Sudanese refugee James Mathiang (left) with his teammates has had difficulties getting his qualifications recognised even though he was offered a scholarship. Wilson Odhiambo/IPS

By Wilson Odhiambo
NAIROBI, Jul 11 2023 (IPS)

East African international students could soon easily study in neighbouring countries after the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) proposed a new qualification framework to mitigate the difficulties faced when seeking education across borders.

IGAD has, over the past year, been conducting a series of seminars and workshops aimed at finding a solution to the problems faced by foreigners and refugees looking to continue with their education and employability in foreign lands.

During the 3^rd IGAD conference held in Nairobi, Kenya, in March last year, it was agreed that its member states needed to develop a harmonised qualification framework that would allow their students to cross borders in search of work and education easily.

The IGAD member states include Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Uganda, South Sudan and Eritrea.

Countries usually have different education systems and standards, making it mandatory for foreigners to prove their qualifications before joining any institution.

Joining a higher education institution in Kenya demands one to have attained certain set standards from high school, which in this case, is to have a mean grade of at least a C+. Therefore, an international student seeking to join the same institution must show that they achieved an academic qualification from their country equivalent to the Kenyan standard.

To do this, they must go through the Kenya National Qualification Authority (KNQA) and have their high school grades converted to verify whether they meet the standards.

However, given the difference in curriculum and education standards for different countries, this is usually a tedious process for many.

Students have complained of waiting for months (or even years, in some cases) before having their qualifications approved to join learning institutions. This has especially been tough on refugees from Somalia and South Sudan, whose education systems are still volatile, making it difficult for them to get quality education in countries of their choice.

South Sudan, for instance, has seen many of its citizens stream into Kenya in search of refuge and a fresh start to life. And due to their height, many Sudanese teenagers are sought after by basketball coaches in colleges and universities who are willing to offer them sport scholarship opportunities.

IPS spoke to James Mathiang during one of his basketball games to understand his transition process as a foreigner trying to further his ambitions.

Mathiang is a refugee from South Sudan who had been offered a sports scholarship by African Nazarene University (ANU) but is yet to join since he has not cleared the qualification process.

“I came to Kenya in 2021 with my family and currently live in one of the estates in Nairobi. Our country is still facing civil unrest, and my parents felt it was wise for us to seek refuge in Kenya, which also meant continuing with our lives in a new country,” Mathiang told IPS.

“I play basketball and have many of my relatives who have been in Kenya for longer, who also play the sport and were able to introduce me to some of the teams they play in.”

It was not long before one of the basketball scouts noticed Mathiang’s potential and offered to get him a scholarship in return for his talents. Mathiang is, however, yet to benefit from the deal due to the required qualification conversion process.

“It has already been seven months since I was offered the scholarship, but I am yet to understand how the conversion process works. I may have to sit for another qualification exam in Kenya since my papers are not recognised by KNQA,” Mathiang told UWN.

According to KNQA, the qualification is a planned combination of learning outcomes with a definite purpose and is intended to provide qualifying learners with applied competence and a basis for further learning.

Joining a university in Kenya, requires one to have completed four years in high school and attained a mean grade of at least a C+.

This standard may differ in a country like Sudan or Uganda, where students must spend at least six years in high school before joining a University. As such, a Kenyan going to Uganda in search of higher education has to meet a standard equivalent to that of Uganda and vice versa.

Rollins Oduk, who has been on a basketball scholarship at the Uganda Martyr University, recalls how it took him almost two years to convert his secondary school certificates to meet the qualifications required by the Ugandan system.

“Since Uganda did not have a qualification system like Kenya, I had no choice but to enrol into one of their secondary schools and sit for fresh exams so that I could be accepted by their higher education institutions. In the meantime, I could still play for the University and get some financial benefits as I waited. This is a good move by IGAD, and it will help a lot of foreigners like me,” Oduk told UWN.

According to IGAD, only one of its member states, Kenya, has a properly functioning qualification system that enables foreigners to confirm and convert their qualifications quickly.

Dr Alice Kande, managing director, KNQA, explained that having a regional qualification framework would lessen students’ obstacles when moving across the member states in search of education.

“KNQA is receiving so many foreign qualifications that are awarded without a clear clarification on whether they are accredited in their countries of origin, their requisite volume of learning, the skills that they impart and their equivalence to local qualifications,” Kande told IPS.

“The authority plays an important role in ensuring that authenticity of foreign qualifications is ascertained; and that the country only accepts and recognises foreign qualifications that meet the national standard. By doing this, we hope that students get quality training and education that equips them with the skills necessary to work both locally and internationally and that the country as a whole only accepts and recognises qualifications that meet the national standard and protects the country from fake and substandard qualifications,” she added.

According to Zetech University, it is tough for institutions to enrol international students due to the bureaucracy of specific government offices that frustrates the effort of potential students and the recruiting universities. There is a disconnect that makes it necessary for the concerned offices to sit with the universities and discuss a way forward.

“To join Zetech, foreign students are expected to have a visa, a student pass and the KNQA equation to get admission. It is particularly difficult for Somali students because of the fear of terrorism; hence the student pass takes too long to process,” said Dr Catherine Njoki, Liaison and Resource Mobilization Director Zetech University. A student’s pass can take up to eight months to a year to acquire, making some give up entirely on their education.

“The students are also required to equate their results with the KNQA. This Government body is also very slow in their service delivery, and they decline to support the recruiting institutions with a general guideline of how students can get temporary admission as they await the confirmation. KNQA should become a little flexible with such information and also realise the country needs the foreign exchange as much as the institutions need the students,” Njoki told UWN.

KNQA, however, states that it should only take two to eight weeks for an evaluation process to be concluded.

“According to Kenya National Qualifications Authority, service charter evaluation of qualifications processing time is (14 -60) working days from receipt of an application. This is counted from date of receipt of all relevant documents provided by the applicants,” Kande explained.

The following are some of the requirements that will be expected of someone trying to have his qualifications converted:

(i) Certified copy of each qualification certificate to be evaluated.

(ii) Certified copy of official transcript of each qualification to

be evaluated.

(iii) Certified copy of certificate and transcript of qualification preceding the one

that has been submitted for evaluation.

(iv) Certified copy of Identity Document or birth certificate for children

under the age of 18 for citizens or Passport for foreigners

(v) Translations (if applicable) together with the documents in the original

language prepared by a sworn translator.

Njoki added that IGAD should bring all stakeholders involved to help address these issues.

“I would like to continue with my education through this sports scholarship, and if this harmonised system works, there are many foreigners like me who are going to benefit from it,” Mathiang concluded.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Siddharth Chatterjee, the Representative of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Kenya, has been appointed UN Resident Coordinator, where he will lead and coordinate 25 UN agencies in East Africa. At the same time, he will also serve as the Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

At UNFPA, he and his team spearheaded efforts to reduce the unacceptably high maternal deaths in Kenya putting the spotlight on the challenges faced by adolescent girls, including child marriage, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and sexual and gender based violence.

Before he joined UNFPA, Chatterjee served as the Chief Diplomat and Head of Strategic Partnerships and was also responsible for resource mobilization at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) since 2011.

In 1997 he joined the UN in Bosnia and over the next two decades served in Iraq, South Sudan, Indonesia, Sudan (Darfur), Somalia, Denmark, and Kenya. He has worked in UN Peace Keeping, UNICEF, UNOPS, the Red Cross and UNFPA.

Welcoming the appointment, Ruth Kagia, Senior Advisor, International Relations and Social Sectors in the Office of the President of Kenya said, “Sid’s insightful understanding of clients’ needs as the UNFPA Representative in Kenya has translated into tangible gains in maternal, child and adolescent health. His relentless energy and focus on results has helped build relationships and networks of trust and confidence with the highest levels of Government, civil society, the private sector and development partners.”

Chatterjee is expected to continue his advocacy for women’s empowerment in Kenya where he has led notable initiatives to advance reproductive, maternal, neo-natal, child and adolescent health.

Dr Julitta Onabanjo, UNFPA’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa said, “Sid resolutely pushed UNFPA’s mandate in the hardest to reach counties and service of the most vulnerable.  He mobilized resources and partners in the private sector to join this drive to leapfrog maternal and new-born health. This bold initiative was highlighted by the World Economic Forum in Davos and Kigali”.

Among Chatterjee’s other career achievements include mobilizing the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement to join the eradication of polio initiative; negotiating access with rebel groups to undertake a successful polio immunization campaign in the rebel controlled areas of Darfur; leading UNICEF’s emergency response when conflict broke out in Indonesia’s Aceh and the Malukus provinces; and overseeing UNICEF’s largest demobilization of child soldiers in South Sudan in 2001.

A prolific writer, Chatterjee’s articles have featured on CNN, Al Jazeera, Forbes, Huffington Post, Reuters, the Guardian, Inter Press Service, as well as the major Kenyan newspapers.  He was recently profiled by Forbes magazine in an article titled, “Passionate Leader of UNFPA Kenya Battles Violence against Women, FGM and Child Marriage.” 

His early career was in a Special Forces unit of the Indian Army, where he was decorated in 1995 for bravery by the President of India. Chatterjee holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Princeton University, USA and a Bachelor’s degree from the National Defence Academy in India.

By Nteranya Sanginga
IBADAN, Nigeria, Jan 5 2016 (IPS)

2016 is the International Year of Pulses, and we at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture are proud to be organizing what promises to be the landmark event, the Joint World Cowpea and Pan-African Grain Legume Research Conference.

Nteranya Sanginga, Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Courtesy of IITA

The March event in Zambia should draw experts from around the continent and beyond and offer an opportunity to share ideas into the edible seeds – cowpeas, common bean, lentils, chickpeas, faba and lima beans and other varieties – now enjoying their well-deserved 15 minutes of fame as nutritional superstars.

Pulses may look small, but they are a big deal.

Nutritionists consistently find that their low glycemic profiles and hefty fiber content help prevent and manage the so-called diseases of affluence, such as obesity and diabetes. And the protein they pack holds great potential to assist the world in managing its livestock practices in a more sustainable way, so that more people can enjoy better and more varied middle-income diets without placing excess strains on natural resources.

First and foremost, we must make more pulses available. Global per capita availability of pulses declined by more than a third in the four decades following the 1960s. But production has been growing sharply since 2005, especially in developing countries. Cowpeas have been one of the specific leaders of this trend, which has been marked by very welcome increases in yield as well as more hectares being planted.

Importantly, almost a fifth of all pulses today are traded, up almost three-fold from the 1980s, a pace that vastly outstrips the growing trade in cereals. Moreover, while North America is an exporting powerhouse, so is East Africa and Myanmar; more than half of all pulses exports now come from developing countries.

There is a serious opportunity to scale up these protean protein sources.

The good news for the millions of small family farmers is that this may be more about reclaiming a traditional virtue than revolution. After all, the prolific Arab traveler Ibn Battuta wrote about Bambara nuts fried in shea oil while on a trip to Mali and the Sahel back in 1352. The cowpea fritters, known as akara in Nigeria and often seen at roadside stands around West Africa, are their direct descendants, and the elder siblings of acarajés, declared part of the cultural heritage of Brazil – where they are eaten with shrimp – and where their Yoruba name survived the dreadful middle passage of the slave trade.

We at IITA have been cowpea champions for decades. Just this month Swaziland’s Ministry of Agriculture released to local farmers five new cowpea varieties we developed – seeds that mature up to 20 percent faster and yield up to four times more. That latest success comes in great measure, thanks to IITA’s gene bank, which holds, for the world community, 15,112 unique samples of cowpea hailing from 88 countries.

Why so many cowpeas? Our question is why aren’t more being grown!

After all, cowpea contains 25 percent protein, is an excellent conveyor of vitamins and minerals, adapts to a broad range of soil types, tolerates drought as well as shade, grows fast to combat erosion, and as a legume pumps nitrogen back into the soil. We can eat its main product – sometimes known as black-eyed peas – and animals enjoy the residual stems and leaves.

So why don’t we hear more about it? Well, perhaps the world wasn’t listening, but it’s about to have another chance.

Seriously, though, cowpeas come with problems. First of all, the plant is subject to assault at every point in its life cycle, be it from aphids, mosaic virus, pod borers, rival weeds, or the dreaded weevils that fight with fungi and bacteria to consume the seeds while in storage. These are things IITA scientists try to combat, through seed breeding or spreading innovative technologies such as the PICS bags that keep the weevils out.

There is much more to learn, about the plant, how to grow it, and how to bolster its role in the food system. I’lll wager that in the Year of Pulses much will be learned about processing, a critical phase, and one that is already allowing many Nigerian businesses to prosper. Perhaps big global food manufacturers will find new ways to grind pulses into their grain products to produce healthier foods with more complete proteins.

As for farming cowpea, the plant can serve to reduce weeds and fertilizer for the cash crops. It is also harvested before the cereal crops, offering food security and also flexibility, as farmers can choose to let the plants grow, reducing bean yields but increasing that of fodder.

The plant’s epicenter – genetically and today – is West Africa. Nigeria is the big producer, but is also the main importer from neighboring countries. Niger is the world’s biggest exporter. But its ability to deal with dry weather and help combat soil erosion might be of interest elsewhere, such as in Central America’s dry corridor.

(End)

Excerpt:

Studies show that indigenous fish species in Uganda – here being caught on Lake Victoria – have shrunk in size due to an increase in water temperature as a result of climate change. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Aug 22 2015 (IPS)

Climate change is reducing the size of several species of fish on lakes in Uganda and its neighbouring East African countries, with a negative impact on the livelihoods of millions people who depend on fishing for food and income.

Studies conducted on inland lakes in Uganda, including Lake Victoria which is shared by three East African countries, indicate that indigenous fish species have shrunk in size due to an increase in temperatures in the water bodies.

“What we are seeing in Lake Victoria and other lakes is a shift in the composition of fish. In the past, we had a dominance of bigger fish but now we are seeing the fish stocks dominated by small fish. This means they are the ones which are adapting well to the changed conditions,” said Dr Jackson Efitre, a lecturer in fisheries management and aquatic sciences at Uganda’s Makerere University.

“So if that condition goes on, he added, “the question is would we want to see our fish population dominated by small fish with little value?”

“We need to provide lake-dependent populations with an alternative for them to survive … If measures cannot be agreed and implemented quickly, then we are condemning those communities to death” – Dr Justus Rutaisire, responsible for aquaculture at Uganda’s National Agriculture Research Organisation (NARO)
In Uganda, the fisheries sector accounts for 2.5 percent of the national budget and 12.5 percent of agricultural gross domestic product (GDP). It employs 1.2 million people, generates over 100 million dollars in exports and provides about 50 percent of the dietary proteins of Ugandans.

Efitre was one of the researchers for a study on ‘Application of policies to address the influence of climate change on inland aquatic and riparian ecosystems, fisheries and livelihoods”, which examined the influence of climate variability and change on fisheries resources and livelihoods using lakes Wamala and Kawi in the Victoria and Kyoga lake basins as case studies.

It also looked at the extent to which existing policies can be applied to address the impacts of and any challenges associated with climate change.

The study’s findings showed that temperatures around the two lakes had always varied but had increased consistently by 0.02-0.03^oC annually since the 1980s, and that rainfall had deviated from historical averages and on Lake Wamala – although not Lake Kawi – had generally been above average since the 1980s.

According to the study, these findings are consistent with those reported by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 and 2014 for the East African region.

Mark Olokotum, one of the study’s researchers, climate changes have affected the livelihoods of local fishing communities.

“These are fishers who depend on the environment. You either increase on the number of times you fish to get more fish or get more fishing gear to catch more fish. And once that happens, you spend more time fishing, earn much less although the price is high, and there are no fish so people have resorted to eating what is available,” he said.

Olokotum told IPS that the water balance of most aquatic systems in Uganda is determined by rainfall and temperature through evaporation.

He said that about 80 percent of the water gain in Lake Wamala was through rainfall while 86 percent of the loss was through evaporation, resulting in a negative water balance and the failure of the lake to retain its historical water levels.

“Therefore, although rainfall in the East African region is expected to increase as a result of climate change, this gain may be offset by increased evaporation associated with increases in temperature unless the increases in rainfall outweigh the loss through evaporation,” Olokotum explained.

These changes have made life more difficult for people like Clement Opedum and his eight sons who have traditionally depended on lakes as a source of food and income.

Opedum’s living has always come from the waters of Lake Wamala. In the past, sales of tilapia fish from the lake to neighbouring districts were brisk; and some would be bought by traders from the Democratic Republic of Congo, sustaining his family and other fishermen.

Those days are now gone. Over the years, the lake has steadily retreated from its former shores, leaving Opedum and his neighbours high and dry, and faced with the prospect that the lake could vanish entirely.

Charles Lugambwa, another fisherman in the same area, has been obliged to turn to farming, and he now grows yams, sweet potatoes and beans on land that was previously under the waters of the lake.

Lugambwa told IPS that apart from tilapia fish, other species have started disappearing from the lake in 30 or so years he has lived there.  “In 1994, the lake dried up completely but came back in 1998 following heavy rains,” he told IPS. “We used to catch very big tilapia but now they are quite tiny even though they are adult fish.”

Scientists and researchers argue that the causes of lake shrinking include water evaporation, increased cultivation on banks, cutting down of trees and destruction of wetlands, while the reduction in the size of tilapia has been linked to increased lake water temperature as a result of global warming.

Dr Richard Ogutu-Ohwayo, senior research officer at the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFFIRI) told IPS that the response to the impacts of climate change in Uganda had been concentrated on crops, livestock and forestry with almost no concern for the fisheries sector.

“It is high time government took the bold step to bring aquatic ecosystems and fisheries fully on board in its climate change responses,” he said.

According to Ogutu–Ohwayo, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the East African Community Policy on Climate Change commit states to building capacity, generating knowledge, and identifying adaptation and mitigation measures to reduce the impacts of climate change, however these have barely been implemented.

Ogutu-Ohwayo who was part of the lake study research team, told IPS that Uganda has a water policy which provides for protection and management of water resources, and “we must apply these policies to manage the water resources of lakes Wamala, Kawi and other lakes through integrated approaches such as protecting wetlands, lake shores and river banks and controlling water extraction.”

Like other East African nations, Uganda has relied heavily on capture fisheries, or wild fisheries, with a tendency to marginalise aquaculture as far as resource allocation and manpower development is concerned.

With climate change leading to a decline in the size and stocks of wild fish and capture fisheries, fisheries experts are saying wild fish and capture fisheries from lakes alone can no longer meet the demand for fish, both for local consumption and export.

Fish processing plants around Lake Victoria, for example, are now operating at less than 50 percent capacity, while some have closed down.

Dr Justus Rutaisire, responsible for aquaculture at Uganda’s National Agriculture Research Organisation (NARO), told IPS that aquaculture could be used as one of the adaptation measures to help communities that have depended on fish to supplement capture fisheries.

He noted, however, that the development of aquaculture in most Eastern African countries is constrained by low adoption of appropriate technologies, inadequate investment in research and inadequate aquaculture extension services.

“We need to provide lake-dependent populations with an alternative for them to survive and that is why we are asking government to invest in aquaculture,” said Rutaisire. ”If measures cannot be agreed and implemented quickly, then we are condemning those communities to death,” he warned.

Edited by Phil Harris   

By Wambi Michael
Kampala, Mar 18 2013 (IPS)

Plant viruses are threatening the livelihoods of farmers and food security by attacking vital food crops in East and Central African countries. Cassava is the staple in most of these countries and it is one of the hardest hit crops.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/crop_viruses.mp3[/podcast]

Uganda Farmers display diseased cassava tubers in Soroti Eastern Uganda. Credit Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Feb 13 2013 (IPS)

Unless African smallholder farmers, who comprise the majority of food growers on the continent, are given the tools and knowledge to cope with the increased occurrences of plant virus diseases, the livelihoods of millions will be at stake, according to Nteranya Sanginga, the director general of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture.

