Cape Town water activist Nokuzola Bulana says water management devices are not the way to solve water waste and debt for the poor. Credit: Brendon Bosworth/IPS

Nokuzola Bulana has a problem with leaks. The water that drips from the pipes of the toilet outside her home in Khayelitsha, a large semi-informal township on the fringes of Cape Town, South Africa goes to waste and drives up her water bill.

Bulana, a water activist, says she fixed the leaks in January but water on the floor at the base of the toilet, which is inside a stall painted with pink, yellow and purple stripes, and pooled on the ground outside the stall, shows that seepages persist.

In March, her eight-person home used over seven times the amount of water the city of Cape Town gives indigent households for free in a month. Bulana blames the leaks for this.

“We don’t mind to pay for the water we drink or cook with but now the water goes down the drain,” Bulana tells IPS when interviewed at her home. “I love the environment. I want to look after the water.”

Bulana is one of many South Africans whose wasted water contributes to the country’s yearly loss of more than a third of its water – a shortfall driven chiefly by leaks, according to a 2012 report from the South African Water Research Commission. These losses cost municipalities more than 731 million dollars annually and drive poor citizens into debt they often cannot afford to pay.

South Africa is also the 30^th driest country in the world and could hit water shortages as early as 2025. It can scarcely afford to squander this resource.

Water saving devices denounced

At about 4 pm on a Saturday afternoon, there was no water coming from the tap outside 60-year-old Lusi Daniso’s house in Khayelitsha. This is a regular occurrence, Daniso tells IPS.

She claims she gets just 20 litres of water daily – not enough for the eight people living in her home – and has to ask her neighbours for water.

Daniso’s home is one of about 84,000 in Cape Town where the city has installed water management devices (WMDs). Housed in oval boxes with blue lids, the devices are set to provide indigent residents (those with a total monthly household income of 313 dollars or less, or a property value of 20,890 dollars or under) with 10.5 kilolitres of free water per month. This allotment is broken into a 350-litre daily allowance.

The devices cut water supply once the daily limit is reached, and turn it back on the next day.

The WMDs play a key role in the city’s water management strategy and are touted as a way to deal with the 9.2 million dollars indigent households owe the city. If indigent residents choose to have a device installed, the city repairs leaks, installs the device, and cancels their outstanding water debt.

But as IPS reported previously community leaders and civil society organisations have denounced the WMDs.

The devices are going into households with low quality plumbing infrastructure, Taryn Pereira, a researcher with the non-profit Environmental Monitoring Group, based in Cape Town, tells IPS. Leaks from taps, cisterns and underground pipes result in residents not getting their daily 350 litres, she says.

Technicians fix leaks when installing the devices but repairs often don’t last and residents in poor communities don’t have the money to pay for plumbers, says Pereira.

Pereira’s research indicates that residents are not properly consulted about the devices, cut-offs due to leaks and technical problems are common, and people struggle to get help from the city when meters malfunction.

“In this city, this supposedly world-class city, many of our fellow citizens, even once they manage to get a house that they’ve been waiting a long time for on a housing list, are actually, in terms of water, worse off then when they lived in shacks,” she says.

A fragile compromise

Because of the issues with water management devices, Bulana and other residents in Makhaza, a subsection of Khayelitsha, met with city officials last year and asked for a six-month pilot programme in the subsection whereby the city will fix leaks and freeze residents’ debt without installing the devices.

“We can manage our water because we are the ones using the water,” says Bulana.

Over the past months, the city has been assessing leaks and doing education and awareness in Makhaza in preparation for fixing leaks, councillor Ernest Sonnenberg, the city’s mayoral committee member for utility services, tells IPS in an emailed response.

But that does not mean devices are off the table.

The city will review all the houses affected by the project and analyse their water use, Sonnenberg says. “If residents are unable to decrease their usage as discussed in the meeting the city will review their individual account and install a WMD if necessary.”

An eight-month-old boy with pneumonia is examined by a doctor at Amana Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

PATH, a Seattle-based global health development organisation, is aiming to save two million lives by 2015 by jointly tackling diarrhea and pneumonia, the leading killers of children globally.

Steve Davis, president and CEO of PATH, delivered the message at the ninth annual PATH Breakfast for Global Health held in Seattle on Tuesday.

