DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: UN Habitat Fund to Finance Slum Housing

Some relief for the pressing housing needs of slum dwellers may be in sight. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) is planning a revolving fund to assist poor people with credit to build houses in slum areas.

TRADE-KENYA: Shopping With a Clean Conscience

It is early morning and the Undugu Fair Trade Shop, tucked away in a suburban shopping centre in Nairobi, is bustling. Apart from the few locals, there are the usual tourists, recognizable from their safari outfits: khaki shirts and trousers and the obligatory hat worn even when indoors.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Renewable Sources the Key to Energy Crisis?

Biofuel and other renewable energy sources may hold the key to Africa's energy crisis. Without intervention, this crisis is set to grow. Southern African cities such as Lusaka in Zambia, Harare in Zimbabwe, Gaborone in Botswana and Dar-Es-Salaam in Tanzania will be affected.

TRADE-AFRICA: Liberalisation May Boost Growth But Not Create Jobs

Even if trade openness boosts economic growth, such growth may not create jobs or alleviate poverty. Therefore the much-vaunted Aid for Trade concept should be redesigned so that ‘‘the major focus is shifted from simply creating more trade to the more important objectives of poverty reduction''.

HUMAN RIGHTS-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Mixed Response as Gays Come Out

The issue of lesbian and gay Africans’ human rights again came to the fore this week as Anglican Church leaders met in Tanzania amid the continuing row over the consecration of a gay US bishop in 2003.

DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: High Growth Still to Benefit the Poor

Just more than a year after Jakaya Kikwete was elected president of Tanzania his name was mentioned in the halls at the Africa Union (AU) summit in January in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as the possible new chairperson of the AU.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Calls for Science and Self-Reliance at AU Summit

To tackle the great development challenges the African continent faces, leaders gathered in the Ethiopian capital for the two-day, bi-annual summit of the African Union (AU) pointed to science and self-reliance as important tools.

DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: Sachs Says It Is Possible to Meet MDGs

World renowned economist and director of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Project, Jeffrey Sachs, is a harbinger of good news. During his visit to Nairobi, capital of Kenya, in mid-January he emphasised that it was still possible to meet the MDGs before 2015.

CHALLENGES 2006-2007: Angola’s Oil Not Flowing for Safer Water

The cholera epidemic which has been plaguing Angola for nearly a year has placed the spotlight on the continuing lack of safe drinking water in that country.