“Plant viruses are spreading rapidly to new places, frustrating efforts to boost the food security and livelihoods of millions of people. Poor smallholder farmers, who are the majority of food growers and the bulk of the population, are bearing the brunt of these virus diseases with their limited resources,” Sanginga told IPS.

Cassava mosaic disease (CMD), sweet potato virus disease, maize streak virus and cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), are just a few of the plant viruses that have been prevalent in Africa in the recent past. A plant infected by CMD will display pale white or yellow leaves, leaf distortion, and stunted growth.

However, the symptoms for a CBSD-infected plant are less obvious as only small yellow patches on leaves indicate the presence of the disease. Most farmers are only able to identify the disease once they have harvested the plant as CBSD distorts the root and causes it to rot.

First identified in Uganda’s Mukono District in 2004, CBSD has since spread throughout the Great Lakes region of East Africa, resulting in a 30 to 70 percent loss in cassava harvests. The crop is a major staple food in Uganda, with annual production estimated at 5.5 million tonnes.

According to IITA, CBSD threatens the food security and livelihoods of over 200 million people in East and Central Africa. Combined, CMD and CBSD have caused more than one billion dollars worth of damage to cassava, with smallholder farmers being affected the most by the loss.

Chris Omongo, a cassava breeder at Uganda’s National Agricultural Crop Resources Research Institute, told IPS that some farming practices have aided the spread of the viruses.

“When you move infected materials from one location to another, you automatically help to spread the viruses,” said Omongo, adding that most farmers unwittingly share infected seed and seedlings.

Bulasio Luyiga, a smallholder cassava farmer in Central Uganda’s Mukono District, is one of them.

“The crop looked so healthy, but at harvest, each tuber was rotten,” he told IPS. The CBSD generally attacks the root of the cassava, though the leaves of the plants can also be affected.

Luyiga said he lost more than 70 percent of the crop to the virus. “It was a total loss because I bought what was considered clean, planting material, only to discover that they were susceptible to this disease. I wouldn’t have planted them had I known this early,” said Luyiga.

Omongo said that if given the knowledge, smallholder farmers can prevent plant virus diseases from spreading. “Once farmers know how to identify the diseases, then they will avoid it. They are also too poor to afford the improved varieties of plants resistant to disease. The point is to create awareness and we shall prevent the spread,” he said.

Another factor that needs to be addressed in combating the spread of plant diseases is one of resources. Luyiga and farmers like him rarely have access to agricultural advisory and extension services that could provide them with the knowledge on how to identify and deal with the plant viruses. Such services are limited in most East African countries and when available tend to be poor in quality.

In Uganda, one extension worker is required to offer services to over 1,000 farmers in a sub-county, which, Omongo said, limited early detection and prevention of the spread of the diseased plants.

Professor William Otim-Nape, a Ugandan Plant Pathologist and member of the Africa Innovation Institute, told IPS that viral diseases continue to cause major economic losses in Africa. “Such losses remain grossly underestimated and they are often ignored or overlooked,” he said.

Victor Manyong, an economist at IITA, estimates CBSD causes 175 million dollars in losses in East Africa each year.

Otim-Nape added that the number of trained plant virologists in Africa was far too low to provide an adequate response to deal with the many plant viruses.

“A critical mass of trained plant virologists is required to identify and prioritise virus disease problems and to create awareness in the public and among policymakers,” he said.

Sanginga agreed. “There is an urgent need to confront viral diseases affecting staple crops like cassava, banana and maize using advances in science. We need science to solve these problems,” he said.

“We have to do more for the farmers I met in Mukono, Uganda, who lost their entire cassava crop due to CBSD and CMD,” Sanginga urged, adding that Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, too, will need assistance to deal with the threat of Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease.

East Africa experienced a CMD outbreak in the 1990s and smallholder farmers watched as it devastated their cassava gardens, forcing thousands to abandon the crop. The disease spread to several African countries including, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Gabon until researchers bred a cassava variety resistant to the disease. The release of a new variety restored cultivation of the crop.

But current low budgetary allocations for agricultural research in most East African countries has limited the investment in plant viral diseases research, according to Mercy Karanja, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation regional advisor to East Africa.

“We have big problems in agriculture. So we need to invest money to do research. And even when products of research are out, you need money to ensure that they reach farmers,” she told IPS.

Uganda’s Mandela National Stadium, commonly referred to as Namboole, and located 10 kilometres from the country’s capital, Kampala, was built by the Chinese. Credit: Ronald Kabuubi/IPS

By Fred Ojambo
KAMPALA, Sep 21 2012 (IPS)

Almost a decade since Uganda initiated negotiations with China for the favourable export of coffee beans to the Asian giant, it is struggling to create even trade relations with the world’s second-biggest economy. But economic experts predict that the East African nation could close the gap through the promotion of agriculture and the eventual export of oil.

“Although there is an imbalance currently, the gap will narrow as there are efforts to diversify Uganda’s export base,” Stephen Kaboyo, the managing director of Alpha Partners, a financial research company in the capital, Kampala, said in an interview with IPS.

“China is a high consumption nation with a mass market, and agricultural commodities and oil will have potentially large markets there. Already China’s demand for oil is so huge that its demand controls the pricing of this commodity,” he added.

In 2004, Uganda negotiated a preferential treatment agreement for its coffee exports to China, leading into the formation of Uganda Crane Coffee, a joint venture between the Uganda Coffee Development Authority and the Beijing North Star Industrial Group, for the promotion of the East African nation’s beans in the world’s most populous nation.

At least 2,200 tonnes of coffee beans worth 7.6 million dollars were exported to China in the first half of 2010, according to figures from the Ugandan embassy in China. Uganda, which is Africa’s second-biggest producer of the beans after Ethiopia, exports around 180,000 tonnes of coffee beans mainly to Europe annually.

Concerted promotion of Uganda’s other exports to China, including the diversification of products like cocoa, cotton, wood, copper concentrates, and hides and skins, saw the value of shipments soar from 15,000 dollars in 2003 to 26.71 million dollars in 2011, according to figures from the state-run Uganda Bureau of Statistics.

But the Chinese government has a different total. Chinese Ambassador Zhao Yali estimates that Uganda’s imports to his country totalled 40 million dollars last year.

This pales in comparison, however, to China’s exports, which have grown in the last decade. The Asian country was Uganda’s third-biggest source of imports last year, with goods valued at 522.5 million dollars, compared to 70.2 million dollars worth of imports nine years ago.

China remains a preferred source of imports for Uganda because of “competitive prices and very adaptive products,” Moses Kalule, the chief executive of Kampala City Traders Association, told IPS in a phone interview.

Footwear, textiles, motorcycles and parts, bicycles, rubber items, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunication, electronic, and medical equipment, are some of the major imports from the Asian nation, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.

The entry of the Chinese into petty trade in this country favoured them since they could cheaply procure goods from their homeland to the disadvantage of Ugandans importing the same range of products from China, Kalule said.

But the control of Chinese engaging in petty trade has erased unfair competition that locals faced against them, he said. He would not elaborate on the controls.

Issa Sekitto, the spokesperson of the Kampala City Traders Association, said that the body had been collaborating with immigration authorities to monitor Chinese engaging in petty trade. Currently, the investor threshold in Uganda is 100,000 dollars, but he said that a number of Chinese had forgone investing and instead merely engaged in petty trade. In July, local traders protested against the situation, claiming that the Chinese had kicked them out of business.

India remains Uganda’s biggest trade partner, exporting goods worth 928.08 million dollars to this East African nation. Kenya is its second-biggest trade partner, exporting goods valued at 671.61 million dollars to this country, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics.

But Uganda is keen to grow its exports to China at an average annual rate of 25 percent, Kaboyo said.

Uganda can boost its exports to China if it enhances agricultural productivity, especially for commodities that are in demand in China, Paul Mugerwa, an economics lecturer at Uganda’s Bugema University, told IPS.

“The government should come up with a strategy to promote agriculture for the Chinese market as we have productive capacity in this area,” he said.

China is not only a source of imports for this East African nation but a source of foreign direct investment as well. The Asian nation was the leading source of licensed planned investments here from 2009 to 2010, according to the Uganda Investment Authority.

China accounted for 31 planned projects worth 246 million dollars in leather tanning, food processing, information and communication technology and real estate, according to the Uganda Investment Authority.

Successful Chinese investment from 1993 to 2011 amounted to 596 million dollars, with 265 companies from the Asian giant operating in Uganda and providing at least 280,000 jobs, the state-run New Vision, Uganda’s leading daily, quoted Yali as saying on Feb. 24.

“Uganda can improve its trade imbalance with China with more exports, while Chinese investors can lift Uganda’s narrow industrial base,” Lawrence Bategeka, a principal researcher at the country’s Economic Policy Research Centre, told IPS.

Yanli Ren, the second secretary at the Chinese embassy in Uganda, agreed: “Chinese companies are involved in construction and manufacturing in Uganda because policies favour their investments. These factories will help Uganda reduce its imports.”

The 2006 discovery of crude oil and a host of other minerals in Uganda are expected to enhance Chinese investment in the country and narrow the trade imbalance between the two nations.

“The discovery of oil and abundant mineral resources will definitely see a lot more players (in the Ugandan economy), including Chinese companies,” Arthur Nsiko, a researcher with the investment bank African Alliance Uganda Ltd., told IPS.

“Oil will reduce the country’s overall trade deficit since it accounts for about eight percent of the country’s imports,” he said.

The China National Offshore Oil Corporation or CNOOC is already involved in the development of Uganda’s oilfields after it acquired a third of interests in two oil blocks from the London-based Tullow Oil Plc in February. CNOOC and France’s Total SA paid a combined 2.9 billion dollars in shares in the two oil blocks.

Uganda may start oil production in 2014 with an initial 10,000 barrels per day for power generation, according to the government. Partial completion of a refinery will be achieved in 2015 with its capacity expected to reach 60,000 barrels a day, the government says.

(*Adds reaction from the spokesperson of the Kampala City Traders Association. Story first moved at 08.13 GMT Sep. 19, 2012)

Beatrice Mueni Mutisya inspects her maize crops grown in semi-arid Eastern Kenya. Studies have shown that men and women farming together can lift millions of people out of hunger. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Sep 1 2012 (IPS)

Three years ago, the residents of the semi-arid Yatta district in Kenya’s Eastern Province lived on food aid due to dwindling crops of maize that could not thrive because of the decreased rainfall in the area.

That was until a local bishop, trying to find ways to prevent mothers from forcing their teenage daughters into prostitution, changed everything.

Now, on a Saturday evening in the district’s village of Makutano, Stephen Mwangangi, his wife, Margaret, and their two children pick bullet chilli peppers meant for export to Europe.

The family is one of about 2,000 households that are part of a project called Operation Mwolio Out – Mwolio means food aid in the local Kamba language.

The project began after Bishop Titus Masika from the local Christian Mission Impact ministries saw a story on local television that showed women from the area forcing their teenage daughters to peddle sex for food or money.

“I was disturbed by the story. It prompted me to convene a meeting of all the agricultural and marketing experts born in Yatta who I could reach – most of them were working elsewhere in the country. We sat with the residents of Yatta to identify the main cause of the problem, and find the solution,” Masika told IPS.

What the residents needed was sustainable employment that would lift them out of poverty.

“By implementing advice from the experts and using the traditional knowledge from the residents, we have now successfully eradicated Mwolio. But this was not going to be possible without the involvement of all family members at all stages,” Masika said.

Local farmers were introduced to different farming techniques, which include the use of zai pits (pits of manure on top of which plants are grown), irrigation using rainwater stored in water pans (small earth dams), and the planting of drought-tolerant crops.

Through seminars, training workshops and field days spent at local villages, Masika and other agricultural experts from Yatta managed to convince men to join the project. The men provided the hard labour to help dig the water pans, but they also helped women access farm equipment generally owned by men.

Now farmers in Yatta grow their high-value crops, including the bullet chilli peppers, and jointly package and export them to Europe. Farmers are paid depending on the amount of produce they contribute.

Masika said that the success of the project was thanks to the involvement of entire households and not just women seeking ways to support their families. “When we started this project three years ago, we only had 60 women participants,” Masika said.

Now, if people want to join the project, they can only do so if all their family members join as well.

“Working together as groups of families, when men became involved, has worked miracles over the past two years. As families, we usually reason together, identify prevailing challenges, and strategise how to tackle them as a team,” said Masika.

And scientists from the Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative say that in Sub-Saharan Africa, men and women working together for a common goal increases productivity.

A book soon to be published by the initiative, titled “Transforming gender relations in agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa: Promising approaches”, highlights innovative methodologies in small-scale farming that have improved gender relations. The book states that cooperation between the genders contributes to increased food production, food security and nutrition, stronger value chains, and better use of natural resources.

“This means that we have to improve women’s positions in communities so they have equal access to land, to tools and supplies (like fertiliser), to learning opportunities, and to markets,” one of the authors of the book, Marion S. Davis of the Stockholm Environment Institute, told IPS.

One of the case studies in the book is of coffee farming in Uganda, where men and women directly competed with each other, but in the process ended up producing lower-quality coffee.

“But after a gender-focused project came in and encouraged men and women to collaborate, they were able to work together to produce higher-quality, higher-value coffee that they sold together, benefiting the whole family,” said Davis.

Transformation involves more than just focusing on women’s needs and empowerment, according to the findings of the book.

“It also depends a great deal on men and women working together at all levels. This is true particularly in the case of adapting technologies and integrating into market value chains,” Dr. Cathy Farnworth, an international expert on gender issues and one of the authors, told IPS.

She said the findings showed that promoting methodologies that encouraged cooperation between women and men farmers resulted in increased productivity dividends when they shared resources and maximised the efficiency of their decision-making.

“Right now women do not have access to the tools and supplies they need. So if you even the playing field and give women the same access to supplies and tools as men, they’re going to be able to produce a lot more,” Farnworth said.

Her co-author, a senior researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, Melinda Fones Sundell, told IPS that while women have a key role in agricultural production, in many cases they do not have correlated roles in making production and marketing decisions.

“They are efficient producers with what they have, but usually produce less than male farmers because of their limited access to land, credit and other production inputs,” said Sundell.

Janice Wanyama, a housewife from Bungoma County in Western Kenya, is a case in point.

“I have just a small plot within our compound where I grow vegetables that feed the entire family throughout the year. But the commercial part of the land, the tractor used for preparing the land and other major farm equipments are controlled by my husband. But still, I have to find time to labour on the commercial land as well,” she told IPS.

This is despite the fact that women in Sub-Saharan Africa have the highest average agricultural labour force participation in the world.

“In Ghana, for example, women produce 70 percent of the food crops, provide 52 percent of the agricultural labour force, and contribute 90 percent of the labour for post-harvest activities. In East Africa as a whole, women make up about 51 percent of the agricultural labour force,” said Sundell.

She said that where women lacked the right to own land, children also suffered.

“A report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development indicates that countries in which women lack any rights to own land have on average 60 percent more malnourished children,” said Sundell.

But a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations titled “Closing the Gender Gap in Agriculture” shows that closing the gap between the genders in agricultural inputs alone can lift 100 to 150 million people out of hunger.

And the community in Yatta district is proof of this. “On average, my family earns 250 dollars, the equivalent to 20,000 shillings every two weeks. This is far better than many employed people in Nairobi,” Mwangangi told IPS.

A successful women’s farming project in Ethiopia is a model for training other urban farmer groups all over Africa on how to adapt to climate change. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
ADDIS ABABA, Aug 24 2012 (IPS)

Eight years ago Kenbesh Mengesha earned an uncertain income collecting firewood from local government forests and selling them to her fellow slum-dwellers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She would earn on average about 50 cents a day, if she was lucky.

But now she is part of a successful women’s farming project that is a model for training other urban farmer groups all over Africa on how to adapt to climate change.

According to the World Bank, Ethiopia is extremely vulnerable to drought and other natural disasters such as floods, heavy rains, frost and heat waves. Global warming has worsened this, as global circulation models predict a 1.7 to 2.1 degree centigrade rise in the country’s mean temperature by 2050.

This is expected to have a significant impact on food security. As recently as 2011 the country and the entire Horn of Africa were hit by the worst drought in 60 years. It resulted in a severe food crisis, with the United Nations declaring famine in the region.

The World Bank estimates that food insecurity will cost Ethiopia 75 to 100 billion dollars each year to adapt to climate change from 2010 until 2050.  

So when Mengesha and 29 other women who also used to earn a living collecting firewood formed a local community organisation, it became the start of a safer and more sustainable way of life.

“Collecting firewood was and still is a risky job. I know of several women who have been raped by men who take advantage of them while in the bush collecting the firewood,” she says.

But today life is less uncertain for Mengesha. And she is no longer cutting down the country’s natural resources in order to get by.

Known as the Gurara Women’s Association, which now has a membership of 200, the group farms almost two hectares of free government-leased land near Gurara slum in Addis Ababa by practicing what it calls an integrated bioeconomy system.

Community self-help groups here are allowed to apply for government land through the local government and the sub-city administration – if the project is to be implemented within city environs. The women’s group has a five-year renewable lease.

This group of women has discovered innovative ways of handling the ever-changing climatic conditions and combating food insecurity.

They were trained by the non-governmental organisation Bioeconomy Africa, which runs the Africa Bioeconomy Capacity Development or ABCD Institute. The women underwent two weeks of training on different integrated techniques in small-scale agriculture.

And it has proved successful as it has earned the members of this association enough money to feed their families, pay school fees for their children and even create employment opportunities for others.

This in itself is a significant feat in this East African nation, which has a population of 82 million people and is the second-poorest country in the world. According to the Multidimensional Poverty Index, developed by Oxford University, 90 percent of Ethiopians live in utter poverty, with 39 percent surviving on 1.25 dollars a day.

“We learned how to utilise the least space whether fertile or not, for maximum agricultural production,” said Fantanesh Atnafic, one of the founding members of the organisation.

“In the recent past, we have seen environmental conditions change – drastically. Rainfall is no longer reliable as it was some 20 years ago. Yet when the dry spell comes, it is usually more prolonged than normal, which has a negative effect on agriculture in general,” she said.

But a changing climate does mean defeat for smallholder farmers, according to Dr. Getachew Tikubet, the director of operations at Bioeconomy Africa.

“It is true that the climatic conditions are changing, which is a huge setback for many African farmers. But the truth is that all problems have solutions. And that is what we are trying to address with African smallholder farmers,” he said.

The women’s association uses different methods of intensive farming that create an ideal environment for their crops.

“We usually blend indigenous knowledge of farming, such as use of manure, with scientific techniques learned from different organisations and individuals, which include extraction of biogas and methane gas from the cow dung before using the residue as manure,” said Atnafic, a mother of six whose husband was killed in the military 20 years ago.

The gases are used as fuel to replace the use of firewood.

“We have learned many things. For example, during hotter climatic conditions like what we are experiencing at the moment, we construct structures that are roofed using black nets in order to keep moisture in the soils,” explained Ihite Wolde Mariam, the association’s chairperson.

Black net roofing has been shown to reduce the amount of heat on the ground.

“Naturally, the black colour absorbs heat. And when we make a greenhouse with a black net, or make ordinary farm roofing using the black net above the crops, we actually reduce the heat underneath by 40 percent. This eventually reduces the evaporation rate, hence saving the soil moisture for the crops,” explained Tikubet.

