TRADE-KENYA: East Africans May Be Stripped of the Kikoi

Kenyan activists are fighting to retain cultural designs that have been developed in East Africa but are being patented by companies in rich countries. After losing the kiondo basket trademark to Japan, the popular kikoi fabric design is currently at risk of being patented by a British company.

TRADE-KENYA: Shopping With a Clean Conscience

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

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

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

WORLD WATER DAY-KENYA: Holes in the Legal System, Leaks in the Pipes

Kenya's capital, Nairobi, takes its name from a Maasai word meaning "place of cool waters". In parts of the city, however, this term is less descriptive than ironic - as demand for water is outstripping supply.

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

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

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Forced to Choose ”Which Rights to Violate”

Images of tiny, malnourished African children, some scavenging for leftover food, have continued to grace the covers of brochures, posters and video clips of aid agencies since the devastating famine that claimed more than one million lives in Ethiopia 22 years ago.

Q&A: “It’s the NGOs Who Provide the Figures, And They Lie”

A report alleging rights abuses in the western Sudanese region of Darfur has sparked tensions in the United Nations Human Rights Council, currently in session in Geneva, Switzerland.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Facing AIDS, Malaria Amidst Brain Drain

As though the decimating effects of HIV/AIDS and malaria were not enough to deal with, African countries also have to battle with the continuing exodus of health professionals leaving the continent for greener pastures.

POLITICS-SOMALIA: Conference Plans for a Chaotic Capital

Interim Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi appealed Wednesday for some 42 million dollars to secure his country's capital, Mogadishu, and to fund a reconciliation conference in the war-torn state.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: MDGs Depend on Power Relations Changing

‘‘The people of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta are poor not because they do not have resources but because they do not have political power. Those who wield power in Nigeria are building skyscrapers in Lagos and Abuja while there is nothing in the Niger Delta. It is the same at the global level.''

KENYA: Opposition to Anti-Terror Law That “Violates Even Basic Rights”

Rights activists in Kenya have intensified their campaign against a proposed anti-terrorism law, this after a travel advisory issued by the United States warned of possible terrorist attacks in the East African country during the upcoming World Cross Country Championships (WCCC).

POLITICS-AFRICA: Democracy Takes Root in Some Countries, Falters in Others

The progress of democracy in Africa has come under discussion this week at a conference in the South African commercial hub of Johannesburg.

TRADE: Europe Grapples With the Future of ACP Sugar Imports

The European Union (EU) has imported sugar at preferential prices from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries since the 1970s; but, failed sugar reform within the union and the prospect of unlimited imports from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the near future have put a question mark over this arrangement.

INT’L WOMEN’S DAY-KENYA: Courts Far From a Safe Haven

As the world marks International Women's Day, Thursday, under the theme of 'Ending Impunity for Violence Against Women and Girls', activists in Kenya claim there is much to do in ensuring that abusers are punished.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Making Policies for AIDS in the Workplace, Commonplace

With AIDS cutting a swathe through Africa's workforce, there is an urgent need for employers to set up policies that support HIV-positive staff - and ensure they are not victims of stigma. But, it's a need that often goes unaddressed.

DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Helping the Cotton Sector Turn Over a New Leaf

Kenya's cotton industry, once one of the country's main foreign exchange earners, declined substantially following liberalisation of the sector in 1991.

KENYA: Going Beyond “Cheerleading, Singing and Dancing For Candidates”

With general elections scheduled to take place in Kenya this December, activists in the East African country are looking to constitutional reform to ensure that more women fill decision-making posts in government.

POLITICS-KENYA: Renewed Demands for Partial Constitutional Review

The clamour for a new constitution in Kenya has taken a further twist: civil society, political parties and the Parliamentary Committee on Administration of Justice and Legal Affairs are teaming up under Muungano wa Katiba Mpya (the Union for a New Constitution, in Swahili) to demand partial constitutional reforms before general elections later this year.

ENVIRONMENT: Plans to Halt Desertification in Africa a Work in Progress

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) requires signatories to create national action plans for dealing with this scourge that allow sustainable development - and encompass participation by communities, amongst others.

ENVIRONMENT: Desertification Gains a Foothold in Rwanda

As recently as 2002, 41-year-old Marie Mutezinka was still able to meet the needs of her four children by farming in Gako, in the Bugesera region of south-east Rwanda.

ECONOMY-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Getting in Touch with Mobile Phones

Only a decade ago many southern Africans thought a mobile phone was a luxury reserved for rich chief executives of multinational companies.