Pambazuka News 156: World Debt Day: who owes whom?
Pambazuka News 156: World Debt Day: who owes whom?
Nigerian-born Damian Iwueke has announced his candidacy for the June 12 European parliament elections making him the only non-native Maltese to contest so far. Well-known as an agent of Nigerian footballers playing in the Maltese league, as well as in business and academic circles, the 45-year-old said he wanted to represent minority groups and all those who are "fed up with the wheeling and dealing of politicians in Malta". Mr Iwueke's main slogan is "Why not?" He said that if someone asks "Why vote for Damian?" the answer should be "Why not?"
In 2005 the General Assembly will be reviewing the situation of youth and achievements made in the implementation of the World Programme of Action for Youth (WPAY). The year 2005 has been chosen because it is ten years after the adoption of WPAY. This Toolkit is meant for national youth organisations and/or representatives working with youth. It can be used as a tool to: assess your country’s progress in reaching the WPAY goals; prioritize your organisation’s work, based on your findings; and, initiate actions at the national level.
IRC has operated a multi-sector program in eastern DRC since early November 1996. IRC has been active in health, water and sanitation, shelter construction, structural rehabilitation and support of local NGOs. From its inception, the IRC-eastern DRC program was designed to meet the urgent needs of refugees attempting to repatriate to Rwanda, while also serving the rehabilitation needs of the local communities adversely affected by the civil war and the subsequent damage caused by the mass exodus of over one million refugees and the looting of departing armies. The Provincial Coordinator is ultimately responsible for overseeing all project implementation.
The Reproductive Rights Alliance is looking for an Advocacy and Training Officer. The duties include implementing RRA's advocacy program with individuals and organisations in various sectors.
Angola's decades-long civil war is over, but the presence of landmines and other unexploded ordnance (UXO) remain a major obstacle to recovery. The city of Luau in the eastern province of Moxico, once a bustling centre with 90,000 inhabitants, has been isolated since the war destroyed roads and the railroad. In a few weeks' time about 9,000 refugees will return to Luau from the DRC, increasing the population by a third. They will return to a place where land mines and UXOs are a daily threat.
The sexual abuse of children in the Gambia is increasing as a result of rising poverty in the small West African country and Gambian men rather than European tourists are mainly responsible for the phenomenon, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in new report published this week. Gambia has long been linked with sex tourism, but the UNICEF study, published on Wednesday, found that the main abusers of local children were male Gambian "Sugar Daddies." “The Sugar Daddy Syndrome,” explained Cheryl Faye, head of UNICEF in Gambia, “is the abuse of young girls lured by money or other gifts - perhaps some shoes or a mobile phone - into sex.”
The job purpose is to identify, plan, manage and report on programmes in North Kivu Province, eastern DRC, focussing on livelihoods and emergency preparedness and response; to advise on partnership approaches and train national staff in capacity building of partner organisations; to participate in the assessment and identification of other potential new interventions elsewhere in DRC.
Ruud Lubbers, the head of the United Nation's refugee agency UNHCR, said on Wednesday that he would seek to repatriate foreigners from several West African countries who became combatants in Liberia's civil war. Lubbers told a press conference at the end of a three-day visit to Liberia that a number of foreigners were handing in their guns as part of Liberia's disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation exercise, which began last month.
The humanitarian situation of tens of thousands of Congolese who had been expelled from Angola into two southwestern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is stabilising as the number of new arrivals decreases, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported last Thursday. In a report detailing the situation of the expellees in the provinces of Bandundu and Kasai Occidental, OCHA said that the improvement in the humanitarian conditions could be attributed to a request made by the Congolese authorities to Angola to halt the expulsion of illegal migrants in its diamond mines until better conditions for their return could be arranged.
In a major climb down, a Botswana newspaper was forced to concede that xenophobia against Zimbabweans was on the rise in Botswana after a fierce riot erupted in Gaborone during which five Zimbabwean buses were attacked by Batswana nationals. The newspaper conceded that relations between Batswana and Zimbabweans were at an all time low because of xenophobia. In an editorial, the paper said "the tendency for Batswana and Zimbabwean citizens to turn to violence against each other at the drop of a hat is now becoming commonplace."
Public hearings on the Child Status Bill are set to start next week. The Bill was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social and Community Development in March after serious controversy arose during the second reading debate, especially on rights to custody and children born from rape. The Bill seeks to grant equal rights to all children irrespective of whether or not they are born within marriage.
The mission of Imbiza Intersect Coalition on HIV/AIDS and Violence against Women and Girls is to create a powerful, multi-disciplinary intersect Coalition across countries to engage in co-operative action, raise awareness, develop innovative approaches to education, law and public policy and marshal a formidable, highly visible and vocal force to affect significant change in the lives of those impacted by violence and HIV/AIDS.
Last week a league of non-governmental organisations met all over the world to deliberate on the Education for All (EFA) plan. The meeting which was tagged ‘Global Week of Action 2004 Roundtable on Education’ was also observed in Lagos. Various issues hindering the total achievement of the EFA goals were discussed. One of the topics discussed extensively at the roundtable, which attracted much debate, was the impact of HIV/AIDS on education in Nigeria. The participants agreed that the pandemic is having a colossal impact on the education sector of the country.
Kenya is studying the education systems of Japan, Korea and Malaysia to see how it can reform its own system to spur industrialisation. This was disclosed by the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, Mr Daniel Karaba, as his committee left for Japan. Karaba said during the two-week visit his 6-man committee would critically study the education systems of the three countries and Thailand if time allows. He said the trip has been necessitated by the envisaged reforms in the Kenyan education system to make it more responsive to the needs of the country.
Sudanese refugees are on the move in two host countries, Chad and Uganda, because of attacks from their enemies or the fear of such attacks, the United Nations refugee agency said. More than 31,000 Sudanese refugees were displaced from their settlements in northern Uganda because of 30 raids in the last three months by rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said. Since 6 May, UNHCR said, it has moved 52,444 refugees from the area of the Chadian border with Sudan to camps further inside Chad, while another 7,000 refugees had arrived at the camps on their own in their flight from Sudan's Janjaweed militia, which has committed massacres, rapes, looting and flattening of villages in the western Darfur region of Sudan.
Programme Planning for Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health focuses on building sound interventions for adolescent sexual and reproductive health designed to strengthen institutional capacity to effectively monitor programme operations and evaluate performance. The nuts and bolts of programme planning are fused with adolescent-centred SRH concerns through an array of provocative and interactive sessions. HIV/AIDS interventions are situated within the context of healthy sexuality and appropriate technology. Learning is facilitated through lectures, case studies, group problem solving and individualised attention.
A total of 7,500 people displaced from their home's following a murderous attack by Christian militiamen on the mainly Muslim town of Yelwa in central Nigeria have been evacuated and put in the care of the Nigerian Red Cross, officials said on Monday. According to the Red Cross, the attack on 2 May by men from the mainly Christian Tarok tribe resulted in the death of more than 600 people. The victims of the massacre and those who fled Yelwa afterwards were mainly people from the Hausa and Fulani ethnic groups with roots in the north of the country.
Italian NGO Cooperazione Internationale (COOPI) has embarked on a project to improve the socio-cultural image of a group of the minority Batwa people in the Central African Republic. The coordinator of the project, Ilaria Firmian, said that the EU-funded project was aimed at reinforcing activities to fight discrimination of the Aka - a sub-group of the Batwa community, commonly referred to as "Pygmies" - in the southwestern province of Lobaye.
