http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspxUpdated everydayen-gbThu, 02 Jul 2009 14:13:51 GMTDAKAR Thursday, July 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Under a new initiative international donors are backing Africa-based policy research to improve local decision-making on complex global issues with potentially enormous humanitarian consequences like food security and climate change.DAKAR Thursday, July 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Under a new initiative international donors are backing Africa-based policy research to improve local decision-making on complex global issues with potentially enormous humanitarian consequences like food security and climate change.

Led by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and funded by IDRC, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation, the Think Tank Initiative will provide core funding for 24 African think tanks over 10 years. US$30 million has been made available for the initial five years.

“African think tanks are essential to development and to disaster preparedness and to [climate] adaptation,” said Cheikh Ba, senior researcher at the Senegal-based agricultural institute IPAR, a grant recipient. “We can look ahead and anticipate the most urgent crises that our country will face and gather experts and community members and government to find solutions.”

Ba and other observers say too often African institutions must depend on piecemeal donor funding, which can hinder independent, long-term research driven by realities on the ground.

Marie-Claude Martin, head of the initiative, said for now most research in Africa is driven by the demands of external donors, leaving little room for innovation.

“We have good examples with the food crisis and the financial crisis, where independent or national institutions were not present in the debate because they had no opportunity to think about these issues years ago,” Martin said.

Strengthening African institutions

James McGann, director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute and author of the first global survey of think tanks, said strengthening African institutions is essential to Africa’s ability to predict and respond to complex issues such as climate change or food security.

“With globalization, all crises are now felt [worldwide], but they hit hardest where there is the least capacity to track the trends, analyse them and communicate them to decision-makers and populations,” McGann told IRIN.

“Pick any issue - food, pandemics, climate change - and Africa will be on the downside receiving end of whatever the trend is,” McGann said. “Africa cannot wait for the North to understand and respond to its needs.”

Though the global ideas industry is growing rapidly, the African think tank community remains small. Of more than 5,400 thinks tanks worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa houses just over 400, only slightly more than the 360 think tanks operating in the US capital Washington, DC.

While Asia and Latin America have experienced sustained growth in the number of new think tanks, Africa has experienced a decline in recent years.

McGann said it is about more than just numbers: “African think tanks must be independent, endowed institutes with a core staff that provides the quality research and flexibility to respond to complex issues that hit with force.”

Retaining quality staff

Retaining top quality staff is a challenge, according to Jean Mensa, executive director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a Ghanaian think tank and a grant recipient.

“Up until now we have had to work on specific short-term programmes determined by the funding we received. Recruiting and retaining staff was our biggest challenge,” Mensa told IRIN.

Many of the best and brightest researchers look for employment abroad or in international development projects that offer better conditions and more job security. But if African think tanks are to be effective, Mensa said, long-term investment is essential.

IPAR’s Ba said African governments do not have the luxury of stepping back and reflecting on the larger picture. “Governments here are simply managing emergencies and crises every day. They do not have the time to look 10 years in the future and study the possible scenarios of climate change impact or potential food crises.”

He said if African think tanks do not look decades into the future, development will suffer: “We cannot wait for the sea to cover us or for the social explosion when everyone moves to the city, before we react.”

ft/np/cb http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=85101NAIROBI/ADDIS ABABA/KAMPALA Thursday, July 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Although some countries within East Africa and the Horn region have scaled up their influenza A(H1N1) http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/about_disease/en/index.html contingency plans, overall pandemic preparedness remains "relatively inactive", a UN agency has said, as the first cases were reported in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.NAIROBI/ADDIS ABABA/KAMPALA Thursday, July 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Although some countries within East Africa and the Horn region have scaled up their influenza A(H1N1) http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/about_disease/en/index.html contingency plans, overall pandemic preparedness remains "relatively inactive", a UN agency has said, as the first cases were reported in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

According to an overview prepared by the pandemic influenza coordination (PIC) unit in the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA PIC) in Nairobi, the countries that have updated their contingency plans include Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Djibouti, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic (CAR), and the Republic of Congo.

"These countries are considered well prepared in mobilizing both health and non-health sector measures in the event of a pandemic," OCHA PIC said on 1 July.

OCHA PIC is a member of the regional rapid response team, which is planning technical support missions between July and September to accelerate preparedness and response in countries considered most vulnerable to so-called swine flu, including Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, CAR, Chad and Eritrea.

OCHA PIC said regional partners had expressed concern over the inadequate communication messages and channels used to reach the public with regard to pandemic preparedness and responses.

"It is recommended that a communication centre be hosted within respective ministry of health structures but supported by technical agencies in disseminating well-packaged messages on H1N1, H1N5 [avian flu] and other trans-boundary diseases," OCHA PIC said.

Symptoms of A(H1N1) were confirmed in Kenya on 29 June in a British student visiting the country. "[Another] three suspected cases are under investigation," OCHA PIC said.

In Ethiopia, the Ministry of Health has confirmed a third A(H1N1) case and is investigating four suspected cases.

"Out of 17 suspected individuals, 10 of them were found to be free and returned to their homes," Ahmed Imano, head of the public relations service at the Ministry of Health, said. "Four of them are still under surveillance."

In Uganda, the Ministry of Health announced on 2 July that one case of H1N1 had been diagnosed at Entebbe International Airport. The ministry said the 40-year-old had been isolated at a medical facility at the airport.

In Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and South Africa have also reported A(H1N1) cases.

Although no deaths have been recorded, more than 10 cases have been confirmed on the continent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Ethiopia reported its case on 19 June. The first cases were detected in two teenagers returning from the United States. The third was reported on 29 June, of an air hostess with Ethiopian Airlines.

"All of them came from abroad," Ahmed said. "It is not necessary at this time to reveal where they came from."

He added: "We have a good mechanism of tracing [the epidemic.] All flight attendants have received training and are doing a good follow-up."

tw/js/vm/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=85105DAKAR Wednesday, July 01, 2009 (IRIN) - Researchers are launching a clinical trial with 1,500 people infected with onchocerciasis (river blindness) in Liberia, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo to test a remedy that could help stop transmission, according to drug manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and the World Health Organization (WHO).DAKAR Wednesday, July 01, 2009 (IRIN) - Researchers are launching a clinical trial with 1,500 people infected with onchocerciasis (river blindness) in Liberia, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo to test a remedy that could help stop transmission, according to drug manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Onchocerciasis – transmitted through black flies that breed near rivers – is one of the leading causes of blindness in Africa, according to WHO.

The primary prevention method is black fly control, while treatment has been through annual doses of ivermectin, which relieves intense itchiness of the skin and eye lesions. “The drug is harmless, like aspirin, and is given annually to people who are at risk,” said Boakye Boatin of the joint WHO, UN and World Bank tropical disease research programme.

Nelson Weah from Liberia’s capital Monvoria told IRIN ivermectin treatments helped him to see again. “I once suffered from river blindness and could not see at all. I felt like I was living in a dark world. I could not do anything for myself and relied on others.”

But while ivermectin might successfully treat individuals, it does not stop the infection from spreading, said Boatin. “It reduces rather than stops transmission because it does not kill adult worms, only the eggs.”

Adult worms live in a person’s skin and lay eggs that are then picked up and carried by black flies. If adult worms are not killed they continue to lay eggs in the skin and the disease can be passed on.

The drug moxidectin is being studied for its potential to kill adult worms carrying the disease and to wipe out the disease in any high-risk area within six years, Boatin told IRIN.

More than 100 million people, mostly in Africa, are at risk of infection, according to WHO.

More than 10 years in development, the trial drug moxidectin is manufactured by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. The company’s vice-president, Henrietta Ukwu, told IRIN Wyeth has invested US$20 million over the last decade in the drug, including $6 million for the upcoming clinical trial expected to last two and a half years.

WHO estimates there are about half a million people, mostly in Africa, who are blind due to onchocerciasis.

pt/pc/np http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=85093DAKAR Wednesday, July 01, 2009 (IRIN) - As an African Union summit on agricultural investments opens in Libya, donors and non-profits are calling participants' attention to the role smallholder farmers – mostly women – can have in feeding their communities. DAKAR Wednesday, July 01, 2009 (IRIN) - As an African Union summit on agricultural investments opens in Libya, donors and non-profits are calling participants' attention to the role smallholder farmers – mostly women – can have in feeding their communities.

Agriculture is an overlooked “emergency” that deserves as much attention as the global financial crisis, according to Kate Norgrove with Oxfam UK’s office in Dakar, Senegal. “Nearly US$9 trillion has been injected into the global financial sector since January 2009 verses $4 billion in global ODA [overseas development assistance] to agriculture. That is small change relative to the scale of the problem.”

Decades of declining production have pushed more families into hunger and disease, according to Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

AGRA calculated that 18 percent of ODA in 1980 went to agriculture versus 4 percent in 2006.

Small farms bear the brunt of these cuts, according to Oxfam UK. In a recent report, the NGO noted the United States and European Union invested less than $3 per small farm in poor countries from 1986 to 2007.

“Half these farmers do not produce enough to feed their families,” Namanga Ngongi, AGRA’s president, told IRIN. “Small-scale farmers are not organized and do not have a voice in their government’s agriculture policies.”

More than 70 percent of Africans depend on agriculture to live, according to the UN. People across sub-Saharan Africa protested when the prices of agricultural inputs, food and fuel soared in recent years; prices remain unaffordable for many. (IRIN’s coverage of global food crisis)

Small-scale revolution

AGRA’s Ngongi said while he recognized the term “green revolution” recalls memories of failed agricultural investments, “Running away from the word does not solve productivity problems. We cannot tinker around the margins. Africa’s agricultural problems need massive investments – nothing short of a revolution.”



