Gender Links is inviting submissions from women and men across Southern Africa who are involved in polygamous relationships. We will select an assortment of these experiences and life stories to be included in a special collection of "I” Stories, that will be published in a book series, on the GL website and offered to in the mainstream media across the region. Each "I” Story will share the personal experience of someone who has been involved in a polygamous relationship – husbands, wives, and children. Those wishing to use a pseudonym are welcome to do so, and should indicate this when submitting.

The Centre for Citizens’ Participation in the African Union organised, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Fifth Citizens’ Continental Conference on the 13th African Union (AU) summit themed ‘Investing in Agriculture for Economic Growth and Food Security’. The civil society organisations convened drew up recommendations on issues including agriculture, land management and food security and peace and security on the continent. Meanwhile, the Director General of the Food and Agricultural Organisation, Jacques Diouf called the growing trend of leasing or selling huge and fertile African land to foreign investors for large-scale agricultural projects and biofuel production a form of ‘neo-colonialism’. Indeed as the African Union prepares for its summit in Lybia under the theme ‘Investing in Agriculture for Economic Growth and Food Security’, analysts observe that the export oriented African agriculture of cash crops such as cocoa, cotton and fresh fruits for the international market ‘caters for the foreign consumers more than for the local communities’, which forces Africa states to import subsistence crops like rice, millet, manioc and maize especially from China and the European Union.

Members of the United Nations Security Council delegation recently concluded a visit to Africa aiming to enhance collaboration with the AU to promote peace and security on the continent. Meanwhile, heads of State and government of the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa called on the International Criminal Court to suspend its arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. Further, Richard Cornwell, of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, suggests that ‘many of Africa’s states have complex legal codes, but no real rule of law’. Meanwhile, as the Pan African Parliament (PAP), the future legislative body of the AU, held elections, it is suggested that PAP ‘has neither any tangible impact’ on the lives of Africans ‘nor a public profile to speak of’.

Dambisa Moyo argues in her book ‘Dead Aid’ that ‘no country on Earth has ever achieved long-term growth and reduced poverty in a meaningful way by relying on aid’ and that the strategy of aid that has no ‘evidence of working anywhere on Earth’ could not work in Africa. Finally, Asare Otchere-Darkothe of the Danquah Institute examines the reasons ‘why Ghana is now the subject of strategic U.S. energy and military interests which, as far as the Obama administration is concerned, has raised the stakes considerably in Ghana–United States relations’.

AFRODAD, a pan-African regional organization providing research-based lobby and advocacy in issues of Debt, Development Aid and Economic Governance is seeking to recruit a Team of competent people to fill the positions of Executive Director, Policy Advisor on Debt, Policy Advisor on Fair and Transparent Arbitration Mechanisms on Debt; Policy Advisor on Economic Governance and Development Aid. The Team will be based at the AFRODAD Secretariat in Harare, Zimbabwe. Application deadline is 28th June 2009.