PAMBAZUKA NEWS 139: HOW AFRICA DEVELOPS EUROPE (AND THE REST OF THE RICH WORLD): REAL DEVELOPMENT AND AID
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 139: HOW AFRICA DEVELOPS EUROPE (AND THE REST OF THE RICH WORLD): REAL DEVELOPMENT AND AID
The World Social Forum is one of the most significant civil and political initiatives of the past several decades. Since the first WSF was held in Porto Alegre in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, its call for alternatives, "Another World is Possible!" has been echoing in almost every part of the world. Alternatives that challenge the hegemony of the neoliberal capitalist paradigm of globalisation that seems to have seized the world and got it in its vice-like grip, with profoundly negative effects for a diverse, plural planet. On the eve of the critical fourth World Social Forum gathering to be held in Mumbai, India, in January 2004, The Viveka Foundation announces the first book on the WSF to be published in English from the South, The World Social Forum: Challenging Empires. This committed but critical collection attempts to both comprehensively portray and analyse the richness and depth of the initiative. It not only celebrates but also interrogates the Forum.
Botswana's democracy is often considered to be a comparatively advanced and positive example of an African state in terms of political culture and the notion of "good governance". Focussing on the particular situation of the Bushmen/San as a marginalized minority denied citizens' rights, this paper challenges the assumption that the country's current political and socio-economic system is, in fact, exemplary. The author has on previous occasions presented and published related analyses within the research network on "Liberation and Democracy in Southern Africa" (LiDeSA), which is currently coordinated through the Nordic Africa Institute. This publication is another result of the collaboration within this project.
Monitoring and Evaluation for Sexual and Reproductive Health examines the underlying principles of monitoring and evaluation for programme managers. Participants explore the steps in establishing effective monitoring and evaluation systems and are guided in how to integrate gender analysis into their monitoring and evaluation plans. The course is designed to strengthen institutional capacity to effectively monitor programme operations and evaluate performance.
For the fourth consecutive year, the LINK Centre at the School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in conjunction with the University of Michigan School of Information, is offering this highly regarded Global Graduate Seminar on Globalisation and the Information Society: Information Systems and International Communications Policy. In this seminar, participants will join students from the University of Michigan, the American University, Howard University (both in Washington DC), and the Universities of Fort Hare and Pretoria, in a weekly series of online, interactive, collaborative learning sessions between 13 January and 20 April 2004.
This one year full-time (or two years part-time) Programme in Understanding & Securing Human Rights is open to graduates of any discipline who seek training in human rights. This inter-disciplinary course, which has now been running for almost a decade, is based in Central London & consists of three written papers and a dissertation. Speakers come from international agencies & the academic community. Students also benefit from a one-day work placement each week with an international human rights agency. The MA seminars are small & friendly, and students are encouraged to develop their academic talents in a supportive environment.
The Commonwealth Association of NGOs (CANGO) has announced their forth coming conference billed for Johannesburg 2004. CANGO is a civil society initiative geared towards uniting NGOs in the 54 Commonwealth Countries for peace, development and human progress. Details about CANGO and the CANGO Social Platform 2004 billed for Johannesburg South Africa are available online at the website provided.
The objective of the Training Courses is to increase the readiness and professionalism of African civilian personnel participating in peacekeeping and other peace support missions, and to enhance their capacity to respond adequately to the complex challenges of post-conflict reconstruction. The Foundation Course aims at training 30 participants for the tasks performed by the civilian personnel of international field missions. Applicants must be nationals of an African country and have a University degree or five years working experience in a relevant field. Fluency in English is essential.
Independent Advocacy Project (IAP), the good governance group, promotes - through advocacy, coalition building, research, publications and information sharing - respect for good governance in Nigeria. IAP produces a monthly electronic journal and you can contact [email protected] if you are interested in subscribing.
This newsletter is aimed at providing updates and news from UPEACE and its regional programmes with special focus on the Africa and Central Asia programmes, which are coordinated through the Geneva office. In addition it provides information on UPEACE publications and new developments, new documents available on the Africa programme, and Workshops/Seminars / Conferences being offered through the Africa and Central Asia programmes.
YouthNet has announced the launch of Youth InfoNet, a one-stop monthly source for new publications and information on youth reproductive health and HIV prevention. It is hoped the newsletter will enhance the work of those working with youth, and submissions and ideas for the newsletter are invited.
The Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been portrayed as a key for NEPAD's future success. But the plan to build the world's largest hydroelectric project on the Congo river which will have the capacity of supplying the current electricity demands of the entire continent is challenged by groups from civil society. They allege that the social promises made at the World Summit in Johannesburg have been betrayed. The Inga project departs from the goal of small-scale sustainable energy projects discussed at the World Summit, where the talk was of bringing electricity to rural people through local wind and solar power projects. Megaprojects like this often imply social, economic and environmental disruption of people's livelihoods, lands and life.
More than 25 percent of individuals worldwide now live a lifestyle once limited to rich nations, according to Worldwatch Institute. Rising consumption has helped more of the world meet basic needs, the U.S. research group says, but this growing consumer class is gobbling the world's resources at an unsustainable rate and is putting added pressure on humanity's poorest individuals.