...Africa's agricultural problems need massive investments - nothing short of a revolution...




Solutions need to be tailored to small-scale producers’ needs, he added. If smaller packages of fertilizers, seeds and tools were available, people who can only afford smaller quantities are more likely to buy.

The readily available packages weighing up to 100kg are impractical for farmers – most often women – travelling in precarious transport over long distances on poor roads, Ngongi told IRIN.

Ngongi told IRIN farmers are now forced to travel long distances to get seeds and fertilizers because there are not enough small traders in rural areas. “In western Kenya where AGRA has implemented agro-leadership programmes to train traders, farmers are now walking on average 4km to buy inputs versus 17km before.”

Cash-strapped governments are unable to back loans to small farms, according to AGRA. “Banks need risk assurance,” Ngongi said, describing a loan-assurance programme in Kenya backed by AGRA and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) that has agreed to loan $50 million to small-scale farmers over three years.

In a recent report on cash transfers in southern Niger, the NGO Save the Children UK wrote: “Providing agricultural inputs alone is not sufficient to help the poorest households increase their food production. These inputs must be accompanied by economic support (cash or food) so that able-bodied adults can spend sufficient time working in their own fields.” 

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=85094ADDIS ABABA Monday, June 22, 2009 (IRIN) - An increasing number of Africans living in urban areas are finding it harder to put enough food on the table, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has warned.ADDIS ABABA Monday, June 22, 2009 (IRIN) - An increasing number of Africans living in urban areas are finding it harder to put enough food on the table, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has warned.

"The food crisis and shortages are still there in some African countries," said Adam Elhiraika, ECA economic affairs officer. "We see [a] crisis when we do not have enough income to buy the food we need."

Elhiraika, coordinator of a team which prepared the ECA's Economic Report on Africa 2009, told IRIN in Addis Ababa: "We have less purchasing power. We also still have food shortages because many African countries do not have the capacity to respond to demand."

Released on 28 May, the report, which was jointly prepared by the ECA and the African Union, is an assessment of the continent’s economic performance in 2008. It also examines prospects for 2009.

"In many countries, urban populations are finding that there is food on the shelves, but they cannot afford to buy it," it noted. Citing the case of Liberia and Guinea, it said governments there were struggling to import enough to feed their people.

"Pastoralists in Djibouti are discovering that sales of vital livestock fetch very little grain on the market, while in Mozambique and Uganda, rural farmers can hardly afford to buy the seeds and fertilizers they need to grow their family’s food, let alone reap the benefit of high food prices," the report said.

Across Africa, food commodity prices are likely to rise in the next 10 years, even though a decline is expected in 2009 and 2010 as supply and demand respond to high prices resulting from the global economic recession.

"Africa is one of the most affected regions by the high food prices," the ECA noted. "Food prices peaked in June 2008 and declined by more than 50 percent on average during the second half of the year. At the end of 2008, they stood at the level of 2005 but were still considerably higher than the 2000 level."

According to the report, the decline in world market prices had slowly worked its way into domestic prices in many developing countries.

"Still we have food shortages in many African countries because of drought and conflict situations," Elhiraika said.

Emergency aid

To avert the consequences, emergency aid was needed in many countries, including those in East Africa.

"The recent food crisis and looming starvation are threats to political and social stability, especially in east and west Africa and in conflict countries," the report warned.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food prices had remained high in many developing countries and access to food by the poor remained threatened by loss of employment, income and other effects of the global economic crisis.

However, in a Food Outlook on 4 June, FAO said the world food supply looked less vulnerable to shocks than it was during the 2008 food crisis.

"In spite of strong gains in recent weeks, international prices of most agricultural commodities have fallen in 2009 from their 2008 heights, an indication that many markets are slowly returning into balance," it said.

The improvement was largely in cereal production - the critical sector for food security - after record production in 2008 overshot original forecasts. The bumper crop had also facilitated replenishment of global reserves to pre-crisis levels.

tw/eo/cbhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84930JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, June 17, 2009 (IRIN) - It will take at least ten years to develop a variety of staple grain that will survive in the climates caused by global warming in most parts of Africa, and the continent has less than two decades in which to do it, warn the authors of a new study. JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, June 17, 2009 (IRIN) - It will take at least ten years to develop a variety of staple grain that will survive in the climates caused by global warming in most parts of Africa, and the continent has less than two decades in which to do it, warn the authors of a new study.

"The countries have to start developing varieties now, but many of these countries don't have breeding programmes," said Luigi Guarino, one of three authors of a study to be published on 19 June in the US journal, Global Environmental Change. "This study, we hope, at least raises the flag."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international scientific body, has predicted that food production in Africa could halve by 2020 as global warming pushes temperatures up and droughts become more intense.

The new study by researchers at Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment, in the US, and the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, noted that "For a majority of Africa's farmers, warming will rapidly take climate not only beyond the range of their personal experience, but also beyond the experience of farmers within their own country."

Guarino, a Senior Science Coordinator at the Global Crop diversity Trust, pointed out that many farmers could find staple crop varieties in other African countries, where current temperatures and conditions were similar to what they might experience in future.

"For example, farmers in Lesotho [with one of the coolest climates in Africa] could find maize varieties grown in parts of Mali [one of the hottest countries in Africa] now, which would be tolerant to the very high temperatures they would face in another 20 years."

Six countries in the Sahel - Senegal, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone, the hottest in Africa - are of major concern to the researchers, as they will face conditions unlike any currently encountered by farmers in the continent.

"Of course, parts of these countries will never be able to grow maize [which is more heat sensitive]," he said, and would have to settle for the "drought-tolerant maize, which is sorghum". Many parts of Africa would no longer be able to grow anything.

Guarino said it was possible to develop crop varieties in simulated conditions, based on projections for the Sahel belt, but very few traditional primary cereal crops - African varieties of maize, millet and sorghum - selected by farmers over the centuries for their unique suitability to local growing conditions were available in genebanks.

The researchers found that ten African countries, including Sudan, Nigeria, Cameroon and Mozambique, had current growing conditions very similar to those many other countries would soon face, but few of the crop varieties cultivated in the countries were found in major genebanks.

In an earlier study, the Stanford University researchers projected that maize production, southern Africa's staple food, could drop by as much as 30 percent in another two decades.

Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, said climate change called for closer collaboration, sharing of resources and more investment.

The researchers' call to help African countries came during the global debate over a legally binding funding mechanism to help poor countries adapt to climate change at the recent talks in Bonn, Germany.

jk/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84892DAKAR Tuesday, June 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Thousands of children are participating in activities across Africa advocating for governments to boost child survival in commemoration of the Day of the African Child. Celebrated on 16 June, this is the same day hundreds of black school children were killed in Soweto, South Africa in 1976 protests for better education. DAKAR Tuesday, June 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Thousands of children are participating in activities across Africa advocating for governments to boost child survival in commemoration of the Day of the African Child. Celebrated on 16 June, this is the same day hundreds of black school children were killed in Soweto, South Africa in 1976 protests for better education.

Half of the world’s under-five deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a recent report by UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Save the Children.

In West Africa, the Ministry of Gender in Liberia helped bus 1,000 children to the country’s northwest Lofa county to celebrate. “We are here to tell leaders that we have a right to live,” Donelle Kokeh, 15, one of the participants told IRIN.

Unknown numbers of children were drafted to fight in Liberia’s civil war which spanned 14 years until 2003. For some child survivors, the transition to civilian life  is on-going.

“Every day should be African Child Day,” said Kokeh, a leader in the national children’s parliament, which includes 30 youths. “Children should be respected every day. But today is set aside especially to honour those who have died.”

In an effort to improve access to health care and slash neonatal deaths, Liberia’s government suspended health care fees in 2007. The recent UNICEF-Save the Children report named Liberia as one of the few sub-Saharan African countries on target to meet its child health goal by 2015. Under-five deaths have reduced significantly in recent years, according to 2007 government data.

One in seven children in sub-Saharan Africa dies before he or she reaches age five, with 43 percent dying in Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Ethiopia, according to UNICEF.

At the African Union headquarter in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 17 students from Aster Bette Firkir primary school performed their self-authored song, “Children of Africa”, whose lyrics began: Children must not suffer by the matter [because of] others; they are dying, they are crying, so let’s go to wipe their eyes.




...Although children want to talk about their abuse, no one wants to hear them...




“Most African countries are not at a highly [developed] stage so the majority [of countries] are not taking care of their children,” one of the performers, Dawit Tseniha, 13, told IRIN.

Tseniha and his classmates also performed a play on child trafficking.

“Although children want to talk about their abuse, no one wants to hear them,” Tseniha added. “In most African countries, children are not accepted very well with their ideas. When they talk about their problems, they are not heard.”

When asked about his professional goals, Tseniha told IRIN he wants to become a lawyer. “Maybe if I am a lawyer, I can help children get proper judgment.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84867DAKAR Tuesday, June 16, 2009 (IRIN) - More than 1,500 babies born on any given day in sub-Saharan Africa will die within 24 hours, according to a recent report by UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the non-profit Save the Children, which measured African government’s progress on improving child health.DAKAR Tuesday, June 16, 2009 (IRIN) - More than 1,500 babies born on any given day in sub-Saharan Africa will die within 24 hours, according to a recent report  by UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the non-profit Save the Children, which measured African government’s progress on improving child health.

Twenty-five percent of all child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa — which equals more than 1 million a year — take place during the first 28 days of life, according to Adrian Lovett, a director in Save the Children’s London office. “Throughout the developing world, the most dangerous day in a child’s life is the day the child is born,” he said in a statement for the Day of the African Child.

