<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" version="2.0"><channel><title>IRIN - Eritrea</title><link>http://www.irinnews.org/</link><description>Updated everyday</description><language>en-gb</language><lastBuildDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:30:56 GMT</lastBuildDate><item><title>Uganda pilots mobile courts for refugees</title><pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201203281125310596t.jpg" />]]>KAMPALA 23 April 2013 (IRIN) - Uganda&apos;s government and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have launched a pilot mobile court system to improve access to justice for victims of crimes in Nakivale, the country&apos;s oldest and largest refugee settlement.</description><body><![CDATA[KAMPALA 23 April 2013 (IRIN) - Uganda's government and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have launched a pilot mobile court [ http://www.unhcr.org/516d29359.html ] system to improve access to justice for victims of crimes in Nakivale, the country's oldest and largest refugee settlement.

The magistrate's court, whose first session began on 15 April, will hear cases of robbery, land disputes, child rape, sexual and gender-based violence, attempted murder, and murder. The project - a collaboration of the Uganda government, UNHCR, Makerere University's Refugee Law Project (RLP) and the Uganda Human Rights Council - aims to benefit some 68,000 refugees and 35,000 Ugandan nationals in the settlement.

“With the nearest law court currently 50km away in Kabingo, Isingiro, access to justice has been a real problem for refugees and locals alike. As a result many fail to report crimes and are forced to wait for long periods before their cases are heard in court,” said a UNHCR briefing on the programme.

The mobile court will hold three sessions a year. Each session will last 15 to 30 days and hear up to 30 cases. Officials hope to extend the project to other refugee settlements in Uganda to enable more refugees to access speedier justice.

"Most of the courts are far away from the settlements, and refugee complainants faced challenges of transportation for themselves and witnesses," Charity Ahumuza, programme manager for access to justice at RLP, told IRIN. "With the courts brought to them, the cost of seeking justice is reduced. The courts will also reduce the backlog of cases that exist of cases that arise in the settlements."

"Refugees have welcomed this initiative since it is about bringing justice closer to them," John Kilowok, UNHCR Protection Officer in Uganda, told IRIN.

Operational challenges

Experts say the project could face a number of operational challenges, including a need for funding and a shortage of trained court interpreters. Uganda has over 165,000 refugees from the Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia and South Sudan.

"The settlements are far away, and distance in accessing the court is likely to become a challenge. Language, too, will be a problem. The service providers through UNHCR are conducting training for interpreters to help in this issue," said RLP's Ahumuza. "The sustainability of the courts, I believe, will depend on availability of finances. However, the judiciary continues to face financial constraints."

Angelo Izama, a Ugandan fellow at the Open Society Institute, says the shortage of justice in the refugee settlements is a reflection of poor access to justice across the country, a situation that needs to be addressed.

"Improving the delivery of justice helps tremendously given that, ordinarily, the severe case backlog makes matters worse for nationals - let alone foreigners. The real crisis now is not providing refugees and nationals in western Ugandan fast relief but filling the many vacancies in the judiciary so that, nationally, justice is expedited," he said. "While justice processes improved on our side can help communities - both Ugandan and foreign - live better governed lives, the ultimate investment would be in improving governance across the border."

"There is need for a holistic approach to look at the refugee issues in Uganda. We have to look at policy, immigration and defence lawyers for fair trials. Will the suspects have access to defence lawyers, or will they be accorded with lawyers to defend them in court?" asked Nicholas Opiyo, a constitutional and human rights lawyer in Kampala, Uganda’s capital. "Sustainability is a very crucial element in this court... If they don't put good and proper systems to support this court, it will be a waste of time and money."

so/kr/rz


]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97903/Uganda-pilots-mobile-courts-for-refugees</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201203281125310596t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">KAMPALA 23 April 2013 (IRIN) - Uganda&apos;s government and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have launched a pilot mobile court system to improve access to justice for victims of crimes in Nakivale, the country&apos;s oldest and largest refugee settlement.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Imprisoned Eritreans complain of being forced to leave Israel</title><pubDate>Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2007/2007081431t.jpg" />]]>TEL AVIV 11 March 2013 (IRIN) - Testimonies of jailed Eritrean migrants and asylum seekers (collected by a local NGO) say officials at Saharonim prison in Israel’s Southern Negev desert are coercing them to sign “voluntary repatriation” forms.</description><body><![CDATA[TEL AVIV 11 March 2013 (IRIN) - Testimonies of jailed Eritrean migrants and asylum seekers (collected by a local NGO) say officials at Saharonim prison in Israel’s Southern Negev desert are coercing them to sign “voluntary repatriation” forms.

In one of the many testimonies a 28-year-old Eritrean detainee reported being repeatedly visited by a translator telling her to accept deportation to a third country (Uganda).

“He said we would not be free from the prison and we can only go to Uganda or Eritrea. I was frustrated and depressed. I do not want to go to Uganda. Today they called me and gave me a handwritten form in Tigrinya which said: `I came from Eritrea to Israel illegally and now I want to go to Uganda voluntarily. To do this I would like the Eritrean embassy to issue me a passport and all the necessary documents.’ They asked me to sign it and wanted to take my picture on video. I refused.”

Israel is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention but does not recognize Eritreans as refugees, although it does not officially deport Eritreans and allows them to stay in Israel under a group defence (temporary group protection).

Staff at the Hotline for Migrant Workers [ http://www.hotline.org.il/en_drupal/english/about.htm ], who collected the testimonies, say the government is forcibly trying to repatriate Eritreans: “These people have no access to a refugee status determination process, they are detained under the new amendment to the infiltration law that came into effect in June 2012, which allows detention of `infiltrators’ for an unlimited amount of time; now they are told they will never be allowed to leave the prison and their only option is to go back to Uganda/Eritrea. How can this be considered voluntary?” one staff member told IRIN.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) representative in Israel, William Tall, told IRIN the Ministry of Interior made an attempt to offer relocation to some 23 Eritreans to Uganda but without any result so far.

At the end of February he told Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz there was nothing voluntary about this process [ http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/un-refugee-official-slams-israel-over-eritrean-repatriation.premium-1.505563 ].

One Eritrean, Tesfamihret Habtemariam, was reportedly deported from Israel earlier this month and is now in detention at Cairo airport after five years in Israel, and may be returned to Eritrea.

UNHCR advises against repatriating Eritrean nationals because of the likelihood of their being punished on return to their country.

Israel’s stance

Under an updated Anti-Infiltration law passed in January 2012, all illegal border crossers are labelled “infiltrators” and can be detained for up to three years.

The Eritreans being held in detention camps in the south are generally not notified about their right to claim asylum or given the application forms needed to do this, report NGOs.

On 18 February, official documents from the Israeli assembly, the Knesset, quote Interior Minister Eli Yishai saying deportations (by definition forced) were not yet taking place.

He said more than a 1,000 nationals of northern Sudan and Eritrea had already left voluntarily and said he hoped a lot more would decide to leave.

“And if it won't be voluntary leave, it will be involuntary - to their country or to a different third country, and there is still no third country to sign an agreement with, but I hope we do find other third countries that we'll have an agreement with, and we can transfer the infiltrators from here, from the Land of Israel, to their country or to another country, whether it is done willingly or not.”

Last week the Israel’s Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein sent a letter widely reported in the local press to the director of the Interior Ministry’s Population, Immigration and Border Authority, Amnon Ben Ami, saying that under no circumstances should Eritrean nationals in Israeli custody be sent “to any destination outside Israel’s borders” until he (Weinstein) further clarifies these legal issues.

td/jj/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97623/Imprisoned-Eritreans-complain-of-being-forced-to-leave-Israel</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2007/2007081431t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">TEL AVIV 11 March 2013 (IRIN) - Testimonies of jailed Eritrean migrants and asylum seekers (collected by a local NGO) say officials at Saharonim prison in Israel’s Southern Negev desert are coercing them to sign “voluntary repatriation” forms.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Egypt&apos;s turmoil makes life tougher for refugees</title><pubDate>Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2005112116t.jpg" />]]>CAIRO 28 February 2013 (IRIN) - Osman Sheshy*, a 26-year-old refugee from Eritrea living in the Egyptian capital, remembers fondly the day three months ago when a wealthy Egyptian man asked him to clean his villa for 50 Egyptian pounds (US$7.3).</description><body><![CDATA[CAIRO 28 February 2013 (IRIN) - Osman Sheshy*, a 26-year-old refugee from Eritrea living in the Egyptian capital, remembers fondly the day three months ago when a wealthy Egyptian man asked him to clean his villa for 50 Egyptian pounds (US$7.3).

He has not worked since, though not for want of trying: He spends his days knocking on the doors of houses, firms, factories and workshops to beg for work.

“I urgently need work to feed my family, but this work has become impossible to find here,” the father of two told IRIN. “We stick to buying the basics, but these basics become harder to get each day.”

The political turmoil and deep economic crisis [ http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2013/0225/Egypt-s-economy-is-collapsing-and-no-one-is-stopping-it ] in Egypt, which has been hit by a slump in tourism, low investment and rising food prices, is hurting the country’s most vulnerable communities [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97118/Egypt-s-poor-hit-hardest-as-political-tensions-persist ].

Monthly inflation in January was up 1.7 percent according to the Central Bank of Egypt [ http://www.cbe.org.eg/NR/rdonlyres/C4D84EEF-2169-47C7-AAAD-A94BDCFBE868/1726/Monthly_Inflation_January2013.pdf ]. The current annual inflation rate is 6.3 percent.

African refugee rights’ groups say refugees and migrants are frequently the victims of unprovoked arrests [ http://www.efrr-eg.com/1en.html ] and disappearances, while also struggling to feed themselves and pay rent. 

“Life in Egypt for refugees has moved from bad to worse after the revolution,” said Aly Mahmud, a Sudanese refugee and the founder of the Makarem African Society, an NGO that tries to help refugees find jobs.

“As Egypt's economy shrinks, the refugees find it more difficult to earn a living or even lead a dignified life.”

As of January 2013, the number of African refugees officially registered in Egypt was 35,180, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

African refugees and economic migrants generally live in Cairo's toughest neighbourhoods, sharing dirty toilets and stinking alleyways with Egypt’s poorest citizens.

“The refugees have been affected in the same way that Egyptians have been affected,” Elizabeth Tan, deputy regional representative of UNHCR, told IRIN. “Refugees often complain about an increase in crime and the increase in the cost of living.” 

No money

Abdullah Hanzal, director of refugee NGO Sudan Centre for Contemporary Studies, said research they had conducted in January found that most African refugees in Egypt had lost their jobs since the revolution. 

“Refugees who sell on the streets said they had to stay on the streets longer to sell their wares,” Hanzal said. “And when these refugees sell everything, the money is not nearly enough to buy food for their families.”

Aly Mahmud, the founder of the Makarem African Society, has three friends who could not pay 200 Egyptian pounds (US$29) to rent a shared room in the poor Giza Governorate neighbourhood of Ard Al Liwa and were kicked out as a result.

“They spend the nights at coffee shops and the days in public gardens,” Mahmud said. “My three friends are single, but the situation is even more difficult for refugee families that fail to pay the rent.”

Local aid groups are also feeling the pinch, said Tareg Nour, executive director of Tadamon, an NGO that works to promote the welfare of marginalized refugees. “Funding no longer comes, because donors do not want to give money to organizations in countries where there is all this turmoil.”

UNHCR says applications for financial support from refugees increased substantially after the revolution. UNHCR is able to give financial support to only 25 percent of the 35,180 African refugees.

“Unfortunately, UNHCR's budget has not increased to take into consideration the increase in the cost of living,” Tan said. “But the office will be supporting grassroots and community-based initiatives in order to enhance self-reliance and income generation efforts to be implemented by the refugees.”

Organ theft risk

Hanzel says African refugees and economic migrants are prone to the most brutal forms of exploitation, including organ theft.

“A marked increase - spearheaded by traders who exploit Egypt's bad security conditions - in organ theft cases has happened after the revolution,” said Bashir Suleiman, a reporter for Coalition for Organ Failure Solutions [ http://cofs.org/home/ ] (COFS), an international NGO that identifies survivors of organ trafficking and tries to provide long-term support.

“Most refugees are deceived by organ trafficking gangs who hang out among refugees,” he told IRIN. 

Tan said UNHCR is aware of reports of organ trafficking in Egypt and has been in dialogue with the government. “The refugees are particularly vulnerable to this kind of exploitation,” she said. 

“Unfortunately, a large number of the refugees who come to us were subject to organ theft, even without knowing it,” Suleiman said. “Refugee kidneys, tissues, uteruses, ovaries and other organs are high on the list of stolen organs.”