In this 2004 edition, the Worldwatch Institute examines how our world consumes, why we consume, and the impact that our consumption choices have on the planet and its people. With chapters on food, water, energy, the politics of consumption, and redefining the good life, State of the World 2004 asks whether a less-consumptive society is possible - and then argues that it is essential.
Climate change is likely to drive up to a third of the world's plant and animal species to extinction if emissions of greenhouse gases remain unchecked, according to a new analysis of the response of such species to temperature increases. A study in this week's Nature suggests that between 15 and 37 per cent of species could go extinct due to the global warming that is likely to occur between now and 2050.
Durban has been at the forefront of South African efforts to honour Agenda 21 commitments made at the 1991 Rio Earth Summit. Has the city turned Agenda 21’s promise of sustainable urban development into reality? What lessons have been learned in overcoming scepticism and building support and consensus among stakeholders? Research from Durban’s eThekwini Municipality analyses the difficulties faced when sustainable development is applied to a city whose rapidly growing population is having a negative impact on the natural environment.
Balanced above his sea canoe's empty hold, Daouda Wade levels an accusatory finger at four blots on the horizon - factory-sized foreign vessels fishing in the Atlantic off West Africa. "Those big boats have caught everything," the 33-year-old fishing captain says. The European-flagged ships are working in Senegal's waters under a four-year, 64 million-euro (about U.S.$75 million) contract between the European Union and Senegal's government, which says the agreement brings in a steady stream of sorely needed cash. "And now there's nothing left for us, the Africans," Wade says, his 25 sweat-streaked crewmen squatting idly atop unused nets piled in the bottom of the canoe.
HIV/AIDS hits schools hard, affecting both teachers and pupils. What is the economic impact in the education sector? Researchers from Imperial College London estimate HIV-related costs to the Ministry of Education (MoE) and donors in Zambia. They argue for extra funds to provide an active care and prevention programme.
What is the best way of fighting AIDS? What is the right balance to strike between health education, treatment of the disease and caring for AIDS sufferers? It is essential in developing countries where funds are scarce to find the most cost effective method of combating the disease. The World Health Organisation (WHO), together with Copenhagen University, looked into the most effective methods of tackling the epidemic in Africa.
Aang Serian, which means "House of Peace" in the Kiarusha language, is a non-profit cultural organisation founded by a group of Tanzanian youth in Arusha town. Their purpose is to promote and protect indigenous knowledge. Aang Serian focuses on education in an effort to raise the self-esteem of young people, to empower them to work together for a peaceful future, and to promote environmentally and socially sustainable development. A key undertaking has been the establishment of a community college.
Ethiopia’s health ministry has clashed with the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) over malaria treatment in the midst of a major epidemic threatening 15 million people. MSF is urging the government to implement a cocktail of drugs which have been given preliminary approval by the World Health Organisation (WHO). But the ministry says that calls by the NGO to change anti-malarial drugs during an epidemic were potentially dangerous.
Since its commencement in January 2001, the Nigerian government-funded national ARV programme has cost the federal government an estimated US$6m (six million US dollars). Although the programme set a target of providing ARVs for 10,000 adults and 5000 children, a little over 10,000 clients in 25 centres are currently on treatment, according to information available to Access Alert.
The attainment of reproductive health and reproductive rights are fundamental for development, for fighting poverty and for meeting the MDG targets. Conversely, reproductive ill-health undermines development by, inter alia, diminishing the quality of women's lives, weakening and, in extreme cases, killing poor women of prime ages, and placing heavy burdens on families and communities. This publication from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) shows by means of analytical graphics, the fundamental importance of addressing population and reproductive health for achieving the MDGs.
Four international goals to improve global health by 2015 that include cutting child mortality by two-thirds and halving the number of hungry people will be missed unless the world acts now, two agencies have warned. Slow progress in meeting these targets could hurt the chances of achieving four other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which cover areas such as the environment and education, the World Health Organisation and World Bank said.
The Burundian military and armed opposition forces have committed serious war crimes, including civilian killings and rapes, Human Rights Watch said in a December report. The recent political agreement between the major parties in Burundi’s ten-year civil war should not have granted immunity from prosecution for such blatant and widespread crimes, Human Rights Watch said. The 63-page report, “Everyday Victims: Civilians in the Burundian War,” documents massacres and rapes of civilians and attacks on civilian property between April and November, when the government and the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), the main rebel group signed an peace accord guaranteeing all sides provisional immunity from prosecution for war crimes.
The website of the Secretariat has been up and running since the 19 December 2003. It includes, amongst other things, links and contact addresses to African National Human Rights Institutions, information and evaluation of conferences and workshops, and important official Human Rights documents. Through the link 'Articles', users of the site are invited to post articles on Human Rights. The French part is also functioning but has not yet been fully translated.