Better Africa Foundation is holding the first-ever special event for nonprofits, Media and NGOs. This conference will be inspirational and informative for staff, volunteers, and directors. This is a great opportunity for West African Nonprofits (Churches and grassroots organisations) Media and NGOs to gather together to celebrate their important work and role in the lives of the poor and needy in West Africa.
This report, published by Save the Children, focuses on girls who become mothers while still children themselves, highlighting the particular health risks and challenges which they, and their children, face. It includes the first ever Early Motherhood Risk Ranking which analyses data on child motherhood from fifty countries. Key findings show that early motherhood carries a very high risk of mortality for both mother and baby, with mothers aged 10 to 14 five times more at risk than mothers in their twenties; and that girls in sub-Saharan Africa tend to have the highest rates of early marriage and motherhood as well as the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality.
A new newsletter of Poetry on HIV/AIDS in Africa has been launched. The name of the newsletter is AIDS out of AFRICA. AIDS out of AFRICA will be a bi-annual newsletter appearing in June and December.
This study explores how education in situations of post-conflict emergency can be established and maintained as a vital psychological support to children and communities. Specifically, the study investigates how education for refugee children emerged and developed after the genocide in Rwanda caused hundreds of thousands to flee to neighbouring countries. The focus of the study is Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1994 and 1996.
The upcoming online discussion forum (e-discussion) "Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Gender Equality" will focus on the ways ICT can be used to overcome gender inequalities, sharing ideas, opinions, concerns, and lessons learned with development practitioners, policy makers, and academics.
Women in Law and Development in Africa West Africa /Femmes, Droit et Développement en Afrique Afrique de l'Ouest publishes regularly a newsletter on women's rights.
Latest news includes:
* Comores is the first country to have ratified the Protocol to the ACHPR on the Rights of Women;
* New Publication: Effective implementation of Women's Rights in West Africa.
The Centre on Philanthropy and Civil Society's ( http://philanthropy.org/ ) Emerging Leaders Inter-national Fellows Program provides leadership training through applied research and professional mentorships for young scholar-practitioners in the nonprofit sector. The program is open to scholars and practitioners interested in building third-sector capacity in the United States and overseas.
The annual Investing in the Future Awards honour companies and organisations that are contributing to the well-being of South African society as a whole. Winning projects have to demonstrate sustainability, partnership building between the government, business and communities, and integration into the development of South Africa. The awards are designed to heighten public, government and business awareness of corporate social investment.
Creative-Radio is a forum for people active or interested in using radio creatively in international public health, development and related fields. Creative Radio tries to bridge the gap between journalism and humanitarian, post-conflict and development activities. The Creative Radio list uses this unique position to help develop strategies to make the best use of the mass media, at a time when radio's role is recognised widely as key in the fight against illiteracy, poverty and disease. Creative-Radio is pleased to be supported by: Internews® Network (http://www.internews.org) and Media Support Solutions / Media Support Partnership (http://www.mediasupport.org).
Children from four continents opened the first dialogue at the Universal Forum of Cultures in Barcelona, Spain, by talking from first-hand experience about child labour, conflict, disability, migration and HIV/AIDS - some of the most visible signs of child poverty. As leaders in their own communities in China, Colombia, Guinea Conakry, Tajikistan, Kosovo and Morocco, the children will talk with Dean Hirsch, President of World Vision International and chair of the Global Movement for Children, and will ask the world to take action on children in poverty.
Despite hopes raised by the ceasefire signed in October 2002, Somalis continue to flee a war which has continued for over ten years. Some 375,000 people are internally displaced, about five per cent of the population of a country which has been in a state of collapse longer than any other. Internally displaced people (IDPs) in Somalia are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable as they have lost all their assets and are subject to multiple human rights violations. They lack access to protection from clan affiliation; the de facto authorities throughout Somalia do not protect them and often divert humanitarian assistance. Most displaced are from southern minority groups and continue to suffer political and economic discrimination.
Access to quality education in rural areas has been consistently neglected. Many governments either lack the political will or the capacity to meet the educational needs of the huge numbers of rural people who remain outside the mainstream education system. Today in many parts of the world, growing up in a rural region often means growing up without a decent education. School attendance is generally low and drop-out high, with girls, mountain populations and ethnic minorities losing out most. This is not surprising, considering the distance many children have to walk daily, only to find a school in poor condition, without furniture, learning materials, drinking water or toilets, and sometimes even without a teacher.
A programme that provides a meal in schools is boosting enrolment in Mali, especially of girls. Thanks to the UNESCO/World Food Programme (WFP) School Feeding Programme pupils in Gao, Kidal, Tombouctou and Mopti in northern Mali receive a meal a day in school. “These regions are particularly poverty-stricken and many parents struggle to give their families a daily meal,” says Edouard Matoko, Director of UNESCO Bamako.
As the democratic world commemorated World Press Freedom Day on Monday, May 3rd, the Zimbabwean authorities were threatening to close down one of the few remaining independent sources of information in the country, reports the latest issue of the Zimbabwe Media Monitoring Project's newsletter. The government appointed Media and Information Commission demonstrated the extensive control the authorities now have over the public dissemination of information by accusing the new owners of the privately owned weekly Tribune newspaper of publishing illegally in violation of the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. But this is only the latest government assault on the democratic ethos of media freedom that the United Nations-sponsored event is intended to promote and safeguard.
In a 14 April 2004 letter to President François Bozizé, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) renewed its demand that imprisoned journalist Jude Zossé be immediately and unconditionally released. Zossé, publication director of the private daily "L'Hirondelle" ("The Swallow"), was arrested on 25 February in connection with an article titled, "General Bozizé: the State's Tax-collector". The article, which originally ran on the news website Centrafrique-presse.com, alleged that after President Bozizé came to power in a March 2003 coup, he took over the collection of state tax revenue in the country, prompting two senior treasury officials to contemplate resignation.
Five media bodies have resolved to go to court to seek judicial interpretation over the appointments of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) boards, reports the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa). The chairperson of Misa's Zambian branch, Kellys Kaunda, disclosed that the five organisations are now seeking the court’s guidance on the two acts governing the appointment of board members of the two institutions.
Swaziland's cabinet is presently considering a draft ICT policy, which would provide for Swazi TV and the national radio station to become a public broadcaster run by an independent board, according to a report by the Media Institute of Southern Africa. However, the state broadcaster is resisting such a move, apparently arguing that Swaziland is a homogeneous country and therefore should not encourage different voices over the airwaves, according to Misa.
The people of Western Sahara have lived in refugee camps in the hostile Algerian desert ever since their country was invaded by Morocco in 1975. The organisation War on Want has worked with the Saharawi since 1984, providing practical support for the people living in the camps and campaigning to highlight the injustice of their situation. The United Nations promised them a referendum more than ten years ago but it still shows no sign of happening. Visit this web page by War on Want to find out how you can support the people of the Western Sahara.
A new Make Trade Fair campaign is calling for sportswear companies to respect garment workers' rights. Visit this website to find out more and click on the logo of international sportswear companies and send them a message.