The women’s group has managed to purchase 10 Friesian dairy cows for milk production.

The members currently grow various types of vegetables such as spinach, kale, tomatoes and carrots, as well as crops for commercial purposes. The fresh produce is used in the kitchen of the on-site restaurant they opened to the public.

“We also use cow dung to produce biogas that is used in the restaurant for cooking. After that, the dung is then converted into organic manure to be used for horticulture,” explained Mariam.

For further income generation, the group has started a poultry project, with 500 laying hens. It also has 12 beehives for honey production and four commercial bathrooms where slum-dwellers shower for a fee.

“This is one of the most successful urban farmer projects that has benefited from our training programme. They have become a model for training other farmer groups from all over Africa,” said Tikubet.

“They have clearly demonstrated that small-scale farming is the way to go, in order to achieve the much desired green revolution in Africa,” he said. “Unfortunately, modernisation neglects smallholder farmers.”

And each member of the group earns between 300 and 350 Birr (16 to 19 dollars) in dividends every month, in addition to the three dollars a day that they are paid for working on the farming project.

“The dividend is already good enough. It has enabled me to see my last-born son through secondary school, and it allows me to afford basic necessities and provide for my grandchildren as well,” said Mengesha, a mother of five.

*This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

David Rudisha, far right, trained with Kenya’s top athletes in a strict regimen of pre-Olympic training before heading off to the games in London. Credit: Brian Ngugi/IPS

By Brian Ngugi
NAIROBI, Aug 11 2012 (IPS)

When Kenyan athlete David Lekuta Rudisha simultaneously became the first person ever to break the 1min 41sec mark in the 800m while also becoming the first person to set a world record at this year’s London Olympics on Thursday Aug. 9, he managed another first. He briefly united an ethnically divided nation.

Across this East African nation people gathered in homes, shopping malls, restaurants and pubs to witness Rudisha, locally nicknamed “King David”, confirm his status as the champion of the 800m with his winning time of 1min 40.91sec.

On the night of Rudisha’s win ethnic rifts melted, and it was not uncommon to see men and women from the Kalenjin and Kikuyu ethnic groups, the two main rival groups in the country’s 2007 post-election violence, dancing together in jubilation.

“I hope the sense of unity that was brought about by Rudisha’s win will trickle down to all aspects of our lives,” Samuria Pulley, a 32-year-old resident of Kibera slums in Nairobi, told IPS.

Barely five years ago Kenya found itself on the verge of destruction after post-election ethnic violence, triggered by a bungled general election in December 2007, saw neighbour turn against neighbour. Almost 1,200 people were killed and 600,000 displaced from their homes in the ensuing mass violence.

And tensions still remain as, according to Human Rights Watch, “victims of rape, assault, arson, and other crimes still await justice.”

“Police officers, who killed at least 405 people during the violence, injured over 500 more, and raped dozens of women and girls, enjoy absolute impunity,” the organisation said in a December 2011 report.

Four prominent Kenyans suspected of inciting the nationwide violence are yet to stand trial at the International Criminal Court.

The suspects, who face crimes against humanity, include former Higher Education Minister William Ruto, radio presenter Joshua Sang, current Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, and former civil service boss Francis Muthaura. Their trials will only commence on Apr. 10 and 11, 2013.

Ethnic tensions remain raw and are festering across the country. The National Cohesion and Integration Commission, which was formed as part of reconciliation efforts after the 2007 violence to facilitate and promote the peaceful co-existence and integration of Kenyans, warned that violence could flare up again if this remains unchecked.

On May 8 the National Security and Intelligence Service informed the government that strong indicators of violence exist as an increase in tribal politics has fuelled ethnic hostilities, as campaigning for the March 2013 general election enters high gear.

But when Rudisha did what no one else has been able to do at the games, including the 100m and 200m gold medallist Usain Bolt, by setting a new world record – the country erupted in celebration.

Prior to Rudisha’s win, Kenyans were disappointed that their legendary middle-distance runners failed to win gold. Ezekiel Kemboi had been the country’s only gold medalist after winning the 3,000m steeplechase. But Kemboi’s victory did not automatically inspire unity among Kenyans the way Rudisha’s did, as he faces criminal charges.

Kemboi, who won Kenya’s first gold medal at the games, competed after being granted bail following his arrest for allegedly stabbing a woman on Jun. 27 in Eldoret, in Kenya’s Rift Valley province.

The woman claimed Kemboi stabbed her for allegedly refusing his sexual advances after a drinking bout. Kemboi denied the allegations.

“It is defeatist for an athlete to hope to inspire unity among Kenyans while his actions outside of the field are contrary to that,” 23-year-old Kenya Polytechnic University College student Wambui Kuria told IPS of Kemboi’s victory.

So it is no wonder that Rudisha’s run, which pushed not only him, but also the rest of the field to personal bests, inspired such elation and unity.

“I believe this unity is not false and I hope it persists beyond the Olympics,” Faith Kyomukama, a 24-year-old student at Daystar University, told IPS.

“Why would we discriminate against one another on the basis of tribe? We have shown that our unity can override these small differences,” added Kyomukama.

And social experts are hopeful that sport can be used to permanently bridge ethnic divisions in the country.

Dr. Gidraph Wairire, a sociology lecturer at the University of Nairobi, told IPS that sport could help Kenya permanently bridge ethnic divisions.

He said that sport produced, for both those participating and watching, a special “feel-good chemical”, which triggered a unifying bond among citizens.

“Once you see someone winning … at that point you can actually forget your differences as individuals in ethnic communities,” he said.

“In the case of Kenyan athletes, if this power of sport can be prioritised and tapped, Kenya would be able to bridge these ethnic divisions which in any case are equally triggered by minor differences,” he said. He added that these divisions were only superficial and not inherently permanent.

According to Dr. Joyce Nyairo, the resident representative of the Ford Foundation and an expert on Kenyan popular culture, Kenya can use sport to rewrite its national narrative and forge an even stronger national unity with great effectiveness.

Nyairo, who has written about ethnicity amongst the country’s 42 ethnic groups, said it was a pity that Kenya’s government failed to build policies around nation-building projects that involved sport.

She said that the impact sport had in inspiring unity surpassed any other reconciliation effort, and added that Rudisha’s victory had done just that.

“Our sense of who we are, of what we have in common with one another is marshalled and defended on the sports field just as it might be written in constitutions and debated in parliaments,” she told IPS.

Nyairo said that sport could help bridge existing ethnic divides in unimaginable ways.

“If we shield ourselves under our athletes’ stories, embrace them and learn from them, we will surely see the seamless contours that join Kenya over and above the rifts that threaten our appreciation of a common past and a common destiny,” she said.

It is a common destiny that many of the country’s athletes had hoped to inspire by participating in the Olympics.

“I am hoping that our victories will inspire long-lived unity beyond the ones Kenyans show when they cheer us,” the country’s Olympic women’s 800m silver medallist, Janeth Jepkosgei, told IPS prior to her departure to London.

Jepkosgei said that the post-election violence marked one of the saddest points in her life and added that Kenyans should realise that national unity was more important than ethnic pride.

“Some of my friends with whom I train are Cuban, American and also Ethiopian. I don’t see why my fellow Kenyans can’t de-tribalise their mindsets too and see that we are one,” she said. Jepkosgei has qualified for the women’s 800m final on Saturday, Aug. 11.

While the Kenyan athletics’ team head coach Julius Kirwa has been under fire for his team’s performance, he will be satisfied with having achieved one of his goals: “We want to see these games unite Kenyans beyond the track. That’s our wish,” he told IPS prior to departing for the games.

And now many Kenyans hope that the sense of unity shown on an August night can outlive a historical Olympic moment.

At the Kakonko Health Centre, about 250 kilometres from the nearest hospital in Kigoma Region, Western Tanzania, assistant medical officer Abdu Mapinduzi prepares to operate on Joanitha, a young pregnant mother.

She has given birth via caesarean section three times before at a regional hospital. But now, for her fourth child, she is able to have the baby at her nearest medical health centre.

Despite the fact that the Kakonko Health Centre is 150 km away from Joanitha’s home village, it is still closer than her nearest regional hospital, which is the only other facility able to conduct caesareans. Health centres here cater for 50,000 people, approximately the population of one administrative division, but are not equipped to perform surgeries. They are the third level of health care in the country after village health and dispensary services.

But the Kigoma Region has become one of the first places in East Africa to train assistant medical officers to conduct life-saving c-sections at its rural health centres.

After her caesarean, Joanitha told IPS that she was grateful to be able to deliver her baby safely at a health centre.

The Kakonko Health Centre in rural Tanzania is now equipped to perform surgeries, including caesarean sections. Credit: Erick Kabendera/IPS

“A friend of mine died while giving birth at a traditional birth attendant’s home last year, and about four months ago another one gave birth to a dead child as she travelled to the hospital.”

The World Lung Foundation renovated nine rural health centres in Kigoma Region, including the Kakonko Health Centre, under a pilot project in 2009. As part of the initiative, assistant medical officers were trained in basic surgery.

“We have successfully handled all our complicated cases and mothers have delivered safely,” Mapinduzi, who is also the supervisor of the centre, told IPS.

“When we have a complicated birth, it is like everything has stopped so as to save a life,” he said.

Mapinduzi said that when the centre began operating on expectant mothers in 2010, the number of deliveries at the health centre went up to 120 per month from 20, and an average of six caesarean sections were conducted every week.

“We have established a network at the grassroots level where women with complications are advised to deliver at the health centre or district hospital.

“Previously, some mothers didn’t see the need to come to the health centre, especially those with complications, because they knew that we were unable to help them then. Some would stay at home and wait for the grace of God, while others went to other places,” he said.

Tanzania has a high maternal mortality rate: 578 deaths per 100,000 live births. According to the World Health Organization “the maternal mortality ratio in developing countries is 240 per 100,000 births versus 16 per 100,000 in developed countries.” Kate Gilmore, assistant secretary-general and deputy executive director (Programme) of the U.N. Population Fund said that South Sudan had the highest rate in the world with over 2,000 deaths per 100,000. But at one point the Kigoma Region had the highest rate in the country, at 933 per 100,000 live births in the early 1980s.

But in the 1980s, a newly qualified gynaecologist, Dr. Godfrey Mbaruku, who is now the Deputy Director of the Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania’s main health research institution, developed successful initiatives that led to a huge drop in the maternal mortality ratio here – to 186 per 100,000 live births in 1991.

While recent statistics are unavailable, maternal mortality in this region is considered to be lower than in the rest of the country.

It was Mbaruku’s work here that inspired development partners to set up the project. He told IPS that it made perfect sense to equip health centres to perform surgeries.

“The majority of Tanzanians live in rural areas, and you must be joking to suggest that they should access health services at the regional and district hospitals. Mothers are not dying due to chronic illnesses, but because of emergencies,” Mbaruku said.

Dr. Amri Mulamuzi, coordinator of the project in Kigoma Region, told IPS that a combination of factors helped reduce maternal deaths here recently.

“We have also provided ambulances to all the health centres so they can refer complicated cases to the district or regional hospitals…We also started campaigns on the ground, in collaboration with local government authorities, to ensure that each expectant mother realises that it is important for her to receive antenatal care,” said Mulamuzi.

While the Kigoma Region health centres have become a success story, health activists fear that programmes like this are unlikely to be sustainable because they are donor-driven, and will collapse when donors phase out their initial financial commitments.

For example, the government’s “Support to Maternal Mortality Reduction Project” that began in 2006, and is being implemented as a trial in three regions, only receives 10 percent government funding. The rest comes from donors.

Irenei Kiria, the executive director of Sikika, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for the provision of quality health services, told IPS that there would be no significant change in the country’s maternal mortality rate until the government invested more in it, and translated policies into action.

“Things on the ground must change for the government to be seen as serious in addressing maternal health,” said Kiria.

Mbaruku agreed.

“You can’t expect donors to help you with this – forget about reducing the deaths. The government must commit its own resources to reduce maternal deaths,” he said.

A 2009 report on the assessment of Tanzania’s progress in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) entitled “Tanzania Midway Assessment at a Glance” showed that the country was unlikely to cut its maternal mortality rate or increase the number of births attended by skilled health personnel by 2015. The eight MDGs are promises that 189 U.N. member countries “made to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations.”

For example, maternal mortality in Kilwa District, in south eastern Tanzania, is glaringly high. In 2008, Kilwa District statistics showed that the maternal mortality rate was 442 per 100,000 deaths.

This is despite the fact that the Kilwa municipal council allocates 40 percent of its budget to health, part of which is for addressing maternal mortality. According to Joanitha Mangosongo, the reproductive health coordinator at Kilwa Kivinje District Hospital, the money is largely spent on purchasing essential drugs for pregnant women and delivery kits.

But a lack of medication is not the reason for the high number of deaths in this region. In Kilwa District, unlike other parts of the country where most deaths occur in communities before mothers reach health facilities, over 90 percent of maternal deaths here occur at registered health facilities.

It is partially because health facilities have an acute shortage of skilled health workers, said Mangosongo. District statistics show that 80 percent of health staff is relatively unskilled.

“This affects almost all our efforts to fight maternal deaths. We are trying to provide on-the-job training and distance learning, but it is proving to be tough,” said Mangosongo.

Mbaruku believes that the solution to the high number of maternal deaths in Kilwa can only come after authorities acknowledge that there is a problem.

He told IPS that all districts have the same health budget and that Kilwa needs to formulate its own plan to combat the high maternal mortality before it asks for external support.

David Rudisha, far right, trained with Kenya’s top athletes in a strict regimen of pre-Olympic training before heading off to the games in London. Credit: Brian Ngugi/IPS

By Brian Ngugi
NAIROBI, Aug 1 2012 (IPS)

On a chilly morning at the Moi International Sports Centre in Nairobi, the largest multi-purpose sports centre in Kenya, 800m world record holder David Rudisha looked like just another athlete.

At 1.90m tall, Rudisha is not diminutive. But as he trained with Kenya’s reigning Olympic and world 1,500m champion, 23-year-old Asbel Kiprop, and close to two dozen of the country’s top athletes in a strict regimen of pre-Olympic training, he appeared to be just another member of the Kenyan team.

But Rudisha and his teammates are far from average. The East African nation’s athletics team competing in this year’s summer London Olympics consists of three Olympic and four world champions. Rudisha, 23, has been tipped as a potential favourite to break his own 800m world record time of 1.41.01 at the games.

Vanity Fair called him “the best Olympic track star” yet to be discovered. The magazine said that once he takes to the track in London, Kenya’s star runner will become a global household name – just like the Olympic and world sprint record holder Usain Bolt. However, Rudisha is already a household name in Kenya, with locals nicknaming him “King David”.

Any medals he and his team mates win will really be medals also for the developing world, given that athletics is dominated by sportsmen and sportswomen from the developed world.

But when IPS met with him after his training session, he played down the adoration.

Instead, his mind was focused on winning gold.

For almost a month, the athletes trained uninterrupted and in isolation, with no visitors allowed. But the media was given access to them during one of their last training sessions on home soil before they boarded a flight for the United Kingdom on Jul. 30. The team had opted to remain at high altitude for as long as possible, deciding against training in England.

The soft-spoken athlete told IPS that he was confident of winning a gold medal at his Olympic debut in London.

“I don’t think I am going for anything less than gold. This is my first Olympics. Since I am the world record holder and the world champion, so far, I want to clinch Olympic gold. It is the only medal missing on my shelf,” Rudisha said.

He exuded optimism, buoyed by his good running times this year.

“This is my best year already and I am in the best shape of my life. So I want to go there and win,” Rudisha said.

“There are good guys out there who have processed good times this year, but I am confident because they haven’t come close to what I have done this year. I am very confident, I am in a shape of my own.”

He said spirits in the Kenyan camp were very high and the team expected to win a number of medals at the Olympics.

“We expect good results, and good things to come from this competition,” he added.

Teammate Kiprop told IPS that Kenya currently boasts the best team in middle-distance running, and that the world should expect his country to take all the medals in the 1,500m.

“We have a very strong team in the 1,500m with me, Silas Kiplagat and Nixon Kiplimo Chepseba being the three top athletes in the world at the moment. If things work well, we are surely talking of a clean sweep in the 1,500m,” Kiprop said after his training session.

Also included in the team are double world 5,000m and 10,000 champion Vivian Cheruiyot; reigning 800m Olympic champion Pamela Jelimo; former 800m world champion Janeth Jepkosgei; and world champion marathon runner Edna Kiplagat.

Ezekiel Kemboi is the reigning Olympic 3,000m steeplechase gold medallist, and Brimin Kipruto is the current 3,000m steeplechase world and Olympic champion.

Kiprop, meanwhile, played down expectations of breaking the 1,500m record. He effortlessly won the 1,500m with a world-best time of 3:28.88 at the Herculis Meeting in Monaco in July.

“At the moment I think the first priority is to win an Olympic gold medal, and then we’ll see when to attack the record. If not this year, maybe next year,” he said.

Jepkosgei, the country’s Olympic women’s 800m silver medallist, wants to bring home a gold medal.

She said that her primary focus was to make it to the finals of the 800m.

“Obviously, I want to be on the podium. The 800m is a tactical race, but I am prepared for this,” she told IPS.

Jepkosgei said she anticipated stiff competition in the heats. She singled out African champion Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi, her Kenyan compatriot Jelimo, South Africa’s Caster Semenya and Russia’s Mariya Savinova as some of her biggest threats.

She could not say if she would be able to beat Jelimo if they met in the finals. “I can’t tell if I can beat her, but am going to do my best,” she said.

Indeed Jepkosgei and her fellow athletes know that Kenyans expect nothing less than victory from them. The country’s runners are legendary and Kenya has been a fertile training ground for the development of world record-setting athletes.

Since Kenya participated in the Olympics for the first time in 1956, the country has won a total of 78 medals, mainly in athletics and boxing.

Kenyan Henry Rono is considered the greatest long-distance runner the world has known. In 1978, in less than three months he broke four world records: the 10,000m, the 5,000m, the 3,000m steeplechase, and the 3,000m. It is an achievement that no one has been able to beat.

Kipchoge Keino, a two-time Olympic gold medallist whose winning time at the 1978 Summer Olympics remained the 1,500m record for 16 years, is still a national hero.

Assistant head coach for the Kenyan Olympic team, Sammy Rono, told IPS that they would enter as many athletes as possible in the races as part of the country’s game plan to win as many medals as they could.

“It will then give us a strong base to execute their strategies in the individual races,” Rono said.

“Anything goes in these championships…There is no room for mistakes,” said Rono.

Olympic head coach, Julius Kirwa, told IPS that beyond seeking to maintain the country’s success in middle-distance running, Kenya will aim for medals in the men’s and women’s 10,000m, and in the 5,000m men’s race.

“We have trained well and are hopeful, but at the same time we are cautiously optimistic. In 2008 we had six gold medals; we hope to surpass this number,” he said. The team landed in London on Tuesday Jul. 31.

Money changing hands will soon be a thing of the past as East Africa standardises an electronic payment system. Credit Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jul 17 2012 (IPS)

For months now East Africans have been expectantly waiting for an economic revolution to begin as they anticipate the launch of a new standardised payment system that will integrate the electronic transfer of money in the region. But continued delays in the launch of the system have economists fearing that the weak financial infrastructure here is hindering its implementation.

The system, a replica of the Single Euro European Payments Area (SEPA), will make all electronic payments in the East African Community (EAC) domestic ones through harmonised laws, policies and regulations within the region.

