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- Volume 18, Issue 4, 2005
Africa Renewal - Volume 18, Issue 4, 2005
Volume 18, Issue 4, 2005
The Africa Renewal magazine examines the many issues that confront the people of Africa, its leaders and its international partners: sustainable development goals, economic reform, debt, education, health, women's empowerment, conflict and civil strife, democratization, investment, trade, regional integration and many other topics. It tracks policy debates. It provides expert analysis and on-the-spot reporting to show how those policies affect people on the ground. And, it highlights the views of policy-makers, non-governmental leaders and others actively involved in efforts to transform Africa and improve its prospects in the world today. The magazine also reports on and examines the many different aspects of the United Nations’ involvement in Africa, especially within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
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Darfur crisis challenges Africa, world
Author: Itai MadamombeDespite ceasefire agreements between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups in that country’s western Darfur region, fighting again erupted in November, posing a serious challenge to African and international efforts to find a peaceful solution. “Chaos is looming as order is collapsing,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned in December. “Unfortunately, the optimism generated on the political front was overshadowed by regression in the security situation.”
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Africans push to tame malaria
Author: Itai MadamombeThe Ugandan government announced in October that it would distribute 4.5 mn free insecticide-treated bed nets to protect children and pregnant women from malaria, thereby boosting the East African country’s efforts to conquer the mosquito-borne disease. According to Mr. John Bosco Rwakimari, head of the Ugandan Health Ministry’s malariacontrol programme, the treated net has several benefits: it works as a barrier between the body and the mosquito, it repels mosquitoes and it kills those that land on it.
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Small steps can make a big difference
Author: United NationsThe Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include halving world poverty and slashing child mortality by two-thirds, are as challenging as they are ambitious, Mr. Sachs said at UN headquarters in New York in late September, in briefings on the work of the Millennium Project, which he directs. But meeting those goals, said Mr. Sachs, can be as simple as distributing a $1.50 mosquito net or providing a family farmer with a sack of fertilizer. “These are not metaphysical problems. These are not grand cultural problems. . . . These are practical problems, and they don’t cost very much money.”
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Energy key to Africa’s prosperity
Author: Itai MadamombeOn the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, business plans are only as final as the next electricity outage permits. In July, food tins at the Prime Pak canning factory were positioned on the assembly line, ready to be sealed before export. Without warning, the machines came to a screeching halt, leaving entrepreneur Cyril Francis standing helplessly in the dark. Thirty per cent of the consignment spoiled.
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Scientist wins prize for new African rice
Author: United NationsDr. Monty Jones, a plant scientist from Sierra Leone, became the first African ever to win the prestigious World Food Prize at a ceremony in the US farming state of Iowa on 14 October. He was honoured for his breakthrough work in developing the New Rice for Africa (Nerica), a drought-resistant, high-yielding, protein-rich type of rice. Nerica has been embraced by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as an example of the kind of innovative efforts that can help spur Africa’s agricultural development and reduce hunger (see Africa Recovery, January 2004).
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Beyond the ballot: Widening African reform
Author: Gumisai MutumeNot too long ago, public demands for accountable and transparent governments in many African countries were often made at the risk of persecution, imprisonment or death. While repressive governments are yet to be eliminated across the continent, significant change is taking place in a growing number of countries. Civil society is growing and applying pressure for better performance, the media are demanding transparency across all sectors of society and governments are realizing that the days of coercive politics are numbered.
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States call each other to account
Author: Gumisai MutumeSetting the pace for other African states, Rwanda has become one of the first to allow external oversight of its performance under a new continental peer review programme. Rwanda’s assessment began in February 2004 under the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an instrument that seeks to promote democracy and accountability on the continent. “Despite the significant economic and social progress made in the recent past, Rwanda still faces heavy challenges,” says Mr. Claver Gatete, a high-ranking Rwandan government official. Those relate mainly to the economic structure and poor governance, which contributed to the 1994 genocide, he explains. Rwanda confronts insufficient or ineffective government structures, a weak public sector, high population growth rates and unemployment. It also faces a host of economic and social problems that make the country difficult to run. Rwanda witnessed one of the worst genocides in modern history when 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by militias and armed forces linked to the government in power at the time.
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Sexual violence, an ‘invisible war crime’
Authors: Nirit Ben-Ari and Ernest HarschIn 1991, at the very beginning of Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war, a 19-year-old woman crossed paths with a group of 10 rebels, led by the notorious commander “Mosquito,” just outside the town of Telu Bongor. “Mosquito was the first person who raped me,” she later recounted. “Then he ordered his men to continue the act. Nine other men continued to rape me. . . . After misusing me to their satisfaction, the rebels left me alone in a very hopeless condition. . . . Even now the pain is still in me, which is creating problems in my marital home, because my husband drives me from my home and says that I am barren.”
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Investors start to eye Africa
Author: Ernest HarschUsually, when investors look around for someplace to put their money, Africa is practically invisible. But at a time of uncertainty in global financial and capital markets — and with natural resources such as oil in high demand — a few are starting to give more than a passing glance in Africa’s direction. In fact, inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) to African countries increased in 2003 by 28 per cent from the year before, from $12 bn to $15 bn (see graph).
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