Botswana, like the rest of southern Africa, is bracing itself for a drought and its impact on food security. Only four percent of available land for cultivation was ploughed this rainy season, the Minister of Finance Baledzi Gaolethe warned in his budget speech.

E-Government has already arrived in Africa, though it is essentially an imported concept based on imported designs. There are growing numbers of e-government projects, some of which are contributing to public sector reform and delivering gains of efficiency and or effectiveness across a broad agenda. However, this positive picture must be set alongside significant challenges. E-Government is only slowly diffusing within Africa because of a lack of e-readiness for e-government that can be charted along six dimensions. There is widespread recognition that this challenge must be met by strategic building of national infrastructure.

MISA-Zimbabwe says they are appalled at the actions of police in barring journalists from the court room where the trial of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangarai is taking place.

It has been argued that good governance is an integral element in the creation of the enabling environment of peace, security, the rule of law, legitimacy and stability, in which sustainable human development can be promoted. This paper from the Human Development Report Office (HDRO), UNDP, presents a regional overview of the impact on poor people and disadvantaged groups of the failures of accountability of institutions of governance.

In September 2002 the IMF's Executive Board finally approved a new set of guidelines on conditionality. These set out how its structural conditionality can be made more effective, with provisions on improving the clarity and focus of conditions, increasing recipient-country 'ownership' of reforms, and coordinating IMF conditionality with that of other organisations. But while any review of IMF conditionality is welcome, the new guidelines fail to address the deeper problems and flawed assumptions plaguing conditionality, says Bank and Fund watchdog the Bretton Woods Project.

"Africa didn't really shine here," South African finance minister Trevor Manuel told a press conference in snowy Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum last week. "There is a complete dearth of panels on Africa."

Nevertheless, in any five-star hotel gathering of powerbrokers, backslapping is crucial, no matter how artificial the camaraderie. Here is how former Johannesburg Star newspaper editor Peter Sullivan witlessly described the Davos experience for Sunday Independent readers this week:

"The SA contingent worked hard to get investment but partied equally hard: a real 'jol' was had by all with great jiving from Kader Asmal, Trevor Manuel and Alec Irwin (sic), while Bertie Lubner and his wife boogied the night away. We also drank a few bottles of KWV's best red." (Too many, apparently, to subsequently spell trade minister Erwin's name correctly.)

Sullivan regaled with stories of meeting "the beautiful Queen Rania of Jordan", Bill Gates and Bill Clinton. But as one shrewd journalist - not the social-climber Sullivan - reported on January 28, "Among the many snubs Africa received here was the decision by former US president Bill Clinton to cancel his presence at a press conference on Africa today to discuss the New Partnership for Africa's Development. Forum officials said Clinton did not give reasons for not attending."

The ingratitude!

Recall that over the previous eighteen months, Thabo Mbeki, Manuel and Erwin had either hosted, chaired or played a crucial backroom role on globalisation's equivalent of a big-five hunting safari - mainly for the benefit of the Davos club:

* At the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, Mbeki shot down NGOs and African leaders who argued in favour of reparations for slavery/colonialism/apartheid.

* Ten weeks later at the World Trade Organisation's Doha ministerial summit, Erwin split his continent's delegation to prevent a Seattle-style denial of consensus by African trade ministers, in the process promoting multinational corporate interests.

* Then, at the UN's Financing for Development conference in Monterrey, Mexico last March, Manuel was summit co-chair and endorsed the World Bank and IMF "Washington Consensus", relegating debt relief to the status of a dead duck.

* A few months later, at the Kananaskis, Canada Summit of the G8 powers, a grovelling Mbeki departed with a handful of peanuts for his hungry and now badly wounded African elephant - and yet, against all evidence to the contrary, declared that the meeting "signifies the end of the epoch of colonialism and neo-colonialism".

* Finally, at Johannesburg's World Summit on Sustainable Development, Mbeki undermined standard UN democratic procedure, advanced the privatisation of nature, and did virtually nothing to genuinely address the plight of the world's majority.

A little sympathy from the world's ruling class for Pretoria's men in kneepads would surely have been in order - even if just the face-saving sort, for the cameras, as is normally the case.

So let's leave the grey-monied set in favour of a hot, sunny, colourful place crowded with ordinary grassroots activists who took the world's problems rather more seriously last week. In Porto Alegre, Brazil, the World Social Forum attracted 100,000 leftist delegates from across the globe who insisted, "Another World is Possible!"

Here at least, South Africa - especially Soweto campaigners for free electricity, water, medicines, education and housing - shone as brightly as a house reconnected late at night thanks to Operation Khanyisa.