Although people still make electronic payments across the region, it is often insecure. Currently, cross border transfers in East Africa also take a number of days to be processed.

But when finally launched, the system will be unprecedented in Africa. Not even the Southern African Custom Union, the world’s oldest union, has a common electronic payment system in place. Sources say that it will eventually lead to the creation of one central bank for Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, the countries involved in the formation of the system.

“This system is a step forward towards the establishment of one central bank in the region, as well as one common currency,” Dr. Danson Mwangangi, an economist and market researcher in East Africa, told IPS.

And it is also about integrating trade.

“This is about electronic transfers. A payment method that is increasingly becoming common as the East African Community continues to integrate trade,” explained an economist and policy analyst at the Central Bank of Kenya involved in the process, and who did not wish to be named.

But that future appears a long way off. Though the payment system was supposed to have been launched in April, it has yet to come into effect. And the Central Bank of Kenya, one of the architects of the project, has refused to divulge information about its progress or set a new launch date.

However, Dr. George Ntawagira, a Rwandese economist working in Kenya, told IPS that the delay could be because the region’s cash-based economy is characterised by weak financial infrastructure. At least 60 percent of all payments in EAC are made in cash, a system that is bulky, risky and often inefficient.

Ntawagira added that banking remained risky in the region as a significant number of banks in Kenya lose millions of shillings every year from illegal withdrawals by computer-savvy criminals.

“These kind of risks have to be minimised. Still, East Africans have great expectations for this system and there has been concern over the delay in the inception of it.

“But this is to be expected, the financial infrastructure is still too weak to support this system. One of the greatest challenges is the discrepancies in regulatory and supervisory frameworks.”

Meanwhile, Ntawagira said that most banks across East Africa still have different tax regimes that hinder financial integration.

He added that close supervision of all the banks in the region would be critical to the success of the system.

“Although it is rare to find supervisors across banks scrutinising each other, this is an important aspect of regional integration because weaknesses in one financial institution can be corrected to prevent it from putting the entire system at risk.”

Ntawagira was quick point out that even the highly successful M-PESA, a mobile phone system where a maximum of 500 dollars can be transferred from mobile phones to pay bills and accounts and even purchase airtime, faced numerous problems when first launched in 2007. This included issues of network connectivity and financial integration.

But, according to the World Bank, it has since become Africa’s success story and facilities payments totalling almost 320 million dollars a month in the region.

And economists still believe that the new electronic payment system will significantly change how money moves across the region’s borders. The system is expected to not only be more secure than the current banking structure, but also cheaper and more efficient.

“Currently, if you move to another country in East Africa, even temporarily, you will have to go through a number of complex procedures in order for you to open a new account in your new country.”

With the new electronic payment system, residents of East Africa will be able to continue using their existing bank accounts from their home countries while residing elsewhere in the region.

It is also hoped that the system will lead to increased investment.

“EAC has continued to struggle in their attempt to lure foreign direct investment (FDI). This has largely been due to poor infrastructure in all sectors, be it roads, financial and so on. This system might improve FDI,” economic analyst, Titus Mwakazi, told IPS by phone from Tanzania.

“An integrated financial market can enhance liberalisation of intra-trade, boost the development of viable projects, strengthen financial institutions, encourage innovation as well as the pooling together of scarce resources in the region,” he said.

Still, despite of the promise that an integrated financial system holds for the struggling EAC economy, it nonetheless still has with a number of challenges. This includes the issue of the uneven level of growth and sophistication in the banking sector in some countries like Rwanda and Burundi.

“Kenya has achieved a much higher level of growth compared to the other countries. A weak banking system in one country may compromise the success of the system by increasing the risk of cross border electronic transfer,” Mwangangi said.

A number of people line up at the Kanungu Health Center IV, Uganda to access family planning facilities. Courtesy: Tadej Znidarcic/UNFPA

By Mantoe Phakathi
Kanungu, UGANDA , Jun 29 2012 (IPS)

It is midmorning at the Kanungu Health Centre IV and the queue of patients grows as more people start to arrive for treatment at this rural facility more than 400 kilometres outside the Ugandan capital of Kampala.

Most are here to access family planning services, while some are waiting for cancer screening.

Generally about 100 patients a day visit the health centre. But today there will be four times as many.

“We see an average of 400 people a day when the doctor from Kampala visits once a month,” says nursing sister Kwesiga Muteisa.

There are mostly women in the queue here, although some are accompanied by their partners.

“Those who come with their husbands are served first to encourage male involvement in family planning,” says acting district health officer sister Rwabahima Florence.

She explains that it also serves as an opportunity for men to undergo HIV counselling and testing, and to learn about other methods of family planning not commonly practiced among Ugandans, like having a vasectomy.

The increased number of patients who visit the health centre are a testament to the success of the voluntary health team (VHT). Three years ago, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in collaboration with the Ugandan Ministry of Health and the Kanungu District Local Government, created the teams. UNFPA funds 95 percent of family planning services in this East African nation, while the government provides the remainder.

VHTs consist of volunteer members from the community who are trained in family planning in order to encourage the practice in their areas.

They conduct home visits and educate people about family planning, distribute condoms and refer patients to health facilities for more information and services. Each VHT is assigned to 25 households.

Voluntary health team member and pensioner Babwicwa Mark beams from ear to ear, satisfied with the number of couples who have now embraced family planning in the Kanungu district.

While the country’s 2011 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) states that the contraceptive prevalence rate at national level is 26 percent, it is 41 percent in Kanungu.

“I motivated some of the people to come to the facility for family planning services,” says Mark. “Most people in my area did not believe in contraceptives, but after a lot of education they realised they’ve got nothing to fear.”

Making Ugandans aware of the need for family planning is vital in a country with the world’s third-highest population growth rate: 3.2 percent.

“People in the communities listen better to the VHTs than the health workers, because at least they know them better than us,” explains Saturday Nason, a nursing officer and VHT trainer at the Kihihi Health Centre in the Kanungu District.

Ugandan women give birth to an average of six children, according to the DHS, a 0.5 decrease from the 2006 average of seven. Nason attributes this decrease to family planning awareness.

Although 26 percent of the Ugandan productive population of 15 to 49-year-olds use modern family planning methods according to the DHS, myths and cultural beliefs still stand in the way.

Women are often subjected to pressure from men to produce more children. “The biggest challenge is that while many women want to adopt family planning and have fewer children, their spouses insist on more,” says VHT member Nyakato Peace, a mother of three.

While the majority of women IPS interviewed at Kanungu Health Centre IV want an average of four children, the majority of men want seven or more. Twesigye Chrisente and her husband, Niwagaba Savio, are an example.

The mother of four is satisfied with the number children she now has, but Savio wants seven and is threatening to marry a second wife if she insists on refusing to have more.
“I only have a brother and sister and we’re not respected in the community because our family is small,” says Savio.

“I don’t want this to happen to my children.”

Chrisente, on the other hand, argues that their income is barely enough to provide for the needs of the children they already have. Both husband and wife are subsistence farmers with no steady income.

The couple had to undergo counselling at the Kinaaba Health Centre II in Kanungu District before Savio agreed that his wife could get a contraceptive implant. It will prevent her from falling pregnant for three years while Savio ponders whether or not to have more children.

While Chrisente is assured of not having any more children within the next three years, the situation is not so easy for other women on different types of contraceptives. Peace says that once women experience the slightest side effects from contraceptives they tend to discontinue them, and this inevitably leads to unplanned pregnancies.

“When it comes to side effects people prefer to discuss their problems with fellow women instead of returning to the health centre to seek advice,” says Florence. “That’s why we need people in the community who can give advice.”

The DHS reported that the use of modern contraceptives increased from eight percent in 1995 to 26 percent in 2011, showing increased demand for family planning services. However, there is a serious shortage of services in the area.

The VHTs complain that pills and female condoms are not available in Kanungu.

UNFPA assistant representative Dr. Wilfred Ochan says that there is a 41 percent unmet need for family planning in Uganda. He attributes this to inadequate funds and poorly skilled health workers.

“However, we’ve made progress because it’s the first time we’re seeing a decrease in the fertility rate in this country,” says Ochan.

Junior Mayema says that discrimination against gay people is just as bad in South Africa as in his home Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Davison Mudzingwa/IPS

By Davison Mudzingwa
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jun 26 2012 (IPS)

When Junior Mayema boarded a plane to South Africa from his native Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010, he cried tears of joy because he was finally heading to a country where he could live openly as a gay man.

South Africa is the only African country to recognise same-sex unions, and the country’s constitution forbids discrimination on the basis of sex, gender or sexual orientation.

However, when he arrived in South Africa Mayema shed even more tears. But this time they were tears of pain because of the exclusion and harassment he had to endure.

“It’s a very hard life I’m living, a very hard life,” the 24-year-old told IPS.

In South Africa Mayema has been verbally abused and beaten up several times for being gay. And he has lost confidence in the justice system because of apathetic law enforcers.

“I was beaten up last year and when I went to report it to the police they started laughing asking ‘Why are you gay? Just go to the hospital.’”

The prejudicial attacks are one of the reasons why Mayema left DRC. Being gay in his home country means finding work is almost impossible, and it means being discriminated against in education institutions and even being killed.

Mayema, a university drop out, had a close brush with death when his own family beat him up because of his sexual orientation. He said that he was starved for seven days, as his family attempted “to exorcise his demon.”

But he never expected to experience similar discrimination in South Africa. He told IPS that he was ejected from several shelters for being a gay man and a foreigner. The situation is sometimes so bad that he said he misses home.

“In South Africa it’s worse, there is xenophobia, homophobia and racism,” Mayema told IPS, lamenting his fading hope for a new life here.

But his story is sadly not unique. His is just one of many cases of hardships that refugee Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) people experience here according to a report titled “Dream Deferred: Is the Equality Clause in the South African Constitution Bill of Rights just a far-off hope for LGBTI Asylum Seekers and Refugees”.

The report, produced by the People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP), was released on Tuesday Jun. 26. It found that at the root of the plight of refugee LGBTI people in South Africa was their lack of legal residential status. The report recommends that the government of South Africa sensitise its Department of Home Affairs staff to properly handle the application for refugee status by LGBTI people.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency guide for adjudicating LGBTI refugee and asylum claims, threatened people should be granted legal status in their country of refugee. But this is not the case in South Africa.

“Out of 35 people we interviewed who applied, only two were granted refugee status,” said Guillain Koko, coordinator of the PASSOP LGBTI advocacy project.

Koko said that the lack of residence status jeopardises the chances of employment for refugee LGBTI people.

“They are the most vulnerable people,” he said. He added that the difficulties of being unemployed resulted in “two of those interviewed trying to commit suicide, while some were driven into sex work.”

Unemployment, Koko said, slows down social integration and even acceptance into local LGBTI social groups.

“They can’t go to gay clubs or restaurants because it’s expensive.”

Robinah Kintu, a former Uganda national soccer player who resides in Mandalay Township near Cape Town, is a case in point. She has a tenuous future in the country and she may soon be unemployed because she has not been granted residence here.

Kintu currently plays provincial league soccer for the Red Eagles Football Club in Cape Town. However, the South African Football Association has refused to grant her permission to continue playing since she only has asylum in the country. “When you are a foreigner and also a lesbian, for me, I call it war,” she told IPS.

“It’s dangerous.”

She has been living in the country since 2009 and said that there is little to distinguish between South Africa and her East African home, a country notorious for its homophobia, when it comes to people’s attitudes towards LGBTIs.

“The people there treat you, if you are lesbian or gay, like a pig,” she said. “The sentence is death, when they find out that you are a lesbian.

“In South Africa, it’s still the same. There is a law but people do not follow the law…even South African lesbians are raped and killed.”

In February four South African men were sentenced to 18 years in jail for stoning and stabbing to death an openly lesbian teenager, 19-year-old Zoliswa Nkonyana, in 2006. Violence against lesbians is common here, with high incidences of “corrective rape”, where men believe they can “cure” lesbians of their sexual orientation.

Kintu has been subjected to her fair share of harassment, and fears for her safety.

“If I had money I would move from this place, it’s not safe. That’s why you can’t find me walking out at night…they can kill or rape you,” she said, her voice breaking.

The PASSOP report calls for tighter law enforcement regarding the rights of LGBTI refugees in South Africa. It urges the government “to take affirmative measures to prevent, stop and prosecute acts of violence against LGBTI refugees.”

A team from Kawempe Home Care visits Barbara Namirimu, one of their patients, at her home in Kampala, Uganda. Credit: Andrew Green/IPS

By Andrew Green
KAMPALA, Jun 23 2012 (IPS)

As soon as Sanyu Nagia sits down outside Barbara Namirimu’s home, she asks to see her patient’s bag of medicine. It is too heavy for the ill Namirimu to carry, so her mother, Efrance Namakula, brings it out and hands it over.

It is bulging; filled with anti-retrovirals that hold Namirimu’s HIV at bay, anti-tuberculosis medication to cure her of that disease, morphine to ease the pain of the skin lesions she has developed from Kaposi’s sarcoma (a cancerous tumour of the connective tissue often associated with AIDS) and dozens of other multi-coloured pills.

As Nagia checks through the medication to make sure Namirimu has been taking them on schedule, her patient gives her an update. She is still feeling weak and her appetite is low. Her right eye will not fully open. But she is upbeat, smiling and telling jokes. She tells Nagia that she even had a dream about her last night.

“Sometimes,” Namirimu tells Nagia, “I can’t even believe that you are real.”

Nagia is a community health worker with Kawempe Home Care (KHC). The organisation is based in the Kampala slum of Kawempe, an area with one of the city’s highest disease burdens, and cares for nearly 1,200 HIV-positive patients in the area who are also treated for TB and cancer.

The organisation’s 24 community health workers tour the neighbourhood every day, asking if people are feeling sick and encouraging them to go for HIV counselling and testing. The clinic also offers ARVs as well as other medication.

They also visit patients like Namirimu, who are too weak to access treatment at their offices. Nagia has been stopping by Namirimu’s house every Tuesday since the 26-year-old registered with KHC in January. During her visits, Nagia gets updates on her patient’s health, helps out with household chores and chats.

Though she suffers from TB, HIV and a range of infections that prey on her weakened immune system, Namirimu said that she knows she is improving. She credits KHC, specifically Nagia, for her improvement.

“I was almost dying,” she told IPS. “Now I have come back to life.”

KHC will be celebrating its fifth anniversary next month. In 2007 it stepped in to augment the country’s promise of universal access to HIV testing and treatment. A promise the underfunded and understaffed national health system has been unable to meet.

Voluntary HIV counselling and testing is free in Ugandan health facilities, as are ARVs. But only about 20 percent of Ugandans know their HIV status, according to the country’s most recent progress report on HIV/AIDS. The study showed that 6.7 percent of adults aged between 15 and 49 were HIV-positive in this landlocked East African country.

Once HIV patients are in the government system, which lacks nearly half of the needed health workers, there are gaps in counselling and treatment.

Before a neighbour alerted KHC of Namirimu’s status, she had been accessing care from a government facility. The health workers there had not seen her for nearly a year and had failed to diagnose her TB co-infection.

Oliver Namirimu (no relation) is the community department manager for KHC. She told IPS that the people who live in KHC’s coverage area have access to three government health facilities, including the national referral hospital.

“If they can’t move, if they’re too sick… they can’t go to the government health centre,” she said. “Such organisations like Kawempe come in to supplement the government’s services.”

In Barbara Namirimu’s case, she never received follow ups from the government health centre and slowly deteriorated. By the time KHC found her, she was too weak to travel anywhere.

Though there is no national database of community health worker programmes, groups like KHC dot the health landscape. But they are still not enough to fill the gaps in Uganda’s health system.

The government has trained and facilitated more than 80,000 village health team members since 2002, but they are expected to deal with a range of issues on a superficial level. KHC’s programme focuses specifically on HIV, TB and cancer, with a trained medical staff that can provide quick assistance.

However, the work they are doing cannot be done cheaply, which limits the rise of similar organisations. KHC is able to operate because of donor funding and the contribution of medicines by the government. Oliver Namirimu said they are still looking for additional funding to supplement the allowances they give the community workers – about 33 dollars per month, which excludes the cost of fuel.

The service they offer is critical in areas like Kawempe and other overpopulated urban settings. It can be equally important in rural areas, which have far more limited access to health facilities. Community health worker programmes have the capacity to put in the legwork required to track far-flung or transient patients.

The Kawempe area, filled with cheap, temporary shacks, is an example of one of Kampala’s stopgap areas, filled with residents looking to move to more secure locations when they have money or are feeling better.

During a recent trip out to the community, the shack of Nagia’s first patient for the day was boarded up and locked. The man who had lived there was HIV-positive and only partially through his treatment for a TB co-infection. Now Nagia will have to try to track him down and convince him to complete the drug course or risk developing a drug-resistant strain of the disease.

The team talks to some neighbours, who are told to call them if the patient reappears. But they still have eight more patients to visit, so they do not waste too much time waiting for him to return.

“He knows we will (not give up on) him,” said Aidah Nanozi, a clinician who was traveling with Nagia.

It is a difficult job. The pace of the community health workers’ schedules can lead to burnout, said KHC’s Oliver Namirimu.

“They see one patient dying, then another one dies, and another patient doesn’t want to take their medicine, and another chases them away. So, sometimes, they give up.”

But it does not happen often, she said. Counsellors at KHC are there to offer the community health workers support and talk about the difficulties with their jobs.

Ben Kaboro told IPS that after only two weeks on the job he already understands how taxing the work can be.

A former patient of KHC, he said a combination of HIV and TB had left him “bedridden” and “disturbed me so much.” His experience with a KHC volunteer, who nursed him through his recovery, made him want to help others in the same way.

He is shadowing Nagia before he begins working on his own.

“I didn’t want to see others going through what I have been through,” he said.

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, May 10 2012 (IPS)

While women constitute the majority of food producers, processors and marketers in Africa, their role in the agricultural sector still remains a minor one because of cultural and social barriers.

Jane Karuku, the new AGRA boss, dreams of seeing smallholder farmers become the drivers in Africa's quest for food security. Credit: Courtesy: AGRA

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), women are the majority of the world’s agricultural producers, supplying more than 50 percent of the food that is grown globally. And in sub-Saharan Africa the number is higher, as women grow 80 to 90 percent of the food in the region.

FAO says that although across the globe women are responsible for providing the food for their families, they do this in the face of constraints and attitudes that conspire to undervalue their work and responsibilities and hinder their participation in decision and policy making.

But it is a situation that the new Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) boss, Jane Karuku, says must change in order for Africa to feed itself.

Karuku, a Kenyan business leader with a career spanning over 20 years, became the first female president of the organisation in April.

AGRA is a partnership that works on the African continent to improve food security and enhance the economic empowerment of millions of smallholder farmers and their families. It does this through nearly 100 programmes in 14 countries.

Karuku joins AGRA from Telkom Kenya, a subsidiary of France Telecom-Orange, where she was the deputy chief executive.

She told IPS about her dream of seeing smallholder farmers become the drivers in Africa’s quest for food security. Excerpts of the interview follow.

Q: Do you see your appointment as a milestone for women farmers in Africa?

A: As AGRA’s first female president, it is a great honour to advocate on behalf of the tireless women who are sowing seeds and working in fields across Africa. They are the real heroines in this story, and I hope to highlight their important contributions for a food-secure future.

Q: Do food security policies recognise the role of women farmers in the production, processing and marketing of food in agriculture?

A: Across Africa there are great signs of progress when it comes to smallholder farmers, the majority of whom are women who are building prosperous lives for themselves and their families.

