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- Volume 26, Issue 3, 2013
Africa Renewal - Volume 26, Issue 3, 2013
Volume 26, Issue 3, 2013
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Stabilizing Somalia: A new chapter begins
Author: Jocelyne SambiraWhen a Turkish Airlines flight touched down at Aden Adde International Airport near the Somali capital of Mogadishu on 16 March, it seemed like a sign of good things to come. It was the first time in more than 20 years that a passenger plane from Europe had flown into the volatile city. Today, more than half a year later, the country has a parliament, a provisional constitution, a new president and a prime minister.
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China in the heart of Africa
Author: Kingsley Ighobor‘China’s gift to Africa.” The new headquarters of the African Union, a towering 20-storey building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is so called because China picked up the $200 million tab for the state-of-the-art complex. Ethiopia’s tallest building, completed in December 2011 in time for an AU summit the following month, includes a 2,500-seat conference hall. The gift prompted Ethiopia’s late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to refer to Africa’s current economic boom as a “renaissance,” due partly to China’s “amazing re-emergence and its commitments to a win-win partnership with Africa.”
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What went wrong? Lessons from Malawi’s food crisis
Author: Masimba TafirenyikaOnce again Malawi finds itself in a tight spot. A food crisis set off by erratic rains, rising food prices and economic hardships is slowly unfolding. For the first time in several years, the country’s ability to feed its citizens is at risk. Sadly and unexpectedly, Malawi has lost its hardearned status as an agricultural success story — it used to produce enough maize for its people to eat and still provide a surplus to neighbours. Many are now wondering what went wrong and whether there could be lessons for other African countries.
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Africa’s food policy needs sharper teeth
Author: Masimba TafirenyikaAmid raving economic forecasts that Africa will be the next big emerging market, chronic food shortages remain stubbornly immune to solutions. The African Union is aware of this weak link and is working to convince its members to boost investments in agriculture.
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Ghana’s ‘new path’ for handling oil revenue
Author: Efam Awo DoviWhen the oil rigs started pumping crude off the coast of Ghana’s Western Region in December 2009, many people hoped for better living standards and development. But some worried that the country did not have the necessary laws to properly manage the new revenues. They wondered whether Ghana would be able to break the “curse” that has often marked Africa’s oil and mining industries: decades of extraction that often saw only a few getting richer but the majority getting poorer, economic distortions caused by improperly managed resource wealth and hardly any money set aside for times when commodity prices dip or the wells dry up.
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Politics of succession: Coping when leaders die
Author: Kingsley IghoborIn December 2008, a Guinean newspaper published a photo of a frail and ailing President Lansana Conté, who appeared to be struggling to stand up. The photo stoked rumours of the president’s ill health. Its publication also angered the country’s political elite, who hastily ordered the editor’s arrest. By the next day, on the instructions of security operatives, the publication’s front page carried an even bigger photo of Mr. Conté — this time smiling broadly and looking spirited. But he died just a week later, justifying the newspaper’s initial resolve to let Guineans know that his health was failing.
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After Africa’s wars, a ‘new day’ for building peace Interview: Judy Cheng-Hopkins visiting a youth centre in Gihanga, Burundi, a peacebuilding project supported by the UN
Author: United NationsConcerned about the fragile state of countries that have recently emerged from war — and their vulnerability to new bouts of violence — the UN in 2005 established the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), an intergovernmental body led by member states. The PBC currently has six countries on its active agenda, all of them in Africa (Burundi, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and the Central African Republic). Also in 2005, the UN set up the Peacebuilding Support Office, as a secretariat for the PBC. Since 2009 that office has been headed by Assistant Secretary-General Judy Cheng-Hopkins. From Malaysia, she has had wide experience in various UN food relief, refugee and development agencies, including working in East and Southern Africa for a decade for the UN Development Programme. In October, shortly after a visit to assess UN peacebuilding projects in Burundi, Ms. Cheng-Hopkins spoke with Africa Renewal’s managing editor, Ernest Harsch, about the challenges facing post-war Africa.
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‘Ensure that everyone benefits from economic gains’ Interview: UN Special Adviser on Africa Maged Abdelaziz: Mobilizing more financial resources from within African countries is a major goal of the African Union
Author: United NationsIn May 2012, Maged Abdelaziz was appointed as the UN’s new special adviser on Africa, at the level of under-secretary-general. As head of the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA), he is in charge of advocating for African development internationally and helping coordinate the efforts of UN agencies and departments in support of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the African Union’s continental plan for political, economic and social advancement. Although new to his post, he is no stranger to the global community’s interaction with Africa. As part of a long diplomatic career on behalf of his native Egypt, he was that country’s permanent representative to the UN in New York for the seven years just prior to his most recent appointment, and in that capacity served as vice-president of the UN General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, among other duties. As OSAA prepared for new General Assembly debates on Africa in October, he shared some of his thoughts with Africa Renewal.
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Reconstructive surgery brings hope to survivors of genital cutting
Author: Jocelyne SambiraTonte Ikoluba was 13 years old when her grandmother came to her family home to circumcise her. She remembers it as if it were yesterday. Her grandmother coaxed her and told her not to worry. It was important she go through the rite, she was told, in order to become a respectable woman and increase her chances of getting married some day.
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Africa wired
Author: United NationsImagine getting a text message telling you when and how to take your diabetes medication. Or a voice mail reminding you of your next mammogram. That’s what two UN agencies are hoping to do with mobile technology to save lives, reduce illness and disability and bring down healthcare costs
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News: Africa watch
Author: United NationsAmid continuing calls to increase primary school enrolment in Africa, a new report urges greater emphasis on the quality of what students learn. The Africa Progress Panel, a policy think tank chaired by Kofi Annan, a former UN secretary-general, noted in September that “many of the children in school are receiving an education of such abysmal quality that they are learning very little.” Its report, entitled A Twin Education Crisis Is Holding Back Africa, says that Africa’s children are leaving school “lacking basic literacy and numeracy” and without “21st century skills.”
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