special edition of This Day newspaper distributed on the streets of Harare this week lambastes South Africa's "shameful silence" on the crisis in its northern neighbour. An editorial in the edition says: "Mugabe must free himself of power. Zimbabweans of all classes, allegiances and hues should help him out."

In recent years, industrialized nations led by the US have imposed global trade agreements more favorable than ever to the giant media corporations. This has resulted in the rise of a global media oligopoly: a few tightly knit, dominant transnational firms with interlocking boards of directors and unprecedented lobbying power. This lack of diversity is causing news from a large part of the world simply to disappear. Visit Choike.org, a portal on Southern civil society, for more information.

At their Spring meetings held in April 2003, the major shareholders of the World Bank and IMF considered how they could "enhance the voice and participation" of developing countries in the decisions and policy-making of the institutions. This paper - prepared at the invitation of the Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN) - discusses some of the issues around, and options for reforming, the governance structures of the World Bank and IMF.

In less than a year, the African Development Bank (AfDB) will be celebrating its 40th anniversary. This comes at a time when there is growing consensus all over the continent on the need for Africa to have ownership of its development. In tune with this, African heads of states in June 2003 committed their leadership to the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which centres on African ownership and management of the agenda, strategy and process of the continent's development. In fact, the overarching goal is for “Africa to claim this millennium”.

The AfDB is tasked with co-ordinating and facilitating NEPAD. The African Development Bank (AfDB) is widely regarded as the premier financial and development institution of Africa. The Bank started operations in 1966 with a clear mandate to promote the economic and social development of its regional members and to promote international dialogue and understanding of development issues relevant to Africa. Within its general policies, the AfDB emphasised the importance of planning an energy sector for social and economic development, and indicated the intention to provide energy services to the maximum number of households at the least economic and environmental cost. This was to be done through loans, equity investments, and technical assistance to regional member countries. This envisaged regional leadership has remained a pipe dream, however, as institutions of global economic governance like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund provided external influences on Bank operations.

It is important to assess how far the Bank has lived up to its commitment to position Africa's infrastructure on the path to sustainable development. A look at the AfDB energy portfolio provides answers to these questions, while basic indicators of transparency between the AfDB and the World Bank are also worth looking at.

Energy policy and accessibility is a pillar of economic and human development. It is estimated that between 40-45 percent of Africa's 730 million people live in absolute poverty. Thirty percent are extremely poor and most of these are women. Energy poverty prevails. The availability of clean, safe energy services is vital for human livelihood and sustainable development. Poverty prevalence and health standards are inextricably linked to energy policy. Africa boasts an array of substantial renewable energy resource options, which if exploited intelligently could electrify rural areas. Solar, micro-hydro, wind and geothermal energy would bring power sooner and with lower environmental impact than conventional policies have done.

The Bank says lending in the traditional sector (i.e. fossil-fuel power plants) has significantly declined [and that] over the recent past, there has been a shift in the bank's lending from conventional energy projects to rural, decentralised projects incorporating renewables. Such a shift is overdue: in the year 2000, just one renewable energy project was funded by the Bank and typically, about 3 percent of AfDB energy investments went to such projects.

The importance of energy to development is acknowledged in the AfDB 1994-draft energy policy which even stated Bank support for the promotion of solar, wind and micro-hydro initiatives. Several small initiatives have helped to identify and promote viable renewable energy technologies but these have been temporary and marginal to the vast majority of energy spending. And the new energy policy of the AfDB borrows greatly from the World Bank programme of privatising publicly owned energy companies. This programme has not resulted in improved development or sustainable energy in developing countries around the world. In this light, AfDB would-be energy policies are highly unlikely to improve energy access in rural areas nor boost development.

Though the AfDB was founded by African governments holding a majority ownership on paper, they don't exert proportionate influence over the Bank. Fifty-three member countries are African while 24 are non-regional members. Within the Bank, the role of non-regional members is large and growing. Since 1999, the share of regional members has shrunk to 60 percent, down from 67 percent, while non-regional members own the remaining 40 percent, up from 33 percent.