“Today we placed a bold stake in the ground, with partners around the world, to save two million lives by the end of 2015,” Davis told IPS.

PATH will begin its efforts in India, Cambodia and Ethiopia, where intervention is most urgently needed and PATH has resources. While all three countries have seen their child mortality rates from diarrhea drop, India’s pneumonia death rate remains stagnant, accounting for 24 percent of deaths of children under five, the same as in 2000, according to 2013 World Health Organisation statistics.

“No parent should have to bury a child because of something we can help prevent or treat,” Davis said.

Diarrhea and pneumonia are two diseases that overwhelmingly affect children in African and Asian countries, Davis said, with diarrhea claiming around 760,000 lives a year. And while the number of children dying in Africa before the age of five has decreased, it still vastly outnumbers all other parts of the world, according to the 2013 WHO statistics.

Melinda Gates, philanthropist and founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which helps fund health development and vaccines world wide, spoke at the breakfast of the importance of vaccinating children as well as “appropriate” science that meets the needs of communities in the developing countries.

“[The] developing world is littered with pilot programmes,” Gates said.

As he took to the stage, Davis pointed to a tool belt around his suit jacket. A visual aid, the belt allowed Davis to show and carry some of the tools that can prevent the deaths of so many children from diarrheal disease, tools that will be used to achieve PATH’s life-saving goal.

Clean water, soap, zinc tablets for oral rehydration therapy and the rotavirus vaccine, which stops some diarrheal diseases before they start, were all included.

But it’s not just science and vaccines that can improve the lives of communities ravaged by diarrhea. Deeply held cultural traditions and ideas about the disease have to be altered as well.

Dr. Alfred Ochola, PATH’s Technical Advisor for Child Survival and Development in Kenya, spoke about educating Kenyans on how to reduce the risk of diarrhea in their communities through hygiene practices like hand washing.

But Ochola, who lost a brother and sister to a diarrhea outbreak in Kenya as a child, has found that at first, people are reluctant to embrace change.

“A big [challenge] is combatting old beliefs that diarrhea is a curse and not an infection, and that the death of a child is an inevitable part of life. ‘God will give you another one’ is a common saying in Kenya,” Ochola said.

Many people believe a child who has diarrhea is cursed, Ochola said. Vomiting and diarrhea are welcomed because it rids the body of the evil inside it, while it should be taken as a sign that something is seriously wrong.

Poverty is another challenge in combatting the diseases. Although heart disease and diabetes are becoming the new illnesses of poverty, according to Davis, diarrhea and pneumonia still adversely affect children of developing countries in Africa and Asia.

In Africa and Southeast Asia, the percentage of child deaths are higher than the global average and have not significantly decreased in 10 years. Both regions have seen child mortality from diarrhea fall from 13 percent to 11 percent of deaths from 2000 to 2010, but in Africa, the rate of death from pneumonia has actually increased, from 16 percent to 17 percent.

“Too many people lack the financial means to seek care when it’s most needed, like paying for transportation to get to a health facility far from home… We often reach women and their children too late,” Ochola said.

Ochola told the story of Jane Wamalwa, a Kenyan woman who came to understand the reasons behind making a change in long-held practices in treating and preventing diarrhea. Wamalwa lost three children to the disease, and has now become a trusted source of information on good anti-diarrhea practice in her community, Ochola said.

“It has become her calling,” he added.

With water usage for agriculture surpassing sustainable levels, farmers must embrace crop varieties which require little irrigation. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Amid warnings that Kenya’s agricultural water use is surpassing sustainable levels and adversely affecting food security, biodiversity researchers say that agrobiodiversity should be considered as a vital tool to combat this.

“In order to feed the nation, the country must explore agrobiodiversity, specifically (the growing of) vegetables and fruits, which have been neglected in favour of maize,” Mary Abukutsa-Onyango, a professor of horticulture at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, told IPS.

As climate change continues to wreak havoc on rainfall patterns, resulting in intermittent prolonged dry spells across this East African nation, vegetables present the best alternative to maize because they do not require large amounts of water.

