All forms of violence against women and girls committed in the name of honour should be criminalized, and those deliberately participating in such acts should be penalized, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a new report.

Opposition parties in Cameroon have continued to suffer the fallout of municipal and legislative elections on 30 June in which they lost much of the ground they won in 1997.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) last week completed the repatriation of Sierra Leonean refugees who had returned from Guinea to their original homes in Sierra Leone, the agency's spokesman Kris Janowski said in Geneva last Friday.

The Bush Administration should move urgently to disburse special funds to address the refugee emergency in West Africa, where some 70,000 new refugees from Liberia have flooded into neighboring countries this year fleeing intensified civil war, says the US Committee for Refugees.

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed an agreement on July 30, promising to put an end to the war that has raged in Congo since 1998. However, it is too soon to rejoice. The signatories are deeply suspicious of one another, and implementation of the agreement could break down.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) resident representative Mark Ellyne has said his organisation was not surprised at reported high levels of corruption under the Chiluba regime.

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, and Vincent Cerf, co-designer of the TCP/IP protocol upon which the internet functions, share their new visions for networked communications.

"Despite Algeria's troubled political situation, it is potentially a big connectivity market. Recently it has begun to open itself up to competition and although progress is slow, significant steps forward have been made."

President Yoweri Museveni has written to Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony setting out terms for peace talks.

The number of HIV/Aids orphans in the country has reached the 1.1 million mark, Public Health Minister, Prof. Sam Ongeri, has said. This makes Kenya the third worst hit country in the world, he added.

Aid officials in northern Angola have warned of a new humanitarian crisis in that part of the country, once the coming rainy season blocks access to an already vulnerable population.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has completed a preliminary distribution of plastic sheeting and blankets to 600 displaced families in the town of Minembwe, most of whom had fled nearby villages almost completely destroyed during recent clashes in the Haut Plateaux region of South Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

President Bush is expected to announce that he will withhold $5.1 billion in contingency funding. The amount includes $200 million earmarked for international HIV/AIDS initiatives.

Global drug dealers are earning billions of dollars from trade in endangered species and toxic waste, environmental law experts said Monday.

Global water use has increased six-fold over the last century, twice the rate of population growth, and agriculture represents 70 percent of this consumption, the United Nations reports in advance of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). People across the world are dying from hunger as drought shrivels crops again this year.

This is just to say thank you for the very informative Pambazuka! I have
enjoyed reading the materials, which I have found to be very educative and informative.

In Khayelitsha, South Africa, MSF is running an anti-retroviral therapy (ART) treatment programme where the results have been exceptional. Based on the results from the first six months of treatment to 177 patients in the programme, over 85 percent of the patients have responded with high rates of improvement.

The Ghanaian parliament on Monday approved a fourth extension - for four weeks - of a state of emergency and curfew in northern Ghana's Dagbon traditional area, whose king and 29 other people were killed in March, state radio reported on Monday.

Research suggests that proper treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) could reduce HIV incidence by as much as 40 percent. What is the best way to tackle STIs in countries with limited resources? Pharmacists are the most common source of STI treatment in Ghana. Should the government's HIV prevention strategy include training for pharmacists in STI management?

Hygiene education for women is a standard component of water supply projects. However, evaluations frequently reveal little change in hygiene and sanitation behaviour and so water-borne illnesses persist. Why is it so hard to convey water-related health messages?

A major report published this week by the International Bar Association (IBA) exposes how threats to freedom and justice have triggered off a chain reaction putting millions of people in Malawi under threat of famine.

Togolese traditional chiefs, religious leaders and health specialists have been trained to promote women's rights at a seminar organised by a non-governmental organisation, Women in Law and Development in Africa.

Please take action to denounce the trial of South African activists protesting government policy. Demand the African National Congress, South Africa's ruling party, implement free water and electricity services to their impoverished people, as was internationally advertised two years ago! Send an email or fax a letter to Mayor Masondo, denouncing his treatment and arrest of activists who protested the failure to address the lack of affordable water and electricity in April. Their trial begins on August 15.

A senior government minister has accepted that corruption is a problem following allegations levelled by Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group.

Spontaneous returns of Angolan refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had slowed down, amid reports of the lack of food, schools and medical facilities in Angola, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Kris Janowski said in a statement.

I enjoy your newsletter, usually read through it, and follow up links to specific stories. I have also passed on copies to colleagues working in development. Keep it up.

Recent revelations to the effect that Kenya will lose approximately 25,000 teachers to HIV/Aids within the next 10 years spells doom for the country's education sector. This is a sector that is currently suffering from a shortage of staff as a result of sporadic teacher recruitment.

The candidate must be a team player, with a strong background in conflict resolution theory and practice. The candidate will have worked in conflict and/or post violent conflict societies, particularly on issues related to conflict management programming and training methodologies.