Several times in Porto Alegre, I witnessed the passion with which former Soweto city councillor Trevor Ngwane addressed the crowds, moving the agenda from basic human rights, to continent-wide organising in the year-old Africa Social Forum, to his widely-applauded declaration that the World Bank must now be defunded and decommissioned.

"Weakening the power of Washington is our main challenge," Ngwane announced, "especially now that Bush is in heat after Middle Eastern oil, and because the IMF and World Bank show they will not reform."

Moreover, the World Social Forum has spawned a variety of localised social forums of labour, women, environmentalists, community militants, church activists, and youth. In conjunction with the African Social Forum which met last month in Addis Ababa, Ngwane has been mandated to help get a Southern African Social Forum off the ground.

Decentralisation will help avoid, as Canadian author Naomi Klein warns, domination by the new "big men" of the left: Brazilian president Lula Inacio da Silva and embattled Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Crucial for a coming generation of bottom-up social forums, says Klein, is the chance to replant Porto Alegre's most radical seeds: "The ideas flying around included neighbourhood councils, participatory budgets, stronger city governments, land reform and co-operative farming - a vision of politicised communities that could be networked internationally to resist further assaults from the IMF, the World Bank and World Trade Organisation."

Icy Davos and friendly Porto Alegre will clash again - as elites marginalise Africa through intensified globalisation and as social forums break out across Africa uniting to demand, as Asian intellectual Walden Bello suggests, economic "deglobalisation". Which forum philosophy will prevail?

On two previous occasions, South Africa's famous two Trevors - Manuel and Ngwane - have seen their respective teams square off. Once, during an April 2000 clash covered by SABC's Special Assignment ("Two Trevors go to Washington"), Manuel chaired the World Bank board of governors for two days while Ngwane taught 30,000 protesters outside to toyi-toyi.

And again last August, when Manuel was negotiating some meaningless treaty or other at the Sandton Convention Centre, Ngwane and 20,000+ demonstrators marched over from Alexandra to demand that the elites pack up and end their charade.

With the world's environmental and developmental crises worsening ever more rapidly, lubricated by petro-warrior George Bush, can any conclusion be reached about the latest confrontation? Perhaps only this: one Trevor was cold and lonely fighting a battle he can never win; the other was flush with the warmth of solidarity, basking in the resurgence of a humanistic but uncompromising international left.

* Patrick Bond teaches at Wits University and recently authored ‘Unsustainable South Africa: Environment, Development and Social Protest’, published by University of Natal Press. This article was due to appear in the Sowetan newspaper on February 7.

* Send comments on this editorial for publication in the Letters and Comments section of Pambazuka News to

Kenyan women's rights groups have expressed outrage at recent incidents in which policemen have been accused of rape, and urged the authorities to take appropriate action to instil discipline within the force in order to stamp out such crimes.

The National Youth Commission (NYC) has accused the Democratic Alliance of racism, in reaction to a DA comment that it should be disbanded. Monde Mkalipi, a commission spokesperson, says it remains a product of progressive youth formations that aims were to reconstruct and develop South Africa.

While the Treasury and Department of Health number-crunch to determine whether government can afford anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment in public health, a number of small ARV programmes are already up and running. Several others are in the pipeline, the most ambitious being the SA Medical Association pledge to raise R80-million to set up two ARV pilot projects in each province to treat 9 000 people.
Related Link:
* SA govt heeds calls for free anti-Aids drugs
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?a=11&o=15219

Former South African president, Nelson Mandela has lost patience with diplomacy and launched a scathing personal attack on U.S. president George W. Bush for his apparent determination to take military action against Iraq, if the middle-eastern country does not prove it has no weapons of mass destruction to the satisfaction of the United States.
Related Link:
* Mbeki highlights differences with UK over Iraq
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/uk_politics/2718191.stm

Do you know how US corporations are treating people and the environment around the world? PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT, HUMAN RIGHTS AND WORKERS AROUND THE WORLD! Visit the web page provided and make your voice heard.

Three Rwandan poachers convicted of killing two endangered mountain gorillas and stealing a baby one have been fined and sentenced to four years in prison, an official said last Thursday.

The test for President Olusegun Obasanjo and other candidates in the Nigerian election is to answer critics who say modest progress in areas such as inward investment, tackling corruption and industrial diversification falls well short of the systemic change needed to encourage the development of the private sector and relieve the poverty of most of the country's 120m people.

Some 19,000 genocide prisoners granted provisional release by President Paul Kagame began two months of re-education last Friday at solidarity camps throughout the country's 11 provinces and the City of Kigali.