The 2012/2013 Kenya country brief by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations stated that the “October to December ‘short-rains’ season performed poorly … (and) a series of dry spells also caused poor germination … leading to wilting and drying out of crops.”

According to the United States Agency for International Development Kenya, this nation is “classified among the most water scarce countries in the world.” And government statistics indicate that 13 million Kenyans lack access to improved water supply.

“In Kenya, and by extension Africa, desertification and water scarcity are a major threat to agriculture and to pastoralist communities. Strategies such as irrigation, water harvesting and conservation, and tree planting must be revamped,” Nashon Tado, of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Horn of Africa and Yemen office, told IPS.

A food security report by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute said that “official estimates indicate over 10 million people are food insecure with majority of them living on food relief.”

The Ministry of Agriculture says that at least 70 percent of Kenya’s agricultural production comes from smallholder farmers who farm on two to five acres of land. Of Kenya’s 42 million people, eight million households are involved in agriculture, with five million depending directly on it for their livelihoods.

But Kenya’s Food Security Outlook 2013, released on May 15 by the U.N. World Food Programme, confirmed that embracing other crops besides maize was improving food security here.

“Improved availability of green vegetables, green maize and legumes from early June through July is expected to diversify diets and sustain food consumption,” the report stated.

It makes sense that Kenyans should explore biodiversity. Kenya has ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, the globally negotiated agreement committed to sustainable use of biodiversity. Consequently, agrobiodiversity is being touted as a solution to the biting water stresses facing Kenya.

“This year’s International Biodiversity Day’s theme is Water and Biodiversity and is very significant as the country tries to find innovative techniques and strategies to maximise water usage,” Naomi Chepkorir, an agricultural extension officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, in Kenya’s bread basket, Rift Valley province, told IPS.

Indigenous vegetables and fruits are easy to manage, can withstand high and unpredictable temperatures, and are known to have high nutritional value and contain high concentrates of micronutrients, including iron.

“Take the spider plant and African nightshade, which are found in parts of Western and Nyanza provinces, as well as across East Africa. They are known to be nutritious, medicinal and are very rich in iron, calcium, magnesium, anti-oxidants and fibre,” Abukutsa-Onyango said.

The spider plant is known to have high levels of beta-carotene, calcium, protein, magnesium, iron and vitamin C. The plant is also high in antioxidants, which may help prevent diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Chepkorir said that generally vegetables have a shorter life cycle compared to other crops. They grow in a few weeks and require very little irrigation, hence allowing smallholder farmers to reap the benefits of their harvest earlier than they would if they planted a crop like maize – which takes up to three to four months to mature.

Abukutsa-Onyango agreed, adding that indigenous vegetables are able to adapt to climate change because they mature faster. She gave the example of the spider plant and the variety of amaranth that is indigenous to Africa, which can be harvested within three weeks of planting. She added that the slenderleaf ice plant could also withstand water deficit conditions.

Abukutsa-Onyango added that growing a diversity of indigenous vegetables and fruits “would not only address food security, but also nutrition and health security.

“People should eat a balanced diet, and currently Kenyans are consuming inadequate amounts of vegetables and fruits leading to an upsurge of diet-related diseases,” she said.

Good nutrition and healthy diets are important aspects in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The eight ambitious goals, adopted by all U.N. member states in 2000, aim to curb poverty, disease and gender inequality.

According to the MDG Report 2010 “nutrition has long been seriously overlooked and underemphasised by donors and developing countries, despite good nutrition being a key enabler to meet almost every MDG.”

Yvonne Onyango, a nutritionist in Nairobi, explained: “If a child is not well fed in its first 1,000 days, its growth is affected and the damage is irreversible. The child will never rise to the potential that other children who are well nourished do.”

Government statistics show that about 35 percent of Kenyan children suffer from malnutrition, including iron deficiency anaemia.

But water is a significant aspect of food security and management of this resource requires cooperation from many levels, according to Phillip Muthee, from Kenya’s Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA).

KEPSA is the umbrella body of organised business associations, ranging from big to small enterprises in the country.

“When water is managed and shared cooperatively, it supports livelihoods, food security and the economy,” Muthee told IPS.

Muthee feared that Kenya’s new devolved system of government could lead to potential new conflicts around the provision of and access to water. Kenya is now implementing the new system, which allows for decisions affecting Kenya’s 47 counties to be taken at grassroots, as opposed to national, level.