*not his real name

ae/jj/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97562/Egypt-apos-s-turmoil-makes-life-tougher-for-refugees</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2005112116t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">CAIRO 28 February 2013 (IRIN) - Osman Sheshy*, a 26-year-old refugee from Eritrea living in the Egyptian capital, remembers fondly the day three months ago when a wealthy Egyptian man asked him to clean his villa for 50 Egyptian pounds (US$7.3).</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>African migrants pay high prices to send money home</title><pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2009/200909291220100610t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 27 February 2013 (IRIN) - New data from the World Bank has revealed that African migrants pay more to send money home to their families than any other migrant group in the world.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 27 February 2013 (IRIN) - New data [ http://sendmoneyafrica.worldbank.org/ ] from the World Bank has revealed that African migrants pay more to send money home to their families than any other migrant group in the world. 

While South Asians pay an average of US$6 for every $100 they send home, Africans often pay more than twice that - and in South Africa, which has the highest remittance costs on the continent, nearly 21 percent of money set aside for family members back home is spent on getting it there.

With an estimated 120 million Africans depending on remittances from family members abroad for their survival, health and education, the World Bank argues that high transaction costs are cutting into the impact remittances can have on poverty levels. 

To address this, the Bank is partnering with the African Union Commission and member states to establish the African Institute for Remittances [ http://sendmoneyafrica.worldbank.org/african-institute-remittances-air-project ], which will work towards lowering the transaction costs of remittances to and within Africa. It will also leverage the potential of remittances to influence economic and social development. 

“The World Bank’s approach supports regulatory and policy reforms that promote transparency and market competition and the creation of an enabling environment that promotes innovative payment and remittance products,” said Marco Nicoli, a finance analyst at the Bank who specializes in remittances.

Costly and difficult

Owen Maromo, a 33-year-old farmworker who lives in De Doorns, a grape-growing region in South Africa’s Western Cape Province, told IRIN that his family in Zimbabwe relies on the money he sends home every month. 

“I’ve got a house there and I need to pay rent. I’m also taking care of my youngest brother - since my mum died four years ago - and my wife’s family.

“Almost every Zimbabwean here is budgeting to send money back home,” he added. “If they could, they would send money home on a weekly basis.”

In a 2012 report by the Cape Town-based NGO People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP), interviews with 350 Zimbabwean migrants revealed some of the reasons sending money home from South Africa is both costly and difficult [ http://www.passop.co.za/news/featured/press-statement ].

A key impediment is the stringent regulatory framework that governs cross-border transfers from South Africa. Exchange control legislation, for example, requires money transfer operators (MTOs) to partner with a bank. According to PASSOP, this has had the effect of stifling competition that would likely reduce transaction costs.  

Legislation intending to counter money laundering and terrorist financing requires that customers provide proof of residence and proof of the source of their funds before they can access financial services. This effectively excludes the many migrants living in informal settlements and those who are paid in cash. 

PASSOP found that even among migrants who do have access to banks and MTOs like Western Union and MoneyGram, many lack the financial literacy to make use of them. 

“Some have just come from rural areas in Zimbabwe, so it takes time for them to know about such things,” said Maromo, adding that lack of documentation was another major obstacle. “If you’re undocumented, you can’t go through the banks.”

Three-quarters of the Zimbabwean migrants interviewed by PASSOP relied instead on “informal” remittance channels, such as giving money or goods to bus drivers, friends or agents to send home. This is often not much cheaper than using banks or MTOs, and it is significantly riskier. Of the respondents who used such methods, 84 percent reported negative experiences, including theft of their money, loss or destruction of their goods and long delays in remittances reaching intended recipients. 

Maromo relayed his own experience sending money home through an agent who charged a 15 percent commission to channel the money through his South African bank account before handing it over to Maromo’s relatives in Zimbabwe. “Some time ago, I nearly lost 2,000 rand ($225) because I deposited it in [the agent’s] account and he was saying he didn’t have it and giving excuses. In the end, we got the money, but it cost us nearly 1,000 rand ($113) in airtime calling Zimbabwe,” he said.

“Some are using bus drivers or those people who are going home, and you have to trust them because you’re desperate, but there can be a lot of problems,” he added. “There are a lot of people whose money just disappears. Almost on a daily basis, you hear those stories.”

Lowering transaction fees

Now, Maromo uses a UK-based online transfer service called Mukuru.com, which is popular with many Zimbabweans living overseas. The proof of residence and source of funds requirements are the same as for traditional MTOs, but the site charges 10 percent on transfers from South Africa to Zimbabwe - less than most banks. 

The South African Reserve Bank and the treasury have committed to bringing the cost of remittances down to 5 percent by relaxing regulations for smaller money transfers, negotiating with regulators in the Southern African Development Community on exchange control regulations, and removing the requirement that MTOs partner with banks.

However, at the time of writing, the Reserve Bank has not yet responded to questions from IRIN about how these changes will be implemented and within what timeframe.

Rob Burrell, director of Mukuru.com, said achieving the 5 percent target would be tough considering the numerous costs that MTOs have to cover, including fees paid to the companies that collect and pay out the money, the cost of supporting transactions through a call centre, and licensing and reporting requirements. “We would need everyone pulling together,” he said.

Burrell noted that less stringent laws governing MTOs in the UK mean more competition but much weaker anti-money laundering controls. To operate in South Africa, Mukuru.com has to comply with the regulation that they partner with a local banking license holder.

“In the UK, it’s easier to obtain your license. There are 4,000 [MTOs operating in the UK] compared to 12 in South Africa, but the downside is that it’s very difficult to police them all,” he told IRIN. “My last audit in the UK was four years ago because they can’t handle the volume of licenses.”

ks/rz

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97557/African-migrants-pay-high-prices-to-send-money-home</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2009/200909291220100610t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 27 February 2013 (IRIN) - New data from the World Bank has revealed that African migrants pay more to send money home to their families than any other migrant group in the world.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Analysis: Girl child soldiers face new battles in civilian life</title><pubDate>Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201009271253370112t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 12 February 2013 (IRIN) - Girl child soldiers are often thought of only as “sex slaves”, a term that glosses over the complex roles many play within armed groups and in some national armies. This thinking contributes to their subsequent invisibility in the demobilization processes - in fact, girls are frequently the most challenging child soldiers to rehabilitate.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 12 February 2013 (IRIN) - Girl child soldiers are often thought of only as “sex slaves”, a term that glosses over the complex roles many play within armed groups and in some national armies. This thinking contributes to their subsequent invisibility in the demobilization processes - in fact, girls are frequently the most challenging child soldiers to rehabilitate. 

The broad categorization of girl soldiers as victims of sexual abuse obscures the fact that they are often highly valued militarily. While sexual abuse is believed to be widespread, girls’ vulnerability may vary, as attitudes toward women differ extensively across militias: In Colombia, the Marxist-leaning groups the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) treated female soldiers as equal to males, while right-wing paramilitary groups were known to embrace gender stereotypes. 

Some have argued that disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes (DDR) are ill-equipped to address the needs of girls. DDR was designed for adult male combatants, and over the years has incorporated female combatants, followed by boy soldiers and then girls. 

A January 2013 World Bank briefing, Children in Emergency and Crisis Situations, says: “The use of girls [by armed forces] has been confirmed in Colombia, DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo], East Timor, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Uganda and West Africa. There are some 12,500 in DRC. However, girls are generally less visible and up to now have hardly benefited from demobilization and reintegration programmes for child soldiers.” 

“No one knows what has happened after a DDR process to the large majority of girls associated with the armed groups,” the briefing said. 

About 40 percent of the hundreds of thousands of child soldiers scattered across the world’s conflicts today are thought to be girls, but the numbers of girls enrolling in child soldier DDR programmes dwindles to five percent or less. 

Girls often conceal their association with armed groups, Richard Clarke, director of Child Soldiers International [ http://www.child-soldiers.org ], told IRIN. In traditional societies, enrolling in DDR could confirm a past that imperils their future: “In contexts of entrenched gender discrimination, and in situations where a girl’s ‘value’ is defined in terms of her purity and marriageability, the stigma attached to involvement in sexual activity, whether real or imputed, can result in exclusion and acute impoverishment,” he said. 

Seeking gender equality 

Then there is the uncomfortable reality that some conflicts may actually fast-track gender emancipation. 

A 2012 report [ http://uit.no/Content/307291/Post_War_Processes_Report_Final.pdf ] by Tone Bleie of the University of Tromsø’s Centre for Peace Studies (CPS) explores this issue. During Nepal’s civil war, when Maoists conscripted “one member per house”, some parents offered their daughters to spare “sons whom they considered as their life insurance.” Of the Maoists’ 23,610 combatants at the cessation of hostilities, 5,033 were believed to be female, and of them 988 were girls. 

“Female combatants developed a new sense of pride and dignity due to personal sacrifices, military courage, feats in the battlefield and prospects of promotion in the ranks,” the report says. 

In the wake of Nepal’s 2006 ceasefire, during the cantonment of Maoists rebels and the subsequent reintegration process, girls and women were returned “to [the] very low position of women in traditional Nepalese feudal society,” Desmond Molloy, a panellist at the International Research Group on Reintegration at the CPS, told IRIN. 

“Inter-cast marriage, and marriage in general, was encouraged in the cantonment. This is taboo in Nepali society and proved a major obstacle for reintegration of young girls back into society, especially when they have children, as many do. Further there is in [Nepal’s] society a perception of a promiscuous environment in the cantonment. So many young girls were viewed with suspicion by their families, rejected by their new in-laws or ostracized by the community,” Molloy said. 

Abdul Hameed Omar, programme manager for the UN Development Programme’s Interagency Rehabilitation Programme, told IRIN that acceptance of inter-cast marriages was particularly problematic. “Children have been denied birth certificates, and women have been denied their citizenship certificates. When the community knows that a woman has been part of the PLA [People’s Liberation Army], these women sometimes face a stigma,” he said. 

He said attitudes of male Maoist ex-combatants “vary widely” but that “many voiced opinions that were not in line with their previous [gender equality] beliefs during the conflict. Other male ex-combatants who played traditionally female roles during the conflict, i.e., cooking or childcare, no longer feel that these are appropriate roles for men outside of the PLA.” 

Loss of power 

Many Colombian girl soldiers, who fought as equals to their male counterparts, struggled with the double standards of civilian life. 

“For some girls, belonging to an illegal armed group gives them a sense of power and control that they may not otherwise experience living in a relatively conservative, ‘machista’ [chauvinist] society,” said Overcoming Lost Childhoods, a Care International report about rehabilitating Colombian child soldiers [ http://www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/story_id/000760.pdf ].

By the end of Eritrea’s 30-year-long liberation war, in 1991, females comprised between 25 and 30 percent of combatants. The gender-equality ideals espoused by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front’s (EPLF) had proved an attractive lure for female recruits, including some who were teenagers or younger. 

But “many Eritrean female ex-fighters experienced the years of war as preferable to the time that came afterwards… They had felt respected, equal and empowered, but this was all lost after the war when women were pushed towards traditional gender roles,” said the 2008 report Young Female Fighters in African Wars, Conflict and Its Consequences [ http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=3543 ].

Eritrea’s DDR programmes initially tailored economic opportunities for women to traditional gender roles - basket weaving, typing and embroidery - but this did not provide a sustainable livelihood. Training women in traditionally male trades also proved fruitless because society’s norms ultimately dictated who could get which jobs. 

“Furthermore, female ex-fighters had a hard time getting married after the war as men usually claimed that these women had lost their femininity during the war. Many male ex-fighters also divorced their fighter wives for this reason and married civilian women,” the report said. 

Duality 

Girl soldiers’ versatility - they serve as combatants, spies, domestics, porters and “bush wives” - makes them highly valued among armed groups, which can also increase their difficulty reintegrating into civilian life. 

Despite this, punishments for girls in northern Uganda, such as whipping or caning, were meted out for the smallest infractions, Linda Dale, director of Children/Youth as Peacebuilders (CAP) [ http://www.childrenyouthaspeacebuilders.ca/About%20Us/contact.html ], told IRIN. 

“There is a strong tendency to force a kind of passivity on girls while at the same time they are expected to be combatants. This duality, as well as the effect of sexual violence, makes their rehabilitation more complicated, in my view,” she said. 

The length of captivity also differed between the sexes; average internment period for girls in northern Uganda was six to seven years, while boys faced about three years, Dale said. “Because of that, the effects of the experience, and therefore the need for more assistance in re-integration, will be higher. For example, many girl returnees are illiterate because they have been out of school so long.” 