"Noting that the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), and its other manifestations such as the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) pressed by the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs), have misled our governments towards adopting economic strategies that have failed to work over the last twenty-five years, and that have been one of the principal reasons for the increasing impoverishment of the people of Africa, we urge the Secretary-General not to give the moral authority of his office to these policies, and ask him to advocate coherence of Bretton Woods Institution’s (BWI) policies to a human rights oriented genuine development of our people."
Central to the neoliberal discourse on globalization is the conviction that free trade, more than free movements of capital or labour, is the key to global prosperity. Part of the conviction in free trade that the proponents of globalization possess comes from the belief that economic theory has irrefutably established the superiority of free trade, even though there are some formal models which show free trade may not be the best. Even more powerful for the proponents of free trade, is their belief that history is on their side. A closer look at the history of capitalism, however, reveals a very different story. When they were developing countries themselves, virtually all of today's developed countries did not practice free trade. Rather, they promoted their national industries through tariffs, subsidies, and other measures. Debunking the myth of free trade from the historical perspective demonstrates that there is an urgent need for thoroughly re-thinking some key conventional wisdom in the debate on trade policy, and more broadly on globalization.
The Civil Society Budget Initiative (CSBI) is a small grant making project that aims to promote civil society budget work in low-income countries. To this end, CSBI will provide financial and technical support to 10 organisations for a two-year period. The Initiative is led by a steering committee of civil society groups working on public budgets and is coordinated by the IBP.
Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) is beginning to do more harm than good, argues George Monbiot in a column for The Guardian UK, and is opening up developing country markets to the rampages of big capital. In Zambia, he writes, DfID is spending just £700,000 on improving nutrition, but £56m on privatising the copper mines. In Ghana, the department made its aid payments for upgrading the water system conditional on partial privatisation. "Foreign aid from Britain now means giving to the rich the resources that keep the poor alive," he argues.
The donor’s focus is children affected by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The donor believes that grassroots programs arising in direct response to real needs within the local community are often the most effective. Firelight supports this vital work with initial one-year grants and re-grants based on funding needs and opportunities for shared learning. Because the donor has limited funds, they support organisations that raise resources from within their local community.
A fan blows a gentle breeze across a women's ward in a hospital in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. It comes as a relief to 25-year-old Rukia Pendeza who lies in a bed recovering from an operation to repair an obstetric fistula. Obstetric fistula occurs following a protracted and difficult childbirth and leaves women unable to control their urine and faeces. It is a gynaecological problem which affects the poorest of women in developing countries and it also appears to be on the increase in Tanzania.
Government has been urged to extend its fight against corruption to oil companies where the practice is said to be high. This instead of increasing taxes on minibus operators as a way to boost revenue. Opposition Patriotic Front President Michael Sata says it is unfair for Government to highly tax people at grassroots level instead of fighting corruption in parastatal companies and other government organs.
A legislator and top Harare businessman was hauled before the Harare Magistrate's Court to explain his role in a multi-million dollar scandal that has hit Zimbabwe's financial sector. Phillip Chiyangwa becomes the first politician suspected of involvement in the financial sector crisis that has seen a run on deposits by panicking depositors.
Germany has expressed its "regret" for the killing of thousands of Namibia's ethnic Hereros during the colonial era. Between 35,000 and 105,000 people were killed after the Hereros rebelled against German rule in 1904. But Germany's ambassador to Namibia ruled out paying compensation, as the Hereros have demanded in a law suit.
The African National Congress launched what promises to be a bitter election campaign this week by promising to tackle the poverty and unemployment that plague South Africa 10 years after apartheid. Unveiling a sweeping election manifesto, the president, Thabo Mbeki, declared his party's intention to loosen its conservative economic policies by ramping up public spending. Poverty and joblessness would be halved by 2014 with the help of £8.7bn spent on roads, rail and air transport and telecommunications, he told 30,000 supporters in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal province.
Anglican archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane has added his voice to criticisms of the plan to drive a toll road through the Wild Coast. "While this might benefit through traffic and the trucking industry, we are convinced that it will be to the detriment of the impoverished people of Pondoland," he said in a statement. The Wild Coast was one of the most magnificent and unspoilt coastlines in the world.
A new report by Dr Charles Benbrook, director of the Northwest Science and Environmental Policy Centre, Idaho, shows that contrary to claims that GM crops substantially reduce pesticide use, evidence shows that in the US the 555m acres of GM corn, soybeans and cotton planted since 1996 has increased pesticide use. Many farmers have had to spray more herbicides on GM crops in order to keep up with shifts in weeds toward tougher-to-control species, coupled with the emergence of genetic resistance in certain weed populations. For years scientists have warned of the possible emergence of 'super-weeds', Benbrook's study gives hard evidence to these claims.
Environmental lobby group, Biowatch, has said that the Department of Agriculture has flouted its own rules by simultaneously awarding Syngenta the go-ahead to carry out field trials of GM maize seed and commercially release the crop. "The simultaneous application … does not meet basic practice procedures for biosafety and undermines the primary purpose of field trials," said Haidee Swanby of Biowatch SA. The dual application also violated the environmental impact assessment provisions of the National Environmental Management Act and was at odds with the objectives of South Africa's Genetically Modified Organisms Act, she said.