“For instance, the government has already committed to make about one million hectares of land irrigable. But conflict may arise between the national and county governments regarding whose responsibility it is to ensure that this is done,” Muthee said.

He worried that if this happened “water will not reach the people at the grassroots level who need it, not just to feed themselves, but to feed the nation.”

Madam Siankusulu complains of poor harvests

Fifty seven thousand people were displaced on the Zambian and Zimbabwean sides of the Zambezi River to make way for the construction of the Kariba hydroelectric dam.

Almost six decade later, they are still to be compensated for being moved from their homes.

South Africa is a country rich in culture and diversity but its Africa Day awareness seems to be lagging behind.

As the continent prepares to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity on Africa Day, 25^th of May, IPS Africa saw fit to speak to ordinary South Africans to hear how they plan to celebrate this important day.

However the responses we received were rather disappointing.

Africa Day is an annual commemoration of the historic 1963 meeting of leaders of 32 independent African states to form the OAU, now simply known as African Union (AU).

South Africa has pledged to help Nigeria make the automotive sector the West African nation’s flagship industrial target. Currently German car manufacturer BMW has a plant at Rosslyn near Pretoria. About 80 percent of the BMWs produced there are for the international market. Credit: John Fraser/IPS

The lack of economic diversification throughout sub-Saharan Africa means that despite South Africa’s pledges to help Nigeria make the automotive sector the West African nation’s flagship industrial target, it may be difficult to do so, experts say.

Earlier this month, South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies announced the initiative during a visit here by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.

It is a move that is seen as an important milestone in inter-African industrial cooperation. However, Peter Draper, a research fellow at the South African Institute of International Affairs, questioned whether this collaboration would develop into economic integration.

“The real question is whether such cooperation could ultimately evolve into meaningful, broader, economic integration rather than the network of mostly hollow shells that currently masquerade as free trade agreements,” he told IPS.

“I think that Nigeria and the Southern African Customs Union should negotiate a complementary Free Trade Area agreement to promote closer economic relations – as the complementarities are strong, and it would bring the two countries closer together politically.”

Draper said that the African Union (AU) has already developed a number of initiatives for specific sectors, but more needs to be done.

“Actually there are quite a few sectoral policies covering, inter alia, energy, communications, transport, and various other integration initiatives. The problem remains implementation, not a lack of plans,” he said.

He said that it seemed to be commonly accepted that the AU’s role was to develop and coordinate implementation of a continental “master plan” that integrates these various initiatives.

“I think there is a role for a broader continental perspective, but I prefer the notion of ‘subsidiarity’ – pioneered in the European Union – where implementation is left to the lowest possible level of government.”

Draper said that the cooperation between South Africa and Nigeria could be an important mentoring initiative for South Africa.

“South Africa has been (involved in) auto industry policy development since the mid-1920s and has a lot of experience to draw on and share,” he explained.

“It reminds me of cooperation in Latin America, which historically evolved through sectors, involving the auto industry particularly. The European Community (which became the EU) also started out through a network of sectoral collaboration – iron and steel in particular.”

Minister Davies told the Business Day newspaper that discussions on automotive cooperation with Nigeria were still at an early stage.

But while some manufacturers, such as Nissan, might be willing to set up plants in Nigeria, others are more cautious.

Bodo Donauer, the managing director of BMW South Africa, said that in his group “production follows the market” and he does not currently envisage a BMW plant being established in Nigeria.

“Local production plants make it easier to access and develop new markets with long-term growth potential. Having a local plant also makes the company a ‘local player’ and boosts acceptance of the products locally and underscores our good corporate citizen approach,” he said.

“The success of this strategy has been proven by positive sales trends since the ramp-up of production plants, for example in the Unites States, in China, in the United Kingdom and, of course, in South Africa.”

He said that around 20 percent of BMWs produced at the Rosslyn plant near Pretoria are sold on the local market in South Africa “with more than 80 percent exported to markets around the world, including one percent to certain markets in the rest of Africa.”

“Given the current size of the new premium car market in the rest of Africa, we believe the BMW Group is well-placed with its current global production network to meet any additional demand in markets like Nigeria without the necessity for additional production locations,” he said.