Birthing complications and infections responsible for the majority of these deaths are preventable, according to the UN. Neonatal tetanus, one major infant killer, can be prevented with a vaccine that costs 50 US cents, according to a multiagency study conducted in 2006 that also found that improved community and family care could decrease infant deaths by one-third.

Antibiotics to treat pneumonia – estimated  by World Health Organization (WHO) to kill more than 900,000 people annually – cost less than one dollar per patient.

Improved diagnoses and the distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets have helped reduce malaria deaths, estimated by WHO to kill 800,000 in 2007. But only 8 percent of children in sub-Saharan Africa sleep under treated nets, which cost approximately US$10 each.

If 95 percent of residents in malaria endemic countries slept under nets, 570,000 lives could be saved, according to the UN.

Save the Children’s Lovett said world leaders are falling behind on their promises to reduce under-five child deaths by two-thirds by the year 2015, one of eight Millennium Development Goals.  “If world leaders did not fulfil promises during better economic times, it is a challenge to enforce these promises in the middle of a recession,” Lovett told IRIN.

As governments face falling remittances, revenues and a potential loss of aid dollars, health budgets may be at risk, according to World Health Organization (WHO).

The UN and Save the Children calculate 800,000 lives can be saved with $1.3 billion investment in immunisations, as well as newborn and infectious disease care.

Progress

Since introducing newborn care techniques to government hospitals in 2001, neonatal clinic director Houleymata Diarra in Mali’s capital, Bamako, told IRIN infant deaths have fallen from 57 per 1,000 live births to 46.

Botswana has halved its under-five mortality rate since 2000, in part through universal HIV testing, according to the UN.

Reducing malnutrition – responsible for more than one-third of infant deaths according to UNICEF – has also helped. In a recent independent report on fighting malnutrition, improved breastfeeding practices in Tanzania and Uganda have helped to reduce stunting by up to 2 percent a year.

But despite these and other countries’ progress, half the world’s under-five deaths still occur in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Save the Children’s Lovett.

He said that just as world leaders have acted to rescue banks and protect key industries, they need to apply the same urgency to saving Africa’s babies and children.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84869NAIROBI Thursday, June 11, 2009 (IRIN) - To successfully upgrade existing slums and prevent more from springing up, countries in the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific regions must convince their governments to allocate more resources to urban infrastructure, services and capacity-building activities, a senior UN official has said. NAIROBI Thursday, June 11, 2009 (IRIN) - To successfully upgrade existing slums and prevent more from springing up, countries in the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions must convince their governments to allocate more resources to urban infrastructure, services and capacity-building activities, a senior UN official has said.

"Slums and urban poverty are not just a manifestation of population explosion and demographic change, or even of the vast impersonal forces of globalization," Anna Tibaijuka, the under-secretary-general and executive director of the Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), said on 10 June.

"Slums must be seen as a result of failed policies, bad governance, corruption, inappropriate regulation, dysfunctional land markets, unresponsive financial systems, and a fundamental lack of political will."

Addressing a ministerial session during the first joint ACP conference on the challenges of urbanization and poverty reduction, Tibaijuka said strategies to deal with slums need to consider much more than the provision of housing and physical services.

"They [the strategies] involve governance, political will, ownership and rights, social capital and access," she said. "Not to forget planning, coordination and partnerships.”

Declaration approved

At the end of the 8-10 June conference, hosted jointly by HABITAT, the European Commission (EC) and the ACP secretariat, the more than 200 delegates approved a 13-point "declaration and action plan" on urbanization challenges and poverty reduction in the ACP countries.

The declaration urged the prioritization of urban issues in the overall development agenda in ACP countries and invited development partners to contribute to these efforts by establishing flexible financial mechanisms and providing "relevant resources to reduce urban poverty and tackle new challenges such as climate change, urban energy, water and food security and financial crises" to ensure sustainable urban development in these countries.

HABITAT said the conference "deepened and elaborated further" the conclusions adopted during a joint regional workshop in 2005 and the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme, currently under way in 30 ACP countries.

At least two billion people live in urban areas in the developing world, according to HABITAT, with more than 70 percent of many ACP urban populations living in slums or informal settlements. Slum prevalence is highest in sub-Saharan Africa, at 62 percent, followed by South Asia, 43 percent; East Asia, 37 percent; and Latin America and the Caribbean, at 27 percent.

Tibaijuka said: "Our latest research shows that one out of every three people living in cities of the developing world lives in a slum or other unplanned settlements. The proportion is certainly higher in ACP countries."

The main themes of the Nairobi conference were: basic urban infrastructure and service provision; pro-poor land and affordable housing interventions; urban governance and planning policies; human settlement finance strategies; and local economic development enhancement.

Urban growth, slum formation

Kenyan Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka told the conference that recent studies had shown that the rate of urban growth was near equal to the rate of slum formation in many developing countries and that slums remained a major phenomena in all urban centres of the ACP countries.

"Regrettably, slums represent the most visible manifestation of urban poverty, the failure of sectoral policies and the inability of institutions and countries to provide for the basic needs of the populace," he said in a keynote speech.

"There is therefore a compelling case for action on the vicious cycle of urban poverty. Consequently, ACP countries need to re-examine urbanization afresh and devise proactive urban management strategies to utilize the opportunities and attendant challenges in a sustainable way."

John Kaputin, ACP secretary-general, urged the ACP countries to adopt new and modern mechanisms to cope with globalization and urban development.

js/am/cbhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84803JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, June 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Investment in agriculture in developing countries, where most of the workforce consists of small-scale farmers, is akin to beefing up a "safety net" as the world struggles to limit the impact of the economic crisis, a UN agency head told IRIN ahead of the three-day World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Cape Town. JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, June 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Investment in agriculture in developing countries, where most of the workforce consists of small-scale farmers, is akin to beefing up a "safety net" as the world struggles to limit the impact of the economic crisis, a UN agency head told IRIN ahead of the three-day World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Cape Town.

Kanayo Nwanze, president of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) pointed out that 80 percent of the workforce in Africa consisted of small farmers, and agriculture accounted for 40 percent of the region's gross domestic product (GDP).

The World Bank's 2008 report, Agriculture for Development, commented that the sector was "'farm-financed social welfare' when there are urban shocks", and pointed out that three out of every four poor people in developing countries lived in rural areas.

Instead of pouring money into "subsidising imported food to keep urban populations happy, fearing the possibility of a social unrest", Nwanze said governments should realize that "there is no safety net like food security," and funding agriculture helped alleviate rural poverty.

He cited the World Bank report which found that in China, the world's fastest growing economy, agricultural growth was 3.5 times more effective in reducing poverty levels than expansion in other sectors.

Nwanze told IRIN that job loss trends prompted by the economic slowdown had shown that "reverse migration of people from the urban areas to rural areas is taking place", which strengthened the case for investment in rural economies.

With remittance flows and official development aid set to decline, Africa should look to forging private-public sector partnerships. "The most important aspect should be to organize the small-scale farmers and improve and provide linkages to commercial markets, and provide access to financial services," he said.

In Kenya, small-scale farmers exporting cut flowers to Europe had put "the horticulture industry ... on a par with Kenya's traditional hard currency earners - tea, coffee and tourism - in revenues," according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), although the global economic downturn has since caused a contraction in the industry.

Vietnam, which was importing food only two decades ago, had become the world's fourth largest producer of rice, largely on the shoulders of its small-scale farmers, Nwanze pointed out. Investment in agriculture in Burkina Faso, in West Africa, had also seen food production double in the last decade.

Investment opportunities

The IFAD official said he considered the large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, described as "land-grab deals", as opportunities to draw much needed resources into agriculture. Governments should become proactive to ensure that investment in land deals maximised their contribution to sustainable development and were transparent.

Nwanze said IFAD was involved in a process, led by FAO, to develop Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Governance of Land and Other Natural Resources, which would examine land ownership and distribution reform, and provide guidance for "land-grab" deals. Many small-scale farmers in Africa have insecure property rights, which these deals have underlined.

According to the World Bank report, land reform could promote the entry of small-scale farmers into the market, reduce inequalities in land distribution and increase efficiency.

The UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank are to address some of these issues in a Framework and Guidelines for Land Policies in Africa, being developed under the leadership of the African Union.

Nwanze said investment in agriculture was now an imperative. The World Bank has projected that food imports into Sub-Saharan Africa will more than double in two decades.

The new Food Outlook by FAO noted that a combination of falling incomes and declining real exchange rates in much of the past 12 months had eroded purchasing powers worldwide, affecting the affordability of food.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84777NAIROBI Monday, June 08, 2009 (IRIN) - More than 200 delegates have arrived in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, for the first joint conference of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Group of Countries (ACP) focusing on the challenges of urbanisation and poverty reduction for millions of slum dwellers.NAIROBI Monday, June 08, 2009 (IRIN) - More than 200 delegates have arrived in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, for the first joint conference of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Group of Countries (ACP) http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/6502_17531_E_Flyer%20.pdf focusing on the challenges of urbanisation and poverty reduction for millions of slum dwellers.

The UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), European Commission (EC) and ACP Secretariat at the UN headquarters in Nairobi are co-hosting the 8-10 June conference.

"As the global financial crisis bites harder, world economic growth slows and climate change problems pose ever greater threats, we are already seeing the impact on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, especially urban slum dwellers," UN-HABITAT said in a statement. "This situation threatens to undo and possibly reverse gains already made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals in towns and cities."