There has recently been a feud between the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and the National Statistical Office (NSO) over the correct figure for the registered voters in Malawi. During the second week of April 2004, the MEC announced that 6.5 million voters registered for the 18 May 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections. The NSO described the figure as “bogus” because it does not conform to the country's natural demographic trends. “It defies all logic”, observed the Weekend Nation, one of the country's leading weekly papers. Click on the link below to read the full article and others about key issues in the run-up to the elections on May 18.
This is a critical moment in the history of HIV/AIDS. There is more money, more political will and more attention being paid to this killer disease than ever before. And yet, more people than ever are dying of AIDS and becoming infected with HIV. By using HIV treatment programs to strengthen existing prevention programs and improve health systems, the international community has a unique opportunity to change the course of history, says The World Health Report 2004 - Changing History.
As government officials and civil society representatives meet in Entebbe, Uganda, on 10 and 11 May to discuss the death penalty in Commonwealth African countries, Amnesty International welcomed positive action across Africa to abolish capital punishment. About half of the countries in Africa no longer execute convicted prisoners. In 1990, only Cape Verde had no provision for capital punishment in its legislation. By 2002, 10 countries in Africa had de jure abolished the death penalty, while 10 others had de facto abolished it.
The Kenyan Government plans to buy abortion kits for its public hospitals to deal with emergencies arising from unsafe abortions. The announcement was made by Director of Medical Services, Dr James Nyikal, at the launch of a new report about unsafe abortion. The kits, including manual vacuum aspiration, will be put on the health ministry's essential equipment list. The kits will be used to help deal with complications arising from unsafe pregnancy termination in areas that lack equipped hospitals.
Human resource specialists from 27 countries are meeting in Seychelles to plan an ICT knowledge-sharing initiative for developing countries. The five-day meeting, currently under way in Mahe, will decide on the allocation of a bilateral and multilateral expert assistance programme on ICT.
Two months ago, the DRC School Project and Community Centre was nothing more than a great idea on paper, an idea aimed at satisfying the needs of the growing informal settlement on the outskirts of Swakopmund. For the past six weeks or so, about 20 DRC community members have been volunteering their services on a daily basis to help establish what they call "the pride of the settlement". "We are here because we want to help the kids. There is a very big need for this kind of facility in our community as the parents do not have money to send their children to school," say Kandali Nikanor (24) and Hilma Paulus (20).
The type of foreign direct investment (FDI) South Africa has received since 1995 has not been of the kind that would stimulate economic development. Rather, South Africa's FDI flows appear to be more likely either to have no impact on employment or to lead to short term job losses. Meanwhile, both trade and technology have served to reinforce a trend of increasing demand for highly skilled labour, generally at the expense of those with few skills. “So far, the ability of trade and new technologies to create employment for the lower skilled and very poor seems exceptionally limited. Thus, unskilled workers and those in poor households undoubtedly bear the brunt of any adjustment costs associated with greater openness.” These are some of the findings from a paper by Gapresearch.org that attempts to gauge the responses, specifically the labour market responses, to economic globalisation and secondly to consider the impact of globalisation, trade and technology on poverty.
Sick of continued but preventable loss of their children to HIV/AIDS, the women wing of the Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (NEPWHAN), protested outside the Africa Hall of the International Conference Centre, venue of the 4th National AIDS Conference which closed last Wednesday. The women, numbering about 30 had assembled peacefully at the entrance to the venue on Tuesday, Day 2 of the conference, waiting for the plenary session to commence.
On 26 April 2004, Lusaka High Court Judge Phillip Musonda quashed a deportation order issued by Home Affairs Minister Ronnie Shikapwasha against "The Post" newspaper columnist Roy Clarke, saying it was unlawful and violated freedom of expression. Clarke, a British national and permanent resident of Zambia, had appealed the order. In his ruling, Justice Musonda said the deportation order violated Section 26(2) of the Constitution in that there was procedural impropriety in the way the order was issued. He said that Clarke had shown that his constitutional rights, including freedom of expression and the right not to be discriminated against, were violated by the state.
African communities are growing mushrooms and harvesting seaweed, water hyacinth and other biological resources that were ignored or considered waste as part of an effort to improve livelihoods and help conserve the environment. The UNDP ZERI regional project on sustainable development from Africa's biodiversity, based at the University of Namibia, is promoting these activities. It is based on the Zero Emissions Research Initiative (ZERI) pioneered at the United Nations University, which has focused on using waste products as raw materials.
The displacement of the local population due to mining activities, high poverty and inflation indices and a process of direct capital accumulation by the emerging economic and political ruling class indicates that the East of Angola is being transformed into a zone of potential future conflicts with unimaginable consequences, besides the aggravation of the socio-economic situation. This is according to the conclusion of a report on the region from the Campaign for Democratic Angola.
The May 2-8, 2004 edition of the J.A. L'intelligent newspaper was not permitted to appear on newsstands. According to Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)-Guinea, the Ministry of Local Government (MATD) prevented the distribution of the newspaper because it carried the front page banner headline, "Guinea - François Lonceny Fall: Why I am resigning". The article, with the by-line of reporter Marwane Ben Yahmed, alleged that François Lonceny Fall, who was appointed prime minister by Gen. Lansana Conté barely two months ago on February 23, 2004, purported to "reveal" the reasons for his resignation.
This publication by the Africa Centre for Biosafety, Earthlife Africa, Environmental Rights Action - Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Grain and SafeAge makes the case that non-GM food aid is both possible and desirable. It argues moreover that non-GM alternatives exist at national, regional and international levels, and that donors should make these available to Sudan and Angola. Concluding that every country has the sovereign right to choose either to accept or reject GM food aid from donors, and highlighting the failure of the World Food Programme (WFP) to learn from previous experiences, the report denounces the 'No Choice' scenario presented to the two countries by the WFP and USAID.
An evaluation of past activities for the promotion of respect for women's rights shows that effective implementation of women's rights does not solely depend on women themselves or the activities of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) but largely on other key stakeholders in society who have roles and responsibilities for the protection of women's rights. These are the judicial and extra-judicial stakeholders. The judicial stakeholders are the judges/magistrates lawyers, and the police, who have the responsibility to enforce laws and to protect women in the formal legal setting. The extra-judicial stakeholders are traditional and religious leaders; and medical doctors who are involved in resolution of disputes, who shape opinion and are in contact with victims of violence; and who play an important role in the protection of the rights of women. Women in Law and Development in Africa/Femmes, Droits et Développement en Afrique, West Africa sub- regional office carried out a project to sensitise and build the capacity of a critical mass of judges/magistrates, lawyers, police officers, medical doctors, traditional and religious leaders in the participating countries. This document is a summary of national reports on the extent to which beneficiaries of the project have applied the knowledge and skills acquired during the training in their work.
Are you good at illustrating? Fahamu is urgently seeking an illustrator to do some drawings/illustrations for a new CDROM we are producing on "Masculinities and war in Africa." Please send examples of portfolio together with CV and rates to [email protected] with the word "Illustrator" in the subject line. The person should, ideally, be able to send material by email. Suitable persons may expect to receive regular work in the future.
The European Union has offered to stop subsidising farm exports in a move aimed at reigniting world trade talks. European trade commissioner Pascal Lamy has written to members of the World Trade Organisation outlining the plan. An agreement will depend on other WTO countries such as the US, Canada and Australia being willing to follow suit.
