Applications are invited from suitably qualified and experienced person to fill in the position of Administration Officer at the Legal Resources Foundation with immediate effect. This is a contract of 4 to 6 months. The closing date for this vacancy 13 November 2009.

The goal of the African Leadership Institute (AfLI) is to nurture and enhance leadership capability across Africa, with particular focus on the promising leaders of the future. AfLI’s aim is to create a network of high potential young Africans who have attended our programmes, and who are expected to rise to top leadership positions in their sphere of activity over the next 5-20 years.

In the 21st century it may seem ludricrous to even consider the possibility of an increase in violence against women. The fact that we have come so far in terms of creating really good legislation, has not necessarily resulted in the scale of impact envisaged. In most countries, on any given day newspaper headlines alerts us to the reality that women still face attacks on their bodies on a daily basis.

(www.pambazuka.org) is an award-winning social justice e-newsletter and website that is produced by a community of some 1800 commentators, bloggers, activists and academics. It is published by Fahamu (www.fahamu.org), an Oxford-based charity.

In order to improve the usability of the site’s online database of 55,000 records, which has been built up over the last ten years, we are seeking an experienced indexer whose task will be to assign keywords using an established cataloguing system (e.g. such as used by the Library of Congress) and to develop a thesaurus of key words for classifying new articles as they are added to the database. The person would also be required to provide similar services for the growing list of books published by Pambazuka Press (www.pambazukapress.org). The person would also be expected to train and work alongside volunteers/interns.

The post would ideally be full-time for the first three months, and part-time thereafter. Remuneration according to experience. Closing date for applications: 1 December 2009.

Applications in writing with CV and references to [email][email protected]

Fahamu Trust is a registered UK charity (no. 1100304).
2nd floor, 51 Cornmarket St, Oxford OX1 3HA

Aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states to buy vast tracts of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa could soon be limited by a new global international protocol. A scramble for African farmland has in recent years seen the equivalent of Italy’s entire arable land hoovered up by businesses from emerging economies.

The Open Society Institute works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. Open societies are characterized by the rule of law; respect for human rights, minorities, and a diversity of opinions; democratically elected governments; market economies in which business and government are separate; and a civil society that helps keep government power in check. To achieve its mission, OSI seeks to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI builds alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. OSI places high priority on protecting and improving the lives of marginalized people and communities.

Investor and philanthropist George Soros in 1993 created OSI as a private operating and grantmaking foundation to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Those foundations were established, starting in 1984, to help countries make the transition from communism. In addition to the National Foundations, OSI in some regions carries out directly some regional or national activities. OSI has expanded the work of the Soros foundations network to encompass the United States and more than 60 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Each national foundation relies on the expertise of boards composed of eminent citizens who determine individual agendas based on local priorities.

The Regional Director for Africa oversees implementation of the work of three Regional Foundations—the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), and Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA)—as well as the national foundation in South Africa and has principal staff responsibility for ensuring coordination between these foundations and other OSI programs and entities. The Regional Director provides strategic guidance and leadership on pan-African initiatives and coordinates staff implementation of initiatives developed by the Africa Advisory Board. The Africa Regional Director reports to the Director of International Operations.

Principal Responsibilities

* Serve as the principal liaison between OSI regional/national foundation executive directors in Africa and the Director of International Operations on all matters related to foundation programming, strategy, management, governance and budget;
* Provide the Director of International Operations with regular written and verbal assessments of the political environment, and analysis of the opportunities and challenges facing the regional/national foundations in Africa;
* Provide strategic guidance and leadership on pan-African initiatives that do not fall under regional/national foundations in Africa, in coordination with the Africa Advisory Board (AAB).
* Play a key role in organizing the AAB meetings, in coordination with the Director of Programs and the Director of International Operations. Facilitate the implementation of ideas and projects developed by the AAB;
* Facilitate and ensure effective coordination and collaboration between OSI regional/national foundations in Africa and other OSI entities and programs engaged in programming related to Africa. Recommend policies, procedures or decisions needed to ensure such collaboration and coordination to OSI senior management for adoption;
* Manage a grant-making portfolio to support regional strategies and emergency-response activities in countries not covered by regional/national foundations. Oversee the solicitation, evaluation, and review of applications for funding;
* Provide advice and guidance to OSI senior management on overall OSI strategy in Africa;
* Travel regularly to Africa in order to carry out responsibilities;
* Maintain regular communication with the National Foundations to assist them in troubleshooting administrative, programmatic, strategic, management, personnel and other problems, including through regular trips to the foundations to meet with the Executive Director, board members, program staff, locally based donor representatives, and other external partners and grantees, as necessary;
* Manage the annual budget drafting and submission process of the National Foundations in collaboration with the Director of International Operations and other relevant senior managers;
* Serve as the primary contact for the finance staff on budgetary questions, and with Human Resources on personnel issues related to regional sub-boards, national foundations, and the Regional Director’s own support staff;
* Develop, execute, and coordinate special projects as requested by the Director of International Operations and other OSI officers;
* Supervise two program staff.