Since ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1983, the Republic of the Congo had eliminated discriminatory laws and drafted other legislation to ensure gender equality, that country's representative has told the Convention's monitoring body.

An online forum – hosting some of the world's leading observers - on how individuals, communities, nations, and international organisations seek justice in the aftermath of mass violence and genocide will take place between February 20th - March 7th, 2003.

On 25 January 2003, photojournalist Hamis Hamad, who works for the daily "Uhuru" and weekly "Mzalendo" newspapers in Dar es Salaam, was reportedly assaulted by Kinondoni Municipal Council askaris (security guards).

Allegations of corruption which New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk had made against two senior NNP members, as well as a complaint which the Democratic Alliance made against Van Schalkwyk, would be treated similarly, Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana said.

Voice, a newsletter of the International African Students Association (www.iasaonline.org) seeks critical essays, articles, true-life stories, poems, cartoons and pictures for inclusion in the next edition of the Voice. The newsletter aims to bring together innovative but readable exploration of African culture and lifestyle from the perspective of young Africans.

In late 2001, Nairobi's Kibera slum experienced a bloody conflict over rents. By the time the police had brought the fighting under control, 15 people had died while many more were injured. The violent confrontation was to later spill over into Ngu Nyumu in Korogocho slums. The "rent revolt" had an interesting beginning, with the then president Daniel Moi and then minister for energy Raila Odinga, now Minister for Roads and Housing, being accused of being agents provocateur for urging tenants not to pay hiked rents.

Opposition demonstrators in Cote d'Ivoire stormed onto the streets of Abidjan, Sunday, one week after pro-government supporters launched a series of anti-French rallies in the commercial capital. Sunday's violent protests were sparked by the alleged killing of a celebrated satirical actor and comedian, known to have close links with Cote d'Ivoire's political opposition and considered to be among the opposition's staunchest allies.

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is a non-governmental organisation that promotes women's human rights. It works internationally to combat sexual exploitation in all its forms, especially prostitution and trafficking in women and children, in particularly girls. Visit their web site to find out more.

Zimbabwe's once vibrant civic movement is facing its greatest challenge as the country sinks deeper into economic and political chaos, but analysts and ordinary Zimbabweans say civil society is failing the test amid worsening government repression and public apathy.

People living with HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) are set to finally benefit from the US $72 million granted to the province nearly eight months ago by the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Botswana plans to treble its distribution of condoms in a bid to curb the spread of AIDS in the country, which has one of the world's highest infection rates, the health minister said on Thursday. The aim of a new government drive is to hand out enough condoms so that most of the African country's 1.7 million people will not have to go more than a kilometer to get hold of one.

The Ogiek, who number around 20,000, are arguably the largest hunter-gatherer community in Kenya. They have identified themselves as an indigenous people, as defined in Article 1(b) of International Labour Organisation Convention No. 169,1 and the United Nations (UN) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights have recognized them as such. This report from Minority Rights International focuses on the displacement of the Ogiek people from their land, their underdevelopment and the threat to their culture. It also assesses the impact on the Ogiek of the loss of their land.

Most Nigerian and outside analysts agree that Nigeria neither faces nor poses a significant external security threat. The real security threats to Nigerians are internal, and directly related to the economic and social issues. As poverty, AIDS, and inequality increase, can the country avoid a return to military rule? Can politicians and the military dampen and manage conflicts among Nigeria's diverse peoples, or will they exploit and exacerbate the divisions? Can the police and justice system improve their capacity to provide protection against both violent crime and its white-collar counterpart? In the long term, Nigeria's role as a force for regional stability will depend on answers to these questions. This is according to an article published by Africa Action, that includes information on US policy towards Nigeria, the problem of debt and public investment and the Nigerian diaspora.

A large number of countries in the Sub-Saharian African (SSA) region have privatised water supply. But water privatisation, says research from Public Services International, can be costly and difficult to achieve in practice while the public management of water might appear more effective than the private one. "In conclusion, privatisation is not a miracle cure for a poorly performing utility and it is just one of a number of reform options and needs to be considered as such."

This paper by the Center for International Development (CID), uses sales data on HIV/AIDS drugs in a sample of 34 low and middle income countries between 1995 and 1999 to assess empirically the impact of patents on unsubsidized access to a new drug therapy. The main finding is that patent rights do have a negative effect on unsubsidized access to HIV/AIDS drugs. Between 1995 and 1999, switching all HIV/AIDS drugs from a patent regime to a no patent regime would have actually increased access to therapy at least by 30%.