The agency said the delegates' discussions would build upon a Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme launched in 2008 for 30 ACP countries and financed by the EC. Discussion will focus mainly on technical issues affecting urbanisation and poverty reduction and also discuss the expansion of the programme to all 79 ACP countries.

js/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84753JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, June 03, 2009 (IRIN) - Camel farming could be an option for some 20 million to 35 million people living on semi-arid land in Africa, who will soon be unable to grow crops because of climate change, says the co-author of a new study. JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, June 03, 2009 (IRIN) - Camel farming could be an option for some 20 million to 35 million people living on semi-arid land in Africa, who will soon be unable to grow crops because of climate change, says the co-author of a new study.

By 2050, hotter conditions and less rainfall in an area covering 500,000 sq km to one million sq km of marginal farmland - about the size of Egypt - would make it harder for people grow crops, said Philip Thornton, a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, co-author of the report.

The study, Croppers to livestock keepers: livelihood transitions to 2050 in Africa due to climate change, was published in a special edition of the journal, Environmental Science and Policy, to coincide with the UN climate change meeting in Bonn, Germany, this week. The meeting is the second in the run-up to the December conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, to consider a global accord to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The two authors suggest that rethinking and planning now for agricultural systems that will be necessary in a few decades, like boosting production of the hardier types of livestock - goats, camels and some types of cattle - could provide an alternate source of income.

Thornton told IRIN that the affected communities could take the lead from pastoralist communities, who have been adapting to climate variability for generations. About 10 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa – around 72 million people - live in rangeland systems.

The Samburu tribe in northern Kenya, traditionally cattle farmers, had begun keeping camels in the last two or three decades because droughts had diminished grazing, leading to diseases in the herds and cattle raiding by other groups, whereas the neighbouring tribes, who kept camels, fared better.

"Any increase in livestock must be managed sustainably, but our research shows there are many areas in Africa where, over the next few decades, climate vulnerability, coupled with market demand for animal products, will prompt many farming communities to add more livestock to their agriculture systems and we should prepare now for this inevitability," said Carlos Seré, Director General of ILRI.

The authors focused on the arid and semi-arid regions of West, East and southern Africa, where poor rainfall routinely causes crops to fail in one out of every six or even fewer growing seasons.

Various climate projections have indicated that the length of the reliable growing season on the affected land would drop below 90 days, making it impossible to cultivate maize - the staple food in much of Africa - and in some places even "drought-tolerant crops, such as millet" would be difficult to grow.

Livestock-farming as a solution is not a new idea. Thornton said the goal of their research was ultimately to use climate change projections to pinpoint specific areas in Africa where it would be appropriate to promote livestock ownership on small farms and help farmers deal with the risks inherent in such operations.

However, "there is currently a mismatch between the kind of localised climate change impact information that is urgently needed, and what can objectively be supplied," he commented.

For example, while there was consensus that temperatures would rise significantly, climate models did not always agree as to how the pattern and amount of rainfall in some parts of Africa would change.

Thornton said more detailed research was necessary to help implement programmes to assist the people living in these areas.

jk/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84691NAIROBI Monday, May 25, 2009 (IRIN) - Most poor households in Djibouti still cannot afford sufficient food, despite an improvement in food security due to rains in the coastal belt and large-scale distribution of aid, an early warning agency stated.NAIROBI Monday, May 25, 2009 (IRIN) - Most poor households in Djibouti still cannot afford sufficient food, despite an improvement in food security due to rains in the coastal belt and large-scale distribution of aid, an early warning agency stated.

The price of imported rice, the main staple for poor households, increased by 6 percent in April, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), said in its May food security update. [http://www.fews.net/pages/countryarchive.aspx?pid=500&gb=dj&l=en ].

It noted that the UN Children's Agency (UNICEF) was concerned about high levels of acute malnutrition, particularly in peri-urban areas around Djibouti City and in the northwest pastoral zone. Admissions to feeding centres rose from 7,302 to 18,417 children between December 2007 and December 2008.

Generally, milk production, the main income source for people living in the southeast roadside pastoral subzone, was abundant due to recent rains in the coastal areas. Livestock sales have also increased due to improved animal health.

However, with the hot season in late May, pastoralists in southeastern zones are likely to move herds back to coastal areas in search of pasture and water, resulting in overgrazing and competition for limited pasture.

eo/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84529NAIROBI Wednesday, May 20, 2009 (IRIN) - Several large African cities are at risk from rising sea levels and intense storms, experts warn.NAIROBI Wednesday, May 20, 2009 (IRIN) - Several large African cities are at risk from rising sea levels and intense storms, experts warn.

Poor neighbourhoods and slums in Bugama and Okrika in Nigeria, Freetown in Sierra Leone, Bathurst in the Gambia and Tanga in Tanzania, are especially vulnerable.

In such low-income urban centres, infrastructure is often non-existent or ill-maintained, according to a World Bank report, Sea level Rise and Storm Surges, while storm-water drainage infrastructure is often outdated and inadequate. 

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a trend has emerged since the mid-1970s where storms tend to last longer and be more intense, with a strong correlation to the rise in tropical sea surface temperature.

In sub-Saharan Africa, storm surge zones are concentrated in Madagascar, Mauritania, Mozambique and Nigeria. These countries alone account for about half (53 percent) of the total increase in the region’s surge zones resulting from sea level rise and intensified storms.

At least three cyclones struck Madagascar between January and April 2009, affecting thousands.

Vulnerable Mozambique

In Mozambique, one of the most vulnerable coastlines in Africa, 15 of the 56 tropical cyclones and tropical storms that entered the Mozambique Channel from 1980 to 2007 made landfall.

Tropical cyclones, also called typhoons and hurricanes, are powerful storms generated over tropical or sub-tropical waters whose impact includes extremely strong winds, torrential rains, high waves and damaging storm surges, leading to extensive flooding.

"Coastal flooding has started to be of concern in the last 10 to 15 years," Pedro Tomo, director of the Mozambique National Institute for Disaster Management, told IRIN. "Now, a few times each year, there are people who wake up in water."

In 50 years, Tomo said, some coastal towns will disappear if nothing is done - such as Nacala, Beira, Quelimane and Mahajanga.

Such a scenario would not just displace the population, but also damage economic infrastructure, said Michel Matera, programme manager, crisis prevention and recovery/environment, for the UN Development Programme in Mozambique.

At least 2.5 million people live in Mozambique's coastal areas, surviving on rain-fed farming and fishing. But migration to coastal towns is placing more people, infrastructure and services at risk, according to a study by the Mozambique institute.

"Models suggest that for the Indian Ocean there is an overall tendency toward decreasing frequency of tropical cyclones but increasing cyclone intensity,” the report stated.

"More severe cyclones will pose the biggest threat to the [Mozambique] coast; beyond 2030, the accelerating sea level rise will present the greatest danger, especially when combined with high tides and storm surges," it added.

Researchers project a 3-5 percent increase in wind speed per degree Celsius increase of tropical sea surface temperatures. "The current understanding is that ocean warming plays a major role in intensified cyclone activity and heightened storm surges," it stated.

In a scenario of a high, non-linear sea-level rise due to polar ice melting, Beira "will be cut off from the interior and will likely become an island..."

Maputo's port, its rail links and oil facilities, which are on an estuary, are also subject to flooding.

Studies show that Mozambique, Ghana and Togo may lose more than 50 percent of their coastal gross domestic product (GDP), but losses would be highest in Nigeria (US$407.61 million).

Coastal agriculture, in terms of extent of croplands, will be affected 100 percent in Nigeria, 66.67 percent in Ghana, and 50 percent in Togo and Equatorial Guinea.

Desert creep

Mauritania is experiencing the impact of a changing climate exemplified by a steadily creeping desert and other extreme weather events. It is one of the countries likely to be worst affected by intensified storm surges.

"About every seven years, there are very high sea waves that sometimes flood up to 800m inshore," Mohamed Moulaye Ely, head of civil protection in Mauritania's Ministry of Interior, told IRIN. "In 1988, this happened during the day but in 2001 it was at night and most people were caught unawares."

Mauritania relies mainly on sand dunes as a natural barrier to control coastal flooding. The dunes cover a 5km stretch into the capital, Nouakchott.

"There isn't much prevention planning to deal with disasters here," he said. "We are like a fire brigade. We create a committee to respond when something happens."

Mauritania has a disaster management platform, but "...the political situation will be a major determiner of its success", he said. The military ousted former president Sidi Mohamed ould Cheikh Abdallahi in a 2008 coup.

Rising sea levels

Much of the land in and around Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos is less than 2m above sea level so it too is expected to be affected by rising sea levels.

In Cotonou, Benin, the continued advance of the sea, coastal erosion and the rise in sea levels are already threatening vulnerable communities and disrupting the least-protected sensitive ecosystems. Some roads, beaches and buildings have already been destroyed by the coastline’s regression in the past 10 years.

Zanzibar is experiencing marine flooding, partly due to mangrove and coconut plantation felling, said Waride Jabu, director of the disaster management department. Erosion is also being experienced along the coastline, where an increase in building activity has been noted.

Coastal erosion is expected to threaten investment in beach resorts. This will arise from the gradual inundation of offshore islands and increased damage to the coral eco-systems, which will reduce their capacity to protect the coast.

Jabu said high tidal waves were increasing. "So far, no damage to infrastructure has been noted, but the sea seems to be slowly eating the shore." The Zanzibari disaster department was encouraging reforestation along the coastline.

In Eritrea, trees are being planted on the 1,100km coastline, said Solomon Haile, the director of the planning and statistics division in the Ministry of Agriculture. "The land is a bit elevated so we are not currently afraid of the sea rising," he added.