Shelly Whitman, executive director of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative [ http://www.childsoldiers.org/ ], told IRIN that some girls can be seen as suffering from Stockholm syndrome, where captives develop a sympathetic association with their abusers. 

“Girls were raped but then given to or chosen by a commander to be a ‘wife’. They are confused about their experiences, their guilt, their families’ expectations and religious beliefs. Additionally, many have children fathered by their captors. They are often rejected when they return home and viewed as non-marriageable material, damaged goods. With this kind of a homecoming, it creates confusion about your identity and your self-worth,” she said. 

Invisibility 

The assumptions and expectations of people operating DDR programmes may also affect girls’ reintegration. 

Girl soldiers are often assumed to be “‘following along’, rather than girls who have been recruited and used, however informally, for military purposes… These assumptions have resulted in tens of thousands of girls being literally ‘invisible’ to DDR programmers, although the situation has improved somewhat in recent years,” said Clarke of Child Soldiers International. 

Phillip Lancaster, former head of the DDR programme for the UN Organization Mission in DRC, told IRIN, “Boys with guns are easier to see and easier to fear.” DDR programmes might “ignore girls on the assumption that they don't present the same threat.” 

“My own experience is that girls are often invisible to DDR programmes that draw narrow categories around the notion of combat,” he said. “It's tricky to avoid getting caught up in categories as soon as one starts trying to define parameters of qualification for DDR programmes, and most of the decisions tend to have a somewhat arbitrary flavour simply because of the complexity of the subject matter. 

“Most of the Congolese armed groups… draw on local community resources… The definition of girl child soldier in this setting could, in theory, extend over all the young females in a community who were supporting, supplying, informing or directly fighting with a relevant armed group.” 

go/rz

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97463/Analysis-Girl-child-soldiers-face-new-battles-in-civilian-life</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201009271253370112t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 12 February 2013 (IRIN) - Girl child soldiers are often thought of only as “sex slaves”, a term that glosses over the complex roles many play within armed groups and in some national armies. This thinking contributes to their subsequent invisibility in the demobilization processes - in fact, girls are frequently the most challenging child soldiers to rehabilitate.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Reprieve for urban refugees in Kenya, but fear persists</title><pubDate>Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201012220850140188t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 24 January 2013 (IRIN) - Urban refugees in Kenya, threated with relocation to overcrowded refugee camps, are breathing a sigh of relief following a High Court ruling that has provisionally halted the move.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 24 January 2013 (IRIN) - Urban refugees in Kenya, threated with relocation to overcrowded refugee camps, are breathing a sigh of relief following a High Court ruling that has provisionally halted the move.

On 18 December 2012, Kenya's Department of Refugee Affairs announced that all refugees should leave urban areas and move to refugee camps - the northeastern Dadaab complex for Somali refugees, and the northwestern Kakuma camp for all others. It further ordered an immediate stop to the registration of refugees in urban areas.

The directive was in response to a number of grenade attacks that have occurred in urban areas, follwoing Kenya's invasion of Somalia in October 2011. The attacks have been widely blamed on the Somali militant group Al-Shabab, although the group has not claimed responsibility.

The government was due to begin the relocation of an estimated 100,000 urban refugees to camps on 21 January, but a ruling on 23 January by Justice David Majanja halted the government's plan until 4 February, when a petition against the directive filed by Kituo Cha Sheria [ http://www.kituochasheria.or.ke ], a local legal rights group, is scheduled to be heard.

"I am satisfied that, in view of the international obligations Kenya has with respect to refugees, and the fact that under our Constitution refugees are vulnerable persons, the petitioner has an arguable case before the court, " the ruling stated. "A conservatory order... is hereby issued prohibiting any State officer [or] public officer agent of the Government from implementing the decision evidenced by and/or contained in the Press Release dated 18th December 2012 pending further orders of this court." 

A welcome ruling

Defenders of refugee rights have welcomed the judge's decision. "This is a very positive ruling by the court. We hope it will be widely spread and reduce the fear the refugee community has experienced since the December announcement," Melanie Teff, a senior advocate with the NGO Refugees International [ http://www.refugeesinternational.org ] (RI), told IRIN. "Of course, a lot of harm has already been done since the press release, and many urban refugees have already fled."

Fatuma Diriye lived in Nairobi's Somali-dominated Eastleigh neighbourhood for over five years. There, she ran a small business and sent money and supplies to her children in Dadaab. She recently moved back to Dadaab after the directive and police harassment.

"The police attacked my business several times. I had to pay them some money to stay safe from the harassment," she told IRIN, adding that she feels helpless now that she is totally dependent on aid for her family's needs.

For many refugees, the journey to from Nairobi to Dadaab is a treacherous one; Jelle Ibrahim, a father of six in Dadaab's Hagadera camp, said he had to go through five different police check-points along the way.

"We were asked to bring identification cards - when I showed my travelling document, they put us in a separate place [for questioning]," he said. "We were harassed until the conductor of the bus intervened and paid some money to the police."

Dadaab unprepared

Dadaab refugee complex, originally built to house 90,000 refugees, currently hosts an estimated 500,000 Somali nationals. An influx of refugees from Kenya's towns and cities would have a serious impact on the ability of aid agencies and the government to provide services.

"Dadaab is overcrowded and under-resourced - its population has risen by about 150,000 in the last year, while funding has reduced by about half," Mark Yarnell, Horn of Africa advocate for RI, told IRIN. "Insecurity remains a major issue in Dadaab, and some refugees are actually returning to Somalia for this reason."

Officials in Dadaab say they have not yet seen a significant rise in refugee arrivals from urban areas, but fear they would struggle to cope if they did. 

"The number of refugees arriving from Nairobi appears small. For the time being, it does not have any impact on service delivery or life in the camp. This can, of course, change if more refugees arrive," said Mans Nyberg, senior external relations officer in Dadaab for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). 

"We encourage all new arrivals to reactivate their refugee cards so that they will get the benefits they are entitled to as refugees," he added.

Refugees remaining in Eastleigh and other urban centres have expressed relief that the directive will not take place immediately, but said they continue to live in fear of police harassment. 

Police harassment

"For now, we are happy from what we have heard and that the government is not implementing their directives soon... We can't go back to camps because even refugees residing in the camps have their problems. Food, water, health and even space to settle is a problem due to the number of refugee in Dadaab," said Ubah Hussein, who lives in Eastleigh. "We would like to go back to our country, but still there is no firm security and peace in most places."

"Here is where our children call home... The government has put us in a condition of fear, and we can't even move out of our houses. We are lacking freedom of movement. We don't open our businesses," said Abdi Mohamed, an elderly businessman in Eastleigh. "Some of my neighbours have left for Mogadishu, and others are on course if the government directives persist." 

RI's Yarnell said he had met with community leaders in Nairobi who had expressed fear of police harassment and feelings of helplessness.

"I have met community leaders from Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea - people who have been in Nairobi for years, who described feeling helpless and hopeless since the directive," he said. "They regularly experience abuse - mainly extortion - by security forces who detain them and ask for bribes...since the directive, the bribes have gone up from about 500 shillings [US$5.70] to 40,000 [$458], 60,000 [$687] and even up to 100,000 [$1145]."

Eric Kirathe, Kenya's police spokesman, told IRIN that extortion by police officers would not be tolerated and advised refugees to report any such incidents. "Cases of harassment and extortion are very unfortunate. There are channels for reporting - from the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission to police headquarters to the Independent Police Oversight Authority... Reporting to the media or talking about it in an ad hoc way won't get results," he said. 

Rights groups say the harassment of refugees - and Somalis in particular - is not limited to security forces, but also exists within wider Kenyan society. Rufus Karanja, a programme officer with the Refugee Consortium of Kenya [ http://www.rckkenya.org ], said there was growing concern about the safety of refugees in the run-up to the country's 4 March general election.

"In 2007, many refugees were victims of general xenophobia and insecurity, and many were displaced. We are trying to come up with contingency plans for them ahead of the coming election," he told IRIN. "Much of the xenophobia is fuelled by the media, who keep linking the attacks to Somali refugees... There is a need for media sensitization on broad aspects of refugee protection."

A number of civil society groups, under the umbrella of the Urban Refugee Protection Network, on 22 January called on [ http://www.rescue.org/press-releases/press-release-kenya-civil-society-calls-government-end-abuse-refugees-15171 ] the Kenyan government to end the abuse of refugees that had escalated following the 18 December directive.

"We will continue to pursue, through the courts, reports of extortion, arbitrary arrest and unlawful detention of refugees by security forces," Karanja said.

kr/mh/mod/rz

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aid in an urbanizing world

A series of articles on challenges and changes humanitarian workers are confronting in urban emergencies
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97329/Reprieve-for-urban-refugees-in-Kenya-but-fear-persists</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201012220850140188t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 24 January 2013 (IRIN) - Urban refugees in Kenya, threated with relocation to overcrowded refugee camps, are breathing a sigh of relief following a High Court ruling that has provisionally halted the move.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>In Brief: Staples, not export crops, key to tackling Africa’s poverty – report</title><pubDate>Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201202241255060114t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 18 January 2013 (IRIN) - Africa could reduce its poverty levels faster by focusing more on the production of staples rather than export crops, according to a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 18 January 2013 (IRIN) - Africa could reduce its poverty levels faster by focusing more on the production of staples rather than export crops, according to a study [ http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ib73.pdf ] by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Authors of the study, conducted in 10 countries south of the Sahara, noted, “One important finding is that producing more staple crops, such as maize, pulses and roots, and more livestock products tends to reduce poverty further than producing more export crops such as coffee or cut flowers.”

According to the study, while more public resources would be required to generate more agricultural growth, “such public investment in staple sectors is probably cost effective”.

The authors argued that growth in the staple sector was more likely to benefit the poor than growth in the agricultural export sector.

Enoch Mwani, an agricultural economist at the University of Nairobi, concurred. “The agricultural export sector is generally associated with large corporations, but the poor rely predominantly on staples to survive.”

Mwani added that growth in staples had the effect of not only reducing poverty but also ensuring food security.

“[Governments that] invest in staples have the opportunity to increase food availability and, at the same time, create wealth for smallholders,” Mwani told IRIN.

To spur development in sub-Saharan Africa, the study’s policy conclusions call for a focus on accelerating agricultural growth; promoting growth in large agricultural subsectors; supporting growth across several agricultural subsectors; and promoting growth in subsectors with strong linkages to the overall economy and the poor.

ko/rz

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97278/In-Brief-Staples-not-export-crops-key-to-tackling-Africa-s-poverty-report</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201202241255060114t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 18 January 2013 (IRIN) - Africa could reduce its poverty levels faster by focusing more on the production of staples rather than export crops, according to a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>IDPs: African IDP Convention comes into force</title><pubDate>Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2008/200807227t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 06 December 2012 (IRIN) - The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) 2009, also known as the Kampala Convention, came into force on 6 December; it is the world’s first legally binding instrument to cater specifically to people displaced within their own countries.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 06 December 2012 (IRIN) - The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) 2009, also known as the Kampala Convention, came into force on 6 December; it is the world’s first legally binding instrument to cater specifically to people displaced within their own countries.

Adopted at an AU summit in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, the Convention [ http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/Conferences/2009/october/pa/summit/doc/Convention%20on%20IDPs%20(Eng)%20-%20Final.doc ] required ratification by 15 member countries before it could enter into force; Swaziland became the 15th country to do so on 12 November, joining Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, Uganda and Zambia. At least 37 AU members have also signed [ http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/(httpInfoFiles)/979113CFF0292E97C1257ACB006315D4/$file/map-au-signed-ratified-countries-with-numbers.pdf ] the Convention but have yet to ratify it.

Among other things, the Convention aims to "establish a legal framework for preventing internal displacement, and protecting and assisting internally displaced persons in Africa".

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres hailed the development as "historic" and said in a statement that the Convention "puts Africa in a leading position when it comes to having a legal framework for protecting and helping the internally displaced".

Stephen Oola, a transitional justice and governance analyst at Uganda's Makerere University Refugee Law Project, noted that the most important parts of the Convention were the clauses relating to the prevention of internal displacement. "The principle requiring the prevention of IDPs is absolutely necessary and should be the guiding principle for all state and non-state actors implementing the Convention," he said.

Just the beginning

Oola also stressed the need for the letter of the law to be translated into practice.

"In Uganda, we have had an IDP policy since 2004, but in many cases we find that the government still seems ill-prepared to deal with displacement," he said. "The existence of a law is rarely the conclusion of a policy... It will be important for this continental commitment to be matched by action on the ground for people who, for one reason or another, find themselves displaced," he said.

Africa has 9.7 million IDPs, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. The Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Sudan collectively have more than five million IDPs.