Peggy Droidskie, an advisor to the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that the initiative between South Africa and Nigeria was very welcome, as regional integration in Africa remains high on the development agenda.

“Nigeria is a large market, and it is closer to Europe. This proximity to Europe implies that it would be logical for European connections to be used.

“The fact that South Africa is preferred (as a partner for Nigeria) indicates that South Africa is very competitive and can accommodate the requirements of Nigeria. It also provides South African manufacturers with an additional footprint in Africa,” she said.

Droidskie predicted that some manufacturers who currently operate in South Africa would become interested in setting up in Nigeria.

“Agreements of this nature are driven by politicians,” she noted. “The politicians believe that the agreements that they enter into benefit the private sector, which is often, but not always, the case.”

She said that South African vehicle manufacturers are already exporting a significant number of vehicles to Nigeria.

“Last year, the number was nearly 15,000. Nigeria is therefore currently a lucrative market for South African vehicle manufacturers. It is therefore very likely that the manufacturers will take advantage and come to the party.”

And she predicted that this cooperation could expand to other industrial sectors.

“If the profile of Nigeria’s imports is taken into account, there is considerable room for an increase in South African exports to Nigeria. For instance, there is room for greater trade in electrical and electronic equipment and machinery.

“With the development of the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement between the three regional economic blocs in sub-Saharan Africa, there is considerable potential for cooperation to expand to other countries and to other sectors.”

The Public Order and Security Act gives untold power to the police, and many have claimed that President Robert Mugabe has used the country’s security forces to intimidate his opposition. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

For the last month Gibson Severe and his wife, Merjury Severe, known opposition supporters from Hurungwe district in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland West Province, have been hiding out in the country’s capital Harare.

The Movement for Democratic Change – Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC–T) supporters were forced to flee their rural home in Hurungwe district after Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) militias threatened them for encouraging people to participate in the recently-ended mobile voter registration.

“It’s been a month since we left Hurungwe district after the Jochomondo militia, which has known links to Zanu-PF, besieged our rural home accusing us of encouraging people to register to vote for the MDC-T,” Gibson Severe told IPS.

Since last year, the Jochomondo militia has allegedly terrorised residents in Zimbabwe’s northern Hurungwe district, a Zanu-PF-stronghold, making it almost impossible for opposition parties to campaign in the region.

Merjury Severe told IPS that elections in this southern African nation have become associated with threats and violence.

“This is not the first time we have been subjected to intimidation. In the 2008 presidential runoff we were beaten up for being MDC-T sympathisers,” she said.

Zimbabweans will go to the polls sometime later this year to vote for a new president. Current President Robert Mugabe, 89, has been in office for 33 years in a reign characterised by corruption, oppression, forced land seizures and a failing economy.

However, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai recently told media that the date for the elections would only be set after voter registration was completed. Although mobile registration has ended, voters can still register at the Registrar General’s office.

But as Zimbabwe’s first round of 30-day mobile voter registration ended on Sunday, May 19, the process was marked by long queues, slow registration and intimidation by violent gangs with suspected Zanu-PF links.

Pedzisai Ruhanya, director for the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute, an independent public policy think-tank, told IPS that the process had been fraught with chaos. “The mobile voter registration exercise was not done properly. It was chaotic and characterised by political gerrymandering.”

Zanu-PF-linked militias who call themselves Al-Shabaab, named after Somalia’s Islamic terrorist group, are alleged to have threatened the electorate in Midlands Province.

“The mobile voter registration exercise here irked Zanu-PF stooges who have directed their anger towards teachers in rural communities, fiercely warning them against voting for the (two) MDC formations,” a local councilor from Midlands Province told IPS. The MDC split in 2006 into the MDC-T and the MDC-Ncube, which is led by Professor Welshman Ncube.

Officials from Marondera, the capital of Mashonaland East Province, situated some 72 km east of Harare, said villagers were forced by suspected Zanu-PF-linked militias to participate in the voter registration process.

“People were being abused by Zanu-PF militias, who were singing liberation war songs and chanting party slogans, and forced into (going to) register to vote,” a local district official in Marondera told IPS.