More than half the coastal population of Djibouti, Togo, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Sudan would be at risk from intensified storms and rising sea levels, experts say.

Counting the cost

According to the Mozambique study, the re-insurance industry has also recognised the need to increase the probability of tropical cyclones making landfall on vulnerable coasts in its risk calculations. “Risk carriers believe they cannot wait until science has provided answers to all the relevant questions, but must already make substantial upward adjustments to the cost of cover in such risk portfolios.”

An average 78 million people worldwide are exposed each year to tropical cyclone wind hazard and another 1.6 million to storm surges. In terms of economic exposure, an annual average of $1,284 billion in GDP is exposed to tropical cyclones, according to the 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction.

"Currently 10 percent of the world’s total population (over 600 million people) and 13 percent of its urban population (over 360 million people) live on the 2 percent of the world’s land area that is less than 10m above sea level, known as the Low Elevation Coastal Zone," it stated. "In Africa, 12 percent of the urban population lives in the LECZ."

aw/eo/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84464DAKAR Monday, May 18, 2009 (IRIN) - African Development Bank president Donald Kaberuka says medium-size farms are the engine for agricultural growth in Africa and given their position and potential they merit considerable investment. Agriculture campaigners say while they support such an approach, investors must not overlook small-scale farmers. DAKAR Monday, May 18, 2009 (IRIN) - African Development Bank president Donald Kaberuka says medium-sized farms are the engine for agricultural growth in Africa and given their position and potential they merit considerable investment. Agriculture campaigners say while they support such an approach, investors must not overlook small-scale farmers.

In early 2009 the African Development Bank (AfDB), Agence Francaise de Developpement and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) launched the African Agriculture Fund, aiming to raise US$674 million to help medium-sized agricultural companies and cooperatives modernise, improve management and diversify agricultural production.

“Those companies that are big enough can already raise their own money for agri-business, and very small farmers can turn to micro-credit,” Kaberuka said at a press conference at last week’s AfDB annual meetings in Dakar, Senegal. “What we are missing is [farmers in] the middle, to really add value.”

Oxfam’s regional campaigns manager Kate Norgrove told IRIN: “We support the fund. We have been calling for increased funding for agriculture for a long time; but smallholders are key to developing the agricultural sector. Many of the poorest farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa need a funding boost to be able to organise themselves into a cooperative in order [even to go after] larger-scale funding.”

Targeting small farmers with assistance could would help them grow, she said. “Then Africa could produce enough food for national use and regional trade without having to resort to large-scale agribusiness.”

Micro-credit lacking

Regional investment banks do not put much faith in micro-credit to spur agricultural growth, according to Cheikh Oumar Bah, director of Senegalese think-tank Initiative Prospective Agricole et Rurale.

The bulk of sub-Saharan African farming is rain-dependent, making harvests – and thus loan repayments – unpredictable, he said. “Securing loans is still a problem for small-scale farmers; if there is a bad harvest or poor rain, the bank will not be reimbursed, so very few take the risk.” Few banks will give smallholders regular annual loans, making it difficult for growers to build up their farms, Bah said.

And few lending institutions accept farmers’ assets such as livestock as collateral, he said.

AfDB’s Vice-President Zeinab El Bakari agrees there are problems with micro-finance, but says national banking networks and organisations such as IFAD are better placed to step in than large regional banks. “The AfDB is wrong for this, it requires close supervision that we are not set up to do.”

About 500 million people in developing countries run small businesses – many of them farm-related – but just 2.5 percent of them are able to obtain loans from banks or traditional lending institutions, according to IFAD.

In May 2009 IFAD promised poor farmers $3.7 billion over the next five years, part of which will go towards micro-finance.

And while others stress risks, IFAD stresses security. Studies show that growth generated by agriculture is up to four times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in other sectors, according to an IFAD communiqué.

Small-scale farmers across sub-Saharan Africa are just eager to see the money. “Farmers we have spoken to in Mali and Ghana say access to credit has always been hard and now [given the financial crisis] it is even harder,” Oxfam’s Norgrove said.

“What we really need to see now is money on the ground. Money promised last year has not yet reached small farmers we have spoken to across West Africa. [It must] get there soon so they can buy fertilizers and seeds to prepare for the upcoming planting season.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84437DAKAR Thursday, May 14, 2009 (IRIN) - Africa has taken a heavy blow with the global financial crisis and this week as the African Development Bank held its annual meetings in Dakar, Senegal, finance ministers, donors and academics gathered to examine ways to help the continent cope and mitigate setbacks. But coping is particularly difficult for post-conflict or “fragile” states, where institutions are tattered and donors wary.DAKAR Thursday, May 14, 2009 (IRIN) - The global financial crisis has already dealt Africa a heavy blow, and this week as the African Development Bank (AfDB) held its annual meetings in the Senegalese capital Dakar, finance ministers, donors and academics gathered to examine ways to help the continent cope and mitigate setbacks. Coping is particularly difficult for post-conflict or “fragile” states, where institutions are tattered and donors wary.

Post-conflict states must provide jobs for youth, make visible progress on reconstruction and build up the formal economy to avoid violence, said experts at a forum of finance ministers, donors and post-conflict experts at the AfDB meetings. Donors, they said, must “take more risks” and invest in the long-term to help fragile states survive.

“It takes over a decade of putting in money, combined with peacekeeping and rehabilitation, to build up states post-conflict,” Oxford University economics professor Paul Collier told forum participants. “Instead, we’ve used short-termism and denied reality….It is all about reconstruction and employment. You need to employ lots of youths; you need to train them and do it early to avoid conflict and help rebuild.”

Zeinab El Bakari, AfDB vice president, said in the meeting: “Donors should take more risks. It takes a change of mentality. You cannot do business as usual. [In fragile states] you need flexibility and more civil society engagement.”

Risk of violence

The economic crisis could erode many of the gains made by post-conflict states such as Liberia and Sierra Leone over the past decade, say economists.

Liberia’s annual growth reached 12 percent at its post-war peak but dropped to 5 percent in 2008, Nganfuan Augustine, Liberian Minister of Finance, told IRIN. Sierra Leone’s 7-percent growth in 2008 is expected to drop.

In fragile states declining growth can breed unrest, Collier said. “Economic growth will decline, creating a greater risk of violence.” And each condition feeds the other, he said.

“Post-conflict governments have very little room to manoeuvre out of financial crises. The scope for government response is limited. There is no fiscal space,” said Collier. This may lead to inflation, he said, but that creates a negative cycle as “capital flight is more sensitive to inflation in fragile states than in others.”

Post-conflict economies tend to be largely informal, which keeps tax income low and discourages foreign investment, Collier pointed out.

This leaves finance ministers with tough choices. Liberia faces 80 percent unemployment, massive skills shortages, a scale-down of the country’s biggest employer Mittel mining, problems in the rubber industry, and the drawdown of the world’s largest peacekeeping mission, Nganfuan told IRIN. “And amid all this, we have to streamline expenditure.”

The new fragility

The financial crisis is already causing foreign investment to drop in many African states, including Sierra Leone, according to the country’s finance minister Samura Kamara.

Following a decade-long civil war, Sierra Leone’s economy plummeted before picking up again, he said. “Now the nature of the fragility is changing. We are facing dropping diamond prices, falling remittances, imports [which bring in 70 percent government tax revenue] are way down and there is a mounting drug- trafficking problem.”

And 60 percent of Sierra Leonean youths are unemployed, according to the government, which some observers say is enough on its own to threaten stability.

“We need serious infrastructure development now in Sierra Leone,” Kamara said. “You can sign up to a peace and security agreement, but it costs to put it into practice.”

Donors should “take risks”

For the AfDB's El Bakari, it is important that donors accept that loan standards might need to be relaxed when lending to fragile states. “If the standards are not as good as the best, it is still OK,” she told IRIN.

The AfDB used to stop lending money when a government went into arrears, but shifted this two years ago when it set up its Fragile States Facility, which instead helps countries focus on getting out of debt.

Under the programme a state such as Guinea-Bissau is eligible to receive additional resources above its regular country allocation and support to build up government capacity.

“The African Development Bank is expected to be more engaged than other financial institutions. There is trust there. We need to build on that,” El Bakari said.

The Liberian government faced up to US$5 billion debt burden when it emerged from conflict, said Nganfuan; but in 2008 was the 33rd country to be approved for World Bank and International Monetary Fund debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative.

And when it comes to pulling through economic shock, some fragile states, despite facing obvious challenges, have a major advantage, says El Bakari: good leadership.

“Good leadership makes a huge difference everywhere. Liberia has that. Leaders need to create strategies out of this crisis. Donors cannot play that role.”

aj/nphttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84390NAIROBI Tuesday, May 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Better coordination between countries and aid agencies is necessary to improve preparedness and response to local and trans-boundary disasters, delegates at the second Africa meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction, held in Nairobi, said.NAIROBI Tuesday, May 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Better coordination between countries and aid agencies is necessary to improve preparedness and response to local and trans-boundary disasters, delegates at the second Africa meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), held in Nairobi, said.

They also challenged governments to improve funding for DRR activities.

"Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea are affected by similar hazards such as army worms [www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82571] and flooding, but each country has its own preparedness and response plans," said Mary Mye-Kamara, Sierra Leone's disaster management department director.

"There is a lack of cross-border information sharing, yet this would form a good base for regional planning," she added. "A coordinated response between the countries would be more effective."