This Sub-Regional Training and Programming Coordinator (SRTPC) is located in the Coastal West/Central region and is based out of Dakar, Senegal. The SRTPC provides the sub-regional posts with assistance in developing the professional and management skills of the training and programming staffs, including the Associate Peace Corps Directors.

A Resource Center Manager is needed to set-up and run the Learning Support Office (LSO)of the Malawi Resource Centre for six months from September.

The Center for Victims of Torture is seeking a Deputy Director for hire to coordinate the implementation of a psycho-social mental health project in Sierra Leone for repatriated refugees or internally displaced persons from Sierra Leone who have suffered torture and war trauma.

Youth and Students from different parts of the world will congregate in Nairobi between 9th and 13th June 2003 at the II International Youth and Students Conference on HIVAIDS (IYSCA). The Conference will bring together youth and student-based CBOs, researchers, NGOs and Associations, Donors, Governments, Academic institutions and the corporate sector.

The Nigeria Chapter of Teachers Without Borders is commencing the training of teachers, volunteers, religious and youth leaders to serve as HIV/AIDS education teachers.It will commence in Port Harcourt before the end of August.

Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya on Monday announced the government had given the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) civil society forum R15,8m.

Afrox is to donate an extra R1 million to 115 child care organisations as part of the group's 75th anniversary. Afrox Community Involvement Process (CIP) co-ordinator Renee Selfe announced at the same time that disadvantaged children in South Africa and especially in the Eastern Cape can look forward to a treat next month.

The British Commonwealth Education Fund (BCEF) is to donate US $920,000 to promote early education initiatives in Kenya.

The biggest attempt to tackle the Earth's worsening environment problems and help the planet's poorest gets underway in less than two weeks, but already the prospect of failure hangs over the Johannesburg summit. Wrangling over textual nuances, squabbling over financial commitments and a doctrinal row between Europe and Washington could hollow out the summit, transforming the second Earth Summit into a ludicrous exercise in hot air.

The Center for Democratic Development (CDD)has called for the formulation of a framework for Corruption Impact Analysis (CIA) to evaluate and assess the acceptability of important policy measures, laws and regulations to mitigate corruption.

'Some call me the devil," says Ed Fagan, delightedly. We are in a smart Cape Town waterfront hotel and Fagan, a consummate showman, is thoroughly enjoying himself as he details the multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuit he has launched against multinational corporations and banks, including Barclays Bank, accused of propping up apartheid. "I'm not the devil - but I can be," he says. "The devil's a guy who does a job and gets a bad rap."

Ruling party militants attempted to push a family of white farmers off their property Wednesday in the most serious bid to force defiant farmers to honor a government eviction order, farmer representatives said.

Amnesty International expressed concern last Wednesday at "increasing attacks on freedom of expression" in The Gambia following the arrest of three journalists.

RSF has called for an investigation into the death of freelance journalist Don Kulapani, who was killed on 8 August during a hold-up at a bar in the capital, Lilongwe.

In a 12 August 2002 letter to President Daniel arap Moi, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed outrage over the six-month jail sentence handed down to Njehu Gatabaki, opposition member of parliament and the publisher and editor-in-chief of "Finance" magazine. The case stems from a December 1997 report in "Finance", titled "Moi ordered Molo Massacre," alleging that the president was responsible for ethnic clashes that plagued parts of Rift Valley Province in the early 1990s.

The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare says the measles immunisation and Vitamin A supplementation exercise conducted in the first two weeks of July did not reach the intended target of 2 million children under the age of five.

Christopher is a 13-year-old boy who lives a few miles from the village of Kassana, one hour from Kampala, the capital of Uganda. After losing his mother to AIDS this past December, Christopher is one of the estimated 1.7 million children orphaned by the epidemic in this country.

Development NGOs operating in Africa have inadvertently become part of the neo-liberal global agenda, serving to undermine the battle for social justice and human rights in much the same way as their missionary predecessors, argues a paper in the July issue of International Affairs. The paper says that the contribution of NGOs to relieving poverty is minimal, while they play a “significant role” in undermining the struggle of African people to emancipate themselves from economic, social and political oppression. In this compromised position, NGOs face a stark choice: They can move into the political domain and support social movements that seek to challenge a social system that benefits a few and impoverishes the majority; or they can continue unchanged and thus become complicit in a system that leaves the majority in misery.

Entitled ‘The Missionary Position: NGOs and Development in Africa’, and co-authored by Firoze Manji and Carl O’Coill, the paper traces the emergence and role of NGOs on the continent from their missionary beginnings through to the discourse of ‘development’ that emerged in the post-independence period and the later influence of structural adjustment programmes and globalisation.