Police from Mashonaland Central Province’s Bindura and Mazowe towns, which are located about 90 km north of Harare, said that people there still live in fear of a repeat of the violence that ensued during the country’s previous elections. Many are scared just to publicly support political parties.

“Nobody wears MDC-T shirts here after the 2008 violent elections that left thousands of people maimed. Zanu-PF is going to use this to win this election, by reminding people about the June 2008 atrocities,” a top police official told IPS.

Global rights group Amnesty International reported that the 2008 presidential runoff had been “held against a backdrop of widespread killings, torture and assault of perceived opposition supporters.”

Human Rights Watch said in its January 2013 report titled “Race Against Time: The Need for Legal and Institutional Reforms Ahead of Zimbabwe’s Elections,” that over 200 people died in the 2008 election violence.

So far, no arrests have been made in any of the cases of apparent intimidation. However, Zanu-PF spokesperson Rugare Gumbo dismissed the reports.

“There is nothing like terror groups linked to our party. Why should we beat people into submission when it’s well known that the MDCs have lost supporters to Zanu-PF?” Gumbo told IPS.

However, renowned political commentator Rejoice Ngwenya told IPS that

Zimbabwe’s mobile voter registration process was flawed.

“Mobile voter registration was disjointed and weak, perhaps deliberately. There is no voter education in Zimbabwe … the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has neither the capacity nor the political will (to carry out voter education).

“But civil society organisations and political parties are giving it their best shot, although they still encounter a very uncooperative legislative piece – the Public Order and Security Act.”

The act gives untold power to the police, and many have claimed that Mugabe has used the country’s security forces to intimidate his opposition.

Local rights groups also expressed concern about the mobile voter registration.

“We embrace the exercise. But we are worried by the manner in which it was being conducted in rural areas, where Zanu-PF members were distributing membership forms, purporting to carry out voter registration,” David Chidende, programme manager for Youth Information and Education For Behaviour Change, a democracy lobby group, told IPS.

It is also alleged that in Zanu-PF strongholds there were large numbers of voter registration centres, while in MDC-dominated areas there were a limited few. Ruhanya said: “Perceived anti-Zanu-PF political activists linked to (both) MDC formations were given limited sites to register to vote.”

A Zanu-PF central committee member told IPS on the condition of anonymity: “Officials were first registering voters in constituencies where Zanu-PF mobilised supporters to register in their numbers.”

Once Mugabe approves the country’s new constitution, a second round of voter registration and inspection will take place.

“We still have an additional 30-day voter registration period provided for by the draft constitution,” ZEC chairperson, Justice Rita Makarau, told the local Financial Gazette newspaper.

Ruhanya urged authorities to conduct the next round of voter registration exercise differently “in order for Zimbabwe to have free and fair elections.”

Between 2001 and 2011, Niger’s overall rate of enrolment for girls rose from 29 to 63 percent, according to the Ministry of Education. Credit: Alessandro Vannucci/CC BY 2.0

A decade ago, less than a third of school-aged girls in Niger were in class. Today, though significant cultural and religious opposition remains, nearly two-thirds of girls are enrolled in school.

“Back in 2003, we had only 15 girls at my school, out of 150 students. Now, we have 103 girls out of a total of 175 students,” said Ibrahim Sani, who has taught for 17 years in the town of Agadez, in the northern part of this West African country.

This story is repeated in other parts of the country. Salouhou Adou teaches in a village on the outskirts of Tahoua, the capital of the central region with the same name: “When I came to Kollama in 2003, there were only 29 girls out of 113 students. Today, the number of girls has tripled, to 87 out of 137 students,” he told IPS.

The rate of enrolment for girls in Tahoua has more than doubled, from 21 percent in 2001 to 45 percent in 2011, according to the regional directorate for primary education.

Between 2001 and 2011, Niger’s overall rate of enrolment for girls rose from 29 to 63 percent, according to the Ministry of Education.

Concerted effort

The dramatic improvement is thanks to the combined efforts of administrative and traditional authorities, teachers, parents and civil society to raise popular awareness of the importance of giving girls an education.

“Our intervention has meant the gender imbalance in terms of school registration in our area has been reduced,” said Hadiza Moussa, a teacher in Téssaoua, in the south of the country where official statistics also show the enrolment of girls rising: girls made up 45 percent of students in 2012, compared to just 21 percent in 2001.