Southern African lessons

Kelly David, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in southern Africa http://ochaonline.un.org/Default.aspx?alias=ochaonline.un.org/rosa ), said the region had improved disaster management and reduced the gap between governments and NGOs.

Before the 2008 flooding/cyclone season, David said, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met to discuss lessons learned in flood management, and launched a joint appeal and response plan for four countries most affected by the Zambezi floods.

"In 2007, weeks were spent trying to determine the scale and scope of disaster. Now it is easier to have faster response in countries like Malawi and Zambia," she said. "The number of deaths has also reduced."

Despite this, improved assessments and baseline data are required to address the compounded nature of vulnerability as hazards in the region occur against a background of poverty, migration, structural problems and epidemics such as cholera.

Delegates to the meeting, organised by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, www.unisdr.org/ which ended on 7 May, said increased budgets for DRR activities would be a success indicator.

Benoit Collin of the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office http://ec.europa.eu/echo/index_en.htm , called for more linkages between development and humanitarian action as choices made immediately after disasters affect long-term recovery. "Humanitarian action alone cannot be the solution," Benoit said. "Response to disasters creates good opportunities for DRR, enabling building back better."

He noted, however, that often there was low-level replication and scaling-up of pilot programmes as well as a lack of effective dissemination of lessons learned.

Adapting programmes

Nancy Balfour of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent www.ifrc.org/ said disaster preparedness should be strengthened at the community, national, regional and global levels.

Relevant preparedness models were also required; Balfour said, noting that most were for rapid-onset disasters. "These should be adapted to predominantly slow-onset and food insecurity disaster patterns," she said. In the last six years the Horn of Africa region has experienced three major droughts.

According to Francis Muraya of the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, www.gfdrr.org , weaker economies often lagged behind in DRR due to resource constraints. The Facility helps vulnerable countries incorporate DRR into development strategies and funds disaster recovery in low-income countries.

"Disasters are not a sexy subject, often they come after everything else," said Muraya. "But they should be considered as development issues... as they can wipe out investments in a day."

aw/eo/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84346DAKAR Tuesday, May 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Each year in Africa the tsetse fly causes more than US$4 billion in agriculture income losses, kills three million livestock and infects up to 75,000 people with trypanosomiasis, according to the UN. Though sterilising the flies may help wipe out the offending parasite, it is a long, expensive process that is losing experts to other more well-funded health research, according to scientists.DAKAR Tuesday, May 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Each year in Africa the tsetse fly causes more than US$4 billion in agriculture income losses, kills three million livestock and infects up to 75,000 people with trypanosomiasis, according to the UN. Though sterilising the flies may help wipe out the offending parasite, it is a long, expensive process that is losing experts to other more well-funded health research, according to scientists.

The head of the human African trypanosomiasis (“sleeping sickness”) programme at the Geneva-based Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), Joseph Ndung'u, told IRIN he left his position as director of the Kenyan Trypanosomiasis Research Institute in order to expand his work beyond Kenya.

“But it is true that many scientists [in Africa] are moving away from tsetse flies to other diseases that are seen as more sexy,” he said.

Ndung’u said the steep drop in the number of humans affected by trypanosomiasis – from an estimated half-million a decade ago to 75,000 in 2007 according to World Health Organization (WHO) – has reduced funding for tsetse fly research, surveillance and disease control.

“But the disease is still as deadly in animals,” Ndung'u added. The parasite causes “wasting disease”, or nagana, which leads to fever, anemia and possibly death.

Without these animals, sub-Saharan Africans earn, eat and produce only a fraction of what they could otherwise, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Poverty fly

“It is a poverty fly,” said Jorge Hendrichs, the head of the insect and pest control section of a joint FAO and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) project. “Why are there lush green areas with very hungry poor people? Look closer and you will notice women working the land with their bare hands. There are simply no animals in the poorest rural areas of Africa. Tsetse [flies] have killed the cattle that would have pulled plows in the fields or transported food to the market.”

Ninety percent of the crops grown in sub-Saharan Africa are produced without animal power, which costs the continent more than $4 billion in losses every year, according to FAO.

Nuclear

By sterilising male flies with radiation and releasing them into endemic areas, scientists have been able to wipe out a number of species over the past 50 years.

But IAEA’s Hendrichs told IRIN despite that this technique was effective for the Mediterranean fruit fly in Mexico and the melon fly in Japan, only Tanzania has declared itself tsetse fly free after donors helped fund a $6-million sterilisation project in the late 1980s.

The most heavily affected countries include Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo  and Angola.

IAEA director Hendrichs told IRIN a lack of experts and poor management have held back tsetse fly elimination in Africa. “Tsetse flies are partly an insect problem, but it is also a human resource management issue. These programmes are not simple. You need a lot of political will. You cannot run it through any government bureaucracy. You need to create reliable management teams that are not corrupt or [do not] have other interests.”

Hendrichs added that qualified scientists and IAEA-trained civil servants tend to leave Africa to seek higher-paying employment elsewhere. “A number of the [IAEA] fellows disappear into the private sector, or simply disappear during training.”

IAEA trains up to 20 scientists every year on tsetse fly control.

FIND scientist Ndung'u told IRIN he is sticking with tsetse flies. “Whereas the impact [of our work] on humans may not be so obvious, the link to Africa’s agriculture is what makes tsetse flies so important. With oxen to pull plows, you can produce 10 times more, feed yourself and your children and have enough to sell at the market.”

He added: “If we want to make a difference in Africa, our work must start and end with tsetse flies.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84351JOHANNESBURG Monday, May 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Rich countries and firms are leasing or buying massive tracts of land in developing nations for the production of food or biofuel. JOHANNESBURG Monday, May 11, 2009 (IRIN) - Rich countries and firms are leasing or buying massive tracts of land in developing nations for the production of food or biofuel.

An area equivalent to Germany’s farmed land is at stake, and tens of billions of dollars on offer.

On the plus side, agro-industrial production could develop underused land, and broaden the world’s food production base while providing much needed resources for poor countries.

But is the land really idle and currently unused? Are small-scale farmers going to be “tractored out” in a murky neo-colonial “land grab”?

Farmers and experts in several African countries know all too well the need for higher food production, but the scale and structure of the deals gives rise to concern on many fronts, according to multiple interviews.

The food and fuel prices hikes of 2007 and 2008 and a steadily growing world population raised the immediate and strategic value of food production.

Food-importing countries that lack land and water but are rich in capital, such as the Gulf States, are initiating deals to produce food in developing countries, where land and water are more abundant and production costs much lower.

Vast tracts of land and huge amounts of money are involved: 15 million to 20 million hectares, almost equivalent to the total area under cultivation in Germany, according to analysts at the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Investment so far adds up to $20 billion to $30 billion, dwarfing foreign aid budgets for agriculture.

Murky?

Joachim von Braun and Ruth Meinzen-Dick of IFPRI point out in a new policy brief  that developing countries with large populations, like China, South Korea and India, are seeking similar deals, including growing biofuel crops.

The institute warned that there was a "lack of transparency" in many deals, with the amounts involved "often still murky".

Land is an "emotional issue", said Theo de Jager, deputy president of Agri SA, the South African farmers' association. Some of the deals have already begun to ruffle feathers in developing countries, most of which are highly food insecure, and at least one has led to the overthrow of a government.

An April 2009 policy paper from the German NGO Welt Hunger Hilfe says: “States that are dependent on food imports, in particular, are surrendering more and more land to foreign investors while failing to ensure that conditions improve income and food security for their own population. Agricultural investments are rarely made in such a way that they offer the local population a genuine share of the benefits.” The paper also points out the risks of high-level corruption.

The president of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP), Ajay Vashee, told IRIN "Faced with a growing population, if we do not increase our global food production I can foresee another crisis, maybe in another two years." IFAP, formed in 1946, claims to represent 600 million mostly small-scale farmers, a third of the world's food-growers.

"We are not against the deals, as they will bring in huge amounts of money for agricultural infrastructure development, besides boosting food production globally, but we must also realise that in most developing countries, such as those in Africa, most small-scale farmers have customary rights and face the threat of being forced off their land," said Vashee, who farms in Zambia.

IFPRI has called for a code of conduct to be drawn up, modelled on international business laws to prevent corrupt practices in the context of foreign direct investment.

So what's the deal?

According to von Braun, the arrangements usually involve governments, either directly or through state-owned entities and public-private partnerships, and the land was usually leased or made available through concessions, but was sometimes bought.

"The size and terms of the contract differ widely - some deals do not involve direct land acquisition, but seek to secure food supplies through contract farming [[and investing in]] rural and agricultural infrastructure, including irrigation systems and roads - these are the better deals."

The concept is not new. Von Braun pointed out that China started leasing land for food production in Cuba and Mexico 10 years ago.

However, in its 2008 report on "land grabbing", GRAIN, a Spain-based NGO that promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity, warned that the "very basis on which to build food sovereignty is simply being bartered away" in the deals.

"These lands will be transformed from smallholdings or forests, or whatever they may be, into large industrial estates connected to far-off markets. Farmers will never be real farmers again, job or no job," GRAIN cautioned.

Various Gulf States have struck most of the deals in East Africa, which is facing some of the biggest food shortages globally. IFPRI's von Braun and David Hallam of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told IRIN it was "too early" to assess the impact of the deals on food security and farmers in the lessor countries.

Unease, resistance and protests

Farming and pastoralist communities in the delta of Kenya's Tana River have reacted strongly to reports of government's intention to lease a chunk of this rich coastal land to Qatar. Kenya is facing huge food shortages and high prices after a third consecutive year of drought.