Armed Sudanese rebels have driven the rare northern white rhinos to near extinction after they stepped up poaching in northern Congo, a conservationist said Tuesday. If left unchecked, the rebels could wipe the rhinos out "in a matter of months," said Henri Paul Eloma, the coordinator of a project to protect wildlife from the effects of war in Congo run by the U.N.'s cultural heritage body UNESCO.
Environmentalists claimed a victory and the death knell for genetically modified crops on Tuesday as U.S. chemical giant Monsanto declared it was giving up on the GM wheat it had hoped would smash consumer resistance. "This is the end of GM. It is the final nail in the coffin," said Tony Juniper, director of green lobby group Friends of the Earth. "I am sure the companies will come back with more proposals in the future but basically the damage is done. I am sure a combination of exporters, farmers, and consumers has finally got the message back to Monsanto that they can't spin this past the people who can see the truth of what is behind these products," he said.
The Mozambican parliament started on Tuesday to debate a report on its corruption law, with all discussions focusing particularly on article six, concerning applications and petitions to any institution. This law had been passed by the parliament and submitted to the President for promulgation, but the President sent it back to the Assembly, after finding that it contained some aspects that were not constitutional.
By the time Mandela made way for Thabo Mbeki, the ‘swart gevaar’ of the apartheid government had been transformed into the ‘roi gevaar’ of a capital-friendly ANC government. The spectre of the 'ultra left' all of a sudden loomed large on the horizon of South Africa's new democracy. After an initial spurt of expulsions, a climate of hostility towards any radical critique of ANC policy both within the ANC and the Alliance more generally took hold. A veil of silence and fear descended. As a result of the political crackdown and the accompanying demobilisation of South Africa's previously dynamic civic movement a political vacuum was created. The space was quickly filled by the formation of new social movements as the cumulative effects of neo-liberalism forced the regrouping of poor communities alongside those political activists who remained faithful to the tenets and imagination of the liberation movement.
The Government was expected to announce this week the retrenchment of 20,000 civil servants, the East African Standard has learnt. Donor sources said the Government will reveal the number of civil servants to be laid off, a process expected to be carried out in three phases. It is understood that the Government has been in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on its promises on civil service reform, which it made to donors and which it has made little progress in fulfilling.
Trash is political. That's the conclusion of a growing number of communities around the world that are examining conventional notions of waste. They are demanding - and winning - rules to reduce waste creation and to mandate safer handling of waste that is generated. A growing global network of activists is opposing incineration of waste, pointing out that incineration releases dioxin, mercury, lead, PCBs and other pollutants that endanger public health. Advocates for non-incineration approaches also emphasize the high cost of incinerators when compared to waste prevention, composting and recycling.
A debt relief program for the world's poorest countries is facing a $7.8 billion funding shortfall, mostly from the World Bank, a U.S. Congressional watchdog told lawmakers on Tuesday. And the gap may be even higher because data for Laos, Liberia, Somalia and Sudan are unreliable, the General Accounting Office said. "The three key (development banks) we analyzed face a funding shortfall of $7.8 billion," Thomas Melito, acting director of International Affairs and Trade at the GAO told a House of Representatives Financial Service Subcommittee.
South African Internet millionaire Mark Shuttleworth and his foundation have launched an R18 million campaign to promote open source software (OSS) to the masses.
Mpho, the dramatist, says the play is driven by ambition, cultural ethics, tradition, need and revenge. He says the play also attempts to portray the family politics in a dynamic way. “ It goes beyond that,” he added. He highlighted that it talks of integral issues in marriage situations, and creatively it encourages communication between marriages and family institutions.
An appeal by former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni against a four-year prison sentence for fraud was postponed in the Pretoria High Court to July. Yengeni sought the delay to enable him to obtain a full copy of the record of his trial on charges related to his acceptance of a near 50% discount on a luxury 4X4 Mercedes Benz.
Zimbabwe Finance Minister Chris Kuruneri, who has been detained for almost three weeks on charges of violating foreign exchange and citizenship regulations, was denied bail in the Zimbabwe High Court this week. Justice Ben Hlatshwayo ruled that Kuruneri was likely to abscond if given bail as he had "family connections, friends, and abundant means of survival outside the country".
Former president Frederick Chiluba has asked German ambassador to Zambia Erich Kristof to leave him alone and stop talking about his corruption court case. Speaking through his deputy administrative secretary Emmanuel Mwamba, Chiluba said the Zambian government should censure Ambassador Kristof for commenting on his case including the disappearance of former intelligence chief Xavier Chungu and former Zambia's ambassador to the United States Attan Shansonga. He said he was worried by Ambassador Kristof's comments. "Their comments are undermining justice," Chiluba said. "That shows that they (diplomats) are controlling and determining both the pace and outcome of the trials."
Jere Maluk's fading memories of home are riddled with scars of war. Under the twilight gleaming through the window of his austere Cairo flat, he murmurs how his once serene village of Juba in southern Sudan began to crack under the pressure of civil warfare.One day, it shattered. "The rebels started to circle the town from three directions," he says.
They say “the truth is the first casualty of war”. But how do we communicate the truth? Whose truth? That of the victor or that of the vanquished? Who wins and who loses? In this era of multi-media revolution there are as many truths as there are terrestrial TV and satellite stations, radio stations, whether analogue, digital or internet based. The print media no longer has a monopoly of the printed word due to saturation coverage of all issues from all kinds of angles on the Internet!
Whichever angle you look at it war is an unpleasant business but the global reach of the media now brings it home to us more graphically. Our choice of sources now depends on how much we can take without vomiting. Consequently, other rivals have broken the sanitised rendition of the breakdown in humanity that war represents brought to us by the previously hegemonic Western media. What the CNN or BBC will not broadcast or air can be brought to you by other means.
Al Jazeera has now become a major source of news for the majority of the world who do not speak Arabic. It goes beyond hypocritical western sensibilities in covering Afghanistan, Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other matters concerning its core constituency in the Middle East and, by extension, the Muslim world.
Without Al Jazeera both the US and British governments and their largely loyal media would have continued to cover up the atrocities being committed against Iraqis in the name of freedom, democracy and liberation by the Anglo-American occupying forces.
The same Western governments who considered the arrival of Al Jazeera, a few years ago, as a dawn of a new oasis for freedom of expression, pluralism and democratisation in the despotic Middle East now wish the station would just shut down. That’s why the US forces have bombed its offices in Iraq, and in Afghanistan before that, in calculated 'mistakes'. A number of its journalists have been harassed and some are being held in illegal detentions as Al Qaeda suspects.
The tragedy in Iraq was foretold but the militaristic ‘shock and awe’ lunatic right that have seized power by an electoral coup in Bush's Washington were too convinced of their invincibility to listen to anybody or consider the legality and morality of their mass murdering enterprise. Now that the predicted tragedy is staring them in the face in the most gruesome way, instead of doing the decent thing by saying: ‘We are sorry, we miscalculated and misjudged everything’ and showing some remorse, they are seeking cover up under all kinds of excuses without giving convincing explanations.
Bush managed to talk about the gross abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war without saying sorry, not that it would have amounted to much, but he still could not bring himself to say it. The Emperor cannot be wrong. The British are still investigating and trying to prove that the pictures of its soldiers humiliating Iraqis are fake.