Weddings and baptism ceremonies are two occasions often used by campaigners to raise awareness of girls’ education. But some ordinary citizens have taken up the cause on their own.

“I have gone door to door to talk to families who were against education for their daughters,” Maman Zakari, a trader in his sixties in the town of Maradi, in the south of the country, told IPS. “I myself was against enrolling girls in school in the past. But I came to understand the importance of education for girls through public awareness campaigns and radio programmes.” He has enrolled two of his five daughters.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is also supporting various incentives.

“Teachers in rural areas who take part in these campaigns get some material support from UNICEF, in addition to their salaries,” Kadri Yacouba, director of primary schools in Maradi, told IPS. “And women who send their daughters to school get money to start small businesses.”

Despite the growth in enrolment of girls, there is still a large gap in school attendance between girls and boys. Between 2001 and 2011, enrolment for boys rose from 36 to 86 percent.

This gap is explained by the fact that in rural areas, many families don’t send their girls to school because of social and cultural beliefs.

“There are many parents who think that school is a destabilising factor for girls. For them, a girl’s destiny is to become a good wife to her husband and a good mother for her children,” retired school inspector Aboubabcar Amadou told IPS.

In both urban and rural areas, parents frequently withdraw their daughters from school to marry them off. “Even in families where the girls go to school, parents are more interested in boys’ education. Fetching water, doing laundry and cooking are still the daily lot of young girls,” said Nana Hadiza, a member of a cluster of civil society organisations working for universal access to education.

Setbacks

The campaign faced a setback in November 2012, when a draft law intended to keep young girls in school ran into strong opposition from the ulamas – Muslim clerics – and associations of Muslim women. These groups put pressure on legislators not to pass the law, instead sending it back for review.

The bone of contention was Article 14 of the draft law which stipulated that anyone agreeing to the marriage of a young girl in school without prior approval from a judge, would be liable to a prison sentence of between six months and two years, a fine of 500,000 to 1,000,000 CFA francs (between 1,000 and 2,000 dollars), or both.

According to the Muslim associations, this is not acceptable in a country like Niger where around 99 percent of the population is Muslim.

“Islam grants parents all rights and authority over their children. A father does not need a judge’s permission to give away his daughter in marriage,” said Malam Abdou Garba, a preacher in Niamey, the Nigerien capital.

“The draft law needs to be modified, to remove everything that is not in line with Islam. These articles could lead young girls to insubordination and disobedience towards their parents, and it could also lead many parents to refuse to enrol their daughters in school,” Mamane Sani, from the Nigerien Association for the Defence of Human Rights, told IPS.

But Hadiza Saley, from the “We Can” campaign (a movement of women’s associations in Niger which fights violence and discrimination against women), called for even more far-reaching legislation. “We must go beyond thinking about girls in school here, to include all girls. In its present form, the draft law discriminates against young girls who are not in school.”

Dr Theresa Moyo says there are increasing signs that Africa is taking gender equity seriously.

History was made last year July when the African Union Commission elected Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as its chairperson, making her the first woman to lead the organisation.

Now as the continent gears-up to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the 1963 formation of the AU, then known as the Organisation of African Unity, IPS Africa spoke to a few leading women and gender activists to find out if women have equal status with men on the continent.

Nguwo village committee chairperson Ibrahim Kachinga on the shores of Lake Malawi. And for the past five years the village committee has been going to local gatherings to educate residents about the need to protect the lake. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

Lloyd Phiri, a fisherman from Senga Bay on Lake Malawi’s shores in Malawi’s central region, knows that the lake’s water levels are dropping. He can see it in his catch, which has shrunk by more than 80 percent in recent years.

Years ago, it was the norm to catch about 5,000 fish a day, Phiri says. But now, if he is lucky, he brings in one-fifth of that. And if he is not, he catches a mere 300 fish a day.

“My fish catch has gone down in recent years and this has affected my earnings. I now have problems paying school fees for my children,” Phiri tells IPS.