Requirements

* Demonstrated and extensive knowledge of political/social dynamics in countries of Southern, West and East Africa;
* Minimum of ten years experience in advocacy, policy analysis or management related to Africa;
* Demonstrated experience in managing inter and intra-organizational relationships in complex organizational environments;
* Excellent written and verbal communication skills;
* Masters degree or relevant advanced degree/experience;
* Fluency in English and French;

Start Date: Immediately

Compensation: Commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits package.

To Apply

Please email resume and cover letter with salary requirements before December 4, 2009 to: [email][email protected] Include job code in subject line: RD-Africa

OR

Open Society Institute
Human Resources – Code RD-Africa
400 West 59th Street
New York, New York 10019

FAX: 212.548.4675

No phone calls, please. The Open Society Institute is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Fana Soumah, a television newscaster with the state-owned Guinean Broadcasting Corporation, was violently assaulted by a soldier in Conakry, the Guinean capital, the sub-regional rights body, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), said in a statement.

West African neighbours, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, have called for national reconciliation in Cote d'Ivoire to ensure a peaceful vote to climax peace efforts in the country that was torn apart by civil war about a decade ago. They have also expressed appreciation about arrangements towards the forthcoming elections which Ivorian Preident Laurent Gbagbo said would take place in December 2009 or January 2010.

The Head of the country office of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Libya, Laurence Hart, has declared that the issue of migrants stranded in the North African country on their way to Europe was "seriously" worrying the organisation.

The reproductive health expert of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Fanding Badji has called on African governments to show more political will in the fight against obstetrical fistula in Sub-Sahara Africa.

AU Chairperson Jean Ping Tuesday called on the four Malagasy political leaders here to put the interest of the people before every agenda of their crisis talks to resolve the political crisis in the country.

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor says he will request ICC judges to open an investigation into Kenya's post-election violence. Luis Moreno-Ocampo made the comments after meeting Kenya's president and prime minister, who said they would co-operate with the ICC probe.

A camp housing thousands of mainly Somali refugees in north-eastern Kenya has been completely flooded following almost three weeks of constant rain. Reports indicate that the main road into the area has been cut off by flooding.

"All shall call." This phrase was popularised by Pallo Jordan in the mid 1990's, and became a catchphrase of telecommunications transformation in South Africa. It echoed the idea espoused by Jordan at the Plenipotentiary meeting of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that access to telecommunications was a right, not a privilege.

A proposed Ugandan law on HIV/AIDS promotes dangerous and discredited approaches to the AIDS epidemic and would violate human rights, a group of more than 50 Ugandan and international organizations and individuals said in a report released today. The HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill could be taken up by Uganda's parliament shortly.

In this week's emerging powers news roundup, Chinese investment outstrips the ability of state-run banks to provide low-interest finance, Africa leads the way on climate change, and China faces allegations of hoarding rare earths and precious metals.

Three quarters of people in South Sudan have no access to medical care, and 10 percent of children there and in Darfur die before their first birthday, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said.

Africa’s efforts to meet the global anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their 2015 deadline are threatened by the impact of the global financial crisis on the continent’s economies, said Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro.

The United Nations has begun to parachute food aid into isolated areas of conflict-ridden southern Sudan with the aim of reaching more than 155,000 people cut off from road access by heavy rainfall, the World Food Programme (WFP) has announced.

Nearly 30,000 victims of toxic dumping in the Ivory Coast may be deprived of £30m compensation after an African court froze the bank accounts into which the money has been paid. British lawyers for the victims are concerned that the legal action is the first step in the expropriation of the funds, released to the claimants this year by Trafigura, a London-based international oil trading company.