Noting that the situation of IDPs can affect the stability of states, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons Chakola Beyani said the Convention could "contribute to stabilizing displaced populations through the specific obligations it sets out to states and other actors, such as obligations relating to humanitarian assistance, compensation and assistance in finding lasting solutions to displacement as well as accessing the full range of their human rights".

"The unique 'added value' of this Convention stems from how comprehensive it is and the manner in which it addresses many of the key challenges of our times and, indeed, of Africa," he said in a statement. "If implemented well, it can help states and the African Union address both current and potential future internal displacement related not only to conflict, but also natural disasters and other effects of climate change, development, and even megatrends such as population growth and rapid urbanization."

The International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) [ http://www.internal-displacement.org/kampala-convention ] noted that, while the Convention signalled an important step in addressing the plight of IDPs, many countries were not legally bound by it.

"The countries which have not yet adopted the Convention must do so, as a legal framework is the very basis of ensuring the rights and well-being of people forced to flee inside their home country," Sebastian Albuja, head of IDMC's Africa department, said in a statement.

According to Nuur Sheekh, board member of the Kenya-based Internal Displacement Policy and Advocacy Centre [ http://www.idpacafrica.org/ ], some states expressed reservations about signing the Convention because "the issue of displacement is highly politicized, and some states saw it as a criticism of their human rights and governance records". He noted, however, that the Convention would have an influence, even on those countries that have not signed or ratified it.

"The AU will now also be able to use the Convention for advocacy, to encourage member states - even those who have not ratified it - to implement its principles... Kenya, for instance has not signed it but has developed an IDP policy that borrows heavily from the Kampala Convention," he told IRIN. "States now need to domesticate the Convention and develop IDP policies that reach from the central government to all lower levels of government so that the Convention can work in practice."

kr/rz

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96984/IDPs-African-IDP-Convention-comes-into-force</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2008/200807227t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 06 December 2012 (IRIN) - The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) 2009, also known as the Kampala Convention, came into force on 6 December; it is the world’s first legally binding instrument to cater specifically to people displaced within their own countries.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>AFRICA: Donor fatigue forces WFP to cut refugee rations</title><pubDate>Tue, 19 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201204161157350475t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 19 June 2012 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has halved food rations to refugees living in camps in at least four African countries citing a funding shortfall.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 19 June 2012 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has halved food rations to refugees living in camps in at least four African countries citing a funding shortfall.

The cuts have already affected 16,000 refugees in Malawi’s Dzaleka camp who have been on half rations since March, while a further 120,000 refugees in Uganda began receiving half rations of cereals in May. 

According to WFP, another 100,000 refugees in Tanzania saw their maize rations cut by 50 percent starting from last week, and rations for some 54,000 refugees living in Rwanda are expected to be cut in August unless donors come forward with more funding.

“Even the full ration wasn’t enough,” said Sanky Kabeya, a 24-year-old resident of Dzaleka who spoke to IRIN at the end of March. [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95259/EDUCATION-Online-learning-inspires-refugees ] “I haven’t taken breakfast this morning and many are in the same situation.”

Gustave Lwaba, another resident of the camp, said the usual monthly ration of 13kg of maize had gone down to 7kg, while rations of cooking oil, pigeon peas, sugar and salt had also been cut by half. "There are people in the camp who rely on relatives who've been resettled," he said. "The rest really starve because the rations can't last a month."

Michelle Carter, country director for the Jesuit Refugee Service in Malawi, which runs a number of educational and other programmes in the camp, said the cuts were “clearly leading to a fair amount of hunger… I know children are coming to school hungry,” she told IRIN. 

“The food is only lasting two weeks and if they’re on their own it’s much worse because they can’t combine rations.”

Noting that only a very small percentage of the refugees had any source of income, she said single mothers, unaccompanied minors and the elderly and disabled had been particularly hard hit by the reduced rations.

A protection officer with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Malawi, Gavin Lim, said his agency planned to carry out an assessment in the coming months to determine the full impact of the ration cuts but that reports of more women in the camp turning to survival sex were already coming in.

Difficult to become self-reliant

Most countries in southern and eastern Africa have an encampment policy for refugees which restricts their freedom of movement and reduces their chances of becoming self-reliant. Some earn a small income running informal businesses outside the camps but competition with often equally impoverished locals is fierce and has led to outbreaks of violence. 

In May, a number of refugees who were selling goods at a small trading centre outside Dzaleka were assaulted by local traders who accused them of undermining their businesses. According to Carter, the Malawian government plans to withdraw trading licenses for refugees from July.

Many of Dzaleka's residents have lived in the camp for over a decade. Indeed, an increasing proportion of refugees today live in what UNHCR describes as "protracted" exile (in 2011, more than seven million refugees had lived outside their country for more than five years). Donors are increasingly reluctant to shoulder the burden of feeding these long-term refugees.

Commenting on the funding shortfall, WFP spokesperson for east and southern Africa David Orr said: "There is inevitably some donor fatigue regarding longstanding or protracted refugee loads; these funding issues affect more than just food."

ks/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95597/AFRICA-Donor-fatigue-forces-WFP-to-cut-refugee-rations</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201204161157350475t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 19 June 2012 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has halved food rations to refugees living in camps in at least four African countries citing a funding shortfall.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>REFUGEES: Moving out of the shadows</title><pubDate>Thu, 31 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2009/200904242107480456t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 31 May 2012 (IRIN) - When night falls in the Dadaab refugee complex in eastern Kenya, nearly half a million refugees are plunged into darkness. The lack of light robs schoolchildren of the possibility of studying and provides perfect cover for thieves and rapists.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 31 May 2012 (IRIN) - When night falls in the Dadaab refugee complex in eastern Kenya, nearly half a million refugees are plunged into darkness. The lack of light robs schoolchildren of the possibility of studying and provides perfect cover for thieves and rapists. 

“There are robbers who take advantage of the dark to rob people of their phones,” said Ifo Camp resident and freelance journalist Moulid Hujale. “Even when there’s a full moon, there’s less crime.”

For many households who cannot afford candles or kerosene lamps, let alone a generator, the only source of light is that produced by cooking fires. But firewood is an increasingly scarce and contentious commodity in an arid region where an ever growing refugee population has been competing with locals for dwindling natural resources since the first camp was established there in 1991.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) trucks in firewood at a cost of US$600,000 a month, but only enough to meet about 30 percent of each household’s monthly needs, forcing refugee women to walk up to 10km outside the camps to gather wood for cooking. These excursions expose them to the risk of violent attacks from resentful locals and even other refugees. 

“The incidents of gender-based violence against them are quite common,” said Njuki Venanzio, an associate environment officer with UNHCR based at Dadaab. “Our protection colleagues document about three cases per week.”

Even inside the camps, levels of sexual and gender-based violence have increased significantly in the past 18 months as the camp’s population has swelled and poor lighting has made new arrivals living on the outskirts of the camp particularly vulnerable. [ http://www.plusnews.org/Report/93682/KENYA-SOMALIA-Refugees-at-risk-of-sexual-violence ] 

Although the scale of Dadaab’s camps have magnified its security and environmental problems, refugee camps all over Africa face similar challenges. Seventy-two percent have no electricity (while only 30 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's general population has electricity) and many are located in fragile environments where wood is in short supply or completely unavailable. 

The area around Dzaleka Camp in Malawi is so heavily deforested that refugees often resort to selling a portion of their monthly food rations to buy firewood or charcoal, while women living in Touloum Camp in Chad say they spend four days a week searching for firewood. 

Eco-friendly technologies

A UNHCR initiative to bring solar-powered lights and fuel-efficient stoves to 920,000 refugees in Africa over the next three years could address many of the security, environmental and education challenges faced by refugees if donors can be persuaded to come up with the necessary $15 million in funding. 

The Light Years Ahead Initiative [ http://www.unhcr.org/4c99fa9e6.pdf ] has already been piloted in seven African countries with good results, according to Amare Egziabher, a senior environmental coordinator with UNHCR in Geneva. 

“We’ve had very positive feedback from the field,” he told IRIN. “Many believe it lowers the incidence of crime, and also gender-based violence for women and girls.” 

The initiative also has the potential to lower drop-out rates at camp schools. Children who lack light to do their homework in the evenings tend to fall behind with their studies, while girls often miss classes while helping their mothers collect firewood.

At Dadaab, the pilot phase of the project has already brought solar-powered lanterns to 140 schoolchildren preparing for exams and street lights to several areas of Hagadera Camp identified by residents as particularly unsafe at night. 

“It has had a major impact on security in those few areas,” said Venanzio. “But we’re talking about a camp with over 120,000 refugees so the coverage has been small.”

Each solar lantern costs $39 while a solar street light that can make a neighbourhood safer for up to 300 refugees costs $1,200. 

“So far we’ve had some promises of funding but nothing concrete yet,” said Venanzio.

Saving fuel, saving the environment

The fuel-efficient stove favoured by UNHCR is called Save80 because it uses up to 80 percent less wood than cooking over a traditional stove, but several NGOs and agencies working at Dadaab are distributing different types of energy-saving stoves. They have so far managed to reach about 48 percent of the refugee population, but as kerosene has been deemed too expensive and ethanol in too short supply, all of the stoves distributed still use firewood.

“We need something more sustainable,” conceded Venanzio. “There is a lot of environmental degradation within a 10km radius of the camps and the Kenyan government is insisting that we look for a viable alternative [to wood] soon.”

Increasing local production of ethanol from sugarcane is one option. Another is finding entrepreneurs willing to produce sufficient quantities of fuel briquettes from agricultural by-products like coffee or risk husks. 

In the meantime, UNHCR’s environmental management programme is distributing free saplings to refugee and host communities in an effort to reforest the area. “But the environment here is very dry so the survival of the trees is a bit challenging,” said Venanzio. 

Awareness-raising campaigns aimed at teaching refugees how to use firewood more economically, recycle garbage and grow vegetables using waste water are also aimed at mitigating the camps’ impact on the local environment but Venanzio said the programme struggled with insufficient funding. “Environmental programmes get a very small budget compared to other sectors that are considered life-saving like water, food, health,” he explained.

Private donors including churches and corporations gave $1.4 million towards the Light Years Ahead Initiative in 2011, but “we still have a long way to go,” admitted Egziabher. “The demand is so high.”

ks/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95558/REFUGEES-Moving-out-of-the-shadows</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2009/200904242107480456t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 31 May 2012 (IRIN) - When night falls in the Dadaab refugee complex in eastern Kenya, nearly half a million refugees are plunged into darkness. The lack of light robs schoolchildren of the possibility of studying and provides perfect cover for thieves and rapists.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>FOOD: Power to the people!</title><pubDate>Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201104051041120547t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 15 May 2012 (IRIN) - The UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched its first Africa Human Development Report today, stressing food security as a means to a better quality of life for all.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 15 May 2012 (IRIN) - The UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched its first Africa Human Development Report [http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/hdr/africa-human-development-report-2012/ ] today, stressing food security as a means to a better quality of life for all.  

The argument is straightforward: Most people in Africa depend on agriculture, and better nutrition is good for human development. More food production means more food and income in people’s pockets, which has spin-offs which are beneficial for health and education. 

The report is not another exhortation to farmers to grow more food. Pedro Conceicao, chief economist with the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa, explained that exclusively looking at linkages between small-scale farmers and agriculture or gender empowerment and agriculture were “piecemeal approaches” and not helpful. “We have to move beyond silver bullet obsessions [such as agricultural subsidies] or attention-grabbing headlines.” 

He reasoned that high economic growth rates in Africa had not necessarily resulted in a reduction in poverty and food insecurity - which points to accessibility to food and purchasing power as key factors. The report emphasizes “empowerment” and participation as important levers for change. 

It argues that countries need to implement a more strategic vision of food security. An approach to emulate would be what Ethiopia had done to beef up its agriculture sector by setting up a separate Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) [ http://www.ata.gov.et/about/our-mandate/ ] right next to the prime minister’s office. It is modelled on similar initiatives in Asia which helped accelerate economic growth in South Korea and Malaysia, for instance. ATA addresses bottlenecks in areas such as soil management, research and extension services. 

The report calls for new approaches covering multiple sectors - from rural infrastructure to health services, to new forms of social protection and empowering local communities. It calls for action in four critical areas: 

1. Increasing agricultural production: It acknowledges that boosting production would be integral to any approach to becoming food secure, and calls for investment in research, infrastructure and inputs and a Green Revolution in Africa; 

2. More effective nutrition: Develop coordinated interventions which boost nutrition while expanding access to health services, education, sanitation, and clean water; 

3. Building resilience: Investment in crop insurance, employment guarantee schemes, and cash transfers to shield people from risks and make them less vulnerable to shocks; 

4. Empowerment and social justice: Gender empowerment, access to land, technology and information are important to make people food secure. 