Ethnic tension is rising once again in the volatile Niger Delta after unidentified gunmen attacked two boats near the oil city of Warri, killing at least 18 of the passengers on board. Delta State government secretary Emmanuel Uduaghan told reporters that all the men, women and children killed in the incident last Friday belonged to the Ijaw ethnic group.
After days of drifting on high seas, more than 200 Liberian refugees have been rescued from their stalled boat and repatriated to Liberia. A Dutch ship under the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) picked up the refugees who had been stranded for days off Liberia's Atlantic coast. Their self-chartered boat had developed technical problems near the south-eastern city of Harper after leaving Ghana, where most of them had been living in Buduburam camp.
Amnesty International’s (AI) Combating torture: a manual for action is a comprehensive reference guide for advocates working to prevent and end torture. It begins with an overview of the principal achievements and emerging framework for action against torture since World War II. In-depth case studies of efforts against torture and ill treatment in the Israeli Occupied Territories, Peru, United States, Austria and South Africa provide concrete examples of the challenges and opportunities human rights defenders face. The manual contains a detailed chapter on evolving international legal standards and initiatives to prevent and end torture. Another chapter examines national legislation to prohibit torture and bring perpetrators to account, while the work of international tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia is also covered. Useful sections on torture and ill treatment in institutions such as prisons, schools and mental institutions, as well as in situations of armed conflict highlight the many circumstances in which these abuses should be prevented.
With most of the attention focused on farm occupations, it could be argued that relations between blacks and whites elsewhere in Zimbabwe have gone relatively unobserved. Ironically, the troubles of whites seem to have empowered sections of the black middle class. David Coltart, a prominent lawyer and opposition member of parliament, contends that race relations are good at grass roots level, with the political and economic difficulties of the past three years having drawn people together. "It's amongst the monied elite that strains begin to show," he says.
An emergency team from the UN refugee agency visiting the Chad-Sudan border has heard reports of killing and looting in western Sudan, and witnessed poor living conditions for thousands of Sudanese refugees in Chad. On 8 January 2004, the UNHCR team concluded a two-day mission to the north-eastern Birak area, where they visited the site of Djoran, 15 km from the Sudanese border. They found thousands of refugees (estimates range from 4,000 to 8,000) living in precarious conditions after fleeing western Sudan's Darfur region.
The UN refugee agency is co-funding a home-based care project for terminally-ill refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa, where many of them have no access to health care. The caregivers are themselves refugees who want to help their counterparts die in peace and dignity.
Violence in western Ethiopia erupted in December when the Anyuak were blamed for an attack on a UN-plated vehicle carrying government officials to Odier, a proposed site for a camp for Dinka and Nuer Sudanese refugees. Since then, it is estimated that about 15,000 members of the Anyuak community have fled to Sudan. If the refugees stay in Pachala, it will result in a 30 to 50 % increase in the county's population, according to World Relief.
Described by a senior UN official as the "world's biggest neglected humanitarian crisis", the conflict in northern Uganda has now dragged on for more than 17 years. The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) has more than doubled from about 650,000 in July 2002 to 1.4 million as of December 2003. The escalation of the conflict since June 2003 meant hundreds of thousands of people have poured into camps after fleeing direct attacks by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and regular fighting between the warring parties. It is widely believed that the government army is unable or – worse – unwilling to protect the IDP camps, which are frequently attacked by the LRA. Because of the insecurity, few humanitarian actors assist the heavily congested camps where conditions are appalling with a widespread breakdown of schools, health care, and water and sanitation facilities.
Up to 15,000 displaced people are expected to return to their home villages in Senegal's southern Casamance province this year as a low-level insurgency that has gone on for two decades peters out, but little is being done by the international community to assist them, Refugees International said on Friday. The New York-base pressure group said over 50,000 people had been displaced from their homes as a result of a rebellion by separatist guerrillas in the narrow strip of swampy forested land bounded to the north by Gambia and to the south by Guinea-Bissau.
Thousands of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa are braving cold and wet nights in Moroccan forests in the hope of getting to Europe. The forests near Rahrah are only about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from Spain and when the weather is clear, the European mainland can easily be seen from the top of a hill. But trips across the rough Mediterranean sea aboard inflatable boats are very risky. Some 4,000 migrants have drowned in the past five years trying to get into Spain.
The East African Standard has investigated trafficking in children and babies in Kenya. The Standard investigation team infiltrated the Nairobi operations of a syndicate operating in cahoots with a few unscrupulous staff of the largest maternity hospital in the country - Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi's Eastlands. The baby thieves steal new-borns then present the new mothers with a body and inform them that their baby died shortly after birth. Clients for new-born babies, the investigations established, include well to do women unable to conceive, street women posing as poverty-stricken new mothers, jealous relatives and Satanists.
