Pambazuka News 515: Egypt: A revolution reflected

Days after the global elite's jamboree at the Swiss resort of Davos, a week-long carnival of the oppressed and the marginalised, and those speaking for them, has begun in the capital of this western African nation, with thousands of left-leaning activists declaiming against globalisation and its discontents. The debates will revolve around resistance and struggles of the peoples of Africa for sustainable development as the continent zooms back into global focus, with some of African economies...read more

Without access to sanitary towels, a girl child in the SADC region may be excluded from her right to education. The Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF) and the Girl Child Network (GCN) have discovered that despite the provision of free schooling by the Kenyan government, more than 800,000 children (mostly girls) continue to forgo the opportunity of education. The CGE and the GCN found that during menstruation, some girls refused to go to school because they cannot access sanitary towels and the...read more

Government has launched the Gender Responsive Budget Programme which seeks to ensure equality in the budgetary process. The project, which is in conjunction with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) will incorporate four main areas of activities. The activities are gender citizen report cards, budget tracking from the gender perspective, budget statements and gender-aware policy appraisals.

Zimbabwe's main rival political parties on Saturday condemned a spate of violent clashes among their supporters, which Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai blames on President Robert Mugabe's youth brigades. In the last two weeks, Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has traded accusations with Mugabe's ZANU-PF party over attacks on some MDC members in townships around the capital Harare, including the burning down of a satellite party office.

Zimbabwe's defence minister has said the army will crush any Egyptian-style uprising led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. The latter said last week that there is nothing wrong with people demanding their rights, including in Zimbabwe. 'We in Zanu PF (Mugabe’s party, ed.) are determined to make sure that there is peace,' defence minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said to military commanders in the weekend. 'Those who may want to emulate what happened in Tunisia or what is happening in Egypt will ...read more

Pages