IRIN interviewed two leading experts on the issues. 

Steven Wiggins, research fellow with the UK’s Overseas Development Institute, who has been studying agriculture and rural development in Africa since 1972: 

Africa is not one unitary entity: “There are 56 countries in Africa... When Africa is considered as a single unit, there is a great danger that it is compared to other similar units, above all Asia, leading to analyses that suggest that if only Africa were more like Asia, then things would improve. Well, I’m not sure that Botswana has very much to learn from, say, Afghanistan, thank you very much. Hyperbole aside, the point is this: in Africa we have several, if not many, cases of admirable progress in food and nutrition security, but we overlook this.” 

Real progress takes time: “A longstanding issue in African policy debates is the search not only for growth, but for growth that is `transformative’. Even when an African economy grows, the pessimists say `yes, but where is the transformation?’ usually noting that in Asia growth is transformative. Well, yes, where that has apparently happened in Asia... it is the result of 30 or 40 years of sustained progress. Yet damning judgments are made about African countries after less than 10 years of sustained and high economic growth." 

Too complicated and demanding: It would have been better had it [the overview of the report] stuck to a few fundamental propositions that are well supported by the evidence, namely: smallholder development plus primary health plus clean water will almost always reduce child malnutrition. Yes, let’s add girls in secondary school to the list: that will strengthen these links. But it’s that simple. 

Peter Gubbels, the West Africa co-coordinator for Groundswell International, a global partnership of local farming communities, has 30 years of experience in rural development, including 20 years living and working in West Africa. He is based in Ghana. He says: 

Move beyond the Green Revolution: “The report… seems to embrace the Green Revolution approach to agricultural improvement, citing... the results... in Asia, and seeking to now apply those lessons to Africa. The report suggests implicitly, that one reason Africa still has hunger is because Africa has not benefited from `science-based, input-intensive’ support. This is highly misleading. There have been many efforts to promote Green Revolution in Africa. Almost all have failed.” 

Missing bits: “There is no mention of Conservation Agriculture, or of the Brown Revolution [to promote soil fertility and conserve water].” 

Under-funding in agricultural research: “This is true but is also misleading. There has been a great amount of funding in the CGIAR [Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research] system in Africa, including IITA [International Institute of Tropical Agriculture] in Nigeria, from the 1970s onwards. One reason donors reduced funding in the 1990s was because it was not generating good production results. 

“But this report seems to assume that investing in new seeds, fertilizers, tractors, irrigation and training is what is needed... And how many very poor small-scale farmers can afford tractors?” 

Understanding resilience: “Equally disturbing is the suggestion that long-term resilience measures can enable risk averse, poor small-scale farmers to adopt riskier, but more productive, agricultural technologies. This is twisting my understanding of resilience. The aim is to reduce (or at least manage risk), using low external inputs and local ecological systems, not to increase risk by creating dependence on external expensive inputs (insurance, etc) for poor, vulnerable farm families working in marginal conditions. The way forward would be to develop crops and technologies that both increase food production and reduce risk by conservation agricultural techniques.” 

"Subsuming” nutrition into food security: “There is not just food insecurity in Africa. There is both food insecurity and nutrition insecurity. Currently in the Sahel, there is both a food crisis and a nutrition crisis. They may be linked, but the causes are quite different, and the solutions that are [rooted] in food security are almost always inadequate. 

“Just as we need to change the strong association of agriculture with food security, we also need to move nutrition out of the confines of food security. There is still a very strong tendency to believe that food aid, and increasing food production, solves most of malnutrition. It does not. It only helps prevent major spikes in the already existing emergency level of chronic and acute malnutrition.” 

Controversial issues side-stepped: “The report also almost completely sidesteps... genetically modified seeds... the role of agribusiness in land-grabbing, control of seeds, pushing pesticides and herbicides.” 

jk/oa/cb 

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95459/FOOD-Power-to-the-people</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201104051041120547t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 15 May 2012 (IRIN) - The UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched its first Africa Human Development Report today, stressing food security as a means to a better quality of life for all.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>AFRICA: AU wants peace, security and bigger global role in 2012</title><pubDate>Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201201121410270941t.jpg" />]]>WASHINGTON 12 January 2012 (IRIN) - The African Union (AU) has unveiled an ambitious wish-list of priorities for Africa that would give the continent a stronger global voice, boost democracy and encourage peace and security.</description><body><![CDATA[WASHINGTON 12 January 2012 (IRIN) - The African Union (AU) has unveiled an ambitious wish-list of priorities for Africa that would give the continent a stronger global voice, boost democracy and encourage peace and security.

AU Ambassador to the United States, Amina Ali of Tanzania, presented the list of top priorities at a conference on 11 January held at Washington think-tank, the Brookings Institution.

Among them were the regulars - peace and security, enhanced democracy and good governance – as well as improved regional trade and greater involvement of the continent’s large diaspora in African affairs.

The first priority for Africa was the AU's resolve to review its international partnerships to ensure they bring greater benefits to Africa. 

“We are working to be able to build closer partnerships with our international partners so that Africa can really attain a sustainable economy,” Ali told the conference.

The AU wants Africa to manufacture and export finished products to its trading partners rather than just selling them the raw materials as it does now. She cited China, India, the EU and US and other rising stars in trade with the continent, including Turkey and Latin America, and said the AU had held talks on the new breed of partnerships with some of them.

The AU also wants Africa to have a veto-wielding seat on the UN Security Council, and a place at the G20 negotiating table, Ali said.

The peace and security that have eluded Africa for decades continue to be high on the list of problems that the continent needs to resolve, but she spoke only of conflict in Sudan. “The AU will continue to look into issues for Sudan,” Ali said.
 
A report released at the conference, Foresight Africa, highlighted other tinderboxes and called for “urgent instability and warfare policy reviews” to meet the challenges the continent faces in not only Sudan but also in Somalia and Nigeria. [ http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2012/01_priorities_foresight_africa.aspx ]

The report compares the instability in Africa to the decade-old US-led war in Afghanistan, and warned that if “the current trend continues”, a swathe of Africa, stretching from the Horn to Nigeria, “is likely to experience increasing instability and warfare, while narratives of jihadist revolt and terrorist technologies circulate among its citizens”.

The unrest could affect Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Sudan, Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia, the report says. Clearly, the AU has to do more than just supervise goings-on in Sudan and its new neighbour, South Sudan.

The AU also pledged to "review the mechanism for democratic process in Africa" after the wake-up call from the uprisings in the Arab world, including North Africa, a year ago, Ali said.

The AU will press member states to sign a charter ratified by the AU assembly in 2007, which aims to strengthen democracy and good governance in Africa, she said.

The charter was inspired in part by concern that “unconstitutional changes of governments” are a key cause of insecurity and “violent conflict” in Africa, and by a determination to “strengthen good governance through the institutionalization of transparency, accountability and participatory democracy”.

As of November last year, 38 of the AU’s 54 member states had signed the charter, but only 10 had ratified it. It is notable that nearly all the countries in the areas of Africa that are “likely to experience increasing instability and warfare” have signed the charter, with the exception of Somalia and Eritrea in the east and Cameroon in the west.

Food security

The AU will take steps to establish “food reserves” that give areas that face drought a “cushion” against famine, said Ali. She also voiced fears that parts of west Africa could be hit by drought this year, highlighting the need to rapidly establish food reserves – a tough challenge in a time of high food prices and an economic crisis in Europe, which has hit Africa.

Africa also has to “secure access to markets and competitive prices for farmers” or “risk inciting unrest” and food riots, the Foresight Africa report says.

AU officials will push in 2012 to establish a free trade zone that spans the length and breadth of the continent, Ali said. It would boost commerce between countries, a key step towards development.

At present, less than 15 percent of African trade stays on the continent - the rest is sold abroad.

The last item on the AU wish-list is greater involvement of the African diaspora, said to outnumber Africans at home, in the continent’s affairs.

The AU is due to host an African diaspora summit in May, Ali said.

Ali stressed the importance of the diaspora to the continent: remittances represent a larger revenue source for Africa than overseas development aid.

kdz/oa/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94630/AFRICA-AU-wants-peace-security-and-bigger-global-role-in-2012</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2012/201201121410270941t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">WASHINGTON 12 January 2012 (IRIN) - The African Union (AU) has unveiled an ambitious wish-list of priorities for Africa that would give the continent a stronger global voice, boost democracy and encourage peace and security.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SECURITY: Mixed report on mine action progress</title><pubDate>Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201110100834330375t.jpg" />]]>BANGKOK 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - Landmine clearance and donor support for mine action reached an all-time high in 2010, but more countries – four – deployed antipersonnel mines than in any year since 2004, according to NGOs.</description><body><![CDATA[BANGKOK 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - Landmine clearance and donor support for mine action reached an all-time high in 2010, but more countries – four –  deployed antipersonnel mines than in any year since 2004, according to NGOs.

In addition, Kasia Derlicka, director of the 90-plus country network, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, said money for survivors was still insufficient. 

“The movement has come a long way over the past 20 years in stigmatizing landmine use and creating an international mine ban norm, even among non-signatories… but the way ahead is still long.”

She spoke to IRIN from the ongoing Meeting of States Parties in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to assess progress on wiping out cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines [ http://www.icbl.org/index.php/icbl/content/view/full/26014 ]

From contamination to clearance, highlights from the meeting and the Landmine Monitor 2011 report [ http://www.the-monitor.org/index.php/publications/display?url=lm/2011/ ] include:

* A total of 159 governments – 80 percent of the world’s nations – have signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. Finland is the newest signatory as of 28 November. Thirty-seven states, including China and the United States, have not joined.

* Landmine action attracted record monies in 2010 – US$637 million – but the percentage allocated to survivor assistance has stagnated over the past decade at 9 percent;

* Annual total clearance of mined areas reached a record high in 2010 - at least 200sqkm - resulting in the destruction of more than 388,000 anti-personnel mines and over 27,000 anti-vehicle mines, mostly in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Croatia, Iraq and Sri Lanka;

* Israel, Libya and Myanmar have laid antipersonnel mines thus far in 2011. Syria laid new mines along the Lebanese border in October 2011, after the Landmine Monitor 2011 report went to print. None of these countries has joined the treaty;

* Non-state armed groups in Afghanistan, Colombia, Myanmar and Pakistan laid new mines in 2010 – down from six countries in 2009;

* Requests for landmine clearance deadline extensions “have become the norm rather than an exception”, the report says. Requests must be submitted to a committee of members of the Mine Ban Treaty before the annual meeting. Twenty-seven countries - half of the most affected member states - have thus far requested extensions. None have been denied;

* Eighty-seven states have completely destroyed their landmine stockpiles, including Iraq as of June 2011. Belarus, Greece, Turkey and Ukraine failed to meet the four-year deadline in 2010 to destroy their stockpiles as set by the Mine Ban Treaty;

* Myanmar addressed the meeting for the first time as an observer on 29 November, saying landmine use deserved “careful consideration” , while defending the country’s right to mine;

* A total of 4,191 new casualties - 75 percent civilian - was recorded in 2010, a 5 percent increase from 2009. Half the reported casualties occurred in the Asia-Pacific region, with Afghanistan being the most mine-affected country worldwide;

* More attention has been given to survivors’ access to health and rehabilitation services, but such improvements were partly offset in places where armed conflict made it more difficult for survivors to access those services.

sh/pt/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94366/SECURITY-Mixed-report-on-mine-action-progress</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201110100834330375t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BANGKOK 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - Landmine clearance and donor support for mine action reached an all-time high in 2010, but more countries – four – deployed antipersonnel mines than in any year since 2004, according to NGOs.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>AID POLICY: The politics of humanitarian principle</title><pubDate>Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201010201232590539t.jpg" />]]>BERLIN 28 October 2011 (IRIN) - For decades aid agencies have been tackling troubling ethical dilemmas about where to draw the line when negotiating with armed forces when trying to deliver aid to vulnerable communities. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) discusses some of the ethical dilemmas it has faced over the past 40 years in Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience, promoted at its annual Berlin Humanitarian Congress.</description><body><![CDATA[BERLIN 28 October 2011 (IRIN) - For decades aid agencies have been tackling troubling ethical dilemmas about where to draw the line when negotiating with armed forces when trying to deliver aid to vulnerable communities. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) discusses some of the ethical dilemmas it has faced over the past 40 years in Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience, promoted at its annual Berlin Humanitarian Congress. [ http://www.humanitaererkongress.de/ ]
 
 “Humanitarian actors often claim they are above politics but it is simply not true,” said Fabrice Weissman, one of the co-authors of the book, which will be officially launched at the end of November. 
 