Mohammed Mbwana, who farms in the area and is an official of the Shungwaya Welfare Association, a local NGO, said if the agreement would displace thousands of locals. At least 150,000 families in farming and pastoralist communities depend on the land in question, said to be part of Kenya's biggest wetland.

Tana River County councillors have threatened to go to court and block government's plans to lease the land. The council's vice-chairman, Gure Golo, told IRIN they were opposed to the project because local communities used the delta for produce and livestock farming.

During drought periods, pastoralists from as far as Garissa, the capital of neighbouring North-Eastern Province, and other arid regions, came to the delta in search of pasture and water, he said.

According to media reports, Mozambicans have resisted the settlement of thousands of Chinese agricultural workers on leased land.

In Madagascar, negotiations with the South Korean Daewoo Logistics Corporation to lease 1.3 million hectares to grow maize and oil palms played a role in the political conflict that led to the overthrow of the government earlier this year, the IFPRI brief said.

In Malawi, Chinese investors were allocated land, used by locals for agriculture in the southern town of Balaka, to construct a cotton processing plant. When protests followed, local traditional leaders were taken to neighbouring Zambia to see what the Chinese might deliver in terms of development. When they came back they relented and opted to move to another area "because the Chinese would create jobs for their subjects", a government official told IRIN.

Victor Mhone of the Civil Society Agriculture Network (CISANET), a grouping of individuals and NGOS in Malawi, said: "What we need as a country is to improve on food production, and that can be done if we empower local farmers by giving them the best land for cultivation. Foreign companies are here to make profits and there is little that we can benefit from, whatever they will be growing here."

Sudan, which has received some of the biggest foreign investments in agriculture in Africa, dismissed notions of the emergence of a new form of colonialism.

Abdeldafi Fadlalla Ali, the Federal Agriculture Commissioner at the Sudanese Ministry of Investment, told IRIN that they always ensured local interests were taken care of in the deals - the produce was sold locally and local people "become the highest beneficiaries".

Sudan, Ali said, has 84 million hectares of arable land, of which only 20 percent is under cultivation, and had registered 75 deals worth $3.5 billion in eight years. Almost $930 million of this was already invested. Eight countries, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, China and India are involved.

Ali reasoned that in the face of limited domestic capital, foreign investment seemed to be a "better strategy" to achieve agricultural targets, and expected that produce from the deals would be exported in future.

Millions of Sudanese require food aid, according to the UN. However, Ali claimed food insecurity was more related to transport and marketing than absolute production shortfalls.

Safeguards

IFPRI recommends transparency, respect for existing land rights, sharing of benefits, environmental sustainability and adherence to national trade policies as key elements to be incorporated in a proposed code of conduct. This could include foreign investors being denied the right to export during an acute national food crisis.

Farmers and think-tanks talk about turning this "opportunity" into a "win-win" situation. While the agriculture sector in most poor countries grapples with the impact of the economic slowdown, deals for arable land continue to prove attractive.

Rwanda recently announced a new programme to identify “unexploited“ arable land for foreign investors. On the other hand, the Republic of Congo announced it would lease 10 million hectares of farmland to individual foreign farmers to boost its food security.

"This is a better option - leasing out land to farmers who will transfer skills to local farmers, boost the country's production, and care about the land," said Agri SA's de Jager. South African farmers have helped improve production in Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and Nigeria, among other countries he said.

But IFAP's Vashee pointed out that farmers cannot bring in the huge investment needed to build or rebuild infrastructure.

IFPRI is working with the African Union to develop guidelines on how to negotiate with foreign investors, which will be presented to African leaders for ratification at a summit in July.

ha/at/jk/jk/jk/he/bp http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84320NAIROBI Wednesday, May 06, 2009 (IRIN) - Ineffective disaster management systems, poor funding and lack of relevant data for planning risk-reduction activities have taken their toll on sub-Saharan African countries, specialists said.NAIROBI Wednesday, May 06, 2009 (IRIN) - Ineffective disaster management systems, poor funding and lack of relevant data for planning risk-reduction activities have taken their toll on sub-Saharan African countries, specialists said.

"Despite high economic growth in some countries, disasters are continuing to affect the continent's ability to build wealth for its people," Margareta Wahlström, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), said.

"We often looked at disasters as events that happen, then we go back to normal life... this is no longer possible due to the high cost of disasters," Wahlström told the Second Africa Regional meeting on DRR in Nairobi on 5 May.

"It is difficult convincing ministries of finance to allocate funding... but is reducing risk through better planning expensive? Not necessarily," she added. "If you plan to build a house and the local people tell you that the area is flood-prone, you save money by looking for a safer place."

Kenyan government records estimate the cost of response to the 1999–2001 drought at US$340 million. It would, however, have cost half that had there been an effective disaster management system in place, according to Ali Mohamed, permanent secretary in the government’s special programmes ministry.

Kenya also grapples with internal and cross-border conflicts. Experts said the country's level of emergency preparedness was tested by massive displacement in the 2008 post-election violence.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), said Kenya loses an equivalent of 5.5 percent of its gross domestic product every seven years to recurrent floods and drought. At present, an estimated 10 million people are affected by drought.

The lack of disaster preparedness is, however, not only a developing-country problem, as exemplified by Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005.

"Our state of preparedness in woefully inadequate," Steiner said. "Climate change is the most stark truth, perhaps, that we have to start to manage as a planet. The sea level in Bangladesh is predicted to rise 60cm this century... about 20 to 30 million people will have to look for a place to live."

Challenges

Lack of climate data, for example, had reduced the ability of countries to correctly make climate predications, according to Charles Akol of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. "There is limited capacity [for] African countries to carry out loss assessments after disasters," he said.

Davies Okoko, disaster preparedness manager at the Kenya Red Cross Society, said disaster responders needed retraining to tackle emerging threats and emergency services needed equipment to tackle rapid onset disasters. "There are few resources committed to deal with such disasters," he said.

Rapid urbanisation was cited as one cause of increasing risks and costs of disaster, as the global urban population surpasses the rural one.

Youcef Aitchellouche, disaster management coordinator of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, called for capacity building at local level, and improved coordination between development and humanitarian aid for sustainable disaster risk management.

In Mozambique, for example, disaster management agencies were working with local communities, said Pedro Tomo, director of the national institute for disaster management. Agricultural technology centres had also been set up in remote areas to teach farmers to counter the effects of recurrent drought and flooding.

Wahlström said weather events such as the 2004 tsunami had showed that disasters have no borders. "We have to learn to be opportunistic, to take advantage of the triggers as people tend to forget disaster events," she said.

The conference, which closes on 7 May with recommendations, is being held under the Hyogo Framework for Action , a global blueprint to promote a strategic and systematic approach to reducing vulnerabilities and risks to hazards and cut disaster losses by 2015.

aw/eo/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84253AGADEZ Tuesday, April 21, 2009 (IRIN) - Health workers in northern Niger, a popular crossing for sub-Saharan migrants travelling to northern Africa and beyond, have reported an increase in migrants hospitalised for meningitis at the state’s regional hospital. AGADEZ Tuesday, April 21, 2009 (IRIN) - Health workers in northern Niger, a popular crossing for sub-Saharan migrants travelling to northern Africa and beyond, have reported an increase in migrants hospitalised for meningitis at the state’s regional hospital.

During the week of 6 April a hospital nurse who requested anonymity told IRIN that four migrants were hospitalised with meningitis. “They have all left; one of them left without ever being seen by the doctor,” said the nurse, who works in infectious disease control.

But even more problematic are migrants who do not seek or receive medical care, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). “Lack of adequate health care [for migrants] will also constitute a risk for communities that come into contact with migrants, whether in transit or destination countries,” Daniel Lopez-Acuña, director of WHO’s Health Action in Crisis Programmes, told IRIN.

Agadez Governor Abba Mallam Boukar told IRIN the increase in meningitis infections is due to the growing number of migrants crossing Niger. “These migrants come with their illnesses. Meningitis spreads in dense populations, which is not the case here [Agadez region] where there is one resident per square kilometre.”

According to the 2005 government census, fewer than 350,000 people lived in Agadez’s 15 communes spread out over more than 670,000 sqkm.

But no matter the source, exposure to the disease can be dangerous for all said WHO’s Lopez-Acuña. “With outbreaks of communicable diseases, you cannot make the distinction of who deserves care; it is a public health risk for all.” He added that the global financial crisis may force governments in poor countries to cut back health budgets while more people migrate to seek a livelihood.

“The compounded effect of the economic crisis on health matters can translate to increased risks, particularly for vulnerable, stateless and often stigmatised groups.”

Epidemic

In neighbouring Nigeria there have been some 40,000 reported infections as of 12 April; Médecins Sans Frontières estimates six million people need meningitis vaccinations in Nigeria and two million in Niger.

The meningitis outbreak in sub-Saharan Africa spread earlier and faster this year than during the same period last year, according to WHO. In Niger as of 12 April, almost 10,000 people have been infected, with almost 400 dying compared to 1,338 infections and 91 deaths this time last year.

One-third of Niger’s meningitis infections have been reported in the southern department of Zinder, which borders Nigeria. The more sparsely populated northern Agadez region has reported fewer than 150 cases and 12 deaths. Abari Ezeï with the Agadez regional health office told IRIN almost 140,000 people have been vaccinated.

Agack Algaset, a doctor in the private health clinic Santé Horizon in Agadez city told IRIN migrants prefer to go to the regional hospital where a consultation costs US$3 –private clinic visits are $4 – and hospitalisation costs $5 per day. But for any patient diagnosed with HIV, tuberculosis or meningitis, regardless of nationality, treatment and hospitalisation are free.