The saga is thanks to the doggedness of The Mirror of London that broke the silence and has valiantly refused to be silenced on the atrocities. The more Blair dodged the issues, the deeper it delved and found that whatever has been revealed so far is the tip of the iceberg of shameful conduct by the two occupying powers, both of whom claim to be lecturers in democracy, human rights and freedom to the rest of the world.
They even tried to brand the publication of the pictures as unpatriotic and endangering the lives of British soldiers! So much for the obligation of journalists to inform, educate and entertain in a democracy.
The British are deluded by their own self-image of being ‘good guys’ who may fight with their American cousins but not like them. Iraq is showing us that this is a distinction without a difference. Despite their history of fighting the Irish, violations of the rights of peoples in the colonies from Africa through Asia to the Middle East, massacre of anti-colonial resistance fighters like the Mau Mau of Kenya and many other atrocities, they still believe that their soldiers do not do bad things!
War dehumanises both victor and vanquished. The violation of the humanity of any person diminishes the humanity in us all. However, Western leaders try to shield their peoples from their cruel acts abroad through sanitised media and doctored vocabulary. So occupation is dressed up as “liberation”, torture is called “abuse” and resistance fighters demonised as “terrorists”, “insurgents” or “foreign fighters” without thinking twice that the Anglo-American occupiers are not Iraqis! They think they own the world and the rest of humanity are interlopers! That is why you hear more about American or British deaths but little about that of the Iraqis.
But more importantly they are careful not to show their people that war is about death, gruesome death. Also, the Western media refrains from showing the irrational violence of war when Western lives are involved. It is all right to show pictures of humiliated Iraqis or the routinely demeaning humanitarian NGO appeals for one African conflict or the other but somehow their audience cannot stomach seeing their kind being brutalised, dying or humiliated.
What kind of peace and security can the world hope to achieve if the destiny of the overwhelming majority of the world who are not Westerners is to be humiliated?
* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement, based in Kampala, Uganda and also Director of Justice Africa, based in London.
* Send your comments to
Government is concerned with the high rate of compensation it is having to pay to those brutality abused by police through torture and human rights abuses. Opening a three-day workshop on human rights and policing for police commanders, Copperbelt deputy minister Webby Chipili said police officers should take advantaged of acquiring new knowledge required to correct negative public perceptions. He said government was fully aware of trying conditions under which the police were operating and efforts were being made to redress the situation. However, Chipili cautioned police officers against taking advantage of its state of affairs to disregard human rights norms enshrined in the international instruments.
This report, published by the World Health Organisation, outlines progress made by the Stop TB Partnership in meeting the objectives of the Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis (GPSTB). Achievements highlighted include the implementation of DOTs in 180 countries and the establishment of pilot projects for joint HIV/TB control and for treatment of patients with multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). Recommendations include more streamlined evaluation of new drugs and diagnostic tools, and targeted distribution of approved vaccines to areas where the TB burden is greatest. In conclusion, the report calls for urgent large-scale investment of both financial and human resources to accelerate progress and ensure the 2005 TB reduction targets are met.
Food and nutrition security for Africa must be achieved because it is a human right as well as a moral and socioeconomic imperative. The highest-priority actions are raising agricultural productivity; fostering pro-poor economic growth through improved access to markets, better infrastructure, and greater trade competitiveness; building institutional and human capacity; improving nutrition and health with due attention to HIV/AIDS; and strengthening governance. All of these require added resources, but the benefits of food and nutrition security outweigh the resource needs. This is according to the draft outcome document of the Conference on Assuring Food and Nutrition Security in Africa by 2020 held from 1-3 April 2004. It presents recommendations on the steps necessary for moving toward the goal of assuring food and nutrition security in Africa by 2020.
Three new reports by human rights groups underline the scale and complexity of the conflict in Darfur, which has displaced a million people in the desert of western Sudan and threatens to destabilise the whole region. Human Rights Watch (HRW) launched its report, "Darfur Destroyed: Ethnic Cleansing by Government and Militian Forces in Western Sudan", on May 7. On the same day, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published the findings of its April mission. The International Crisis Group (ICG) report, "Darfur Rising: Sudan's New Crisis", was published in late March. A new ICG report on Darfur is imminent.
Incoming International Monetary Fund Managing Director Rodrigo Rato said this week that during his five-year mandate as head of the institution, he will work toward fulfilling the interests of its 184 member countries while giving special attention to poor nations. "The position of managing director of this institution requires me to work in the interest of all 184 member countries, with particular attention to those who have the greatest difficulties and lower income levels," Rato said in his first news conference in Washington after being chosen as the IMF chief last week. He is scheduled to officially assume the new position early next month.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone on June 3 will begin its trials of individuals accused of crimes committed during the country's 10-year civil war, with a joint trial of three former leaders of Sierra Leone's civilian militia, the Civil Defense Forces, the court announced. Moinina Fofana, Allieu Kondewa and former Internal Affairs Minister Sam Hinga Norman will face eight counts that include unlawful killing, physical violence, mental suffering, terrorizing civilians and using child soldiers.
In Liberia, crime has returned with vigour after the civil war. In addition to street crime and burglary, there are increasing reports of Ukrainian and Moroccan women being trafficked into Monrovia to serve as prostitutes in popular bars that double as brothels. The UN Mission in Liberia, UNMIL, says it is taking the problem seriously. UNMIL’s Civilian Police (CIVPOL) has hired an officer to address human trafficking. However, by not coordinating her efforts with NGOs and other supporting organisations, her independent actions may actually be exacerbating the problem, Refugees International says.
Dozens of newspapers, scores of radio stations and five television channels…At first glance, Togo seems like a media junkie’s dream destination. But does being spoilt for choice translate into press freedom? This question has received an airing in recent days, thanks to a report by the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontieres – RSF), and the response it drew from Togolese Communication Minister Pitang Tchalla. In the report, issued to coincide with World Press Freedom Day (May 3), RSF claims that the Togolese government continued its attacks against the independent media in 2003.
"When they were interrogating me, they kept asking about ‘Zvakwana!’," says activist Gorden Moyo, describing his recent detention by security officials in Zimbabwe. "I told them I don’t know what it’s about.” Moyo is one of several campaigners and opposition party members who have been questioned about this underground pro-democracy movement, whose Shona name means ‘enough’. Also referred to in Ndebele as ‘Sokwanele!’, the organisation has Zimbabwean authorities scratching their heads in exasperation. Its central message is that the 24-year rule of President Robert Mugabe should come to an end.
"The stability of any government is measured by the freedom it gives to the press. If the government is clean in its dealings, then I see no reason why it should be worried about the press," says Kenyan media activist Mitch Odero. Recent statements by authorities indicate that they have a less sanguine view of the country's journalists, however. Odero's comments come in the wake of a letter issued by the head of the public service and cabinet secretary, Francis Muthaura, warning civil servants against releasing classified information to the press. The April 27 document says there will be dire consequences for those who disobey the directive.
Swaziland's nursing crisis is deepening as trained nurses leave the country for better salaries abroad and the Swaziland Nursing Association renews a call for strike action. Last month another 29 Swazi nurses left the country for better paying jobs in the United Kingdom - a third of all nurses who graduate each year.