Somali factions attending peace talks underway in Eldoret, Kenya, face expulsion or other sanctions if they continue to violate the ceasefire agreement, Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo Musyoka warned on Monday.

A group of Guguletu youth - some victims of domestic violence and some affected by it - say perpetrators of rape, women and children abuse should be punished more harshly. National Adolescent Friendly Clinic Intiative 's Sbongile Pilane and his peers, all adolescent youth, are educating thousands of other youth them about their sexual rights and the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

The Ethiopian government is muzzling educators and students with a policy of harsh repression that includes extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and widespread denials of freedom of opinion and association, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.

The crucial case for the 'Bushmen' of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) has been referred to Botswana's High Court to be heard as 'a matter of urgency'. The court will consider the case brought by over 200 Bushmen and determine if they were deprived of their land by the Botswana government forcibly, wrongly or without their consent. At least 1500 Bushmen have been evicted from the CKGR in the last six years.

A survey conducted in Kenya by a corruption watchdog has found that ordinary Kenyans were forced to pay less money in bribes last year than in the previous year. The survey by Transparency International said that ordinary Kenyans had become emboldened and were beginning to challenge the culture of bribe-taking.

Since the promulgation of the repressive Public Order and Security Act (POSA), the police have selectively used it to curtail the freedoms of the opposition and civil society through summary arrests, says the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe. Those arrested are usually taken to police stations unknown to their lawyers and families. Some have been assaulted and others even tortured. In most cases, the accused are either released without charge or have their cases dropped due to lack of evidence.

Solidarity for Peace in Zimbabwe has called on competing cricket teams, cricket unions, reporters and cricket supporters to insist that the security shields around cricket grounds be removed. "We are told their purpose is to protect the players. In reality we know that their real purpose is to prevent the cricketers and visitors from seeing the plight of people outside," said a statement.

How do urban women manage their health in their day-to-day lives? Can the organisation of living space lead to poor health? What health challenges are presented by communal living? These questions are explored in research from University Laval, Quebec, into health practices in a squatter commune in Mali.

Fatherland TV, a rebel-run television, shows how new recruits, some as young as 13, go through the rigours of military training in northern Cote d'Ivoire. One of the recruits, Alpha Soumahoro, a high school dropout from Bouake, the second city of Cote d'Ivoire, which is held by rebels, says he is fighting to restore the ‘dignity' of his ethnic group, the Dioulas.

The preparations for the SAHR 2003 are underway. The theme for this year is equity. We would like to invite you to submit your suggestions on what you think should be covered in this Review, by 15 Feb 2003.

"The people being starved to death are not white; the majority of those killed by the regime's killing machine are not white; those who languish in jail as I speak to you and are subjected to incessant torture and sub-human conditions are not white; those in the rural areas who are daily subjected to brutal treatment are not white. It is therefore despicable and cheap for anyone to reduce such a tragedy to an issue of race for the sake of a fake African brotherhood and political expediency." - Morgan Tsvangarai, quoted in the Zimbabwe Independent, January 24, 2003

Just four months after the infamous World Summit on Sustainable Development, world leaders and corporates (such as Shell) gathered this week in Davos, Switzerland, to further entrench globalisation and its associated ills, says environmental NGO groundWork.

Bridges.org and the International Institute for Communication and Development have launched a case study project to search for innovative and effective uses of ICT at the ground level. "We are hoping that the project would establish a resource for ICTs and development stories that would, over time, begin to show a pattern of best practice. The intention is to disseminate the case studies through a variety of channels to reach the widest possible audience."

The Namibian government is investigating incidents of looting of relief food in recent weeks. The Namibian newspaper has reported that large quantities of maize meal, cooking oil and other commodities meant for drought relief had been looted in the Kavango and Ohangwena Regions, in the north and north-western parts of the country.

Somali leaders attending the peace talks in the Kenyan town of Eldoret have proposed that extra delegates be allocated to represent the self-declared republic of Somaliland in northwestern Somalia, according to one of the leaders.

Amnesty International last Friday said the level of fear among human rights activists in Zimbabwe has never been greater. The rights group called on the authorities to immediately cease the crackdown on activists perceived to be opponents of President Robert Mugabe's government.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Southern Africa, James T. Morris, has highlighted the plight of women and children amid the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and food shortages.

A coalition of 24 Nigerian political parties on Thursday filed a suit in an Abuja court challenging the decision of the country's electoral commission to impose fees on contestants in coming general elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had announced it would charge as "processing fees" amounts ranging from 500,000 naira (US $4,000) for presidential candidates to 25,000 naira ($200) for those seeking local government councillorships.