Success for smallholders, however, has been lopsided. Women smallholders and rural entrepreneurs on the continent are neither participating fully nor deriving benefits in equal measure in the agri-economy owning to gender obstacles driven by cultural and societal norms. This must change if Africa is to transform the capacity to feed itself and realise the quality of life envisioned for rural households and communities in sub-Saharan Africa.

Q: In your appointment speech you said: “Smallholder farming is a way of life in Africa, full of challenges and equally full of huge opportunities.” What will you do to strike a balance for food security?

A: My focus is to work to remove the obstacles that prevent smallholder farmers across Africa from significantly boosting productivity and income, while safeguarding the environment and promoting equity. I am committed to ensuring farmers have a full range of choices when it comes to approaching their work.

Q: Smallholder farmers hold the key to food security in Africa. What is your vision for improving their situation?

A: My vision is a food-secure and prosperous Africa achieved through rapid and sustainable agricultural growth that is based on smallholder farmers who produce staple food crops. AGRA’s mission is to trigger a uniquely “African Green Revolution” that transforms agriculture into a highly productive, efficient, competitive and sustainable system to ensure food security and lift millions out of poverty.

Q: Where do you see the role of AGRA in advocating assistance for smallholder farmers to cope with the impact that climate change has on food security?

A: AGRA and its partners work together to determine the kinds of environmental safeguards farmers need to increase their yields and improve their livelihoods. By focusing on sustainable development practices, AGRA reduces environmental degradation and conserves biodiversity.

Rebuilding soil health and enabling Africa’s smallholder farmers to grow more on less land should reduce the pressure to clear and cultivate forests and savannahs, thus helping conserve the environment and biodiversity.

AGRA’s sustainable agricultural practices include improving soil health through integrated soil fertility management. We do this through using a combination of fertilisers and organic inputs, and techniques that are appropriate for local conditions and resources. Through advocating the use of agro- ecologically sound approaches to soil and crop management, such as fertiliser micro-dosing in arid areas, AGRA will guard against potential overuse of fertilisers that could harm the environment.

Q: Research is key to food security; what is your take on the current investment in agricultural research in Africa?

A: Research is critical to making the most of the full agricultural value chain – from seed to harvest. While food productivity has increased globally by 140 percent in recent decades, the figures for sub- Saharan Africa over the same period of time show a reduction. This is because farming across much of the continent has changed little in generations. The role of research is critically important.

Q: What major impact has AGRA had in Africa, and how do you plan to build on it?

A: AGRA takes a uniquely integrated approach to helping smallholder farmers overcome hunger and poverty. By focusing on seeds, soil, market access, policy and partnership and innovative financing, the programme is transforming subsistence farming into sustainable, viable commercial activities that will increase yields across the continent. I hope to continue to look for intersections and innovative opportunities to improve farmers’ lives.

Excerpt:

By Kristin Palitza and - -
CAPE TOWN, South Africa , May 8 2012 (IPS)

On a continent of over one billion people, where half the population have mobile phones, the use of mobile communication and internet technologies is crucial to boost development in Africa.

In Mauritania mobile phones are used in rural areas. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

“We did not anticipate how rapid mobile broadband would be appropriated in Africa. There will be a computer in every pocket sooner than we think,” Gauthey told IPS. She added that Kenya has made rapid progress, having already rolled out 3rd generation mobile communications.

There are only two and a half years to go until African countries are expected to reach the MDGs, and information and communication technologies (ICTs) will help the continent achieve this. Through the eight MDGs, countries around the world have committed themselves to significantly curb poverty and hunger, improve education and health, and create environmental sustainability by 2015.

Gauthey, who is based at Alcatel’s Paris headquarters and involved in the firm’s expansion into Africa, argues that ICT will help the continent to achieve the economic growth it needs to end poverty.

Excerpts of the interview follow.

Q: How can ICT help Africa reach the MDGs?

A: I think ICT will be absolutely key, especially for countries that lag behind with other infrastructure development…In 2000, you had about five million mobile phones in Africa. Today, we have about 500 million. In 2015, we expect it to be 800 million. Already, 20 to 30 percent of these phones are internet enabled. In 2015, it will be 80 percent.

It’s proven that a 10 percent increase in broadband triggers a 1.5 percent GDP increase in a country. In developed countries, small and medium-sized enterprises are shown to have doubled their business once they are linked to the internet. In Africa, we will see a similar development, but largely through mobile broadband rather than fixed lines.

Q: Infrastructure remains a bottleneck to development throughout Africa. Can ICT circumvent that?

A: There is a false impression that ICT doesn’t need infrastructure. It does, unfortunately. It’s less capital intensive than transportation, such as roads and railways, but it does need investments, like cables, towers and so on.

There are ways to speed up ICT development, for example by governments obliging operators to share expensive infrastructure and thereby ensuring that they don’t duplicate investments. For instance, you can reduce costs by incentivising infrastructure-sharing models without preventing competition.

Q: Where on the continent do you see a strong push towards ICT?

A: Some countries, like Kenya, have leapfrogged. They have just rolled out 3G and already are thinking of rolling out 4th generation broadband, especially to rural areas, because they know it’s the only way for them to progress.

In the slums of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, 80 percent of people prefer to skip a lunch so that they can afford having a mobile phone. They are willing to make that trade-off because a mobile phone helps them to optimise their lives in the long term through better access to information and resources, including food. Access to information has become as vital as water and electricity.

We have also seen how cashew nut farmers in Ivory Coast access international market information and prices through their mobile phones to optimise their sales. It works, even if it’s just via text messages.

Q: Would you describe Kenya as the African leader in ICT?

A: Kenya is doing great things. Its government has a strong awareness of the importance of ICT and has started to foster public private partnerships with clear goals in the sector. Kenya is an innovative country that might even bring “reverse innovation”, which means innovation coming from a developing country that will later be taken up by the developed world. Such innovation could even come from the users of mobile technology, especially from the young generation.

Q: Is Africa ready for the mobile revolution you expect?

A: African countries need to build the infrastructure for those mobile services, because people will demand them. For that you need investment, first in submarine cables, then in terrestrial fibre cables, especially to reach out to the less densely populated areas.

Then you will get sufficient broadband spectrum to install next-generation wireless internet access. The submarine cables are largely in place. What is now most crucial in Africa is investment in terrestrial cables for distribution of spectrum countrywide. The World Bank, for instance, has funds to help reach out to those less developed areas.

Q: In what way should governments get involved?

A: You need good regulation for the allocation of spectrum, to encourage competition and to decrease prices. Then you need public-private partnership models, for example a public investment in partnership with private service providers that have expertise in building telecommunication networks, either to subsidise them in remote, less population-dense areas or to attract long-term funding for these networks.

Q: What should governments do to attract competition?

A: Governments need to have a broadband plan, with clear targets and ways to achieve these targets. For this, governments need a stable regulatory framework with rules that don’t change all the time, as well as an independent regulatory authority that doesn’t change with every government. A lot of African countries have set those targets already. Now they must implement them.

Q: Connectivity is one issue. Affordability is another. When will all Africans, not only the middle class, be able to afford mobile broadband?

A: Prices will drop once you have enough connectivity and enough competition, and once broadband services are less scarce. Scarcity makes it expensive. That will take some time. But a lot of measures of using ICT to help reach the MDGs don’t necessarily need mobile broadband. Sometimes simple text messaging can go a long way towards development.

Q: Can you give examples for where this has already worked?

A: Text messaging can, for instance, be used in the health sector to track an epidemic like malaria. There is also the possibility to have free “call me” services or free call numbers. Those are mobile experiences with reduced costs.

There are also examples of training community health workers through text messages in Kenya. You can have simple educational quizzes on mobile phones or exchange advice and help with diagnosis between doctors in health centres and community health workers in remote, rural areas. Mobile broadband access will of course bring many more possibilities, such as training of nurses and community health workers on mobile devices, like tablets.

Excerpt:

Civil society groups are calling on the United Nations peacekeeping mission to withdraw support from a disarmament programme they say could spark further violence in South Sudan’s volatile Jonglei state.

Members of the Murle group displaced by ethnic violence await food distribution in Gumuruk, Pibor county, in South Sudan's Jonglie state. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

Jonglei has long been plagued by ethnic tensions and cattle raids made exceptionally deadly because of the easy availability of arms left over from a two-decade civil war that ended in 2005. With an aim to quell violence, the government on Mar. 12 launched a disarmament campaign – first by asking civilians to turn over weapons voluntarily, and as of May 1, enforcing the order.

Now, a coalition of civil society groups has released a report documenting alleged abuses during the voluntary phase of the campaign, which it says received logistical support from the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). The groups warn that violence could escalate now that the government has moved into the enforcement phase.

Incidents documented in the Apr. 30 report, titled Perpetuating Cycles of Violence, include: tying young men to trees and beating them, simulated drowning, and an armed clashbetween the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and members of the ethnic Lou Nuer community who resisted disarmament. That clash resulted in both civilian and SPLA casualties.

“UNMISS is providing material support for a violent, abusive process that weakens support for the state and continues the cycle of violence in Jonglei,” said the report, which was released bythe civil society groups Pact, Community Empowerment for Progress, Standard Action Liaison Focus, Serving and Learning Together and the South Sudan Law Society.

UNMISS denied giving “direct support” to the campaign, which has been carried out by the SPLA. The mission’s assistance has beenlimited to transporting officials throughout the state “to sensitise the population about civilian disarmament process,” Josephine Guerrero, a spokeswoman for the mission, told IPS May 1.

“As UNMISS has not provided any civilian or military contributions to the process, there is also nothing to ‘withdraw’,” she added.

But one of the report’s authors, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, argued that transporting government officials by helicopter constitutes support for the campaign. The author added that UNMISS endorsed the voluntary campaign in a Mar. 12 press release.

Guerrero said UNMISS monitoring teams have reported human rights violations tothe government.

South Sudan’s government spokesman, BarnabaMarial Benjamin, denied that abuses have taken place. “There is no violence up to now,” he told IPS in Juba on May 1. “There’s no resistance anywhere. You may get a few people hiding guns somewhere, but it is going well.”

Medecins Sans Frontiers provided IPS with the number of patients it treated for injuries related to the disarmament campaign. The organisation said it has treated 30 people so far, two of whom died due to their injuries. While most sustained injuries from beatings, at least three had gunshot wounds.

The South Sudanese government launched its disarmament campaign in the wake of attacks on ethnic Murlecommunities by members of the Lou Nuer ethnic group. The assault followed a year of clashes between the groups that killed at least 1,000 peoplefrom both sides, according to the U.N.

In the weeks running up to the attacks,UNMISS air patrols reported that as many as 8,000 Lou Nuer youth were marching toward Murle communities in Pibor county, which is about 273 kilometers from Juba. Despite advanced warning, the government said it was unable to deploy enough troops to stave off the assault. Government officials blamed logistical problems. Much of Jonglei, a state roughly the size of England, is inaccessible by road. And many of the existing roads become impassable when it rains.

The U.N. said the violence affected 160,000 people, many of whom are still displaced and reliant on food aid. The Pibor county commissioner claimed about 3,000 people were killed during attacks against the Murle in Pibor county. Both the government and the U.N. dismissed that figure, but have failed to provide their own estimate despite repeated requests from journalists.

UNMISS investigated the violence,andHilde Johnson, the U.N. secretary general’s special representative for South Sudan, told reporters on Mar. 6 that the UNMISS report would be made public within weeks. But two months after her statement, and four months after the attacks, UNMISS has yet to release its findings.

“UNMISS is finalising a comprehensive report on the violence in Jonglei, which will be shared with the government once it is completed,” said Guerrero, the mission’s spokeswoman. “It will of course be available to the public.”

The Perpetuating Cycles of Violence report notes that disarmament programmes have been carried out in Jonglei at least five times in the past six years without success.

Not only have such campaigns failed to rid the state of weapons, but they have been marked by beatings, torture and the killing of civilians, according to previous reports. During a 2006 campaign that collected 3,000 weapons, for example, the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey calculated one death for every two weapons seized.

The authors of Perpetuating Cycles of Violence argue that the proper conditions must be in place before civilians will feel secure enough to hand over their weapons voluntarily. These include strengthening the policing and justice systems, addressing political grievances, promoting peace and reconciliation between ethnic groups, and providing basic services such as education and health care.

Until those conditions are met, both the government and UNMISS should halt the current campaign, which is likely to result in increased violence as it moves into its enforcement phase, the report said. “Far from being an answer to insecurity in Jonglei, disarmament is a part of the cycle of violence that has plagued the state.”

As thousands of people flee the conflict in South Sudan’s northern border states, increasing numbers have also been forced to leave their homes and towns in search of affordable food.

The conflict in South Sudan has more than doubled the price of basic commodities, making it difficult for many here to afford. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

As tension between South Sudan and Sudan continues in the South Sudanese northern areas of Unity, Upper Nile, Northern and Western Bahr al Ghazal states, the conflict has more than doubled the price of basic commodities, making it difficult for many here to afford.

In the border town of Bentiu, the price of a 50-kilogramme sack of sorghum has increased from 10 dollars to 24, while a kilogramme of sugar has tripled from one to three dollars.

“A 20 litre jerry can of cooking oil rose from 20 to 40 dollars in the last two weeks,” said Simon Kenyi, a teacher in Bentiu.

“Traders who used to bring in these goods from Elobeid in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan state are unable to do so now because the border is closed,” he added.

For the last month, traders who usually import foodstuffs from Southern Kordofan in Sudan have been victims of violence along the route to South Sudan. Many have stopped trying to cross the border altogether.

The rapid increase in prices of consumer goods has forced residents of Bentiu, which is the capital of Unity state, to flee to towns in South Sudan’s greater Equatoria region, where consumer goods imported from East Africa are in abundance and relatively cheaper. The southern states of Western, Central and Eastern Equatoria share borders with the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia.

“Many people here are moving their families to Juba and Yei, in Central Equatoria state, because they can no longer afford food,” Bonifacio Taban, a local journalist in Bentiu, said.

Fighting between South Sudan and Sudan took a turn on Apr. 10 when South Sudan occupied the disputed oil-producing town of Heglig, in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan state. Both countries have laid claim to the town, which lies in a border area.

According to South Sudan’s Minister of Information Barnaba Marial Benjamin, the country occupied Heglig to stop Sudan’s military, the Sudan People’s Armed Forces or SAF, from continuing to launch ground and air attacks from the area.

The South Sudanese army, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), were ready to withdraw provided that international monitors were sent to Heglig and Sudan agreed to international arbitration to determine which country owns the area, he had said at the time.

However, after South Sudan’s withdrawal on Apr. 23, the country says that Sudan has continued attacks.

Unity State Governor Taban Deng Guy said this week that 75 people had died in aerial bombardments in his state in the last few months; it includes casualties in Bentiu town and other parts of the state.

In the same state, thousands of civilians have been displaced following ground clashes between the SPLA and the SAF, and aerial bombardments by the latter.

South Sudan’s Deputy Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Preparedness Sabrina Dario Okolong said that residents of Unity state are fleeing the aerial bombardments in the northern part of the state and were making their way south to Nhiakdiu, Mayendit, Leer, Koch and Guit counties in search of safety.

“We also have about 1,500 people who have been displaced from Pariang County (a county in Unity state that borders Heglig) and we have the United Nations agencies verifying 1,693 IDPs in Pariang and 303 IDPs in Panyang,” Okolong said. Panyang is an administrative unit comprised of a number of villages within Pariang County.

An aid worker, who did not want to be named, estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 people had become internally displaced in the state.

The death toll from the conflict is not known, however, the U.N. says after South Sudan withdrew from Heglig, 16 civilians were killed in air raids and ground attacks within Unity state alone.

Dozens of foreign traders from Kenya, Uganda, DRC, Ethiopia and Eritrea are fleeing Bentiu where, on Apr. 23, SAF warplanes bombed a market and a bridge killing four people and wounding four others.

Makosa Kabanga, a Congolese trader who arrived in Juba from Bentiu on Apr. 24, said he was scared to stay in Bentiu because of the air raids.

“We were five Congolese who left Bentiu for Juba late last week. We feared the fighting in Heglig. Although Bentiu was a bit far from it, it was too much for us,” he told IPS. “We feared that there was going to be bombing in Bentiu and that’s what happened after we left. We will only return to Bentiu when the fighting and bombing stops,” he said.

But in South Sudan’s capital city of Juba some commodities are not so easy to find. Fuel stations have run out of petrol and there are long queues of motorbikes and cars as people wait their turn to purchase the commodity, which has almost doubled in price since the fighting intensified.

“We used to buy a litre of petrol at one dollar but now it costs more than three dollars,” Moses Taban, a motorcycle taxi operator, said.

An oil dealer in Juba, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions, said he believed that there is a shortage of petrol because the SPLA purchase large quantities of fuel from him recently.

“The SPLA bought hundreds of thousands of litres from us. It takes time to bring in more fuel from Kenya… that is why you are seeing a shortage,” he said.

When Kenya’s newly announced geothermal power generation project comes online, it will turn the East African country into an economic powerhouse in the region.

About 60 percent of Kenya’s power is hydroelectric, however, the supply is unsteady. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

In April, the government launched the Menengai Geothermal Development Project, the first initiative of its newly formed Geothermal Development Company, which has been set up to fast track the development of geothermal resources here.

According to its chief executive officer, Dr. Silas Simiyu, by 2016 the first phase will generate 400 MW, which is enough to light up 500,000 households and run 300,000 small businesses.

“It is situated 180 kilometres northwest of Nairobi, and will have a capacity to produce 1,600 MW of electricity by the time we implement all three phases in 2030,” said Simiyu.

According to Nashon Adero, a policy and economic analyst at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, the first phase of the project will have a significant impact on the country as it moves towards industrialisation.

“At the moment, the country consumes 1,600 MW,” Adero said. “Four hundred MW is therefore an additional 25 percent. And given that the country has embarked on other ambitious projects of green power generation, such as the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, which will generate an additional 300 MW, Kenya will become an economic giant within the region.”

Construction on the Lake Turkana Wind Power project will begin in June, and when completed it will be sub-Saharan Africa’s largest wind farm.

Generally, Kenya is perceived as eastern and central Africa’s financial, communication and transportation hub, with the country’s GDP increasing by four to five percent in the last 10 years.

“Kenya’s GDP is currently the largest in the (East African) region given its strong agricultural industry, particularly in tea and coffee production, and floriculture,” said Ezekiel Esipisu, Habitat for Humanity’s regional operations manager for East Africa and the Middle East. “This, coupled with investments at the Nairobi Stock Exchange and the manufacturing industry, means that the country is one of the leading economies in Africa.”

Esipisu told IPS that the country’s investment in power production would propel economic development further.

“All of Kenya’s neighbours have power deficits. The roadmap towards further power production will definitely boost development. We will see Kenya move closer to industrialisation, and it will become a real economic giant in the region.”

About 60 percent of Kenya’s power is hydroelectric, which is generated when falling water from a dam is used to drive turbines. However, the supply is unsteady, as Kenya has been subjected to perennial drought and erratic rainfall. And the power cuts have hampered the country’s growth.

From July to August 2011, the government was forced to implement power rationing after the water levels in the country’s major dams dropped. At the time Kenya was generating about 1,200 MW of power, while demand increased at an average rate of eight percent a year, according to the Ministry of Energy.

The 2011 power cuts reportedly cost the country over 96 million dollars. However, the worst period of power rationing was between 1999 and 2001, which resulted in an estimated loss of four percent of Kenya’s GDP – about 400 million dollars.

“Hydroelectric power generation is solely dependent on climatic conditions,” said John Omenge, the chief geologist at Kenya’s Ministry of Energy. “During a drought, for example, the water levels will definitely drop, reducing the amount of power generated.