The rapid drop in Lake Malawi’s water levels, driven by population growth, climate change and deforestation, is threatening its floral and fauna species with extinction, says Malawi’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Management. And included among the wildlife threatened are the fish that Phiri depends on for a livelihood.

“Over the last three decades some water balance models have been done on the lake and have shown that the water levels have dropped from 477 metres above sea level in the 1980s to around 474.88 metres currently,” Yanira Mtupanyama, principal secretary in the ministry, tells IPS of the 29,600-square-kilometre lake that straddles the borders of Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

“It’s a big deal because studies are showing that the water levels in the lake will keep on dropping in coming years because there are signs that show (that there will be) less rainfall and increased evaporation,” she says.

An estimated 1,000 different fish species rely on the fresh waters of Africa’s third-largest lake for their survival, which also provides 60 percent of this southern African nation’s protein requirement.

The mbuna cichlids species and the famous tilapia fish, locally known as chambo, are facing extinction. Chambo is Malawi’s most popular fish.

The country’s Department of Fisheries says that fish stocks in the lake have dwindled by 90 percent over the last 20 years. It is a huge concern as, according to authorities, about 1.5 million Malawians depend on the lake for food, transportation and other daily needs.

And of even greater concern are the recent Malawian government reports that say the water mass may hold rich oil and gas reserves. Environmentalist Raphael Mweneguwe fears that if oil and gas mining starts on the lake, it can lead to further biodiversity losses.

“The fish stocks have declined in the last two decades from about 30,000 metric tonnes per year to 2,000 per year because of a drop in water levels, overfishing and rapid population growth. But this may get worse if oil is discovered on the lake,” Mwenenguwe tells IPS.

Williman Chadza, executive director of the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy, a local NGO that promotes activism on environmental issues, shares Mwenenguwe’s fears.

“Oil is a resource of paramount importance to a country like Malawi, which is seeking revenue alternatives for its socio-economic development. But its discovery may deepen the country’s biodiversity loss and impact badly on water sources,” Chadza tells IPS.

Mining also poses a threat to the lake. A uranium mine in Karonga, a town situated near Lake Malawi in the north of the country, is one example. The mine, owned and operated by Australian mining giant Paladin (Africa) for the past four years, is regarded as a pollution threat.

“Uranium is a highly radioactive material and therefore there are still threats of polluting the freshwater in Lake Malawi,” Udule Mwakasungura, a human rights activist, tells IPS.

The need to arrest the loss of biodiversity is particularly important in Malawi where people depend on biological resources to a greater extent than other parts of the world.

The 18,000 families of Nguwo fishing village in Senga Bay are an example of this dependency.

“We know that the fish stock has depleted because of unsustainable fishing practices and non-compliance with fishing regulations … we also know that cutting trees unsustainably is ultimately affecting the quality of the water we drink,” says village headman Radson Mdalamkwanda.

Mdalamkwanda tells IPS that fishermen in the village have been working together with local authorities in the district to address the threats and challenges facing the conservation of Lake Malawi. He says that anyone not following the rules or by-laws is banned from fishing on the lake during October and November, when the fish spawn.

And for the past five years the village development committee has been going to local gatherings to educate residents about the by-laws and about the need to protect the lake.

“Apart from protecting the fish, we also want to safeguard the water so that it’s safe for drinking. We do that by creating awareness at gatherings like weddings and funerals,” the chair of the village committee, Ibrahim Kachinga, tells IPS.

Their efforts also complement the Malawi government’s attempts to address the threats challenges to conserving the flora and fauna of the lake.

“There has been a ban for the last few years on the use of high-yield fishing gear in lake Malawi between October and November when the fish are spawning,” Mtupanyama says.

Mtupanyama also says that in 2003 the government launched a 10-year strategic plan, which largely seeks to restore the lake’s fish stocks.

“So for the last 10 years we have been restocking the lake with fish by breeding juveniles outside the lake and then reintroducing them into the lake. We haven’t done badly,” she says.

Mtupanyama could not, however, say if this had significantly increased the lake’s fish stock.

Regardless of what may come of this restocking project, the Nguwo village committee understands that the future of the lake is important. So they are educating those who can do something about it – the village’s future generations.

Kachinga says: “With the help of government, we are also encouraging teachers in nursery and primary schools to teach our children about how to protect the lake.”