 “We do still retain our central tenet, which is saving lives,” Weissman added, but we also “seek to puncture a number of myths. We address the big question of when should and shouldn’t MSF be willing to compromise?” 
 
 Contributors lay out a wide range of dilemmas, “seeking to analyze the political transactions and balances of power and interests that allow aid activities to move forward, but that are usually masked by the lofty rhetoric of 'humanitarian principles'”. 
 
 Financing fighters 
 
 The conclusions are often disturbing. “That fighting forces seek to take advantage of aid groups is unavoidable,” Weissman said. “The fact is that unless we provide them with benefits they have no reason to allow us to operate in the areas they seek to control.” 
 
 As an example, he mentioned Taliban-held areas of Afghanistan. “The reality there is that the Taliban are claiming responsibility for the goods and services that humanitarian groups are providing, which allows the Taliban to appear to the local populations as being effective governors.” 
 
 Another benefit fighting forces get from aid groups is money, exchanged for services such as security. “On many occasions, MSF, like other organizations, uses combatants to ensure the safety of its teams and convoys,” said the author. 

 Bribes are also part of negotiations, says Rony Brauman who heads the MSF think-tank Centre de Réflexion Sur l’Action et Les Savoirs Humanitaires, which encourages debate and critical reflection on humanitarian practices. “The question is often not whether to pay them but how much to pay. It must be thought of as an informal tax.” 

 Also, much of the salary paid to local staff can end up in the coffers of fighting forces. Weismann cited Eritrea, which, during the conflict with Ethiopia in 1998, demanded a 50 percent tax on wages paid by NGOs. 
 
 Corruption “integral” 
 
 Other fighting groups simply loot aid organizations, and some even have the gall to sell their spoils back to the aid group. “Corruption is an integral part of the worlds in which we operate,” Weissman said. 
 
 Some aid organizations have policies to avoid corruption. In 2010, Transparency International published Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Operations, which lays out what aid organizations should do when faced with corruption dilemmas. 
 
 But for MSF, when the aim is to get the job done, corruption may be unavoidable. “Our imperative must always be to save lives but we have concluded that the means by which lives are saved cannot be a moral or ethical issue, and that is a fact that aid groups have tended not to talk about,” Weissman said. 
 
 When donors are combatants 
 
 The book is part of an MSF series associated with CRASH. A 2004 publication, In the Shadow of "Just Wars", [ http://www.msf-crash.org/en/publications/2009/06/04/275/in-the-shadow-of-just-wars/ ] focused on the problems MSF and other organizations had in conflict zones where Western troops were on one side of a conflict while Western donors were funding aid organizations that were supposed to be neutral. 
 
 That book includes examples from Iraq to Sierra Leone, where Western forces used humanitarian rhetoric to win the hearts and minds of local populations and often tried to use aid groups as part of these efforts. 
 
 The latest MSF publication goes further, discussing problems in places such as Gaza where Western donors try to stop aid groups from working with Hamas, which they consider a terrorist organization, but which is the sole authority that aid groups have to cooperate with if they are to provide services there. 
 
 US counter-terrorism laws stipulate that providing support resources to terrorists, even if not for terrorist purposes, could result in criminal prosecution. [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=94015 ] The impact of these laws on humanitarian action has been discussed in a just-released paper on Counter-terrorism and Humanitarian Action by the Humanitarian Policy Group. [ http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=6019&title=counter-terrorism-laws-international-humanitarian-law-protection-civilians ] 
 
 “Combatants are also human beings” 
 
 Giving humanitarian assistance directly to armed groups is another topic tackled. “Combatants are also human beings and sometimes they need humanitarian assistance more than civilians,” Weissman said. “When combatants are wounded we no longer consider them combatants.” 
 
 Weissman says MSF does draw a line when armed forces use aid organizations to harm civilians. An example he cited is the Democratic Republic of Congo, after the genocide in Rwanda. In 1994, Hutus in Rwanda crossed the border en masse, seeking refuge. At the time, MSF was trying to identify the location of refugee populations around the country so aid organizations were better able to coordinate aid to them. But Tutsi militias operating in DRC used MSF’s information to seek out and attack the Hutu refugees. 
 
 The solution was that MSF stopped publicizing the information but he pointed to other examples of forces using aid groups against civilians that were more problematic. 
 
 In Sri Lanka in 2009, the government rounded up some 270,000 people it suspected of supporting Tamil rebels and then gave aid groups the job of providing the basic services. “We did not want to be supporting a vast prison for an innocent civilian population which the state was unjustly labelling criminals, but we were also concerned about what would happen to the civilians if we didn’t assist them.” 
 
 A lot has been written in recent years about the ways humanitarian agencies can inadvertently fuel injustice and conflict. The problem with the conclusion of many of these publications, said Weissman, is that they call on aid groups to “serve the cause of peace”. That often translated into NGOs cooperating more closely with UN peacekeeping and international donors, he said, which could undermine aid groups’ neutrality. 
 
 In the end, the criteria MSF uses to decide whether or not it should continue a particular operation is simple: “We ask ourselves who benefits most from our presence: the fighting forces or the civilians?” 
 
 dh/aj/mw 

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/94095/AID-POLICY-The-politics-of-humanitarian-principle</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2010/201010201232590539t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">BERLIN 28 October 2011 (IRIN) - For decades aid agencies have been tackling troubling ethical dilemmas about where to draw the line when negotiating with armed forces when trying to deliver aid to vulnerable communities. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) discusses some of the ethical dilemmas it has faced over the past 40 years in Humanitarian Negotiations Revealed: The MSF Experience, promoted at its annual Berlin Humanitarian Congress.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>FOOD: Rumpus over GM food aid</title><pubDate>Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201108011245250824t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 18 October 2011 (IRIN) - Genetically modified (GM) food aid bound for Africa has long been a bone of contention among governments, scientists, activists, consumers and aid workers.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 18 October 2011 (IRIN) - Genetically modified (GM) food aid bound for Africa has long been a bone of contention among governments, scientists, activists, consumers and aid workers. 
 
 On 18 August a drought-affected Kenyan government fired the head of its National Biosafety Authority for expediting the process to import milled food aid which might have contained genetically modified organisms (GMO). In the weeks preceding and after the incident, public debate on the issue was distorted by extreme positions either for or against GM food. 
 
 “When you have people starving in your country you don’t simply turn your back on food at your door-step just because it is labelled GM - it is expected that biosafety risk assessments should have been conducted before the importation of the food to see whether it does indeed pose a threat before taking a decision. Taking this decision so late in the day could have serious consequences for the suffering people,” says Diran Makinde, director of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s (NEPAD’s) African Biosafety Network of Expertise (ABNE), a pool of scientific experts set up by the African Union. 
 
 There have been different degrees of resistance to GM food and GM food aid in Africa. 
 
 In 2002 Zambia announced it would not accept GM food aid in any form. Positions were polarized to a great extent after a quote from a US state department official, “Beggars can’t be choosers”, hit the headlines. It prompted the then president, Levy Mwanawasa, to say hunger was no reason for feeding his people “poison”. Since then Zambia has become a poster-child for the anti-GM lobby. 
[ http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/28948/1/African%20perspectives%20on%20genetically%20modified%20crops.pdf?1 ]
 
 Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique said they could allow imports of GM food aid in its milled form as this eliminated the risk of the germination of whole grains and limited possible contamination of local varieties. [ http://www.eoearth.org/article/Genetically_modified_crops_in_Africa ]
 
 Lesotho and Swaziland allowed the distribution of non-milled GM food/grains, but warned people that it was for consumption not cultivation. 
 
 In 2004, Angola and Sudan announced restrictions on GM food aid. 
 
 Cautious approach 
 
 Most African countries approach GM technology applied to crops with caution. 
 
 “Why shouldn’t we be wary of this technology and its possible long-term health impacts, if the EU [European Union] is. If it is not good for them, why should it be good for us?” said Tewolde Egziabher, Ethiopia’s director of the Environmental Protection Agency. 
 
 Egziabher was one of the main architects of the Cartagena Protocol, the international law on biosafety which came into effect in 2003 and which allows countries to impose bans on foods containing GM. 
 
 The Protocol’s cornerstone is “precaution”, notes a UN Environment Programme briefing. [ http://www.eoearth.org/article/Responses_to_genetically_modified_crop_use_in_Africa ]
  
 It gives governments the discretion to impose bans even where there is insufficient scientific evidence about the potential adverse effects of GM crops. The USA has yet to ratify the Protocol. 
 
 GM technology injects foreign genes into a crop that can improve its appearance, taste, nutritional quality, drought tolerance, and insect and disease resistance. There has been cautious optimism about the new technology in some quarters. 
 
 “As crop yields drop because of weather shocks, GM technology is not the panacea, as Africa will feel the impact of climate change in the long-term. But it is potentially yet another tool in our fight to improve production,” said Per Pinstrup-Andersen, 2001 World Food Prize laureate and the author of a book on the politics of GM food. 
 
 Most critics of GM food, however, argue that foreign genes can produce toxic proteins and allergens, even possibly transfer the genes to bacteria in the human gut; or transfer these traits to other crops with unknown consequences. 
 
 Global divide 
 
 A deep mistrust also prevails in Africa, given the fact that two power blocs - the EU and the USA remain divided over GM. 
 
 Only one strain of GM maize, Monsanto 810, and one modified potato, have been approved in the EU, and most countries grow neither commercially. Spain accounts for about 80 percent of GMO grown in the EU in terms of land under cultivation, but Austria, France, Greece, Hungary, Germany and Luxembourg have banned all GMO cultivation. [ http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/07/eu_parliament_votes_to_allow_r.html ]
 
 On the other hand, in the USA, where 70 percent of maize is GM, GM food need not be labelled. Some food experts say both the EU and the USA have vested interests in promoting their respective views in Africa, which is seen as a potential market and supplier of either GM or non-GM products. 
 
 In Africa, the production of GM food is still in its infancy. South Africa (70-80 percent of its maize, soya and cotton production), Egypt (maize) and Burkina Faso (cotton) are the only African countries commercially producing GM crops, according to ABNE. 
 
 Traditionally the USA has been the biggest donor in kind to the World Food Programme (WFP). But the aid agency is trying to broaden its source of food aid. In 2010, WFP said 36 percent of its food aid, or two million out of 5.7 million tons disbursed globally, was procured in developing countries. [ http://www.wfp.org/content/food-aid-flows-2010-report ]
 
 While wheat accounts for more than 50 percent of WFP’s global cereal component, GM wheat does not figure as it is not grown commercially. According to data from 2006, at least 38 percent of cereal food aid to Africa was wheat and wheat flour, said Christopher Barrett, a food aid expert. Though wheat tends to be a less important part of the African diet than maize, aid agencies sometimes offer wheat instead of GM maize in emergencies. [ http://faostat.fao.org/site/485/default.aspx#ancor ]
 
 Possible solutions 
 
 Milling the grain is an obvious solution, said Julia Steets, an aid policy expert at the Global Public Policy Institute. "Milling either at source or in the port of arrival or in the prepositioning warehouses - it would of course also help to know in advance which governments take what positions on that, so that the food aid agencies are prepared." 
 
 The stance of recipient countries has to be respected. When a country prohibits GMO, sourcing alternative commodities and routes can “obviously impact delivery times and costs but those are the parameters in which we work,” said David Orr, WFP spokesman. “We always abide by the laws and regulations of recipient countries.” 
 
 If a country is not receptive to GM food - “give the country the money for procurement of the food from an African country with a surplus (local procurement is better than shipping food all the way from the US any way),” said Pinstrup-Andersen. 
 
 Food aid agencies in Africa usually turn to South Africa for surplus maize. The country has systems in place to segregate non-GM from GM, says Thom Jayne, professor of international development at Michigan State University. 
 
 Farmers in South Africa certify non-GM content by conducting a basic test, which detects specific proteins produced by a GM plant. The non-GM grain is separated from the rest before being shipped. 
 
 Another way of separating GM from non-GM crops involves contract-farming schemes first set up in 2004-2005. The process involves the purchaser identifying farmers who buy non-GM seed. Tests are conducted on their field for any traces of GM before they are offered a contract. 
 
 But all these measures involve extra costs. 
 
 Legislation 
 
 In 2001 the African Union drafted the African Biosafety Model Law but taking an even more cautious approach than the Protocol, allowing countries to adopt more stringent measures to assess the safety of GM food. 
 
 National biosafety laws exist in 17 of the 54 African countries. In most countries, the legislation is a work-in-progress. 
 