Calling for "African solutions to African problems", a group of religious organisations meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, recommended on Tuesday the use of traditional methods to resolve conflicts in the Great Lakes region. The recommendation was among several made at the end of a two-day workshop organised by the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa, where the group adopted a position paper ahead of a planned UN and African Union (AU) international conference on the Great Lakes.
Riots erupted for a second day on Wednesday in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, where Muslim youths defied a huge security operation and launched attacks on the Christian minority to avenge a massacre of Muslims. Doctors and mortuary personnel at Kano General Hospital confirmed that the death toll had risen to 15, as gangs targeted Christians in reprisal for a May 2 massacre by a Christian ethnic militia on the mainly Muslim market town of Yelwa, in central Nigeria, which left more than 300 dead.
Heavy fighting which erupted in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, over the weekend has escalated, leaving an indeterminate number of people dead or wounded, a local journalist told IRIN on Wednesday. He said the fighting was sparked off by a disagreement between two militias of the same clan who were loyal to two business people. It involved forces guarding the Global Hotel in the northern district of Behani, and those loyal to a local businessman from the Warsangeli clan, who reportedly attacked the hotel, which belongs to a businesswoman from the Wabudan clan.
Related Link:
* Faction leaders expected to rejoin talks
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=40981
Peace negotiations between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) were experiencing "some difficulties" on Tuesday, a rebel spokesman told IRIN. The details of power-sharing in the two of the disputed areas - the Nuba mountains and southern Blue Nile - as well as at national level, had yet to be agreed on, said Yasir Arman, an SPLM/A spokesman.
Fifty-seven people died of malaria in Zimbabwe last week, bringing the toll to 500 since the start of the rainy season this year, government medical officials said on Tuesday. Medical experts have attributed the rising number of deaths to the heavy rain in most parts of the country, coupled with a lack of funds and chemicals to carry out routine spraying.
Lesotho wants to sign up for the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), according to a New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) communique. Lesotho's intention was discussed at a recent meeting of the APRM Panel of Eminent Persons, held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The mechanism, overseen by the panel, monitors a country's progress towards political and economic reform and was put in place earlier this year. Seventeen African countries have signed up so far.
Central African Republic (CAR) health officials have begun door-to-door polio immunisation campaigns in the northern provinces of Bamingui-Bangoran and Vakaga, state-owned Radio Centrafrique reported on Monday. An assistant to the director of regional services in the Ministry of Health, Dr Jean-Pierre Mandabingo, said the campaigns mainly target children aged up to five years.
Over 100 Ethiopian health workers have undergone training in the treatment and management of severely malnourished children, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported on Tuesday. The health workers will in turn be deployed to various hospitals to train others, UNICEF added. The trained health workers included 41 nurses, 12 doctors and 54 medical officers. They were trained at the Addis Ababa, Gondar and Jimma universities, UNICEF said in a statement.
A Zambian lawyer is seeking to abolish the death penalty in a country in which the president and human rights groups are united in their opposition to capital punishment. Kelvin Hang'andu is representing two men on death row at the country's maximum prison in Kabwe, about 150 km north of the capital, Lusaka. They were sentenced in 2000, and since then the Supreme Court has twice rejected his petition.
The convicted murderer of Mozambique's top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, has again escaped from jail. Anibal Antonio dos Santos - better known as Anibalzinho - disappeared from the country's maximum security prison on Sunday night, police said.
A major donor from the United Kingdom, the Department for International Development (DFID), has confirmed that it will channel its funding for HIV/Aids programmes only through the government, ThisDay reports. That’s after committing R500m to South Africa and R3bn to Africa. This endorses a call at an April 2004 meeting, when the United Nations together with the United States, the World Bank and the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria agreed that governments should be the sole administer of HIV/Aids donor funding.
The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) has invited applications from registered NPOs for funding from the proceeds of the National Lottery. Funding applications focussing on under-resourced areas and underprivileged communities will be considered favourably.
Blinking my eyes to adjust to the bright African sun as we made our way through traffic from the Entebbe airport to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, I looked out the window and asked, “What are those?”
“Coffins,” the driver replied. “Because of AIDS,” he added, in case it wasn't obvious why the wooden boxes were displayed along the roadside with other goods for sale, things I recognized, like furniture, iron gates, tiny bananas, and the reddest tomatoes I had ever seen. The year was 1995, I was a naïve American grad student, and this was my first introduction to Africa.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic had hit Uganda with a vengeance. The infection rate peaked in the early 1990s, with a national prevalence rate of about 15% in 1991 and more than 30% of the population in some urban areas infected in 1992. It is now estimated that a million Ugandans have died from HIV/AIDS, leaving twice as many orphans behind, and more than one million are currently living with the disease. The wrath of the disease dealt a devastating blow to the country and its development efforts. But there was a growing market for coffins.
Yet, already by 1995, Uganda had distinguished itself as the first country to deal with the epidemic head on. A high level political commitment to action, constructive involvement of civil society including religious authorities, and excellent public information campaigns - among many other factors - all contributed to help the country stem the flow of the epidemic. In 1995, when coffins lined the road, the national prevalence rate was 18.5%. Within a few years, the rate dropped to one third of that number.
One element of Uganda's success in preventing infection has been a public information strategy known as ABC - Abstinence, Be faithful, and use Condoms. The key to the ABC strategy was to promote all three together, recognizing that no one type of behaviour change could work perfectly. The ABC model has been widely recognized internationally, and adapted for use in other countries around the world. The journal Science recently reported that it has been almost as successful as a vaccine in Uganda.
This is not to say that the battle is over. Few people living with HIV/AIDS have adequate access to anti-retroviral therapy that could prolong their lives, permitting them to participate in the workforce and care for their families. An estimated 25,000 babies are born HIV positive each year in Uganda. The situation of children orphaned by AIDS remains dire. Stigma and discrimination are still prevalent despite the best efforts of the government and AIDS advocates. And discrimination continues to make women most vulnerable to the disease.
While Ugandan activists agree that more must be done to treat people living with HIV/AIDS, they continue to stress the importance of prevention. Many analysts caution that it would be ill-advised to rely too heavily on the success of the public information campaign. Some even query whether the ABC strategy was really responsible for the decline in prevalence. A 2003 baseline study on knowledge, attitudes, and behavioural practices found that high-risk behaviour is still very common in Kampala. And recent data indicate that rates of infection could be back on the rise.
There can be no disputing that the scale of the problem in Uganda remains alarming, and that urgent action is required to save lives and prevent the epidemic from further eroding the country's development efforts. Thus, perhaps the most difficult challenge facing Uganda now is to build on the success of the past decade. Even if Uganda and its donors meet their target of providing ARVs to 100,000 people in the next five years, Dr. Coutinho of The Aids Support Organisation predicts twice that number could be newly infected. This is no time for complacency.
Many hope that the US$15 billion President Bush pledged last year for AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean might go a long way towards solving the problem. The money (known as “Bush money” in Ugandan parlance) finally started to reach 14 countries including Uganda last month, from the President's Emergency Fund for HIV/AIDS Relief. But it is not that simple.
In fact, while grateful for all the money available from international donors, many Ugandans I spoke to on a recent visit to the country were already skeptical as the Bush money took so long to start trickling in, and they were not convinced that it would necessarily be put to most effective use.
Organisations such as the US-based Centre for Health and Gender Equity and Physicians for Human Rights have expressed numerous concerns about the Bush administration's strategy for using the money, as spelled out in the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief: US Five-Year Global HIV/AIDS Strategy.