Oil firms operating in Gabon will be banned from flaring gas in 2010, the government said in a statement. Exports of unprocessed timber will also be banned next year in an effort to increase employment by making logging companies mill and add value to wood locally, according to a statement issued after a cabinet meeting late on Thursday.

A retreat from international funding commitments for AIDS threatens to undermine the dramatic gains made in reducing AIDS-related illness and death in recent years, according to a new report by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).The MSF report highlights how expanding access to HIV treatment has not only saved the lives of people with AIDS but has been central to reducing overall mortality in a number of high HIV burden countries in southern Africa in recent years.

Moroccan courts on Friday (October 30th) convicted two journalists of desecrating the national flag and failing to show proper respect for a member of the royal family. Editor Taoufik Bouachrine and caricaturist Khalid Gueddar were put on trial after the daily Akhbar al-Youm published a cartoon of Prince Moulay Ismail's wedding in its September 27th edition.

Namibia President Hifikepunye Pohamba, earlier this week likened the European Union's trade negotiations with Namibia to the days of apartheid, saying the powerhouse is refusing to treat the country as an equal and listen to its concerns about the controversial economic partnership agreement (EPA).

Uganda is considering an anti-counterfeit bill which analysts say will impair the country’s ability to import and export cheap but effective generic medicines. Activists fear that the bill, once enacted, will deny Ugandans access to safe, effective, quality and affordable generic medication which currently forms the bulk of Uganda’s medicine imports.

This article explores how globalisation is challenging activist groups that use a human rights framework that has traditionally been used to hold national governments accountable for human rights violations.

Cameroonian LGBTI activist and Deputy President of the Association pour la Défense de l’Homosexualité (ADEFHO), Sébastien Mandeng was allegedly a victim of homophobic slurs and discrimination in the hands of Douala police station officials on Saturday 31 October, following an altercation with a taxi driver.

The International Lutheran Council (ILC) a world wide association of Lutheran churches has unanimously adopted a statement against homosexuality at the recent international gathering held in Seoul, Japan 26-31 August. Themed “In Christ: Living Life to the full” and held in Seoul, Japan, 26-31 August, the conference was organised with the aim to confront the homosexual debate which according to the council has divided and brought bewilderment within various congregations including the Lutheran Church.

Whatever else it is, information and communications technologies (ICTs) policy-making can often be symbolic, especially in poor countries. The vision is one of social upliftment, and a new golden age of possibilities brought on by technological roll-out.

Mortality rates, which have been increasing in South Africa since the 1990s, are on their way back down, reflecting a downturn of the AIDS epidemic and signalling longer lifespans for South Africans, statistics published today reveal.

Despite strong efforts by the toppled democratic government of Mauritania, slavery has yet to be rooted out in the country, a UN report documents. Under the new government, little progress is made to fight slavery.

Interface is a new journal produced twice yearly by activists and academics around the world in response to the development and increased visibility of social movements in the last few years - and the immense amount of knowledge generated in this process. Interface welcomes contributions by movement participants and academics who are developing movement-relevant theory and research.

People living with HIV in Mauritania are voicing their concerns about the suspension of HIV/AIDS funding by the World Bank and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. They feel powerless in the face of the decisions, of which they are suffering the consequences.

At least 16,000 civilians have fled deadly clashes in western Democratic Republic of Congo and are now languishing, many without food or shelter, in neighbouring Republic of Congo, according to the UN and local officials.

EISA, the Electoral Institute for Southern Africa, has added to the criticism of Mozambique's National Elections Commission (CNE) . The problem started with the selection of civil society CNE members. “The transparency in the selection of CSO [civil society] representatives was questionable, thereby casting doubt over the integrity, impartiality and independence of the CNE”

As Namibia approaches its parliamentary and presidential elections at the end of November, Henning Melber assesses the country's political landscape. Through comparison with the evolution of support for South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) in the post-apartheid period, Melber considers the ability of the opposition Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) to chip away at some of the longstanding support for liberation-era party Swapo (South West Africa People's Organization).

In the face of repeated difficulties around the supply of energy in Tanzania, Chambi Chachage writes that problems around power are as much about powerlessness as they are about a power crisis. If power cuts essentially mean the majority of Tanzanians remain a powerless people, it is time for power – energy and political – to be more fairly distributed, the author concludes.