Conventions that are upheld within the Bank provide clear possibilities for skewed priority setting. The non-African member countries that provide the capital and set policies in the World Bank also strongly influence the AfDB. So far, the AfDB has not developed viable Africa-relevant alternatives and more often abides by World Bank prescriptions, remaining silent on the negative aspects of the privatisation of public services and assets.

Though it has not assumed leadership in Africa's development, the AfDB is still an important influence over regional and domestic energy policy. Aside from direct spending influence, regional development banks can actually prescribe national policy reforms. The introduction of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in the 1980s by the World Bank and the IMF prompted the AfDB to equally engage in policy based lending. Rather than alleviating poverty, these economic adjustment policies instead generated poverty in the sense that unemployment increased, real wages fell and governments cut social expenditures.

Through policy-based lending, International Financial Institutions (IFIs) facilitate the opening of emerging energy markets to foreign investment through privatisation and deregulation. Development bank sponsored energy sector restructuring and projects for the extraction, processing, transport and combustion of fuels for energy provision have enormous impacts on peoples livelihoods and health and on the environment as well as the affordability or otherwise of essential electricity and liquid fuels. At least in theory - through the resultant economic growth and exposure to market rules - this process facilitates competition and transparency. But in practice the transfer of control and ownership of resources and infrastructure is removing, rather than introducing opportunities for public oversight.

African Development Bank representatives reside in most client countries often with a skeleton staff for basic tasks excluding public liaison. The total absence of full resident missions in some countries of operation precludes the facilitation of information dissemination and public dialogue. AfDB units such as that in Cameroon, which is housed within UNDP offices, have as few as two staff to follow up Bank financed projects and who therefore do not provide information on general Bank operations. Most offices maintain only limited information on projects and are not always ready to release it to the public. The absence of functioning Bank structures in most member countries makes it difficult even for the Bank itself to evaluate the projects it finances, let alone for those operations to be transparent to others.

Public notification is not a requirement when a project comes up for internal consideration: the first step in the approval process. It is invariably difficult to obtain project information, especially project briefs for which access is limited to management and Board members. Project documents are only released once an internal evaluation of the project has taken place and even then, only at the Bank's headquarters in Abidjan. Even this after-the-fact information disclosure can be avoided when the Bank cites legal restrictions or practical constraints or deems the information sensitive or privileged in which case it may be classed as confidential, for official use only. When they are finally available to the public, project files contain the terms of reference and operational directives of the bank but not the financial aspects or information about private sector partners. At this point, the project-in-pipeline becomes available on the official web-site including country, sector and cost of project but has already reached an advanced stage of the approvals process with minimal stakeholder input. Even so, it is regarded as very difficult for an affected community to discuss a planned project with the bank once it appears publicly.

It is worth noting that, though the AfDB and World Bank shareholder constituencies are European and US dominated, the standard of Information Disclosure, Environmental Impact Assessment and Resettlement Policy are substantially lower in the AfDB.

Given the demonstrable power IFIs wield over development prospects and energy sector reform, and the urgent need for sustainable energy provision, transparency within International Financial Institutions is imperative. Because a projects value depends not only on its profitability to investors but its contribution, or at very least its absence of detriment, to the people that live most closely with the consequences, they must have a say over whether the project proceeds and under what terms. Effective public participation, in turn, relies on good information disclosure policy and practice on the part of the Bank. Even as lenders of last resort for many types of programmes, the African Development Bank could function better by aligning policies and projects more carefully with a broader spectrum of stakeholders, especially those directly affected by individual projects. Public funds should not be used for projects or policy reform exercises that affected people are not informed of prior to implementation nor for which no reasonable avenue of appeal exists.