“Geothermal power generation is therefore the answer. It is one of the most reliable methods of producing electric energy, because such sources are not affected by environmental calamities such as drought,” he said.

In volcanically active places like the Rift Valley region, water is pumped down an injection well, and then filtered through the cracks in the hot volcanic rocks. The resultant pressurised steam that is formed is used to drive turbines.

Kenya is the first African country to diversify into geothermal power. The country is already generating 209 MW of electricity from the Olkaria Geothermal Projects, which are located in the Rift Valley and are operated by the Kenya Power Generating Company.

And the Menengai Geothermal Development Project is just a small part of the country’s “Vision 2030”, a development blueprint that aims to transform Kenya into an industrialised and middle-income country by 2030 by generating 5,000 MW of electricity from geothermal resources at various sites across the country.

“Power supply is key to any form of development,” said Gabriel Negatu, the director of the East Africa Resource Centre at the African Development Bank. The bank is providing funding for the first phase of the Menengai Geothermal Development Project.

“This project is therefore crucial for a country like Kenya because it is becoming the economic heartbeat of the continent. It is due to such high prospects that the regional office for the African Development Bank is now based in Nairobi. Many other organisations are following suit, making the city a regional economic hub,” he said.

Though the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has long held that trade between African countries is too low, experts at the South Centre, an inter-governmental think tank of developing countries, say intra-continental trade is already significant in manufactured goods and promises a new path to industrialisation.

Valentine Rugwabiza, deputy director-general of the WTO, says Africa needs to strengthen domestic markets and integrate into the world market Credit: World Trade Organisation

“Trade among African countries is very low. Last year, it stood at 10 percent of the continent’s overall trade,” Valentine Rugwabiza, deputy director general of the WTO, which seeks to reduce barriers and promote aid for trade, told IPS.

“Though Africa’s share in world trade is also very small – less than three percent in 2011 – it is growing very rapidly, particularly with emerging economies; while trade amongst African countries is stagnant.”

With a rigid division of labour inherited from the colonial era, Africa relies on a narrow range of exports and is over-dependent on primary products: in 2010, fuel extraction and mining represented 66 percent of its total merchandise exports.

According to Rugwabiza, lack of investment in infrastructure and non-tariff barriers of all kinds make trade between the 54 countries cumbersome.

“Whereas it takes 18 days to export products from Latin America and the Caribbean, it takes almost 33 days to do so from Africa,” she added, noting that it is also more expensive to ship a container from Africa than from any other part of the developing world.

For instance, shipping a container from South-east Asia costs 900 dollars, compared to 2,000 dollars from Africa; likewise, it costs 935 dollars to import a container from South-East Asia, and almost 2,500 dollars to do so from Africa. The Geneva-based South Centre, however, has a more optimistic view.

“In absolute terms, intra-African trade is low,” Aileen Kwa, trade policy officer with the South Centre, told IPS. “In terms of non-oil exports Africa’s internal trade is almost on par with its exports to the EU. Furthermore, the trade growth rate within Africa is the second highest after China and before the United States and the EU. Therefore, it is very promising, also in terms of the quality of exports.”

She explains that, with the exclusion of South Africa, only 10 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s exports to the EU are in manufactured goods, a figure that rises to 27 percent for intra-regional trade.

“Most of Africa’s manufactured goods go to Africa. So if the continent wants to industrialise, the market that provides the best opportunities is Africa, not China, the U.S., or the EU.”

For Rugwabiza, however, the industrialisation of Africa will require not only strengthening of the domestic market, but also integration into the world market.

“Today, components of the same piece are produced in different countries all over the world. This is a huge chance for Africa to specialise in single tasks and insert itself into global value chains,” she told IPS.

“Some countries already do so, but they are still an exception. Mauritius, for example, produces pieces for H&M, (a major global clothing store). Since it has a reliable logistics and service sector, the multinational knows that it will receive the orders on time and, thanks to a stable and predictable legal environment, that there will be no unexpected regulations coming up,” she said.

Kwa notes that the picture is uneven: in some parts of Africa, intra-regional trade is larger than in others. The total exports of the East African Community (EAC) to sub-Saharan Africa already surpassed their total exports to the EU in 2000. Other countries like Zambia and Senegal also export more to Africa than to Europe.

Still, other regions display a bleaker outlook.

Rugwabiza belives that Africa, with its high dependence on trade with the outside world, is highly vulnerable to external shocks. This is particularly true of the agricultural sector, as the food crisis has shown.

“In 2008, Africa imported cereals for 15 billion dollars, with only five percent coming from the continent. Agricultural subsidies in developed countries, insufficient investment and low productivity in (domestic) agriculture and non-trade barriers (between African countries) are still a huge obstacle,” she added.

Shoprite (Pty) Ltd, for example, a South African multinational, spends 20,000 a week on securing import permits to distribute meat, milk and plant-based goods to its stores in Zambia alone. For all the countries it operates in, about 100 ‘single entry’ import permits are required each week, but this can increase to 300 per week during busy periods.

As a result of this legal red tape, there could be up to 1,600 documents accompanying each loaded Shoprite truck that crosses a Southern African Development Community (SADC) border.

But things can change. For example, the EAC has managed to substantially reduce the number of control points, while Uganda and Rwanda have set up a common border post that is now open 24 hours a day.

Kwa says that African countries’ over-dependence on imports from world markets, particularly in food, is mainly due to their loss of productive capacities.

She believes there needs to be some balancing between short-term and long-term goals. While in the short run countries must be able to import food quickly and as cheaply as possible to meet their immediate needs, they must, in the long term, produce their own food without relying on imports from developed countries that have an extremely unfair competitive advantage due to the latter’s massive government subsidies.

Relying on imports undercuts domestic producers and undermines their future capacity to produce. Therefore, countries may need to use tariffs and other trade policy tools to stop some of the imports, even from their neighbours, at least for some time.

“First countries have to increase their productive capacities and then trade will follow. The WTO always thinks about increasing trade, but the main question for Africa is how to increase its productive capacities. Then trade will naturally follow,” Kwa told IPS.

When war-torn Somalia was also ravaged by a drought-induced famine last year, which killed tens of thousands and displaced over a million people, international media was quick to blame the Islamist Al-Shabaab for blocking humanitarian assistance from reaching its zone of control in southern Somalia.

Ken Menkhaus, political science professor at Davidson College in North Carolina, blames the USA Patriot Act for blocking aid to Somali famine victims Credit: Linus Atarah/IPS

But according to Ken Menkhaus, professor of Political Science at Davidson College in North Carolina, the United States’ counter-terrorism laws played an equally central role in obstructing assistance from reaching famine victims in desperate need of aid.

Speaking here in a seminar on Wednesday, organised by the Department of the Study of Religions at Helsinki University, Menkhaus said humanitarian organisations suspended food aid delivery to drought- struck areas controlled by Al-Shabaab for fear of violating the USA Patriot Act.

Congress passed the Act in 2001 as part of its response to the Sep. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon and under it, anyone who provides material benefits, even if unwittingly, to a designated terrorist group, could face the most severe penalties.

Given that Al-Shabaab – the Somali cell of the militant Islamist Al-Qaeda, fighting the Federal Transitional Government (FTG) in Somalia and controlling vast swathes of the south except the capital Mogadishu – is designated a terrorist organisation by the U.S., humanitarian groups were fearful that an accusation of ‘aiding terrorists’ could damage their entire organisation.

Thus many reached the conclusion that they were too vulnerable to operate in Al-Shabaab-controlled areas.

Though the group undoubtedly prevented assistance from reaching starving famine victims based on its claim that food aid was a Western conspiracy to drive Somali farmers out of business, Menkhaus, a specialist on the Horn of Africa, believes that was not the end of the sordid story.

“There are plenty of western countries, including my own government, who would like to see the conversation stop right there and say it was all Al-Shabaab’s fault.” However, the other bottleneck was U.S. policy, which “de facto criminalises any transactions in southern Somalia,” he said.

Other countries have similar laws, but since the U.S. supplies the bulk of food aid to Somalia, it has the heaviest impact on the country.

In a twist of tragic irony, “suspension of food aid into southern Somalia was the only thing that the U.S. government and Al-Shabaab could agree on, to the detriment of (millions) of Somalis,” Menkhaus told IPS.

In reality, the U.S. could have issued a waiver, protecting relief agencies from counter-terrorism laws; similar waivers have been issued for relief agencies in southern Lebanon and the West Bank of the occupied Palestinian territories, where Hezbollah and Hamas operate respectively.

But in the case of Somalia, Menkhaus believes the U.S. administration did not want to give its Republican opponents any political leverage on the eve of upcoming presidential elections by appearing too “soft on terrorism”.

Instead, the U.S. government prepared a document that purportedly gave relief agencies protection from the law but which, upon close examination by legal experts, was found to contain no such protections, leaving those humanitarian agencies vulnerable to attack under the Patriot Act.

Recent forecasts indicate that Somalia could soon be facing another drought, which could produce yet another food crisis in the country this year. There is now an urgent need for preemptive decisions, by the U.S. government in particular, to avoid another humanitarian catastrophe, Menkhaus said.

Al-Shabab waning?

A Somali national working with an aid agency on the ground in the south of the country, who did not want to be identified because of concern for his safety, told IPS that Al-Shabaab is gradually losing support as increasing numbers of Somalis are beginning to resent the group’s forcible recruitment policy and suicide bombings.

Formed in 2008 to resist the invasion of neighbouring Ethiopian forces, Al-Shabaab was once a popular movement, seen as a legitimate force to oust an invading army in the face of the FTG’s inaction. It had also brought law and order to several regions torn asunder by warring gangs of warlords.

However, Menkhaus said that the group has been seriously weakened by multiple military defeats at the hands of the 12,000 African Union peacekeepers in the country; and its tactic of deploying suicide bombers among the civilian population is alienating much of the group’s former support base.

Abdi-Rashid, who did not want his full identity revealed, accused Western governments of exacerbating what he described as the “politicisation of aid in Somalia”, whereby the humanitarian agenda is becomes secondary to the political agenda.

Huge importance has been heaped on the civil war and the “security situation”, much of it with good reason: by 2008 Somalia was the most dangerous place in the world for humanitarian aid workers.

“One-third of all humanitarian casualties occurred not in Afghanistan or in Iraq but in Somalia,” Menkhaus said.

Still, this was no excuse to allow famine victims to perish en masse, he stressed.

“Long term development work should still go on in spite of the conflict” to secure people’s basic human rights to tangible things like “schools and drinking wells”, Abdi-Rashid told IPS.

If such long-term issues are ignored much longer, there will be serious consequences not only for Somalia but for the entire region.

“These famines – the ones we had last year and the one we may have in 2012 – are producing seismic changes (including) the loss of viable livelihoods in rural southern Somalia, sending waves of people across the borders into Kenya and Ethiopia,” added Abdi-Rashid.

The Kenyan refugee camp of Dadaab, with a population of 520,000, is now Kenya’s third largest city, and completely unsustainable.

Meanwhile, destitute nomads and farmers who can no longer find livelihoods in rural areas are drifting into urban centres. These people, who come with no technical skills into a barren employment landscape, are forming huge slums of several hundred thousand people in villages that previous housed only a few thousand residents.

“This is a time bomb for Somalia because not only Al-Shabaab but any armed group or criminal gang (will) find ready recruits in these sprawling urban slums,” Abdi-Rashid concluded.

By Kristin Palitza and - -
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Apr 17 2012 (IPS)

More than three years after the start of the global economic crisis, which has had a considerable impact on African trade, investments and gross domestic product, investment prospects on the continent are increasing.

Johannesburg Stock Exchange CEO Nicky Newton-King. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

“There are a lot of interesting opportunities. Not only in mining, but also telecommunications, banking, mobile services and ICT (Information and Communications Technology). It is because those investments are able to traverse a huge space without needing infrastructure,” says Newton-King.

Four months into her appointment as head of the 123-year old stock exchange, the 44-year-old Cambridge and South African educated lawyer and financial services expert talks about her take on the latest African investment opportunities and risks.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Are there opportunities for African countries, especially commodity-heavy nations, to benefit from the financial crisis?

A: Emerging markets experienced a two-way effect. After initially withdrawing from emerging markets, investors realised that, ultimately, the returns they get from emerging markets are higher than those from their home markets. That made re-investments attractive.

Q: What level of political stability is necessary to attract foreign investment?

A: We are in a state of contested elections. That means policy directions are up for debate. From an investor perspective, that creates a huge degree of uncertainty. People are unsure if they want to make long-term investments until they know how certain a political environment is.

This is an issue for us in South Africa, in Africa, and for us as an exchange. We therefore spend a lot of time talking to government and the relevant policy makers to decide on core tenets of our policy direction, so everyone can relax into certainty mode.

On the other hand, there are investors who are quite tolerant of political environments. People will invest in Zimbabwe and in Kazakhstan, because ultimately, the money counts.

Q: In December 2010 South Africa was invited to join the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) group of emerging economies. Has this brought additional trade to the continent?

A: We definitely see a shift towards South-South and East-South, away from the West. BRICS and related opportunities are going to feature more in our lives than before. We expect to see larger portions of investment flows coming from the East and Brazil. Some big banks predict that by 2020, 40 percent of global wealth will be in BRICS countries.

Q: Does the JSE collaborate with other African exchanges?

A: There are 24 stock exchanges on the African continent, but some only trade 10 trades a day (while the JSE has at least 120,000 trades a day in its equities market). We are the elephant on the continent. Still, I would like to see a much deeper level of cooperation.

There is good communication between the different management teams of other African stock exchanges, for example with Nigeria and Kenya. There are a couple of things we are working on in terms of better cooperation, such as cross-linking products and sharing technology. But that does not translate into new business yet.

Q: Would it make sense to form a single African exchange?

A: It is not a goal we are pursuing. We have seen too many other attempts, big global mergers that have run into cross-border regulatory issues. We think we can achieve the same benefits if we work on cross routines and closer product diversity opportunities. That is where our efforts are going.

Q: In 2009, the JSE launched an Africa Board where the continent’s top companies can be traded, to promote African capital market growth. Has this been a successful strategy?

A: The Africa Board did not achieve what we wanted to achieve. We wanted to create a short-cut marketing segment to showcase African companies, but we have only 14 African companies listed today. We fully expect to get more, but it will happen over time.

Q: What is it like to be the first woman to head the JSE?

A: It is interesting. Sixteen years ago, when I joined the JSE, I would have been terrified to go close to the trading floor, because it was a pretty scary place for anyone in a skirt. Today, we have 500 people working at the JSE, and it is almost 50-50 female to male ratio, and my executive is seven to six, women to men. A diverse organisation attracts more diversity. There is a huge amount of strength in that.

Excerpt:

As the process of reintegrating South Sudan’s child soldiers into their old lives begins soon, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army renewal of its lapsed commitment to release all child soldiers from its ranks in March could mean that within two years children will no longer constitute part of the country’s militia groups.

Southern Sudanese soldiers from the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. Militia groups affiliated with the army still recruit child soldiers. Credit: Peter Martell/IRIN

The SPLA, which is the military wing of the South Sudanese political party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, is one of the few remaining national militaries in the world on the United Nations’ list of parties to conflict who recruit and use child soldiers. The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates there are 2,000 child soldiers in South Sudan. Though none are within the official SPLA, they are affiliated with militia groups that have earned amnesties from the government and are being integrated into the national military.

If the SPLA follows the action plan it has drafted and signed – removing all child soldiers from the militias and working to get them education and training opportunities – the country could be off the list in as soon as two years.

For the child soldiers, though, the process of reintegration could take much longer, as they enter schools or learn skills that will provide other opportunities for making a living outside army barracks.

The process will begin, according to Fatuma H. Ibrahim, the chief of UNICEF’s child protection unit in South Sudan, by identifying and securing the formal release of all child soldiers. On their way out, they will be given civilian clothing, because “what is military remains with the military,” she said.

The youth, who can range in age from as young as 12 up to 18, will undergo some group therapy sessions with social workers to try to understand how they came to join the militias and to talk about any violence they may have encountered.

She said there will be about one percent who “really need some clinical management,” though their options will be limited in a country with few psychiatric resources. “It’s a very big problem. Most receive tablets, but that’s it.”

Family members will also meet with social workers to discuss reintegration and ensure that the children will be welcomed back and discouraged from re-joining.

“The parents have to be ready to receive them,” Ibrahim said. In some communities in South Sudan that includes a symbolic transition ceremony.

In a country that has known war for more than two decades, the military is often one of the few viable economic opportunities for young men. Many of the children UNICEF and its partners remove from the ranks followed that pattern – looking to a position with a militia to provide some financial security for themselves and their families.

One of UNICEF’s big challenges is providing opportunities that deter the delisted child soldiers from going back. After the new release rounds take place, the youth will be given an opportunity to choose between going to school, which many of the younger ones will opt for, Ibrahim said, or learning a trade. The country’s limited job market means older youth are encouraged to learn skills like carpentry, which is in increasing demand in rapidly growing towns. In the future, they will be trained in two skills, in case the first one does not prove marketable.

UNICEF and other organisations are also working to provide incentives to keep the child soldiers from re-enlisting. Ibrahim pointed to a livestock-rearing project, where former child soldiers are given a goat to raise and breed.

If the programme is going to work, she said, the incentives have “to be meaningful.”

South Sudan’s new action plan was officially signed on Mar. 16 by the country’s Ministry of Defence, the U.N. peacekeeping force in South Sudan – UNMISS, UNICEF and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy.

Since it achieved independence last year, South Sudan has seen sporadic violence flare up across the country. In the north, there are ongoing hostilities with Sudan. And various parts of the country – especially Jonglei state – have seen consistent intertribal conflict over land rights and cattle.

Coomaraswamy said most of the country’s child soldiers are found in the north, where violence has been most consistent.

South Sudan has been on the U.N. list long before its independence in July 2010. The earlier incarnation of the SPLA – the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement – was one of the original groups included when the list was drafted in 2002.

In 2006 a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between north and south Sudan, which ended decades of fighting and paved the way for South Sudanese independence. At the time, the SPLA committed to an action plan to release its child soldiers, though it did not completely follow through.

By 2009, monitoring organisations had found no child soldiers within the main SPLA, though they still existed in the militia groups.

Coomaraswamy said the country’s renewed commitment comes from “the power of the list” and pressure from international partners.

And while the U.N. has never sanctioned South Sudan over its inclusion, she said there was always a possibility that would happen. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for instance, has suffered sanctions as a result of its inclusion.

Coomaraswamy said her office is currently in negotiations with the DRC, Myanmar, also known as Burma, and Somalia – the only government militaries who have not yet signed on to an action plan. 
 *Andrew Green is reporting from South Sudan on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project,
 an independent journalism programme based in Washington, D.C.

As Western forces step up their military presence in Somalia, locals and experts are worried that the country – struggling under multiple crises from piracy, to drought – is doomed to churn in a cycle of violence that fails to acknowledge root causes of the problems.

Making bold moves to curb piracy efforts on the Somali coast, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union have decided to extend counter-piracy missions until the end of 2014.

The EU operation, called Atalanta, has also been extended to include land targets in order to work closely with the Transitional Federal Government and other Somali entities, according to a statement from the Council of the EU – a move that has been widely condemned by experts who believe these attacks will threaten civilian life and undermine anti-piracy efforts.

“Fighting piracy and its root causes is a priority of our action in the Horn of Africa. Despite pressure on defense budgets, EU member states demonstrate their renewed commitment to this successful operation,” EU High Representative Catherine Ashton said in a statement issued Mar. 23.