 Labelling and verifying the content of a crop on a day-to day basis is an outstanding issue. South Africa, the first country in Africa to put biosafety laws in place (in 1997), has yet to develop a labelling process. 
 
 More public education and debate around GM food needs to happen, said Pinstrup-Andersen. “Almost all GM-food varieties have been through stringent testing for health safety, which non-GM food has not undergone ever. People need to engage with the science and not the politics.” 
 
 jk/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/93991/FOOD-Rumpus-over-GM-food-aid</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201108011245250824t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 18 October 2011 (IRIN) - Genetically modified (GM) food aid bound for Africa has long been a bone of contention among governments, scientists, activists, consumers and aid workers.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>DISASTERS: New risk index helps identify vulnerability</title><pubDate>Mon, 05 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201106190631010812t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 05 September 2011 (IRIN) - A new disaster risk index launched by the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn could help donors and aid organizations better understand why some countries are more at risk of calamity than others, and shape their responses when disaster strikes.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 05 September 2011 (IRIN) - With the media spotlight on the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, governments and aid organizations have come under fire for their lack of a developmental approach, but a new tool launched by the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn could help them better understand vulnerability in the longer term. 
 
 The World Risk Index (WRI), explained Jörn Birkmann, scientific head of the WRI project at the UN institute, is unique in defining risk as the interaction between a natural hazard and the vulnerability of a particular community. 
 
 WRI takes into account social, political, economic and ecological factors to determine the capacity of an affected community to respond. It looks at four main components, which in turn take into account at least 28 variables. 
 
 1. Exposure to a natural hazard (sudden as well as slow-onset natural disasters like droughts). 
 
 2. Susceptibility, which is understood as the likelihood of society and ecosystems to be damaged should a natural hazard occur. Existing economic, infrastructure, nutrition and housing conditions are taken into account. 
 
 3. The capacity to cope, which looks at the state of governance, disaster preparedness and early warning systems, medical services, and social and material security levels. "Governance is a critical issue as it is politically sensitive which is why it is overlooked by many similar indices, but the fact is you need a stable government that has the capacity to deliver to help people become resilient," said Birkmann. He illustrated his point by contrasting the impact of the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. "Owing to higher coping and adaptive capacities, such as building laws, there were significantly fewer victims in Japan." 
 
 4. Adaptation strategies - implying the capacities and strategies which help communities address the expected negative consequences of natural hazards and climate change. 
 
 “Information on coping capacities is relevant for short-term responses, but where long-term programmes and planning is concerned, it is useful for NGOs to know about the area’s adaptation capacity,” said Peter Mucke, managing director of Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft (Alliance Development Works), a consortium of five German NGOs which worked with the UN University on the study. "So while we come to know which countries need short-term responses like food, at the same time we need know where we have to provide food-for-work programmes or strategies to provide water in the long term." 
 
 Afghan example 
 
 Afghanistan, which according to the WRI has the world’s poorest adaptive capacity and the second lowest coping capacity, tops the list of countries most vulnerable to disasters. 
 
 The tool is uncomplicated. “The index gives you all that information at a glance - showing the strength of a particular area’s capacity to adapt or cope in percentages, which is useful to communicate the strengths and weakness of a particular area when you are seeking funding from donors,” said Birkmann. 
 
 For instance, Afghanistan's lack of capacity to cope is shown at 93.4 percent; its adaptation capacity 73.55 percent; and vulnerability 76.19 percent. WRI uses the various percentages, and also factors in sea-level rise predictions, to calculate an overall risk figure: The Pacific island of Vanuatu comes out as the country most at risk of a disaster. 
 
 No risk index can be flawless: In the case of Vanuatu, people will only be at risk of a metre-rise in sea level in 100 years - by which time the country’s population may have changed considerably from the 2005 figures used by WRI. 
 
 WRI is dependent on the availability and quality of the data it uses. It covers 173 out of 192 countries. Somalia is not included. 
 
 WRI’s methodology could be used to focus in on any community of any size in the world. 
 
 jk/cb 

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/93658/DISASTERS-New-risk-index-helps-identify-vulnerability</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201106190631010812t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 05 September 2011 (IRIN) - A new disaster risk index launched by the UN University Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn could help donors and aid organizations better understand why some countries are more at risk of calamity than others, and shape their responses when disaster strikes.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HORN OF AFRICA: Thinking outside the traditional funding box</title><pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201109011208400413t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 01 September 2011 (IRIN) - The race to feed more than 12 million people facing severe food shortages in the Horn of Africa has seen humanitarian agencies make several funding appeals. Donor governments have contributed US$1.46 billion out of the required $2.48 billion.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 01 September 2011 (IRIN) - The race to feed more than 12 million people facing severe food shortages in the Horn of Africa has seen humanitarian agencies make several funding appeals. Donor governments have contributed US$1.46 billion out of the required $2.48 billion. 
 
 So far, so traditional. What has not been counted has been the response of ordinary people to the disaster unfolding on their TV screens. Here is a round-up of some initiatives that have tapped into popular philanthropy. 
 
 Kenyans for Kenya - One of Kenya's most successful funding drives ever, the campaign [ http://www.kenyans4kenya.co.ke ] aimed to raise 500 million shillings - about US$5.28 million - in one month; that target was reached in 10 days. The initiative then aimed for one billion shillings - $10.56 million - and by 1 September, had collected more than $7 million. The money has been used to send tonnes of food to crisis-affected areas through the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS). 
 
 Corporate sponsors have been conspicuous givers, but private citizens contributed more than $1.6 million using MPESA, a mobile phone money transfer service run by telecoms firm Safaricom. 
 
 FeedKE - A separate campaign started by a Kenyan Twitter user, Ahmed Salim [ http://twitter.com/#!/ahmedsalims ], gained some popularity among internet users. Using the Twitter hashtag #FeedKE, the campaign also used mobile money transfers to raise more than $15,000, which was also channelled through KRCS. 
 
 Telethons - A three-day telethon organized by the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent Authority in August raised more than $17 million. The Red Crescent has also collected more than 400 tonnes of food for the drought and set up clinics in Somalia. 
 
 Another telethon, organized by the South African NGO, Gift of the Givers, and the South African Broadcasting Corporation, raised more than $170,000. This was just a fraction of the nearly $3 million that Gift of the Givers says has been raised by South Africans. 
 
 The diaspora - Millions of people from the Horn of Africa live abroad and regularly spend a portion of their earnings sending remittances to their families; Ethiopians and Somalis living abroad send more than $1 billion home annually. According to media reports, remittances from the Somali diaspora to the worst-hit areas in the south of the country are up by 10 percent. 
 
 The US Agency for International Development [ http://blog.usaid.gov/2011/07/meeting-with-somali-americans-about-the-crisis-in-the-horn-of-africa ] says several Somali NGOs in Minneapolis have joined forces with the American Refugee Committee in an initiative called Neighbours for Nations that unites and mobilizes diaspora community efforts to provide relief and development services in Somalia. 
 
 Celebrity buzz - From Bono to Beyoncé, celebrities have thrown their weight behind the campaign to feed millions in the region. Bob Marley's family released a new video for the legend's song, High Tide or Low Tide, to help raise awareness and money for the drought in East Africa as part of the 'I'm gonna be your friend' [ http://imgonnabeyourfriend.org ] campaign in conjunction with Save the Children. 
 
 Jay Z and Kanye West courted controversy when they destroyed a $350,000 Maybach Mercedes for the video of their track, Otis [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoEKWtgJQAU&ob=av2n ], but the two artists say the vehicle will be auctioned and the proceeds used to assist the drought response. 
 
 In August, Canada-based Somali musician K'Naan - whose hit, Waving Flag, was the World Cup 2010 anthem - visited his homeland for the first time in decades to raise awareness about the food crisis.
 
 kr/oa/mw]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/93633/HORN-OF-AFRICA-Thinking-outside-the-traditional-funding-box</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201109011208400413t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 01 September 2011 (IRIN) - The race to feed more than 12 million people facing severe food shortages in the Horn of Africa has seen humanitarian agencies make several funding appeals. Donor governments have contributed US$1.46 billion out of the required $2.48 billion.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: &quot;Silent crisis&quot; as more Eritreans flee</title><pubDate>Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2009/200912030950150517t.jpg" />]]>ADDIS ABABA 05 August 2011 (IRIN) - More and more Eritrean refugees, mostly educated young men, continue to arrive in Ethiopia, with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, expressing concern over the rising numbers.</description><body><![CDATA[ADDIS ABABA 05 August 2011 (IRIN) - More and more Eritrean refugees, mostly educated young men, continue to arrive in Ethiopia, with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, expressing concern over the rising numbers. 
 
 "Most say they left their country [to avoid] a prolonged military conscription, but they also say they want to join their families on the road," Moses Okello, UNHCR’s representative in Ethiopia, told IRIN. 
 
 Ethiopia hosts at least 61,000 Eritrean refugees. 
 
 UNHCR has described the latest Eritrean refugee influx as a "silent crisis", coming at a time when the Horn of Africa has been gripped by the worst drought in 60 years. 
 
 Okello said those arriving were in good condition compared with thousands of Somali refugees in Ethiopia's Dolo Ado area in the southeast. 
 
 On average, 1,300 Eritreans leave their country for Ethiopia every month, according to government statistics. 
 
 "The trend seems non-stop and yet increasing," according to Ayalew Aweke, the deputy director of the government’s Administration for Refugees and Returnee Affairs (ARRA). 
 
 Ayalew said: "We are receiving additional refugees of between 1,200-1,500 every month. Most of them are unaccompanied youngsters." 
 
 Disputed numbers 
 
 UNHCR, however, says about 800 to 1,000 Eritreans reached Ethiopian refugee camps in Shimelba, Maiaini and Adi-Harush in Tigray Regional state every month. 
 
 Ayalew said: "UNHCR’s figure does not include the number of refugees coming [through] other entry points from the usual 17 [official] ones." 
 
 According to ARRA, some Eritreans come to Ethiopia after passing through other countries such as Sudan and Djibouti. 
 
 Kisut Gebregziabher, the UNHCR spokesman in Ethiopia, said: "At the moment, we are counting those that are screened and have refugee status in refugee centres. But we expect to have a relatively acceptable number, once they reach camps and get their status.” 
 
 However, Ayalew said to ascertain the exact number of Eritrean refugees was difficult because most of the refugees are nomadic and ethnic Afar. The Afar are also found in Ethiopia. 
 
 "They tend to live with the host community rather than coming to refugee centres," Ayalew said. 
 
 Gebregziabher said UNHCR had noticed an "unusual trend" among the new arrivals of Eritrean refugees. 
 
 "We usually see women and children dominating when it comes to refugees; the case of Eritrean refugees is different, they are mainly young, educated, single men." 
 
 He added that most of them came from an urban background, with high-school diplomas and above. 
 
 Gebregziabher attributed the shift to their trying to avoid conscription. 
 
 During a visit in July, the UN Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, Erika Feller, said she was "alarmed and shocked" to see "a sea of young faces" and "youth denied for so many people". 
 
 According to ARRA statistics, more than 55 percent of these Eritreans are between 18 and 30 years old. 
 
 "Most of them are not ready to spend time in refugee camps and that is why we are working on an out-of-camp policy aggressively,” Ayalew said. 
 
 In 2010, the Ethiopian government allowed Eritrean refugees to live in urban areas, a move intended to improve their access to services. The policy allowed more than 200 Eritrean students to continue their studies in Ethiopian universities. 
 
 “For this year, the same chance will be given to 700 students, after taking a proper entrance exam,” Ayalew said. 
 
 Gebregziabher said some of the Eritrean students would be entering universities through a cost-sharing agreement supported by UNHCR. 
 
 Resettlement options 
 
 According to UNHCR, voluntary repatriation is not an option at the moment. Gebregziabher said the agency would pursue "resettlement as the only durable solution for Eritrean refugees. In fact, those who came before 2008 are expected to benefit from the resettlement programme offered by the United States," he said. 
 
 In 2008, the US government agreed to receive 6,800 Eritrean refugees from various camps in Ethiopia. 
 
 "Over 2,000 Eritrean refugees have been resettled in the US so far,” Gebregziabher said. "This programme is expected to continue operating." 
 
 According to Feller, resettlement placements offered by different countries were limited. However, she said the refugee agency would continue to advocate for an increase in resettlement opportunities. 
 
 Apart from the US, Canada, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand and Australia have shown interest in resettling Eritrean refugees. 
 