The European Commission has launched a call for proposals for micro-projects in Ivory Coast under the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR). Grants will support micro-projects with activities lasting up to 12 months, carried out by grassroots NGOs. The funding is allocated through local calls for proposals. The deadline for the submission of proposals is 10 February 2004.
Organisations dealing with child abuse in Zimbabwe say most of the victims suffer in silence as they are intimidated by the perpetrators, who are usually close relatives. Mr Lovemore Nechibvute, director of Child Line Zimbabwe, an institution that offers psychological support to orphans and vulnerable children said their organisation had received 1400 cases of minors, who have been sexually abused in 2003 alone.
The Global Health Council is currently accepting nominations for the annual JONATHAN MANN AWARD FOR GLOBAL HEALTH AND HUMAN RIGHTS. This award has been established by Association Francois-Xavier Bagnoud, Doctors of the World and the Global Health Council to be presented annually to a leading practitioner in health and human rights. The substantial cash prize is meant to allow its recipients a measure of freedom to pursue their work in this important area. Nominations are due by Feb. 3, 2004. For information, please visit our website, http://www.globalhealth.org/view_top.php3?id=94 or contact Carrie Peterson at [email protected]
Amnesty International is calling for the sentence of 100 lashes, passed on a 16-year-old school girl in the Sudanese capital Khartoum for the "crime" of adultery, to be commuted immediately. Intisar Bakri Abdulgader gave birth to a child in September after becoming pregnant outside marriage. She was convicted of adultery and sentenced by a local court in the Khartoum suburb of Kalakla in July when she was seven months pregnant. The sentence was upheld by the appeal court in August. The alleged father of the child has reportedly not been charged but will have a blood test to establish paternity.
The IMF and World Bank require that each low-income country government prepare a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) - a three-year “national development strategy” - in order to qualify for external financing and debt relief. Governments often solicit input to the PRSP from a broad range of groups. The IMF and the World Bank as well as donor governments have a significant role in PRSP preparation. Many citizens’ groups want to influence the content of their country’s PRSP in order to empower poor and marginalized groups to meet their needs and attain their rights in the development process. After all, the PRSP was unveiled as a pioneering approach to empowering the poor, reducing poverty, and achieving country-wide ownership over the development process. Unfortunately, there is significant evidence that the PRSP process is primarily driven by the requirements of donors and creditors. This briefing paper from the Citizens' Network On Essential Services (CNES) contrasts the hope and vision for the PRSP process with the reality.
"Saturday morning, after a night of hell under bombs, rockets and hails of bullets, I manage to get to the airport. I meet a long column of soldiers. A whole battalion, it seems to me, goes up to the front at Gikungu, East of Bujumbura. God, how young they are! Teenagers. Sad. Drawn faces. Without the fighters’ banter that is seen with other soldiers in wartime," writes Chris Harahagazwe in the latest edition of the Peace and Conflict Monitor, after spending some time in Bujumbura in July last year.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, has started gathering evidence of atrocities committed by LRA rebels for a possible indictment of rebel leader Joseph Kony. In what appears to be the first heavy step by the international community, the ICC is seeking documentary evidence on the 18-year long insurgency in northern Uganda.
The United Nations kicked off its year-long commemoration of the anti-slavery movement with a ceremony Saturday in the Ghanaian former slave port of Cape Coast. The International Year for the Commemoration of the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition coincides with the bicentennial of Haiti, the first independent black nation in the Western Hemisphere. "This first ceremony is a rededication to the ongoing struggle against all forms of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, intolerance and injustice," UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura said.
More than four billion dollars in state oil revenue disappeared from Angolan government coffers from 1997-2002, roughly equal to the entire sum the government spent on all social programs in the same period, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. Meanwhile, although the 27-year civil war ended in 2002, an estimated 900,000 Angolans are still internally displaced. Millions more have virtually no access to hospitals or schools. According to United Nations estimates, almost half of Angola's 7.4 million children suffer from malnutrition.
The United States is expanding anti-terror efforts to the remote reaches of West Africa's Sahara borders, dispatching U.S. troops and contractors to help seal the predominantly Islamic region to al-Qaida and its allies. A U.S. anti-terror team arrived Saturday in the arid, Arab-dominated Islamic republic of Mauritania, U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of State Pamela Bridgewater told reporters late Sunday during a visit here. The small team will be followed in coming months by U.S. Army experts and defence contractors, under a $100 million Bush administration anti-terror initiative for the Saharan nations of Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Niger.
A group of international Non-Governmental Organisations has launched a Joint Declaration calling on the United Nations to monitor the impact on human rights of the fight against terrorism. Practices such as torture, detention without judicial review, unfair trial, criminalisation of acts in exercise of fundamental rights, and suppression of the right to association have been sharply on the rise as a result of measures taken in the fight against terrorism. The Declaration calls on the UN Commission on Human Rights at its 60th session in March/April 2004 to establish as a matter of utmost priority an independent mechanism on the question of human rights and counter-terrorism.