Unaware of the possibility of free treatment, an undocumented migrant who gave his name as Ojuku and home country as Nigeria told IRIN from Agadez that he relied on traditional remedies. “When I fell ill last week, I bought potatoes that I cut into little pieces, and had with a strong coffee to cure myself. Imagine if I were at the hospital. How would I pay?”

pt/idm/np http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=84037DAKAR Thursday, April 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Alleged war criminals, including heads of states, cannot be targeted by the newly created African Court of Justice and Human Rights, which once functional will become the legal arm of the African Union. DAKAR Thursday, April 16, 2009 (IRIN) - Alleged war criminals, including heads of states, cannot be targeted by the newly created African Court of Justice and Human Rights, which once functional will become the legal arm of the African Union.

Rather, the court will rule only on cases brought against states, unlike the International Criminal Court, which issues individual arrest warrants.

Unless a state waives the requirement, alleged victims and NGOs cannot lodge cases against it in the new court without going through the AU, which makes human rights compliance dependent on the regional body, according to an analysis by the UK research group, Chatham House.

As of March 2009 no states have ratified the court, created in July 2008. States are willing to set up pan-African institutions to protect human rights, but are not so eager to “submit themselves to true scrutiny”, Chatham House wrote.

pt/np http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=83955DAKAR Friday, April 10, 2009 (IRIN) - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a test that can detect the deadly H5N1 virus in humans through throat or nose swabs in 40 minutes. Current laboratory analyses that detect the avian flu strain can take up to four hours for confirmation.DAKAR Friday, April 10, 2009 (IRIN) - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a test that can detect the deadly H5N1 virus in humans through throat or nose swabs in 40 minutes. Current laboratory analyses that detect the avian flu strain can take up to four hours for confirmation.

Based on past pandemics the world is now closer to another influenza pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the previous century's three pandemics occurred, according to World Health Organization (WHO).

As of 8 April 15 countries have reported 417 human H5N1 infections and 257 deaths since 2003.

Created by Arbor Vita Corporation with backing from the US Navy, the rapid test has not yet been approved for use outside the USA, nor has its price been set.

pt/np

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=83894ZANZIBAR Thursday, April 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Is there a time when mediators should not even try to get warring parties round a peace table? The answer is probably not, but timing does seem key to a successful long-term outcome to negotiations.ZANZIBAR Thursday, April 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Is there a time when mediators should not even try to get warring parties round a peace table? The answer is probably not, but timing does seem key to a successful long-term outcome to negotiations.

The crux is securing a genuine and sustained peace, such as in Mozambique in 1992, versus one that barely makes it past the press conference, as in several abortive rounds of Somali talks. That in turn is related to the “ripeness” of the conflict – usually a mutually hurting stalemate, with dialogue accepted by both sides as the only logical relief.

But according to Martin Griffiths, director of the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a conflict resolution agency involved in several international mediation efforts, it is the responsibility of the mediator “to try and trigger” the right conditions, rather than waiting for a propitious time to engage.

The “ripening” of circumstances can be the pay-off from the long slog of staying in touch with the warring parties, badgering them to think about negotiations, and then encouraging them to prepare their positions. “You’ve got to keep on trying and be available, so when the time is right you’re ready,” Griffiths told IRIN. “All the years that go by in groundwork are not wasted.”

The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue brought analysts and mediators together last week at a “retreat” in Zanzibar to discuss the challenges of conflict resolution in Africa. One critical area, perhaps the nub of it all, was how to make a peace deal stick?

The urgent imperative for most mediators is to end violence and suffering. In a paper prepared for the Zanzibar meeting, Laurie Nathan, a research fellow at the London School of Economics and the University of Cape Town, contrasted two models of negotiation: “deadline diplomacy” and “confidence-building mediation”.

The first seeks to use politically appointed representatives to pressure the parties into an agreement with a mix of incentives and muscle; the second is a much slower process of facilitated talks, in which a neutral and trusted mediator seeks to win compromises.

“The parties must be confident that their opponents will honour their promises; and stable governance in the long term depends on the ongoing cooperation of the parties. Given these factors, confidence-building is not a luxury or a distraction. It is a pragmatic imperative and should be the paramount goal of the mediator,” wrote Nathan.

Among the dilemmas is how to engage with rebel movements that might be perceived as beyond the pale, be horribly splintered, have powerful patrons, or limited home-grown capacity to negotiate a credible, comprehensive deal.

Do you forge ahead with a core group, hoping the rest will follow? How do you avoid forum shopping by conflict parties when there are multiple mediators, who can also be in competition? And, can mediation rob a “legitimate” armed struggle of its “revolution”?

Santa Okot was a member of the negotiating team of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – an exceptionally violent millenarian movement that has destabilized northern Uganda and its immediate neighbours for two decades.

A former member of parliament, she was brought in as a resource person to help the LRA articulate its position at the Juba peace talks in 2006. The dialogue with the Ugandan government finally collapsed two years later amid recriminations by both sides, and with an International Criminal Court indictment of the LRA leadership hanging over the talks.

Capacity

Okot said there was an urgent need to train the LRA’s “own mediators, at the very beginning of the peace process”. She also found that although Joseph Kony, the rebel group’s charismatic leader, was “naturally bright”, he only had limited formal education, and “there was need, page by page, to explain the details of the agreement”.

Lack of capacity can be less of an issue when dealing with political details – most rebel leaders are politically astute - but when it comes to post-conflict reconstruction and the hard economics of resource management and institution-building, the comprehension gap between bush-based guerrillas and the technocrats on the government’s side of the table can suddenly widen.

“A mediation process has the responsibility to ensure that capacity-building happens,” noted Endre Stianson, a Norwegian government advisor involved in the negotiations between the Sudan government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that led to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. “You won’t get a deal that sticks unless you do this.”

The drive for a quick fix to the violence, to open humanitarian space, and get reconstruction underway, can translate into little more than a carve-up of power, rewarding the men with guns at the expense of the unarmed majority.

So-called "Track Two" negotiations, where non-governmental intermediaries become involved to support conflict resolution, using a variety of unofficial channels, try to insert a degree of popular ownership and accountability into the process.

Whose peace?

“Those mediating [in track one, typically representatives of inter-governmental organisations or third-party governments] are talking on behalf of whom?” asked Bineta Diop, the executive director of Femmes Africa Solidarite. “They are not bringing the mainstream into the dialogue; they are taking decisions on our behalf, but are not consulting.”

Diop, who has led women’s peace-building initiatives in conflicts in West Africa and the Great Lakes region, told IRIN: “Unless you bring track two hand-in-hand with track one, you will not get anywhere.” Unfortunately, governments and rebel movements, who often both claim to be fighting in the name of the people, may not share the aspiration to listen to their constituents.

Along with ownership and inclusion is the argument that unless the root causes of conflict are addressed, a peace agreement may merely postpone a return to violence. The onus on the mediation, then, can be to try and craft a “transformative” post-conflict framework.

“More and more often the challenge to the sustainability of the peace agreement is to take the discussion beyond a new political dispensation of power among those that have resorted to violence – whether states or rebel movements – in order to ensure that broader societal concerns are addressed,” said Chris Coleman, chief of policy planning and mediation support at the UN Department of Political Affairs.

“That takes staying power by the international community,” rather than the more usual formula of peacekeepers, elections, and good luck.

Africa has the architecture for effective mediation, from regional bodies mandated to play a peace and security role, to more ad hoc processes such as the African Union’s Panel of the Wise of elder statesmen. At the Zanzibar meeting there was honest discussion over an accepted capacity deficit to run effective, long-term mediation, which may require assistance from outside partners, under broad African leadership.

“The capability is here, many individuals have the skills, but the organizational capacity is missing,” Vasu Gounden, executive director of the South African-based African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, told IRIN. “You have to distinguish between capability and capacity.”

oa/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=83764ZANZIBAR Thursday, April 02, 2009 (IRIN) - How do you set about mediating in conflict situations? What are the dos and don’ts of a successful negotiation? ZANZIBAR Thursday, April 02, 2009 (IRIN) - How do you set about mediating in conflict situations? What are the dos and don’ts of a successful negotiation?

Mediators met last week in Zanzibar to discuss the challenges of securing peace in Africa at a conference organised by the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation, and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Geneva-based conflict resolution organisation.

IRIN spoke to some of the participants, who offered the following advice.

• “Never think you walk into the room with a solution; negotiators bring out solutions … Even if I have an idea that could move the process forward, I try and make that suggestion come through the parties.” Emmanuel Bombande, executive director, West Africa Network for Peacebuilding.

• “Not everybody is going to like you, and that’s not important.” Ayodele Oke, special adviser and head of the Africa section in the Commonwealth Secretariat.

• “Mediators have the responsibility to get not just any deal, but a fair deal.” Endre Stiansen, senor adviser, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

• “Make sure you are, and are seen to be, an honest broker, and are reaching for a good agreement that addresses the real issues – that’s what you care about, and want them to believe that’s what you care about. Don’t bring any personal baggage.” Chris Coleman, chief of policy planning and mediation support, UN Department of Political Affairs.

• “Plan two steps ahead, but you are not in control so don’t think you are. You need to be able to adapt to circumstances, but if you don’t have a plan, you are all over the place. [Mediation] is a rolling thing – you just hope you can push it up the hill a bit faster.” Martin Griffiths, director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.

• “It’s about the substance, the real issues, because it’s easy to say, ‘You take that, I’ll take this’; but that’s not a sustainable peace.” Bineta Diop, executive director, Femmes Africa Solidarite.

oa/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=83765