As the controversies over bank reform priorities, policies and projects are broadcast from project-affected people and NGOs to a wider audience - including the major constituencies of Bank Executive Directors in the US, Japan and Europe, greater accountability is being demanded. Development banks and the private sector must exercise the principles and standards of operation that would be expected in their shareholder countries, starting with the basics of reasonable and consistent information disclosure standards across regions. To position Africa on the trajectory to sustainable development, AfDB should make its policies and project documents transparent and based on public input. This is the only path to true ownership of any development initiative for Africa. Until use of public funds is subject to public scrutiny, energy policy that reflects African needs, aspirations and sustainable development will remain elusive for this millennium.

* Akong Charles Ndika is an Energy Policy Analyst with Global Village Cameroon

* Please send comments on this editorial to

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A new scheme aimed at ending the "blood diamond" trade will not stop the illicit commerce that fuels conflicts across Africa, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said on Friday. About 60 countries have agreed to what they call a voluntary peer review system. But rights groups have criticised the move, saying the proposed scheme lacks independent scrutiny.

Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate change: large climate impacts are predicted, but in Africa there is a lower capacity to adapt than in more developed regions, climatologists, biologists and policy-makers heard at a Global Change Symposium at Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town last Monday.

A United Nations-backed court in Sierra Leone has begun hearing appeals against their indictments from some of those accused of war crimes. The case of Liberia's former president, Charles Taylor, accused of supporting rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone was the first to be heard.

The World Bank and IMF continue to drive forward policy reforms in developing countries with almost no prior analysis and public discussion of the likely impact of those reforms on poverty, says a joint briefing by a consortium of NGOs in response to the World Bank's Draft user's guide to poverty and social impact analysis.

The corruption trial of Zambia's former president Frederick Chiluba, which was due to open last Thursday, has been delayed because of technical objections posed by his lawyers. Chiluba's lawyer John Sangwa told the magistrate's court that the former president has not been furnished with adequate details of the case to enable him to develop his defence.

A new survey carried out by Transparency International-Kenya reveals that 59% of Kenyans consider corruption to be the number one national issue. The survey sought to determine public opinion on the current state of politics in Kenya, corruption in the government and judiciary, the government’s performance and anti-corruption initiatives undertaken by the government. This is according to an article in the latest edition of Adili, TI Kenya's electronic newsletter. The full article and newsletter can be accessed by visiting the URL provided.

Support for opposition candidate Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla is growing in the campaign for Mauritania's 7 November presidential election. His unexpected popularity has prompted aides of President Maaouiya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, to admit privately that the incumbent head of state may get less than 50 percent of the vote and be forced into a second round-run off two weeks later.

The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has vowed to root out Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Congo in a bid to normalise relations between the two countries. "We need to open a new chapter in terms of relations between our two countries," Mbusa Nyamwisi, the Congolese minister for regional cooperation, announced on Friday in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

Institutions dealing with corruption have failed to raise levels of accountability in Zambia, a Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) report has revealed. But Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) director of operations Bradford Malumbe has dismissed the report.

The Child Rights Information and Documentation Centre (CRIDOC) seeks to provide access to information on child rights or related issues through documentation, research, website and/or other ICT models in Malawi.

Thank you for your consistent work on controversial and often under-reported issues. I look forward to receiving your newsletter in my inbox.

Thanks for this news (Pambazuka News 130: Northern Uganda's Brutal War). Do however note the following: The response of the Teso political leadership when the LRA attacked this northeastern area was of actively mobilising the population to oppose these rebels, hence the formation of the Arrow militia. They also publicly denounced this incursion. Such a response has never occurred, to date, in Acholiland, leading many to believe that the LRA has a given level of support in the later area. Secondly, though a tenacious and vicious group, the LRA seems to have over extended itself when it attacked Teso, about 400 kilometres from the Sudanese border, where they get their supplies and are moreover amidst a hostile population. And the rebels causality rate, including some of their top commanders, has been high. A main motive to invade Teso was to replenish their food stocks, medicines and recruits through abductions.