The announcement came days after Rear Admiral Duncan L. Potts, operation commander for Atalanta, addressed the Subcommittee on Security and Defense and announced it was time for the EU to “tighten pressure on pirates and reach out to Somalis.”

Already, operation Atalanta and NATO’s operation Ocean Shield, along with U.S. maritime forces and other national actors, can tentatively boast a decreased number of pirate attacks.

According to Potts, 2011 can be looked at as a “year of two halves” in terms of EU efforts—during the first half of the year, 28 vessels were commandeered, while the second half of the year saw only three vessels overtaken.

NATO reports decreased pirate activity as well. In Jan. 2011, there were 29 attacks and six ships overtaken, while numbers for Jan. 2012 showed only four attacks, none of which were successful.

Still, there has been widespread criticism over increased security in the country, with many experts arguing that international naval forces simply fuel a cycle of violence and fail to address the root causes of Somalia’s instability.

Others believe the use of violence to defeat piracy is misguided, since illegal fishing and dumping in Somali waters have been exposed as the root causes of piracy as a whole.

Desperate for food

Somalia remains one of the most difficult countries for humanitarian groups to operate in, owing to decades of violence and, in more recent years, a crippling drought that has left thousands dead and millions starving.

According to the World Food Programme, 2.4 million people are in need of assistance in Somalia, roughly 32 percent of the population. Currently, the WFP reaches up to 1.3 million people along the coast of Somalia, as well as in Puntland, Somaliland, and Mogadishu.

The goals of Operation Atalanta, according to the EU Naval Force (EU NAVFOR), include deterring and preventing acts of piracy, protecting shipping off the Somali coast, as well as protecting WFP vessels carrying food to displaced persons.

Thus far, EU NAVFOR reports the successful delivery of nearly 900,000 metric tonnes of food to relief efforts in Somalia, with 145 WFP ships escorted to shore.

The scale of violence has impacted other aid organisations as well, with aid workers often caught in the midst of deadly attacks in their line of work.

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF) recently condemned the shelling of the emergency room and surgical ward of Mogadishu’s Daynile Hospital in late March. MSF has worked in the hospital since 2006 as part of the organisation’s 13 operations within the country.

The organisation’s efforts in the Hodan district of the capital were cut in half this January, after two aid workers, Philippe Havet and Karel Keiluhu, were killed.

MSF continues to call for the release of two aid workers, Blanca Thiebaut and Montserrat Serra, who were abducted from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya in October last year, while providing assistance to Somali refugees.

Disrupting the ‘business model’ of piracy

Most experts are widely agreed on the fact that Somalia’s future depends on treating the “symptoms” of the failed state by eventually curtailing piracy, promoting a stable national government and establishing a robust judicial system.

Potts acknowledged that those who commit acts of piracy are part of the disenfranchised population, driven to the “cash-rich but asset-poor” business of piracy. He described the pirates as “criminals of opportunity” who don’t discriminate based on whatever national flag a ship raises.

Indeed, the fact that the most sophisticated aerial surveillance systems have been unable to take out the modestly equipped pirates is testament to the latter’s economic desperation.

Still, locals are losing tolerance for continued acts of piracy, according to Potts. Efforts to dissuade citizens from falling into piracy include involving clan elders in Somalia, who are poised to get the message across, particularly to the youth.

Alexander Rondos, the EU Special Representative for the Horn of Africa, described a “lost generation” of youth that pays an awful price for piracy.

Potts lamented the EU’s limited ability to properly handle underage suspects of piracy, given the lack of effective legal and rehabilitation systems capable of “processing” these criminal minors.

Cautious Optimism?

When Rondos visited Somalia just hours before addressing the Subcommittee on Mar. 20 he noted that the next several months are absolutely crucial to the country’s future.

He stressed the need for effective judicial systems and institutions that are rooted in the grassroots and affect the needs of local communities.

Efforts cannot rely solely on the “EU and a collection of white people who feel good about helping others,” Rondos claimed, highlighting the need for solutions that include local voices.

Still, Rondos mentioned signs of hope within Mogadishu— he described movements of people returning to the city, investing in day-to-day life and opening new businesses.

Though still a threat, the Somali-based terrorist group Al-Shabaab is beginning to “melt away,” according to Rondos, who added that he observed “indications of a growing number of people affiliated with Al-Shabaab that want to detach themselves” from the outfit, though the core of the group remains active.

With cautious optimism, the importance of providing security for the Somali people remains a priority, Rondos said.

Industrialised countries have mounted an unprecedented campaign to stop the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development from providing policy advice to the poorest countries in Africa and across the globe.

Industrialised countries have voiced their unhappiness with theUNCTAD's policy advice to developing nations. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

As UNCTAD attempts to secure a new mandate at its ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, from Apr. 21 to 26, industrialised countries have voiced their unhappiness with the agency’s policy advice to developing nations.

According to trade officials from developing countries, industrialised countries believe that the agency’s advice on finance, environment, food security, intellectual property rights and development clashes with their market-driven liberal agenda.

“Developed countries do not want UNCTAD to enter into finance on the grounds that it is an area that only the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank must handle,” said Lesotho’s ambassador to the U.N. and World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr. Anthony Mothae Maruping. He is also chair of the UNCTAD negotiating committee in charge of the draft text for the upcoming meeting. Maruping said that he was working to bridge the differences between the industrialised countries, led by the European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.), and the G77 and China – the coalition of developing countries.

The draft text on the agency’s mandate for the next four years outlines its research and policy advice on subjects including the current economic recession, exchange rate misalignments, the volatility and financialisation of commodity markets, special and differential treatment for developing countries, regional financial and monetary cooperation, and the need for the reform of the international financial and economic architecture. In his report for the Doha meeting, UNCTAD Secretary-General Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi calls for a paradigmatic shift to development-oriented growth that would bring about sustainable and inclusive economic and social change in the world’s least-developed countries (LDCs).

“The combination of macroeconomic austerity, rapid liberalisation, privatisation, and deregulation not only failed to produce a supply-side revolution but, instead, set the region (Africa) back economically; productivity growth stalled in most sectors, and the informal economy had grown rapidly since the onset of the international debt crisis in the early 1980s,” Panitchpakdi said in the report.

He argued that the time has come for moving away from finance-driven globalisation, which has characterised the dominant pattern of international economic relations based on a one-size-fits-all policy agenda. He said this has had a destructive impact on all countries, particularly on least- developed ones.

However, the aftershocks of the global economic crisis of 2008 continue to reverberate across the world in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Greece, and Portugal.

It is little wonder that, despite this, industrialised countries led by the U.S. and the EU are stubbornly pressing ahead with their failed boom-and-bust policies, say analysts.

Against this backdrop, UNCTAD’s meeting in Doha has assumed considerable importance in setting out a new agenda.

“It comes at a time when global economic governance is under close scrutiny, with growing concerns about the health of the multilateral agenda,” said Richard Kozul-Wright, the head of UNCTAD’s Unit on Economic Cooperation and Integration among Developing Countries.

He was referring to the controversial plurilateral negotiating effort among select industralised countries for a free trade agreement on services at the Doha multilateral trade negotiations.

A plurilateral agreement allows member countries to voluntarily agree to new rules. In contrast, in a multilateral agreement all members have to be in agreement.

“The stalled Doha Round, the slow pace of climate discussions and the failure of the international community to pre-empt recurrent food crises have added to the growing concerns about multilateralism,” he told IPS.

UNCTAD was the first multilateral body, since its inception in 1964, to point out the dangers of an unsustainable housing bubble and the unsustainable public and private debt of industrialised countries. Its 1997 report cautioned against the downside risks of finance-driven globalisation.

The U.N. agency also cautioned against the demands made on developing countries during the Doha negotiations to reduce the tariffs on their industrial goods to almost zero.

“UNCTAD’s work in all areas is commendable,” said Dr. Matern Yakobo Christian Lumbanga, Tanzania’s ambassador to the U.N. and WTO. “UNCTAD’s assistance in different policy areas is vital for LDCs and it has rightly advised us not to depend on one or two areas of exports or raw materials.” He said that LDCs in Africa have come to realise the benefits of diversification, as advocated by UNCTAD.

The upcoming UNCTAD meeting is going to address the specific concerns of the LDCs, and will focus on durable economic changes such as “broadening the variety and sophistication of goods and services produced so that LDCs are less vulnerable to external shocks,” said Kozul-Wright. “This is the most pressing of the rebalancing challenges, which must include an emphasis on job creation, social protection and environmental sustainability if the opportunities provided by a more open global economy are to improve the lives of many rather than the favoured few,” he said.

No man, except for those raised here as children, lives in Umoja village in Kenya; one has not for two decades. It is a village only of and for women, women who have been abused, raped, and forced from their homes.

No man, except for those raised here as children, lives in Umoja village in Kenya. Credit: Hannah Rubenstein/IPS

But in this remote village, located in the grasslands of Samburu district, this mantra does not ring true. In Umoja, as one female resident says, “We are our own heads.”

Umoja, which means “unity” in Swahili, holds a unique status in the country: it is a village populated solely by women. For more than two decades, no men have been permitted to reside here.

The rule is one of the requirements of a community that has fought against overwhelming odds to become a place of refuge for women. It is a sanctuary where men – who have been the cause of so many problems for these women – are simply not welcome.

In the 22 years since its founding, the village has had a significant impact not only on the women who choose to call Umoja home but within the communities that surround it. The example that Umoja has set, coupled with the outreach efforts of its residents, has touched the lives of women in the region.

Celena Green, who is the Africa programme director for an organisation called Vital Voices that works with the women of Umoja, told IPS: “The existence of Umoja has allowed women’s groups in other surrounding villages to learn from the empowerment and pride of the Umoja women.”

Women from nearby communities attend workshops in the village that are aimed at educating women and girls about human rights, gender equity, and violence prevention. When the women return home, Green explained, “they begin to change the culture, demanding a safe, violence free community where women and girls are valued and protected.”

“Ideally, no woman or girl should ever have to flee her home to come to Umoja in the first place,” she added. “But ultimately, the aim of Umoja is to provide an emergency safe haven for those women who are in distress, and more importantly to contribute toward building communities where everyone is valued and can succeed.”

Umoja’s history began in 1990, when a collective of 15 Samburu women, who called themselves the Umoja Uaso Women’s Group, began selling beadwork and other goods to raise money for themselves and their families. As the group began to grow financially lucrative, they found themselves facing increasing harassment by men in their communities who felt that economic growth was not appropriate for the women, who traditionally play a subordinate role.

In response, the women, led by matriarch Rebecca Lolosoli, decided to break away and begin their own village, in order to ensure security and cooperation for themselves out of the reach of those who sought to undermine them.

Today, Umoja is home to 48 women who have come from all over the country. Their stories vary – some were young girls fleeing forced marriages to old men, others were raped or sexually abused, and several were widows who were shunned by their communities. Moreover, several women residing in the village are Turkana, taking refuge from the tribal violence currently raging in the central region of Isiolo.

The villagers, who rely on the sale of beadwork and profits from a nearby campsite and cultural center, pool their funds as a collective to support themselves. In addition to providing food and basic necessities for village residents, profits are used to cover medical fees and the operation of a school that serves both the village’s children and its adult women who wish to learn basic skills and literacy.

Nagusi Lolemu, an older woman with delicate hands and a melodious voice, is one of the village’s original founders. Sitting in the shade, her nimble fingers string red beads deftly in one fluid, unthinking movement, as she speaks rapidly in Samburu.

Lolemu’s story echoes a recurring theme in the village: she was widowed after years of marriage and subsequently rejected by the community she called home. “There were too many single women,” she explained to IPS through a translator. Single women, who are not permitted to hold property in Samburu culture, and generally are not educated, are viewed as a financial drain on the community. When her husband passed away, she was no longer welcome in her home.

Nagusi, who has been living in Umoja for 22 years, has two grown children. She does not question her decision to leave her home for Umoja.

“My children are educated, working, and giving back to the family and the community,” she told IPS. “In a regular village, this could not happen.”

In her village – like any other traditional community – there is little opportunity for women’s education and the consequential financial benefits it brings, she explained. Her daughter would have grown up as she did, illiterate and dependent on men for all her basic needs.

“Here,” Lolemu said, matter-of-factly, “everyone is equal.”

Green echoes this statement, explaining to IPS: “In a traditional village, women may not have had the opportunity to exercise leadership, to be in control of their wealth or resources, and they would more likely experience domestic violence, female genital cutting, child marriage and other traditional practices that discriminate against and physically harm women and children.”

In addition to barring men from residing in the village, the women of Umoja live by a set of self- imposed rules, which, as Lolemu explained, are based on ensuring equality and mutual respect within the village.

Residents are required to wear the traditional clothes and intricate beadwork jewelry of their people at all times, in order to preserve and promote their cultural heritage. The practice of female genital mutilation is not permitted. And the only males allowed to sleep in the village are those who have been raised there as children.

One of the most striking aspects of Umoja is the women’s attitude towards men. In a place where men have been the root cause of so many hardships, and, in most cases, the reason the residents fled their homes, it is tempting to think that the victims want nothing more to do with them and are happy to live the rest of their lives surrounded by other women. This is not the case at all – in fact, most of the younger women in the village plan on marrying and raising families.

The difference is that they are going to do it on their own terms.

Judy, a 19-year-old resident who fled an arranged marriage to a much older, polygamous man five years ago, is planning on getting married some day. She dates – outside the confines of the village, which is not only permitted but encouraged by the older residents – and is raising a six-month-old named Ivan, who squirms and coos in her arms as she speaks. One day, she will marry and leave Umoja for her husband’s village. But, until then, she is happy here.

When asked if there is anything she misses from her previous life, any element of living in a women’s- only village that she finds lacking, she laughs.

“No. Here we have everything,” she says, and smiles.

In Umoja, women are not only their own “heads” – each is her entire body.

Before Bor B Primary School built latrines on the school grounds two years ago, students would leave during their first break to head home. Most did not come back until the next morning.

Before Bor B Primary School built latrines on the school grounds (pictured in background), students would leave during their break and not return. Credit: Andrew Green/IPS

Teachers ended classes early, because they did not have access to latrines, either. They would go to the nearby town, ask permission to use the facilities at one of the hotels, and then come back and reassemble the students who were left.

Madin Chier, the deputy head teacher at the school in the capital of Jonglei state, said the quality of the school’s education suffered. But now that 16 latrines have been installed, “there are no more problems,” he said.

Building a functional education system in South Sudan requires more than just latrines. Less than half of children who should be in school are. The country does not have enough classrooms, teachers or basic school supplies to educate all of its children.

Younger pupils compete for spots that are available in primary classes with teenagers, who were denied educational opportunities during the country’s decades-long war. The majority of those classes are held in the open air or under trees. That means when the rainy season hits, the result is a six-month break until the storms pass.

But for those students who have managed to get into a school – even those held under a tree – access to latrines is critical to keeping them there. That is especially true for girls, according to Emily Lugano, the education technical advisor for Save the Children in South Sudan.

Save the Children has built or rehabilitated toilet facilities in 71 schools across seven of the country’s states. These include hand-washing stations. It is part of the NGO’s initiative to improve learning environments, she said. But it is also a safety precaution for girl students.

In South Sudan, girls are more likely to be pregnant by 15 than they are to be in school. When they do attend, they are often subjected to harassment and intimidation, Lugano said. This is exacerbated in some of the schools where Save the Children works. In many places girls were expected to share latrines with boys or to use a field near the school.

“They get abused and harassed when they’re sharing latrines with the boys,” Lugano said. And “the girl feels very unsafe going to the bush to help herself… It’s a very, very crucial safety issue for girls at school.”

During their menstrual periods, girls refused to come to school, where they would have no opportunity for privacy. Chier said some of the girls at his school would not show up for a week or more every month, dropping them further behind the rest of the class.

“Across most of the developing countries,” Lugano said, lack of access to private latrines “contribute a lot to girls actually performing poorly in school, because they miss out on the syllabus.”

Because it is a school, there is also an educational component that comes along with the latrines and hand washing stations that extends beyond gender boundaries. Chier said his school uses the facilities to teach students about basic hygiene, which has helped reduce illness.

The initiative has been popular at Bor B, leading the students to form a Sanitation and Hygiene Club. Simon Peter Maiur, a 20-year-old in Grade 7, joined the group recently. He’s learning the club’s skits and songs, which encourage students to wash their hands and take care of themselves. He also helps patrol the school grounds for trash.

“It shows us how to clean our body, by cleaning the school,” he said.

Part of the concept behind the club is to turn the students into teachers, taking their messages about basic hygiene from the schools back to their communities.

“Hygiene promotion practices are not effective in this country,” Lugano said. Most towns and rural areas lack basics, like running water, but she said the students can still help “translate basic hygiene back to the community.”

Maiur said that is part of the club’s mission, to share information with friends and family. He said, with his encouragement, his family now does the best they can to practice better hygiene, like hand washing.

But these efforts only work in areas where there is a structured education system. South Sudan’s government allocated less than six percent of the 2011 budget to education. And the vast majority of that, Lugano said, goes to paying teacher salaries. Overall government funding for education looks to drop, as the shutdown of the country’s oil pipeline has taken away 98 percent of the country’s revenue.

At Bor B, Chier had let his Grade 8 students leave early, because the classrooms were all occupied by younger students, some with 150 students crammed in.

It is left to NGOs, like Save the Children, to continue to fund infrastructural development and to get basic materials, like textbooks, into the hands of students.

While programmes to improve sanitation and hygiene within schools can have a far-reaching impact on health and safety outside school grounds, Lugano said, those efforts are only effective if there are schools to deploy them in.

*Andrew Green is reporting from South Sudan on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project, an independent journalism programme based in Washington, D.C.

By Andrew Green and - -
JUBA, Mar 24 2012 (IPS)

Martha Borete Angela’s gaze sinks to the ground as she admits neither of her two children was delivered by a midwife or doctor. The 28-year-old South Sudanese woman shared this fact in front of her classmates: first-year students in a programme for midwives at the Catholic Health Training Institute in Wau, a city in the western part of the country.

Martha Borete Angela is a first-year students in a programme for midwives at the Catholic Health Training Institute South Sudan. Credit: Andrew Green/IPS

South Sudan has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the world, according to the United Nations Population Fund. The government estimates that more than 10,000 women die every year giving birth and 76,000 experience severe complications. Here, women constitute 60 percent of the country’s eight million people.

The high mortality rate is exacerbated by a widespread shortage of professional midwives to consult with women during their pregnancies and identify potential risks. A national survey from three years ago reported less than 150 midwives in the national health system.

“Our mothers, some of them, they pass away from delivering,” said Ropani Raship, a 20-year-old classmate of Angela’s at the Catholic Health Training Institute. “They don’t have a chance.”

Instead of trained care, mothers turn to traditional birth attendants, like Angela did when she had her second child. Some do not get any assistance at all.

Everyone, from the South Sudanese government to the NGOs propping up the country’s nascent health system acknowledge that developing the sector generally – and its response to maternal deaths, specifically – depends on getting more trained workers into the system as quickly as possible.

Angela, Raship and their classmates represent that possibility: A cadre of young, fully trained midwives, who will be placed in clinics and hospitals around the country once they finish the programme and achieve government certification.

But it will be three more years before they can start filling that gap. And they will do it – along with graduates from the country’s two other certificate programmes – a handful at a time, in a country where thousands of midwifes are needed. That means, for the foreseeable future, many pregnant women will be left to rely on traditional birth attendants and other frontline health workers.

