Active Citizens

Enthusiasm For 2012 Earth Summit Lagging

By Stephen Leahy
Timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the Rio 2012 Summit hopes to recapture the optimism of that earlier era.
CATHERINE MABOBORI. Credit: Courtesy of SOFEPA

Q&A: Rural Women Need Concrete Actions

By Rousbeh Legatis
Burundi will put U.N. Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security into practice with a National Action Plan (NAP) that is ready to be signed within the coming months.

Expressions Of A Free Arab Cinema

By IPS Correspondents
At this year’s 61st edition of the Berlin International Film Festival Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi took the highest prize.

MALAWI: Women’s Voices to the Fore in New Development Policy

By IPS Correspondents
As Malawi works on its second development blueprint, the Malawi Development and Growth Strategy (MDGS II), the country’s women are hoping health and education will be prioritised and given proper attention in implementation.
ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo Credit:

AFRICA: ICC Justice a Dream Deferred

By IPS Correspondents
The African Union Summit drew to a close today in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Among the headline decisions was the continental body's support for Kenya's planned request to defer prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of six suspects in post-election violence that claimed more than 1,200 lives in 2008.

Collaring the Leopard

By IPS Correspondents
A first-of-its-kind satellite tracking project to monitor leopards may help the Indian government formulate a more effective wildlife policy, and prevent conflict between humans and wild animals.
Local govt previously provided space to advocate for the basic needs of women like these. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

Malawi Missing Its Local Government

By Claire Ngozo
An hour and fifteen minutes each day: Melina Kalunga has plenty of time to measure how long it takes to resolve a legal battle over Malawi's Electoral Commission.
Joyce Labosa and Millie Odhiambo, MP's at the forefront fighting for disabled women's rights Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

KENYA: No Easy Path for Disabled Women with Political Dreams

By Miriam Gathigah
"People living with disability face all sorts of discrimination. We are discriminated against at job interviews in schools. Everyday is a battle to remain positive in the face of a world that is too bent on dismissing those among us that do not meet the standard of what is normal", explains Mishi Juma, a disabled community leader from the Coast region.
Drying cassava Credit: Ken Wiegand/USAID

Cassava Combating Rural Hunger in Zambia

By IPS Correspondents
In Zambia, a silver lining has emerged for widespread rural hunger and poverty, thanks to homegrown agricultural research. Local scientists have successfully developed four new, early-maturing and high- yielding cassava cultivars in an ambitious research project conducted in the cassava-rich Luapula Province, under the on-going Root and Tuber Improvement Programme (RTIP).
Sex workers marching for human rights Credit: Nasseem Ackbarrally/IPS

HUMAN RIGHTS: Mauritian Sex Workers Demand Rights

By Nasseem Ackbarally
"Sex workers rights are human rights", close to a hundred people shouted during a recent march in Rose-Hill, a major town in Mauritius. Their aim was to sensitise the population, particularly the parliamentarians, to the state of sex workers on the island.
Kenyan women with their babies Credit: Eric Kanalstein/UN

KENYA: Mobile Phones to the Rescue for Pregnant Women

By IPS Correspondents
Pumwani Maternity Hospital, in the impoverished Nairobi neighbourhood of Eastlands, is the site of a trial project using mobile phones to help HIV-positive mothers avoid passing the virus on to their children.
People Collecting Water at One of Kiosks Credit: Charles Mpaka

WATER: Miracle Man Eases Village’s Water Woes

By Charles Mpaka
Hermes Chimombo, a welder in his 50s, is a revered man in the impoverished Naotcha Township. Armed with rudimentary tools and a passion to ease people’s suffering, he has tapped a spring in the mountain above the slum to provide water for its 25,000 residents.
Overcrowding in Ugandan Schools Credit: comms.wikimedia.org

EDUCATION: Meet TESSA, Ugandan Teachers’ Best Friend

By Joshua Kyalimpa
Beatrice Namuzibira’s class of 90 pupils is not even considered a large one, compared to classes in other schools. Universal primary education has filled classrooms beyond capacity across Uganda, putting a strain on teachers.
The company says it needs six months to upgrade fume treatment centres, during which time emissions will be released directly into the air. Credit: Joel Chiziane/IPS

/UPDATE*/: Bypass Under Way At Mozambique Smelter

By Nastasya Tay
Aluminium giant BHP Billiton’s Mozal smelter has begun bypassing its fume treatment centres, emitting potentially dangerous fumes into the air without treating them first - despite a pending court case on the matter.
One of the many schools in Gaza damaged in Israeli attacks. Credit: Eva Bartlett

MIDEAST: The People Speak

By Eva Bartlett
The focus on people's movements in Palestine continues to gain momentum with growing non-violent demonstrations in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, and with a Palestine-wide call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
Guard tower in Berea. Credit: Chris Stein/IPS

SOUTH AFRICA: Neglected Johannesburg Neighbourhood Rises Again

By IPS Correspondents
A month after property developer Alex Montwedi bought a 42-unit high-rise apartment building in Johannesburg’s Berea neighbourhood, he found himself chased out of the building by his own tenants.
A week of action against what activists describe as a Secrecy Bill concluded with a march on parliament. Credit: Davison Makanga/IPS

SOUTH AFRICA: Draft Bill Is ‘A Charter for Rogues’

By Erna Curry
A coalition of civil society groups marched to South Africa's Parliament on Oct. 27 to protest against the draft version of a new Protection of Information Bill. "This bill is a betrayal of all the democratic principles we fought for," anti-apartheid stalwart Kader Asmal told the crowd.
Gender activists in the DRC hope to make gender-based violence an election issue. Credit: UNIFEM

DR CONGO: ‘An Opportunity to Say Never Again’

By IPS Correspondents
Civil society in the DRC's eastern province of South Kivu is determined that meaningful action will follow from the publication of the U.N.'s Mapping Project, a report detailing some of the most serious human rights violations by state and non-state actors in the DRC between 1993 and 2003.

Proposed Pension Bill Outrages Malawi Workers

By Lameck Masina
A draft pension bill has created great concern among workers in Malawi, with some hurriedly seeking early retirement before it will be passed. The bone of contention is a section pegging the retirement age for women at 55 and men at 60.

KENYA: Room to Improve on Governance

By Isaiah Esipisu
Kimani Wanyama*, a homosexual man living in Nairobi, knows what human rights violations are all about. His attempts over three years to receive treatment for reoccurring rectal gonorrhoea had resulted in verbal abuse and intense stigmatisation from the very people who were meant to help him.

MALAWI: Village Chief Leads Fight For Maternal Health

By Charles Mpaka
In Ntcheu, a rural district in central Malawi, villagers have taken the fight against the country's high maternal mortality rate into their own hands. They have almost eradicated maternal deaths in the area by urging pregnant women to give birth in hospitals, under medical supervision.
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