For starters, the process of developing the strategy was a closed one and key stakeholders were excluded. What's more, the administration has been widely criticized for following ideological and fundamentalist religious beliefs rather than evidence-based recommendations.
This is perhaps most evident in the strategy's excessive insistence on abstinence only, rather than a holistic ABC approach. The strategy focuses on abstinence for youth and being faithful within marriage, and emphasizes that condoms are only to be made available to and in the 'vicinity of' so-called high risk populations such as prostitutes. Potential funding for B and C approaches is further constrained by the United States Global AIDS Act of 2003, which limits prevention funding to 20% of the money allocated and mandates that one third of this be spent on abstinence-until-marriage strategies.
But this approach runs counter to the fundamental premise underlying the ABC strategy. As Dr. Coutinho explains, even though approximately 60% of his patients do embrace abstinence, they do not always do so perfectly. For example, someone may well remain abstinent for ten months, decide to have sex again, and then return to abstinence. For this and many other reasons, it is crucial to keep the C in the equation.
According to the Centre for Health and Gender Equity, the strategy also fails to guarantee that those most at risk will be provided access to comprehensive sex education information such as complete information on male and female condoms, frank discussions about sexuality, guidance for negotiating safe sex, etc.
Some NGOs in Uganda say they have sensed a rolling back of the space available for public information on AIDS prevention and sexuality, particularly information targeting youth. Though this is not directly tied to the Bush money, they do see a link. For example, much of the Bush money is earmarked for faith-based organisations. While all agree that religious institutions have a crucial role to play, some fear that this could lead to churches taking over much of the work that secular NGOs now do. This is especially worrying given that some churches have strong positions against condoms.
Many Ugandans are also familiar with other Bush administration policies (including domestic policies focusing exclusively on promoting abstinence outside marriage and ignoring or even opposing contraceptive and condom use, as well as the global gag rule). As a result, they fear there may be 'a change in the winds' towards more conservative public health policies informed by evangelical interests.
Numerous other serious concerns have also been raised with respect to the Bush money. One is the failure of the US to contribute its proper share to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Another is the fear that funds will only be available for purchase of name-brand drugs. This will be a decisive factor in how many people receive treatment, as the funds available are finite and name-brand drugs can cost four times more than their generic counterparts.
Even beyond the Bush money and public health policy, Christian Aid recently issued a report decrying a 'dangerous drift' - encouraged by the US and the UK - of diverting aid funds in Uganda and elsewhere to the war on terror. Nearly a quarter of Uganda's social services budget in 2002 went to fund military operations in the North to fight the LRA (which has been added to the US terrorist list). Yet the report also found that the war and militarization of the area is actually contributing to increased spread of HIV in the region.
I recently took the Entebbe-Kampala road again on one of my frequent trips to Africa. My heart sank as soon as we drove out of the airport parking lot, quickly dashing the excitement I felt about returning to Uganda that had peaked during the breathtaking landing on the shores of Lake Victoria.
I confided in my fellow passenger - a Tanzanian law professor on his way to the same meeting I would be attending - how this stretch of road, my first impression of Africa, is branded in my memory together with coffins. Recalling the devastation that poverty and disease had wrought on the country in the mid-1990s, he sympathized. But he reminded me that Uganda had worked hard to slow the impact of the epidemic, and that things are actually much better today. Together, we looked anxiously out the window - not at the emerald green landscape, but at the roadside merchants and their wares. Together, we breathed a sigh of relief when we didn't see any coffins.
Ugandan AIDS advocates continue to work tirelessly to battle the epidemic. For example, Dr. Coutinho has suggested an improvement on the ABC strategy - adding a “D”, for determine and declare, to encourage people to get tested and be open about their status. The international community - including the Bush administration - should continue to rely on evidence, rather than untested strategies motivated by fundamentalist ideology. This may be the best way to keep the coffins off the road until we get to V for vaccine, and Z for zero.
* Sara Rakita is a consultant who travels frequently to Africa.
* Please send comments on this article - and other events in Africa - to
* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this article was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. While we are pleased that several print publications have used our editorials, we ask editors to note that if they use this article, they do so on the understanding that they are expected to provide the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.
Those campaigning against Third World Debt have long argued that crippling levels of debt have been a severe block to the development of African countries, causing widespread poverty and hardship. Six years ago, over 70,000 Jubilee 2000 supporters formed a human chain in Birmingham to call for the cancellation of the debts of some of the world's poorest nations. To mark this occasion, World Debt Day on May 16 is intended to call attention to the ongoing debt crisis, provide a global rallying point for all those who continue to care about the suffering being caused by debt and encourage campaigners by providing an opportunity for action and advocacy. Pambazuka News emailed a list of questions to Demba Moussa Dembele, Director of the Forum for African Alternatives in Senegal, to gauge where Africa stands in the debt stakes.
PAMBAZUKA : Why should people care about World Debt Day?
DEMBELE: The day commemorates one of the largest gatherings ever held to call world attention to the impact of the Debt Crisis. It was on May 16, 1998, during the G7 Summit in Birmingham, (GB) that the call on Western and Japanese leaders to cancel poor countries' debt went out. That day was a turning point in the Jubilee 2000 Campaign and helped put the debt issue on centre stage.
PAMBAZUKA : Briefly, what is the impact of the current levels of debt on the development of African countries?
DEMBELE :
* Sub-Saharan Africa's debt accounts for 71% of its GDP;
* The debt represents more than 180% of exports;
* Debt service absorbs 12-13% of exports receipts on average;
* Accumulated arrears (debt service that could not be paid) represents more than 30% of current debt levels;
* Since 1988, Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) is getting very little in terms of new loans. A greater part of some of the loans we hear about is used to service old debts;
* Unsustainable debt deters foreign direct investments.
PAMBAZUKA : If the negative effects of unsustainable debt are so well documented, why are the debt-collecting institutions and countries so reluctant to intervene in an area of such obvious importance?
DEMBELE :
* The debt bondage is the new face of colonialism or even slavery;
* Debt is used as an instrument of domination: it is at the heart of the unequal power relations between the North and the South. It is also an instrument used to plunder and exploit indebted countries' resources;
* Debt is an instrument of resource transfer from the South to the North. In 2002, according to the UN, net transfers from the South to the North were estimated at $200 billion. During the four previous years, net transfers from the South amounted $120 billion a year;
* The IMF & the World Bank use debt as a tool to impose their disastrous policies. Without that tool they would have a very limited or no influence in Africa or elsewhere.
PAMBAZUKA : Many people point to the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) as evidence that something is being done to resolve the debt crisis. Others argue that the HIPC is a sham and has not led to significantly improved levels of debt relief. In your opinion, what progress has been made and what more needs to be done?
DEMBELE :
* So far 11 countries, including 9 in SSA, have achieved the completion point. But almost all of these countries did not have "sustainable" debt levels as the World Bank predicted in its Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA);
* The amount of debt "cancelled" for these countries is minimal compared to their overall debt. It is less than 20%;
* At this pace, it would take a quarter century to see all eligible countries achieve the completion point;
* The only solution to the debt crisis is total debt cancellation. Nothing less.
PAMBAZUKA : Many have claimed that much of the debt owed by African countries (for example, the apartheid debt owed by South Africa) is illegitimate and that in actual fact, Western countries owe Africa for centuries of exploitation. Is this view gaining ground?