With the US intent on continuing its funding for counterterrorism efforts against 'al-Qaeda' in Mali, Vijay Prashad argues that blindly channelling funds to the Malian military might well lead to the country going 'the way of Guinea'. Washington's focus is entirely on counterterrorism efforts, Prashad stresses, with the military support on offer to Mali dwarfing that available for development while enabling former military general and current President Amadou Toumani Touré to consolidate his power.

With Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni reportedly overseeing donations to former MPs, Vincent Nuwagaba decries 'the worst form of corruption'.

With trade between China and the Portuguese-speaking Macau Forum countries falling in the wake of the global economic downturn, Lucy Corkin discusses Macau's efforts to 'leverage its position more aggressively to promote trade and investment between China and the Portuguese-speaking countries'.

The fervour with which foreign commercial interests are forcing their agricultural 'solutions' on the African continent represents nothing more than an established endeavour to protect profits and access to resources, writes Joan Baxter. For all that they are dressed up as 'help' and 'knowledge', these ostensible solutions are about one thing: Money. So long as powerful initiatives like the Green Revolution and agribusinesses are able to trample on the continent's sovereignty, Baxter argues, Africa's land, traditional knowledge, biodiversity, seeds and crop varieties will remain in liquidation.

China is leading the pack in the 21st century ’scramble for Africa’ but anybody who thinks Beijing has the continent sewn up need only glance at the passport of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, writes Ed Cropley.

Civil Society Organisations from across the Commonwealth and beyond meeting in London on 13 October 2009 have issued a strong message to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2009 regarding their obligation to protect and uphold human rights and fundamental freedoms, as enshrined in the 1971 Declaration of Commonwealth Principles and other subsequent Commonwealth communiqués and declarations.

On November 2, 2009, grassroots leaders drawn from the countrywide networks of Bunge la Mwananchi met and developed a position on the debate of holding to account post election violence (PEV) perpetrators in Kenya on the eve of ICC sepcial prosecutor Ocampo's visit.

Highlighting the plight of Rwandan refugees in Uganda following a UNHCR announcement that they will lose their refugee status by 2011, Lawrence Carter writes in Pambazuka News that the ‘pervasive practice of coercion and forced return of refugees within the East African Community requires urgent attention’. Rwanda may be ‘stable’, argues Carter, but this ‘does not detract from the fact that many Rwandan refugees possess legitimate concerns over their safety and ability to live a peaceful and dignified life if they were to return’.

Unless post-independence South Africa sees success as ‘lifting the widest number of the black majority out of poverty, in the shortest time', it will fail as a country, William Gumede writes in Pambazuka News. And it ‘will join the club of developing countries that just muddle along, with a small political and economic elite in charge, and a poor majority trapped in poverty, from which a small numbers occasionally join the ranks of the rich'.

In this week’s Pambazuka News, Phanice Shamalia reports on ‘Sexually Speaking’, a lively discussion among 30 Kenyan women hosted by Storymoja as part of its monthly Women in Leadership forum. After ‘an afternoon of candid conversation’ on how various issues of our lives affect our sexuality’, Shamalia writes, participants concluded that it ‘is possible to have a healthier sex life, a confident sex life, and an educated sex life. One step is by attending sessions such as this one, with informed, opinionated women who are willing to share their knowledge.’

‘I write as a fellow African to take a stand with the people of Guinea and to let you know that Guinea and Africa as a whole are better off without you in power', Mawuli Dake says in an open letter to Guinea’s President Camara. Referring to the events of 28 September, Dake writes that the ‘horrendous massacre and flagrant abuse of human rights’ by men under Camara’s command, combined with the president’s ‘lamentable attempt to absolve’ himself of any responsibility by asserting that he ‘cannot control the security forces and their actions’, clearly make him ‘incapable and disinclined to remain in power as leader of Guinea'.

by Yohannes Woldemariam is one of the best written analysis I have read on this matter in a long time. Good points on the policies of the Eritrean government that are driving hundreds and thousands out of their country, the role of EU's migration policy and the overall responsibility of the global community. Thank you.

P.S. I happened to be visiting Italy, in Sicily at the time of this and you can read more of the findings of my organisation from www.BlackAllianceBlog.blogspot.com