Over a million Mozambican children of school age will be unable to attend primary school in 2004 for sheer lack of space in the classrooms. According to Virgilio Juvane, the National Director of Planning in the Education Ministry, it is mainly the shortage of schools and of teachers that leads to this situation. The million children in question are aged between six and 13 and should, in principle, be studying in first and second level primary education (grades one to seven).
At least nine people have died from an outbreak of acute gastro-enteritis in Moundou, the main town in southern Chad, following the breakdown of its water works which has led people to drink polluted water from wells and the local river, the Ministry of Health said in a statement. The ministry said 90 people had fallen ill with acute diarrhoea and vomiting since the town's main water pumping station broke down in late December.
Benin and Cameroon, previously certified free of polio virus, have been re-infected by strains from neighbouring Nigeria, prompting the World Health Organisation (WHO) to call an urgent meeting in Geneva on 15 January of health ministers of polio-affected countries. WHO said in a statement on Friday that ministers of health from Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin, Pakistan, India and Egypt would meet with international partners from WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Rotary International and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control. The objective would be “to immediately intensify efforts to stop poliovirus transmission globally by the end of 2004.”
Doctors have begun clinical trials of an experimental vaccine for malaria in Burkina Faso and say they are encouraged by the initial results. The vaccine could become generally available within five years if it proves successful. Health Ministry officials said the MSP3 vaccine had been developed by the Pasteur Institute in France and was being tested on a group of 30 healthy people aged between 18 and 40.
A cholera outbreak in Maputo, capital city of Mozambique, has killed six people since Christmas, and there is concern that the number could increase dramatically. The government is set to have a meeting with international aid agencies and donors to put forward its concerns and possibly appeal for assistance.
Burundi's Ministry of Health launched last Thursday a vaccination campaign against hepatitis B and meningitis, targeting a total of 275,662 babies aged up to 11 months. "The objective is to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with chronic infections of the hepatitis B virus, including cirrhosis and other complicated diseases such as meningitis related to haemophilic influenza type B," Dr Jean Kamana, the minister of health, said when he launched the free-of-charge campaign in the capital, Bujumbura.
With schools reopening nationwide this week, teachers in Swaziland are concerned that a weakening economy and HIV/AIDS will affect the number of children enrolling for the 2004 academic year. "The problem is school fees - and it's not a new one. Parents scramble to come up with money for tuition, school uniforms, transportation, boarding and other fees. What is measurably worse this year is the number of parents who are out of work, and the growing population of children without parents," Alexander Tsabedze, a headmaster in the northern Hhohho region, told IRIN.
The government of Cote d'Ivoire has sent officials to four towns in the rebel-held north of the country to prepare examinations for thousands of pupils living in rebel territory who were unable to sit their normal exams in June last year, Education Ministry officials said on Monday. Education Minister Michel Amani-N'guessan announced on state television at the weekend that the government would deploy a “minimal administration” to prepare the ground for about 46,000 children to sit exams in the rebel-held cities of Bouake, Korhogo, Odienne and Man.
Indigenous and tribal children are identified as a group at particular risk of ending up in child labour, according to a recent working paper from the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). Current child labour and education initiatives tend to “forget” indigenous concerns and priorities unless safeguard mechanisms are included to ensure indigenous-driven decision-making. Some education programmes may even enhance vulnerability rather than prevent or eliminate child labour. The author argues for a rights-based approach, which emphasizes the right of indigenous and tribal peoples to determine appropriate development and education solutions.
It is absolutely essential to reassert the primary, irreducible responsibility of the state for the establishment and maintenance of an adequate higher education system, while the restoration of the “public good” dimension of higher education is key for the revitalisation of higher education in Africa and to ensure the maximum social benefit from it. This is according to a paper from the Association of African Universities (AAU) that looks at the challenges to the university sector in Africa in the context of the current global political economy.
The French peacekeeping force in Cote d'Ivoire urged the government army and police to send reinforcements to help it maintain order in the troubled west of the country on Tuesday after reporting that 18 people had been killed there in two weeks of ethnic clashes. Colonel Georges Peillon, the official spokesman of the 4,000-strong French peacekeeping force, said tension was rising in villages around the town of Bangolo, 600 km northwest of the capital Abidjan, where French soldiers had found the bodies of 18 people killed in ethnic fighting since 29 December.
While children in school are taught that water is continually recycled and that none of it leaves the earth's atmosphere, this does not mean that water is not being rendered unusable or that the planet will not run out of fresh water. By the year 2025, there will be 2.6 billion more people on Earth than there are today. The combination of increasing demand and shrinking supply has attracted the interest of global corporations who want to sell water for a profit. Actions against this trend should be informed by three global principles, says this article in YES magazine. One is water conservation. The second principle is that water is a fundamental human right in that people need water to live. The third principle is water democracy. "We cannot leave the management of our most precious resource in the hands of bureaucrats in government or the private corporations, whether or not they are well intentioned. We, the people, must preserve this special trust, we must fight for it, and we must take our proper role and demand water democracy."
Four men were arrested in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam after they were found with 73 elephant tusks, police said on Wednesday. Regional police commissioner Alfred Tibaigana said officers had not yet determined the weight or probable value of the haul.