These are often neighbours who “believe they have a gift of healing, or they learned midwifery through mentorship,” said Alaa El-Bashir, the country coordinator for the Maternal, Newborn & Child Survival Initiative (MNCSI) out of Massachusetts General Hospital. Most are not trained to identify or treat serious complications.

The situation reveals a larger debate in this new country: How do you allocate finite resources to save lives now, while also making the long-term investments that will build a sustainable health system?

For its part, MNCSI has decided to do what it can to improve the skills of the frontline workers. The initiative is reaching out to them with trainings and a bag of basic health supplies – scissors, gloves, a string for tying the umbilical cord.

Over a year and a half, MNCSI has put 72 trainers through a master course. They, in turn, have reached out to train more than 700 frontline health workers across seven of the country’s 10 states. An eighth state will be brought into the fold in a few months.

The idea, according to El-Bashir, is to get health workers trained to a level where they can at least recognise potential complications and refer people to a health facility early. MNCSI provides a pictorial checklist for the health workers to consult during the course of the pregnancy to recognise warning signs. And if no complications are apparent, they can help safely deliver the child.

MNCSI has also introduced a cheap tool to help women who start haemorrhaging after birth: a uterine balloon kit. It’s a simple innovation – a catheter with a condom attached to the end. The condom is inserted into the uterus and a syringe used to fill it with water. This can help staunch the bleeding until the woman is taken to a health facility.

After a recent tour of some of the areas where the uterine balloon kit has been distributed, El-Bashir said the frontline health workers have been able to use the tool without any problems. Of the recorded cases, MNCSI reported only one mother had passed away.

“We are saving lives,” El-Bashir said.

There are always going to be unexpected complications among delivering mothers, though, said Susan Purdin, the country director for the International Rescue Committee (IRC). And they cannot always be anticipated by observing risk factors. South Sudan’s best option is to ensure all pregnant women have access to qualified health workers.

“Everybody needs to know that any woman could have a complication and needs to get care,” Purdin said. That requires rallying, not just mothers, but fathers, traditional birth attendants and taxi drivers. It also requires making them aware that, if problems arise as the woman goes into labour, they should be poised to take her to a health clinic.

IRC has been working in what-is-now South Sudan for more than two decades, with many of its programs centred around healthcare. It currently supports 30 health centres in the west and north of the country, five of which offer maternal health services.

On a recent visit to one of the centres, Purdin said she witnessed a midwife save five lives. One mother, after giving birth to twins, started to haemorrhage. The midwife stopped the bleeding just as another woman in labour arrived, her baby coming arm first. As she cared for the first mother, the midwife got the second into an ambulance bound for a hospital that could assist her.

“It happens every day,” Purdin said. “It’s not always that dramatic, but having qualified midwives in health facilities where there are supplies and equipment and a referral system is the way to save mothers’ lives. And it can be done.”

It will not be done quickly, though. It requires raising awareness within the community and then working to make sure that the promised services are available. That means building more health facilities and getting more midwives, like Angela and Raship, into the system.

But back in Wau, the students at the Catholic Health Training Institute realise that even as they are deployed, the reliance on traditional birth attendants isn’t going away anytime soon. Instead of presenting an either-or approach, many said they were prepared to offer training to frontline health workers and to take advice from them on how to work in the community.

That, they agreed, is the best way to save the most mothers’ lives.

*Andrew Green is reporting from South Sudan on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project, an independent journalism programme based in Washington, D.C.

Excerpt:

By Kristin Palitza and - -
ABIDJAN , Mar 20 2012 (IPS)

Political instability, civil strife and humanitarian crises in Africa have over the past decades reversed countless maternal health development gains on the continent, health experts warn.

Maternal health is not a priority in Africa. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Natural resource-rich but conflict-ridden Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, continue to struggle with high maternal mortality rates of up to 1,000 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to 2011 World Health Organization (WHO) statistics. In war-torn countries like Somalia, maternal mortality is even higher, at more than 1,200 deaths per 100,000 live births.

“Regions like West and Central Africa, that experience a lot of political instability, have the lowest indicators for maternal health on the continent, despite the fact that most of them are rich in terms of natural resources,” Kouakou explained.

As a result, more than 550 women die in childbirth every day in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the WHO, compared to five deaths per day in high-income countries. The risk of a woman in a developing country dying from a pregnancy-related cause during her lifetime is 36 times higher compared to a woman living in an industrialised nation.

If a mother dies, the whole community feels the negative impact of the gap she leaves. “High maternal mortality has grave consequences not only for families but also for communities,” said Dr Edith Boni- Ouattara, deputy country representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Ivory Coast.

Since mothers are usually the main caregivers, their health status, and especially their death, stands in direct correlation with the well-being of their immediate and extended family. “A mother’s death has a negative impact on all aspects of a child’s life, including nutrition, health and education,” the UNFPA representative noted.

Countries even experience national economic setbacks when mothers die, Boni-Ouattara further explained: “Worldwide, we lose 15 billion dollars in productivity per year due to maternal deaths.”

But despite these indicators, maternal health is far from being made a national priority in African nations. As soon as governments are faced with political threats or humanitarian emergencies, investments in maternal and infant health as well as family planning are the first to be cut, according to Kouakou.

More than a third of women in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to any pre-natal health services today, while 70 percent do not receive any post-natal care, according to UNFPA. In West and Central Africa, less than 15 percent of women have access to contraception and family planning.

Sadly, this was largely the case because available budgets were disproportionately targeted towards defence, noted Kouakou: “Most public hospitals struggle with health service provision and continuously run out of medicines, but if you visit a military camp in that same country, you’ll see the latest weapons.”

Second on the priority list of governments is usually the fight against poverty and hunger, which is also the first of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that nations have committed themselves to reach by 2015.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion of people living on less than 1.25 dollars a day has only decreased marginally in the past two decades, from 58 percent in 1990 to 51 percent in 2005, according to the latest World Bank statistics.

As long as African nations remain poor, investments in maternal, sexual and reproductive health will remain minimal, experts say. Many countries will therefore struggle to reach the three health-related goals – MDG 4 (the reduction of under-five child mortality by two-thirds), MDG 5 (reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters and achieving universal access to reproductive health) and MDG 6 (combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases) – within the next three years.

“Most countries focus on the eradication of poverty and hunger, while maternal health gets neglected. It’s a matter of priorities,” said United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Ivory Coast MDG specialist, El Allassane Baguia.

Few governments are conscious enough of the tight link between maternal health and poverty, he said. It takes strong leadership at the country level to shift those priorities and spend more on maternal and child health, and more effective implementation of existing policies and international agreements, he added.

The right to family planning and thereby to sexual and reproductive rights has, for example, been included in the U.N. human rights framework since 1974. But such services have until today not been included in the public health care provision in many African countries.

“Yet, family planning services could reduce maternal and infant mortality by a fifth. Access to qualified medical care could reduce deaths during the birthing process by 75 percent,” Boni-Ouattara noted.

In the southern and eastern regions of the continent, the situation looks slightly different. Here, most nations have enjoyed relative political stability and been affected by fewer humanitarian disasters compared to their neighbours in West and Central Africa. As a result, maternal and infant mortality rates were on the decrease – until HIV and AIDS started to pose a threat to maternal health in those countries.

Consequently, politically stable countries with relatively low HIV-infection rates, like Botswana, have the lowest maternal mortality rates on the continent, at under 300 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the WHO.

But in countries like South Africa, HIV/AIDS has undermined efforts. Despite strong political and economic stability, its maternal mortality rate is at up to 549 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.

Excerpt:

By Isaiah Esipisu and - -
NAIROBI, Mar 18 2012 (IPS)

While some maize farmers in Kenya’s Western Province are stilling living off the produce from last season’s harvest, Robert Oduor is counting his losses after the deadly Striga weed infested his one-hectare maize field.

A Striga weed-infested maize field in Kenya’s Western Province. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

But he hopes that next season’s harvest will be better. That is if he can get his hands on a new variety of maize, which was developed by scientists to survive against a Striga weed infestation.

Striga weed, also known as witches weed, is a plant with either bright pink or red flowers, depending on the species. However, it is a parasite and also infests sorghum, millet and sugarcane fields. Once a maize plantation is infested by the weed, experts say the loss ranges from 70 to 100 percent of the harvest.

And for the past 10 years, research scientists from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, the Weizmann Institute and BASF-Chemical Company have been developing a high- yielding maize variety resistant to the herbicide used to kill the Striga weed.

“This maize variety is not resistant to the Striga weed,” explained Dr. Gospel Omaya, the Seed System manager at the African Agriculture Technology Foundation, which facilitates public-private partnerships. “The variety is resistant to one of the most effective herbicides, Imazapyr, which kills other plants, including the Striga weed.”

The maize seeds are coated with the herbicide before being packaged and this coating makes it resistant to weeds.

The Imazapyr-resistant variety has been named as “UaKayongo”, which is Swahili for “kill the Striga weed.”

A herbicide-resistant variety of maize was discovered in Kenya almost a decade ago. However, maize breeders in Kenya have been hybridising it by cross-pollinating different parents of the variety to produce a hybrid that produces a high yield.

“We first cross pollinated different parents of the herbicide-resistant variety to come up with the first generation hybrids, which were immediately put on trial. The best-performing plant was selected and cross pollinated with another plant of the same variety, but with high-yielding attributes. This gave us the second generation, which was later cross-pollinated with another good performing variety,” explained Haron Karaya, a research assistant and maize breeder at the CIMMYT.

Trials for the third generation hybrid variety have just been concluded and according to the researchers, it has produced satisfactory results. “UaKayongo III, which is a three-way cross hybrid, has demonstrated that it can yield up to five tonnes per hectare, up from the yield of three tonnes per hectare realised from the first generation,” said Karaya.

The new variety will released at the end of March and distributed by the Kenya Seed Company, which has the ability to produce the seed on a large scale.

“We are in the process of harvesting the first batch, which will benefit just a few lucky farmers at the moment. But sufficient seed will be available come the planting season next year,” said Willy Bett, the company’s managing director.

However, because the seed is coated in a herbicide, it poses a challenge for handling and evening planting.

“The UaKayongo seed must never be mixed with any other types of seeds, because the herbicide will affect them. However, one can intercrop it with crops like beans, groundnuts or any other convenient crop so long as the crops are not planted in the same hole,” said Omaya.

He further advised that farmers who chose to plant the UaKayongo seed use gloves, and wash their hands afterwards to avoid contaminating other seeds that are not resistant to the herbicide.

“We have acknowledged the handling challenge, and we are putting relevant measures in place,” said Bett.

The company has already started training programs for agro-dealers and for small-scale farmers through community-based and non-governmental organisations.

“When packaging, each package will come with two pairs of gloves for convenience, and a manual with illustrations on how to handle the seed,” said Bett. In Western Province, where maize is the main cash and food crop, it is estimated that the Striga weed affects 250,000 hectares of maize.

And the new variety it is a welcome relief for farmers like Oduor. “I was planning to quit maize farming for some time after having made huge losses. But with the new development, I will give it a second chance and plant the weed tolerant seed,” said Oduor.

Excerpt:

It is late afternoon and a group of men and women begin to converge under the shade of a huge mango tree in Yambio town, the capital of South Sudan’s western Equatoria state. The group is not gathering for an ethnic, political or religious meeting. They are here to listen to the radio.

A Let’s Talk listening group in Madhol Village in South Sudan. Credit: James Amuda/NDI

More specifically, they are here to listen to a community-based civic education programme on their local community station called Let’s Talk. It targets communities, and their leaders, to help promote dialogue on South Sudan’s political transition to an independent and democratic country.

And it introduces listeners to civic topics ranging from South Sudan’s transitional legal framework to strategies for combating corruption, and protecting children’s and women’s rights.
The 30-minute programme first hit the airwaves in January 2007 and uses a magazine format that includes drama, group discussions, and interviews to get its message across.

“The drama is used as a teaser segment that weaves rather complex issues or topics into the lives of characters in a fictional South Sudanese town of Jedida in a manner that is simple, humorous and more palatable to the audience. It helps ensure that the audience is entertained and informed about the topic of the day, but on a lighter note with lots of humour,” said Rehema Siama, Sudan Radio Service’s (SRS) scriptwriter for the programme.

Let’s Talk was created through a partnership between the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and SRS. It is broadcast in English, Arabic, and the two local languages of Dinka and Nuer. The programme is aired on a host of community radio stations including Sudan Radio Service, Bakhita FM, Radio Emanue, Naath FM and Nhomlau FM.

Today’s broadcast is an old one about defining free and fair elections. However, it has sparked the listeners’ apprehensions about a leader’s responsibilities. In addition to the programme, the NDI organises “listening groups” of ordinary people who gather across the country to listen to the programme and discuss its topics and themes and the impact on their communities, just like the group in Yambio.

“The session is intended to encourage democracy. If you get people together and they are able to tolerate each other’s views we believe it encourages democratic principles. We believe, in this way, people will learn to dialogue rather than to use violence to sort out issues,” said James Amuda, a programme officer at NDI.

After the broadcast in Yambio, James Gbakilingba, a listener in the group, talks about his concerns about the right to express one’s political views.

“For me, it is important that we talk to the people about political parties. We need to inform them what the views and objectives of each party are. And we need to inform people that the law allows anybody to belong to a party of his choice,” he said.

South Sudan is considered one of the most under-developed places in the world. And given the country’s vastness and biting poverty, coupled with its low level of literacy, radio is the surest way to reach the population.

In a country as remote as South Sudan, where there are only a few paved roads and many places can only be reached by air, and the airwaves, this community radio programme has been a hit.

“I think the Let’s Talk programme played a very instrumental role in the processes that led to the signing of the transitional constitution last July,” said Amuda. “We, as an institution working for democracy and good governance in South Sudan, realised that the process went well, but we realised that there was a lack of information among many people in the country about what was going on with the review. So we thought that it was important to inform people about what was happening with the constitutional review process in South Sudan.”

The programme is also helping disseminate information on new laws such as the Child and Land Acts. It is helping citizens to understand their roles in an independent country, Amuda said.

NDI has partnered with Free Voice Media to produce a new series of Let’s Talk. Marvis Birungi, a journalist involved in editing the features segment of the new programme, said there is still a need to address the information gap about the processes of democracy.

During last year’s review of South Sudan’s Interim Transitional Constitution, the Let’s Talk programme producers interviewed members of the technical committee to explain the review process and the role of citizens in it.

“So this programme will create awareness about the transitional constitution. Listeners will get to know the contents of that document. In addition, we know that a permanent constitutional review commission for the permanent constitution has been appointed, but the public need to know how they will participate in the review process,” Amuda said.

The new series will be piloted before the end of this month on four community radio stations: Radio Emmanuel in Eastern Equatoria state, Good News Radio in Lakes state, Radio Jonglei in Jonglei state, and Bakhita Radio in Central Equatoria state.

It will include a feature story, a short drama, a discussion segment, and a long interview with an expert or somebody who is knowledgeable about the particular topic.

“We know at the moment that the constitution contradicts certain customary laws. For example, the constitution says a woman has the right to have all the wealth of her dead husband but customary laws contradict this. So we will find someone knowledgeable about the constitution and somebody from the community with a cultural perspective, and they will discuss these issues,” said Amuda, about the new programme.

*This story was produced with the support of UNESCO.

Nancy Mweu, of Pamoja Radio, says she has been able to change the lives of women through her radio programme. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Mar 12 2012 (IPS)

In a Kibera-bound mini-bus taxi, the driver changes the station just as he turns onto Ngong Road, kilometres away from the Kenyan slum. He tunes into Pamoja Radio 99.9 FM, a local community radio station that broadcasts only in Kibera.

“Wacha tupate ushauri,” the driver tells the passenger next to him in Swahili. Translated it means: “Let’s get some advice.”

“Whenever I tune in to Pamoja Radio, I learn something new, a new life lesson. They discuss family issues that are familiar to most of us, they address issues of unemployment, and mostly advocate for self-employment,” said the mini-bus taxi driver, adding that on the weekend he listened as a local young man explained how he had raised himself out of poverty using a loan from a microfinance institution.

It is mid-morning so local presenter Asmani Maringa is on the air, and the song emanating from the airwaves is one of the most popular Swahili songs in the country called “Umejuaje Kama si Umbea? ” or “How do you know it’s not gossip?”

It is from a music genre called Taarab, which is popular in Kenya and Tanzania.

As the song fades out, Maringa’s voice comes in re-introducing the theme of the day. “In case you have just tuned in, we are discussing peace in families. I want to understand why wives in some parts of the country have been battering their husbands of late,” he announced.

The topic, though emotive, leaves smiles on the faces of the passengers of the mini-bus taxi, or Matatu as they are locally called. The subject hit news headlines three weeks ago when a number of men from Nyeri in Central Province were hospitalised after their wives allegedly battered them.

“We use popular music genres to introduce subjects that promote peace among the residents of Kibera slum,” said Adam Hussein, the founder and managing director of Pamoja Radio.

“Apart from the news, all other programmes must have a theme for discussion, with a provision for listeners to contribute through phone calls, Facebook and short message services (SMS),” added the former journalist.

“Pamoja” is a Swahili word meaning “together”. The radio station was founded in 2007 to promote unity among those who live in Kibera and economically empower the youth here through education, information and entertainment.

The station is operated by nine volunteers from Kibera, and broadcasts over a radius of two kilometres.

Internews Network in Kenya, a non-governmental organisation that is dedicated to providing journalism training, has been instrumental in offering free instruction on the broadcast medium to the volunteers.

Following the post-election violence that rocked the country towards the end of 2007, the station had its work cut out for it trying to bring peace and understanding to the area. After incumbent President Mwai Kibaki won the elections, opposition candidate Raila Odinga’s supporters claimed electoral fraud. More than 1,500 people were killed in the resultant violence and over 500,000 displaced.

“Given that Kibera is in the constituency where Odinga comes from, it was one of the most volatile areas where houses were set ablaze, human beings were butchered, and properties were destroyed,” said Hussein.

At the time, the management of Pamoja Radio dedicated most of its airtime to peace messages broadcast in the various local languages represented in Kibera.

“We managed to quell the violence to some extent. We used to invite the most furious residents who were eager to express their opinions to the public through a channel like radio. We promised to give them airtime to do so. But upon arrival at the station, we put them through a short counselling session, after which we convinced them to go on air and preach peace to the rest of the community,” said Hussein.

As a result, Pamoja Radio has since developed programmes and activities geared towards promoting peace at the community and family level.

With support from the United States Agency for International Development, the station also sponsors football tournaments in Kibera “as a means of using sports as a tool to promote unity,” said Hussein.

Apart from sports, the station focuses on issues that affect the day-to-day lives of Kibera residents.

Nancy Mweu hosts a programme called Mwanamke ni Mwangaza, which is Swahili for “a woman is a source of light.” It is a live call-in programme with guests who are renowned members of society, or who have gone through particular experiences that Mweu feels need to be shared with other residents.

“Through real life experiences in the programme, I have been able to convince women that despite their state of poverty, they can still make it in life. That family planning works, and that being HIV-positive does not mean a death sentence,” said Mweu.

Habil Esiroyo Chitwa, a radio repairer in Kibera, is one such listener. He told IPS that until he listened to a programme on HIV in December 2011, he never bothered getting tested for the virus.

“My wife had been tested when she was pregnant, and she had turned out to be negative. But one day, a couple was invited to Pamoja Radio, where we learnt that the man was HIV-positive, while the wife was negative. But they had a kid. This got me thinking and as a result I had to go for the test despite the fact that my wife had tested negative,” said Chitwa.

*This story was produced with the support of UNESCO.