Beginning in colonial Africa, the paper argues that missionary organisations played a key role in winning the ideological war that supported the colonial apparatus. “While colonial philanthropy may have been motivated by religious conviction, status, compassion or guilt, it was also motivated by fear. In Britain and the colonies alike, politicians frequently alluded to the threat of revolution and actively encouraged greater interest in works of benevolence as a solution to social unrest. In short, charity was not only designed to help the poor, it also served to protect the rich.”

In some cases, charitable organisations “actively” helped to suppress anti-colonial struggles, as was the case in Kenya, where the Women’s Association, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake (MYWO) and the Christian Council of Kenya (CCK) were both involved in government-funded schemes designed to subvert black resistance during the ‘Mau Mau’ uprising.

But independence created a crisis for these organisations because they had in many cases opposed nationalistic tendencies. However, instead of dying a natural death they were in fact able to prosper – a result Manji and O’Coill argue was due to the emergence of the ‘development NGO’ on the national and international stage.

Independence, they argue, had forced missionary societies and charitable organisations to reinvent their attitude of ‘trusteeship’ associated with colonial oppression. They did this by replacing white staff with black and revamping their ideological outlook by appropriating the new discourse on ‘development’ in place of overt racism.

The difference was in name only, say the authors. Development discourse was flawed from the beginning because non-Western people were defined by their divergence from Western cultural standards. “While the vision of ‘development’ appeared to offer a more inclusive path to ‘progress’ than had previously been the case, in fact the discourse was little more than a superficial reformulation of old colonial prejudices.”

However, during this time period NGOs were regarded by development agencies as playing a peripheral role in development, with the state assuming overarching responsibility for this role. This meant that the role of NGOs in the post-independent period remained marginal.

This was set to change with a new set of political circumstances that led to a boom in NGOs on the continent. The late 1970s saw the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US, with both leaders championing the concept of the minimalist state. According to this outlook the state had to take a backseat in development and create the economic conditions for the accumulation of wealth by a minority. The rest of society would begin to benefit when growth “trickled down” from the wealthy. This neo-liberal agenda “radically” altered the landscape of development practice say Manji and O’Coill.

African countries were at this time heavily in debt and this gave the multilateral lending agencies the leverage they needed to impose their neo-liberal policy demands, something that was not always popular with African people. Manji and O’Coill argue that unhappiness with economic adjustment and its polices was often widespread and led to demonstrations that were sometimes violently suppressed. The protests in turn led to an attempt by lending agencies to present a “human face” to their policies. What emerged was the ‘good governance’ agenda of the 1990s and the decision to co-opt NGOs and other civil society organisations to a repackaged programme of welfare provision.

NGOs suddenly found themselves in the situation where they usurped the state as the provider of social services to the ‘vulnerable’ and became the beneficiaries of funds intended to mitigate the inequalities of adjustment policies. This had a “profound” impact on the sector and together with an increase in their function as a conduit for government aid led to dramatic growth in the number of NGOs in Africa.

Globalisation therefore led to a “loss of authority” by African states over social development and policy. At the same time, Manji and O’Coill point out, social conditions worsened because of external controls over areas such as health, education and welfare measures and social programmes, tax concessions on profits, liberalisation of price controls, and dismantling of state owned enterprises.

In fact, development appears to have failed, says the paper, with real per capita GDP falling and welfare gains achieved after independence reversed. Per-capita incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa fell by 21 percent in real terms between 1981 and 1989. In 16 other Sub-Saharan countries per capita incomes were lower in 1999 than in 1975.

The situation in which NGOs thrived, was therefore one of continued poverty and an increase in armed conflict. “As African governments increasingly become pushed into becoming caretakers of what might be described as the peripheral Bantustans of globalisation, are we seeing a return to the colonial paradigm in which social services are delivered on the basis of favour or charity and their power to placate?”

Manji and O’Coill state that NGOs have come to be preferred to the state as providers of services. “Development NGOs have become an integral, and necessary, part of a system that sacrifices respect for justice and rights. They have taken the ‘missionary position’ – service delivery, running projects that are motivated by charity, pity and doing things for people (implicitly who can’t do it for themselves), albeit with the verbiage of participatory approaches.”

Manji and O’Coill use the example of apartheid South Africa to illustrate the choice open to NGOs. NGOs either supported the emerging movements that aimed to topple the Nationalist regime or they kept quiet – a position tantamount to complicity with a system of exploitation.

“The challenge that both local and Western NGOs face in making this choice will be that funding – at least from the bilateral and multilateral agencies – will not necessarily be forthcoming to support the struggle for emancipation. But then, one would hardly have expected the apartheid regime in South Africa to have funded the movement that brought about the downfall of the regime,” the paper concludes.

Published in International Affairs, 78:3 (2002) 567-83.

Angola's civil war may have ended, but the behaviour and attitudes of its people are still dominated by violence, with women often on the receiving end.

International aid agencies lack coordination when dealing with long-term assistance for internally displaced and returnee populations in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, says a report from the United Nations Coordination Unit/Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNCU/OCHA).