Ethiopia is ranked as having the fourth highest number of deaths due to neonatal tetanus in the world with over 40,000 estimated infant deaths. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has initiated a new tetanus campaign targeting 2.6 million women in Ethiopia. It is targeted at women of childbearing age between the ages of 15 and 49 in the Oromiya and Amhara regions.
Lobby group the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) has vowed to frustrate any talks on constitutional reform between the ruling ZANU-PF party and the opposition. It argues that only Zimbabweans - not political parties – have the right to decide on the matter. NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku told IRIN he would consider negotiations on constitutional reforms between the two parties an "illegitimate process", even though the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had its roots in the NCA and the labour movement.
President Laurent Gbagbo met rebel leader Guillaume Soro at the presidential palace on Monday night to discuss the way forward in Cote d'Ivoire's fragile peace process following the rebels' return to a broad-based government of national reconciliation. It was the first meeting between the two men since the rebels, who occupy the northern half of Cote d'Ivoire, withdrew from the cabinet on 23 September in protest at Gbagbo's delays in implementing a French-brokered peace agreement in full.
The Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) said on Tuesday it was concerned over the government's apparent "lack of regard" for the "rule of law." LAZ's comments came in the wake of President Levy Mwanawasa's move to dismiss the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mukelabai Mukelabai, allegedly unconstitutionally.
An eight-member interministerial committee has been set up in the Central African Republic (CAR) to usher in democracy to the country before January 2005. The minister in charge of the government's secretariat, Zarambeaud Assingambi, announced on Monday on state-owned Radio Centrafrique that Prime Minister Celestin Gaombalet head the committee named by CAR leader Francois Bozize.
Despite the growing number of women choosing a media career, very few are in decision-making positions, a situation the recently formed Botswana Media Women Association (BOMWA) aims to correct. "In the leadership positions we have not reached 30 percent representation because media remains male-dominated at management levels," said Shollo Phetlhu, BOMWA chairperson and acting general manager of Botswana TV (BTV).
This conference will address the challenges and opportunities of the creation and use of free/open source software and open content and their development potential for Africa. The conference has both strategic and practical objectives, bringing together participants from government, education, business and civil society together with the developer community.
Following the throwing to the public domain the controversy surrounding the administration of the country's Top Level Domain by the Nigerian Computer Society, the Nigerian Internet Group has countered, declaring its right to administer what it describes as a national resource and thus making the dispute hotter than ever before. The domain name tragedy, the writer says, has become a source of embarrassment to Nigerian IT professionals, both at home and abroad.
A brilliant initiative to bridge the great information, communication and technology (ICT) divide between Africa and developing countries has been clipped in the wing - by the rich Western nations. The Digital Solidarity Fund is a venture by African countries seeking contributions from the developed world to roll out cheap computer and communication networks across rural Africa, to enhance agricultural output, minimise illiteracy and end Africa's marginalisation.
Kenya's fertility rate is among the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, a survey shows. The fertility rate stands at one woman giving birth to five children. This means that a Kenyan woman who is at the beginning of her childbearing age will give birth to five children by the end of her reproductive life if the fertility levels remain constant.
According to the latest Kenya demographic and health survey report, there are more women than men infected by the HIV/Aids virus. The report puts women's infection rate at 8.7 per cent and that of men at 4.3 per cent. Further, the proportion of women who are HIV-positive has risen with age, from four per cent among 15-19 year olds to 12 per cent in the 25-29 age group. It stabilises among those aged between 25 and 39 years before falling to five per cent in the 45-49 age group.
This practical workshop will, for the first time, bring together Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) developers from across Africa. During the five-day event, participants and facilitators will share technical skills and experiences, discuss key challenges in realizing F/OSS projects, and develop concrete strategies for strengthening the nascent community of F/OSS technologists working in African contexts.
More than 2 million people - 200,000 of them children - are living with HIV in Ethiopia, according to the government. Some of these people living in Addis Ababa can now expect to receive assistance from community groups such as Idir’s. Idirs are community groups to which people pay subscriptions towards meeting funeral and mourning costs. They have a very long reach among communities and are found in almost all parts of the country. The increasing numbers of people living with AIDS has encouraged them to change their mandate and will focus on caring for those still alive as well as their more traditional roles.
U.S. Africa policy in 2004 will continue to be characterized by a duplicity that has emerged as the principal hallmark of the Bush Administration approach to the continent, says Africa Action's 'Africa Policy Outlook 2004'. "On the one hand, Africa's priorities are being marginalized and undermined by a U.S. foreign policy preoccupied with other parts of the world. On the other hand, the Bush White House is callously manipulating Africa, claiming to champion the continent's needs with its compassionate conservative agenda." The outlook examines HIV/AIDS, human development, economic relations, war, peace and human rights, oil and strategic military relations.
Are you committed to equity in health and health care? Would you like to work with skilled and committed individuals in developing countries around the world? Are you willing to travel? This is an exciting opportunity for a committed, enthusiastic, and hard working public health professional to work with world-renowned researchers, advocates and policy-makers focused on cutting-edge public health work.