DEMBELE: Since the World Conference on Racism in Durban (South Africa) in 2001, the issue of reparations has been accepted by world public opinion. Of course, some European countries and the United States have shunned the Conference for fear of being exposed. However, the idea is gaining ground every day. In Africa, more and more voices -intellectuals, policy makers, activists, etc.- use every opportunity to remind the world, especially the West, that it is Africa that is owed an immeasurable debt. In addition, the work of Jubilee South - the international debt network - and other national or regional networks has helped promote the idea of reparations in various forms.
PAMBAZUKA : What's stopping African countries from simply defaulting on their debt and channelling the resources into health and education?
DEMBELE :
* Many African leaders are beholden to the West. They are afraid of standing up to them;
* In addition, these leaders are afraid of challenging the World Bank and the IMF. Some of them are even afraid of supporting the call for debt cancellation. I remember a former Tanzanian Finance Minister saying in Washington, DC, that his country does not support the idea of multilateral debt cancellation because this would "kill the goose that lays the golden eggs".
* Collective debt repudiation is a political decision. At this juncture, it is not easy to see a unified political position that would support debt repudiation. But civil society organisations are working on it. We think that by exposing the hypocrisy and bad faith of bilateral and multilateral creditors and showing the disastrous impact of debt on Africa's human development indicators it will be possible some day to convince an enlightened leadership to move toward that decision.
PAMBAZUKA : Recently there has been talk of debt swaps. What are debt swaps and are they an effective method of alleviating the debt crisis?
DEMBELE: Debt swaps are a mechanism by which part of a country's debt is sold by one or several of its creditors (private creditors) to another entity that invests the proceed in the same country. For instance, a commercial bank that seeks to get rid of its loan to a country like Senegal, will sell that loan - generally at a deep discount to an investor, a corporation, -which entity will use the face value of the debt to invest in a publicly-owned company in Senegal. There are several kinds of swaps, such as debt-equity swaps, whereby, a corporation that bought part of Senegal's debt uses it to buy shares in an existing State-owned company. This mechanism has been extensively used in Latin America and in a few cases in Sub-Saharan Africa. Another type of swap is debt-for nature swap, a case in which an environmental group buys a country's debt and uses the proceeds for environmental protection.
Since swaps involve only private debt, it cannot be an effective mechanism for debt alleviation given the fact that almost 90 percent of poor African countries' debt is public. And swaps are a mechanism for transferring public assets to foreign hands. For this reason, it is not a good solution for those countries that have a substantial commercial debt, like Nigeria.
PAMBAZUKA: If the current levels of debt and debt repayment burdens continue, what is the prognosis for African countries over the next ten years?
DEMBELE: Right now, many African countries are not servicing their debt. Or they do so by incurring new debts. Therefore, if the current levels of debt burden continue, over the next ten years:
* Many African countries may be totally stripped of their sovereignty;
* The levels of poverty will worsen and millions of lives will be at risk;
* There will be a total collapse of the State and other public institutions;
* The Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved.
PAMBAZUKA: Who do people need to target if they are concerned about the debt issue
and want to make an impact? Who are the stakeholders?
DEMBELE: The targets are:
* G 8 leaders (major bilateral creditors and masters of the IFIs);
* IMF and the World Bank (multilateral debt has overtaken bilateral debt in many cases);
* The Western credit agencies (that guarantee private debts);
* The Parliaments of Western countries;
* The United Nations system (to take a clear stand on debt cancellation);
* The African governments (to form a united front and eventually move toward debt repudiation).
* Please send comments to [email protected]
* Our thanks to Demba Moussa Dembele for answering these questions in between a busy schedule that included a 36-hour holdover at Jomo Kenyatta Airport.
* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. While we are pleased that several print publications have used our editorials, we ask editors to note that if they use this article, they do so on the understanding that they are expected to provide the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, www.pambazuka.org". Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.
African software developers face many obstacles as they struggle to grow professionally in their chosen field. But these "coders", as a group, form a community marked less by their frustration and isolation than by their perseverance and resolve. This theme dominated AfricaSource, a workshop held in Namibia in March, 2004. The meeting of 60 developers from 25 countries in the small town of Okahandja was the first chance many of the coders have had to collaborate and compare notes.
Virtually everyone agrees that information and communications technology (ICT) must be a key component of any viable development strategy for African countries. But lip service is still easier than charting and implementing a coherent strategy. Recent meetings in Nairobi and Cairo provide ample evidence of both lively debate and continuing obstacles. A recent edition of the AfricaFocus Bulletin contains an article on national ICT policy in Kenya, with an extended critique of what the writer calls "the government's ill-coordinated, non-inclusive attempts to draft a national ICT policy."
Electronic Learning (E-learning) is good for the developing countries like Zambia but it is too expensive for the Zambian people, claimed lecturer Billy Kahota, writes News Update's Zambia correspondent Timothy Kasolo. In a contribution to a monthly debate organised by the Computer Society of Zambia (CSZ) with the title "E-learning for Zambia - is it a dream or reality?", Zambia Centre for Accountancy Studies (ZCAS) Lecturer Billy Kahota said that though E-learning in Zambia has been welcomed it is very expensive for the Zambian people to pay for E-learning.
The central Nigerian state of Kwara has agreed to lease farmland to white Zimbabwean commercial farmers who are planning to emigrate to the west African country, according to a government spokesman. "The Zimbabweans were here last week. We held fruitful discussions with them before they left for home. It is true that we have agreed to lease some farmlands to them," state government spokesman Tajudeen Kareem told AFP.
Zambia was offering the first leases on government land to foreign and local farmers, including some from Libya and Zimbabwe, as it tried to diversify the economy, lands minister Judith Kapijimpanga said. An area of 100 000ha in central Zambia would be ready for occupation this year, once roads were constructed and power provided. The land is the first to be put up for lease under a government policy to establish farms in all nine provinces of Zambia, which has faced severe food shortages in the past.
The number of people in Burundi's camps for the displaced dropped by half between 2002 and 2004, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a preliminary report completed on Monday. The results of the survey, conducted between 10 March and 7 April, from which OCHA's report was produced, shows that the number of the displaced dropped from 281,000 in 2002 to 140,000 today. The survey was conducted with the Ministry for the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Displaced and Repatriated Persons, as well as the National Commission for the Rehabilitation of Disaster-affected People.
Street urchins popularly known as area boys who disappeared from Lagos Island when the current Oba of Lagos, Oba Babatunde Rilwan Akiolu, ascended the throne, have returned in full force to the area. Investigation revealed that the area boys who were chased away by Oba Akiolu last year when he was coronated have returned and they now terrorise traders and residents, especially, those around the popular Idumota market, demanding money from them. PMNews also gathered that the area boys molest load carriers in the area by demanding money from them. Anyone who refused to pay is attacked, a resident told PMNews.
President Yoweri Museveni has warned lecturers to desist from using strikes as a means to seek redress when they have grievances. In a speech read by premier Apollo Nsibambi at Kyambogo University graduation last week, Museveni said strikes were not an appropriate method of resolving disagreements. "In case of dissatisfaction, I encourage the university council to engage in dialogue with staff. Work together to ensure a win-win situation. I do not encourage strikes," Museveni said.