Those who led southern African states to independence promised to redress the inequalities of settler colonialism by returning the land to the people. A generation later the rural poor are still waiting. Many lack access and full rights to agricultural land and, as developments in Zimbabwe and South Africa show, they are getting angry. Where did post-independence land reform policy go wrong?
Whilst it is children working in carpet, clothing and sports equipment industries that grab the headlines, the majority of working children actually labour on farms operated by their own families. What explains the apparent paradox that children in households with land are often more likely to be in work and less likely to be in school than kids from families without land?
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has promised the government will deal firmly with corrupt financial institutions involved in an upsurge of fraud, the official Herald newspaper says. "We will not allow lawbreakers and corrupt characters to get away with their illegal activities. We will deal with them," the paper quoted Mugabe as saying after donating computers to a school in the central town of Kadoma.
Ebana Dieudonne, a national of Cameroon, is currently detained in Tinsley House Removal/Detention Centre in the United Kingdom, where he has been since 10th December. Prior to Tinsley House, he was held in Harmondsworth detention centre since 7th November. Ebana is in a state of extreme distress and fears that if he is returned to Cameroon, he will be arrested upon arrival and imprisoned or killed. He has good grounds for these fears. Ebana has had a gay relationship with his employer, a high level politician, for over two years. In Cameroon, homosexuality is illegal. Section 347 of the Penal Code criminalises sexual contacts with members of the same sex with a penalty of up to 5 years' imprisonment.
Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) is an initiative to provide free or low-cost access to major scientific journals in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences to public institutions in developing countries. Launched on 14 October 2003, AGORA provides access to over 400 journals from the world's leading academic publishers.
"We are the people who have borne the brunt of colonialism and neo-colonialism, of the invasion of our land by the wealthy countries of the world, of the theft of our natural resources, and of forced labour for the colonists." These are the opening words of the Landless People's Charter, the guiding document of the Landless People's Movement published shortly after the 23-24 July 2001 meeting of landless people that gave birth to the first national movement of poor and landless people since the Industrial and Commercial Union of the 1920s. These words also echo the statement of poor and landless people who attended the first post-apartheid gathering of the landless, the Community Land Conference in 1994, which aimed to provide guidance to the new government on ways to meet the needs of our country's poor and landless majority. Unfortunately, the voices of the poor and landless were not heard in 1994, and the private property clause was adopted to protect the colonial and apartheid grid of white property rights.
The impact of HIV/AIDS on food security in Southern Africa is now well recognised. The critical question is what can be done to halt the slide into poverty by affected households, a report released on Wednesday by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said. "Even in situations where the maize harvest is quite good, as it appears to be this season at the regional level, the fact that we have such high (HIV) infection rates requires more livelihood support interventions than otherwise would be the case. Good [cereal] production may not be enough to sustain people as it would have been 10 years ago," Neil Marsland, one of the authors of the report, told IRIN.
President Thabo Mbeki will this week sign into law amendments to the Restitution of Land Rights Bill that have reinvigorated the debate on the pace of land reform and the emotive issue of property rights. The amendments give the minister of agriculture the power to expropriate land without a court order for the purposes of land reform.
Rains have improved the situation in eastern Ethiopia’s drought-stricken Somali region, but fears remain of major water and food shortages, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its monthly report, issued on Tuesday. It warned that a "critical situation seems imminent" during the early months of 2004.
Despite government efforts at improving the country's food security arrangement, a United Nation's (UN) report on agriculture has given a low rating to Nigeria. The report pointed out that in spite of the improved agricultural technology and increased hybrid varieties plants, Nigeria is still in the lowest ebb of poor food security arrangement. The report said that in Nigeria, dietary and protein supplies are in doubt as many Nigerians are still inadequately fed.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has confirmed that Roy Clarke, a columnist for "The Post" newspaper, has come out of hiding following a 13 January Lusaka High Court ruling allowing him to continue enjoying his status as a permanent Zambian resident until the court hears the case in which he is challenging his deportation order. In an interview, Clarke expressed hope that he will not be harassed until his case goes to court on 26 January. This follows a furore following publication of a satirical story in his "The Spectator" column, published in "The Post" newspaper. In the story, Clarke used animal figures, including monkeys, giraffes and baboons, in a satirical commentary on the current social, economic and political situation in Zambia.
Itai Dzamara, a reporter with the Harare-based independent weekly The Independent, and the paper's general manager, Raphael Khumalo, were arrested January 14 after presenting themselves to police at Harare Central Police Station. The arrests followed the publication of a story in the January 9 edition of The Independent co-authored by Dzamara alleging that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe had commandeered an Air Zimbabwe plane for his trip to East Asia. Dzamara was charged with criminal defamation before being released. Khumalo was released without charge. Dzamara will likely appear with three other Independent journalists in court on January 29. Police arrested Independent Managing Editor Iden Wetherell, News Editor Vincent Kahiya, and reporter Dumisani Muleya on Saturday, January 10, also in connection with the January 9 article.