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]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/93433/ERITREA-ETHIOPIA-quot-Silent-crisis-quot-as-more-Eritreans-flee</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2009/200912030950150517t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">ADDIS ABABA 05 August 2011 (IRIN) - More and more Eritrean refugees, mostly educated young men, continue to arrive in Ethiopia, with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, expressing concern over the rising numbers.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>HORN OF AFRICA: Drought and HIV - a dangerous combination</title><pubDate>Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/20068243t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 28 July 2011 (IRIN) - More than 11.6 million people are facing starvation in the Horn of Africa, and as aid agencies struggle to feed them, experts are warning that a lack of food could have wider consequences, including jeopardizing the health of people on HIV treatment.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 28 July 2011 (IRIN) - More than 11.6 million people are facing starvation in the Horn of Africa, and as aid agencies struggle to feed them, experts are warning that a lack of food could have wider consequences, including jeopardizing the health of people on HIV treatment. 
 
 Here are some ways the drought could affect people living with HIV and hamper prevention efforts: 
 
 Food insecurity - To maintain the same body weight and level of physical activity, asymptomatic HIV-positive people need an increase of 10 percent in energy, according to the UN World Health Organization [ http://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/Content_nutrient_requirements.pdf ]. This proportion can rise to 20-30 percent for symptomatic adults and as high as 50-100 percent for HIV-positive children experiencing weight loss. 
 
 Lack of food is a widely acknowledged barrier to successful antiretroviral therapy; a 2010 Ugandan study [ http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010340 ] found that ARVs increased respondents' appetite. They also reported that the side-effects of ARVs - including headaches, stomach pain, dizziness, shivers, loss of energy, fainting, and rapid heartbeat - were exacerbated without food. 
 
 Many participants felt they should either abandon their ARVs or delay initiation until they could afford a more nutritious diet. Research shows that earlier initiation [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=84791 ] on ART significantly improves survival rates of people living with HIV. 
 
 HIV-positive mothers may be forced to use a mix of breast milk and solid food for babies who ideally should be exclusively breastfed [ http://www.who.int/child_adolescent_health/documents/9789241599535/en/index.html ] to cut down the risk of transmission. 
 
 Access to safe water - Pastoralist communities often end up sharing water with animals, putting them at higher risk of contracting water-borne diseases. 
 
 HIV-positive people find it harder to resist or recover from diarrhoeal diseases, skin conditions and other opportunistic infections. 
 
 In addition, people with HIV may be too weak to walk long distances to collect and carry water; homes headed by children orphaned through HIV or older people may also be incapable of accessing safe water. 
 
 The UN [ http://www.unwater.org/statistics_san.html ] recommends that each person use 20-50 litres of water every day for drinking, cooking and cleaning. 
 
 Sexual violence - Women do the bulk of housework in much of the Horn of Africa, including fetching water and firewood. Girls and women risk being sexually assaulted on the long walks to fetch water. 
 
 For refugees walking or hitch-hiking from Somalia to neighbouring Kenya, the risk of rape is very real. The NGO CARE International [ http://www.care-international.org/Media-Releases/horn-of-africa-drought-reported-cases-of-sexual-violence-have-quadrupled-among-refugees.html ] reported on 12 July that the number of reports of sexual and gender-based violence in Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp - where an estimated 3,500 Somalis are arriving daily - had increased from 75 between January and June 201 to 358 during the same period in 2011. 
 
 According to CARE, the most dangerous time for women - many of whom are travelling alone with their children - is when they are on the move. Overcrowding in refugee camps also makes it more difficult for regular protection mechanisms to work. 
 
 Post-exposure prophylaxis may be available at camps like Dadaab, but awareness is poor and many rapes go unreported. 
 
 Transactional sex - During humanitarian emergencies, desperate women often turn to desperate measures [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=79166 ] to feed themselves and their families. 
 
 A 2007 study by the Overseas Development Institute [ http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/3266.pdf ] in Kenya's chronically arid northeastern Turkana area found that the effects of drought led many young women and orphans to turn to sex work to survive. 
 
 The study found that as many Turkana people moved to new areas - usually urban and semi-urban - the separation from their families and communities made it easier to have transactional sex. 
 
 Where condoms are not readily available or regularly used, transactional sex can increase the risk of contracting HIV. 
 
 Migration - According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) [ http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/media/all-speeches/cache/offonce?entryId=25445 ], migration itself is not a risk to health, but "the migration process can increase vulnerabilities to poor health, especially for migrants who move involuntarily, fleeing natural disasters or humanitarian crises, or those who find themselves in irregular or exploitative conditions". 
 
 IOM says many of the underlying factors that cause migration - including uneven distribution of resources and socio-economic instability - also determine the increased risk of migrants and their families to HIV infection. 
 
 Female migrants are at particular risk of being sexually exploited and coerced into sex in exchange for food, shelter or even by unscrupulous police officers threatening them with arrest or deportation. 
 
 For people on treatment, abrupt movement to new areas can cause problems for adherence, as stigma can prevent people from seeking services at unfamiliar health centres. 
 
 Access to HIV services - With millions of people on the verge of starvation, limited health services in the Horn of Africa are stretched to capacity, and people living with HIV may not get the attention they need from overburdened health workers. 
 
 Many people living with HIV rely on networks for support; during an emergency these may break up as members move away in search of food and others succumb to hunger or illness. Home-based care networks may also collapse or become weakened by the effects of drought. 
 
 Illegal refugees [ http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=88739 ] may not have access to HIV and other health services; many fear the consequences of registering at national hospitals, lest they be discovered and deported. Not understanding local languages in the host country can also mean refugees miss out on vital information on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. 
 
 kr/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/93358/HORN-OF-AFRICA-Drought-and-HIV-a-dangerous-combination</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/20068243t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 28 July 2011 (IRIN) - More than 11.6 million people are facing starvation in the Horn of Africa, and as aid agencies struggle to feed them, experts are warning that a lack of food could have wider consequences, including jeopardizing the health of people on HIV treatment.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>ERITREA-ETHIOPIA: Thousands need aid after volcano eruption </title><pubDate>Wed, 06 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201107061302470828t.jpg" />]]>ADDIS ABABA/NAIROBI 06 July 2011 (IRIN) - Thousands of Ethiopians in Afar State are facing critical food, water and health gaps almost a month after a volcano erupted in neighbouring Eritrea&apos;s Nabro region, officials say.</description><body><![CDATA[ADDIS ABABA/NAIROBI 06 July 2011 (IRIN) - Thousands of Ethiopians in Afar State are facing critical food, water and health gaps almost a month after a volcano erupted in neighbouring Eritrea's Nabro region, officials say. 
 
 The volcano started erupting on 12 June, spewing ash over hundreds of kilometres, affecting food and water sources as well as air travel in some parts. The eruption occurred after a series of earthquakes among them one with a magnitude of 5.7, Eritrea's Information Ministry reported in a communiqué. 
 
 According to a report from Ethiopia's Afar Disaster Prevention and Food Security Programs Coordination Office: "The adverse impacts of the volcanic ash increased reports of livestock mortality, migration, critical water shortage, human health problems and rising malnutrition among the worst volcanic affected woredas [districts]: Bidu, Afdera, Erebti, Elidar, Teru and Kori. 
 
 "In Bidu woreda, [the] deaths of 31 persons were reported as a result of the volcano ash." 
 
 At least 68.6 million birr (about US $4 million) are required to respond to the emergency needs, according to an appeal made by the Afar government, which said 48,000 people were affected in the Bidu, Afdera, Erebti and Teru woredas. 
 
In total 167,153 people, including those from the Elidar and Kori woredas, required monitoring, according to an emergency assessment team deployed there in mid-June. 
 
 However, Ethiopia's federal government said it did not endorse the Afar regional government appeal and was assessing the situation. 
 
 "We have looked at the [appeal] document and I [would] like to make it clear that it is not a national document and that we have not endorsed it," Aklog Nigatu, a spokesman at the Agriculture Ministry’s disaster management agency, told IRIN. 
 
 Aklog added that the ministry had no record of casualties, adding that it was still too early to say how many people had been affected and needed help. 
 
 Mohammed Amin, a nutritionist in Afar, told IRIN: "The dispatched team [of experts] went deep into the affected areas, up to 10km from [where] the volcano erupted; food there is [contaminated] by the volcanic ash." 
 
 He said residents had been advised not to eat locally produced food in case of contamination. 
 
 The effects of the eruption had increased the vulnerability of the affected population in the predominantly pastoral region, said the appeal. 
 
 Amid fears that one of Ethiopia’s largest salt mines in the Afdera area had been contaminated by the volcanic ash, Aklog said: "Experts, including [those] from the Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute, are going to examine if the salt production in Afdera is contaminated with toxic materials so its consumption and exportation can be halted." 
 
 Eritrean response 
 
 On 5 July, the Eritrean ministry of information [ http://www.shabait.com/news/local-news/6248-displaced-nationals-due-to-natural-disaster-are-in-good-health-condition-report ] reported that Eritrean nationals displaced due to the volcanic eruption and earthquake were in good health. 
 
 Michael Gebrehiwet, head of a ministerial team comprising health, labour and human welfare staff members, said no communicable disease had been recorded in the new settlement site of those displaced. 
 
 Regarding the impact of the continued emission of dust and smoke, Michael said this did not pose a serious health concern, with itching having been reported among some of those affected. 
 
 Mihreteab Fisehaye, the director-general of social security in Eritrea's Ministry of Labour and Human Welfare, said "concerted action" was being undertaken to help those displaced. 
 
 kt-aw/js/mw

 ]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/93161/ERITREA-ETHIOPIA-Thousands-need-aid-after-volcano-eruption</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201107061302470828t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">ADDIS ABABA/NAIROBI 06 July 2011 (IRIN) - Thousands of Ethiopians in Afar State are facing critical food, water and health gaps almost a month after a volcano erupted in neighbouring Eritrea&apos;s Nabro region, officials say.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>ERITREA-SUDAN: Refugees battling for a better life</title><pubDate>Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201107011035070354t.jpg" />]]>KHARTOUM/KASSALA 01 July 2011 (IRIN) - The first official Eritrean refugees arrived in Sudan in 1968; today, an estimated 1,600 cross the border every month to seek refuge in Shagarab, a large camp in the east of Sudan.</description><body><![CDATA[KHARTOUM/KASSALA 01 July 2011 (IRIN) - The first official Eritrean refugees arrived in Sudan in 1968; today, an estimated 1,600 cross the border every month to seek refuge in Shagarab, a large camp in the east of Sudan. 
 
 The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that northern Sudan has more than 100,000 Eritrean refugees but in 43 years, the profile of the refugees has changed. 
 
 "The new arrivals are generally young and well educated; they come from the highlands and have no cultural or ethnic ties with local populations," said Mohamed Ahmed Elaghbash, Sudan's Commissioner for Refugees. "Most of them take Sudan as a transit country. They stay here for some time until they get the opportunity to move northwards. Sometimes, they try to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92921 ] in order to reach Europe." 
 
 In contrast, those who arrived in 1968, escaping the Eritrean war of independence (from 1961 to 1991), made a life in Sudan and some even managed to obtain Sudanese documents. 
 
 Of the Eritrean refugees in Sudan, about 40,000 live with the local community and belong to the same ethnic group. The Rashaida and Beja, for example, are found on both sides of the border. 
 
 New arrivals 
 
 However, the situation for newer Eritrean refugees is different. 
 
 Gideon Tesfazion told IRIN he fled his country in 2008 and spent a year in the camp before obtaining his refugee papers. 
 
 An opponent of the Eritrean administration, Tesfazion now lives in Khartoum and has worked a string of poorly paid jobs. 
 
 "As a refugee, a lot of jobs are forbidden to us, even in the international organizations based in Khartoum; we can only work in small private companies as a painter or a cleaner," he said. 
 
 With the independence of Southern Sudan on 9 July, the Khartoum government is implementing a new citizenship law [ http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92943 ] and Eritrean refugees fear the authorities will be stricter about their rights. They also fear the population will be tougher on them. 
 
 "After July, the situation will be worse and worse for Eritreans," he said. "We look like them, we act like them. However, Sudanese are scared of us. Then, because we are refugees, some people in the administration ask us for money with no true reason." 
 
 Tesfazion sees the effects of this discrimination on the new Eritrean refugees. 
 
 "We see them coming to Khartoum with no legal status; they are moving all the time in town from one friend’s house to another," he said. "They are trying to cross the border quickly to reach Europe but you need at least US$5,000 for that." 
 
 Smuggling risk 
 
 In the 12 camps that flank the border of Eritrea and Sudan, UNHCR has set up workshops to warn the public about using smugglers. 
 
 "We explain to them that it is very dangerous, that they can die during the journey," Boray Assadig, one of the lawyers for refugees in Shagarab camp, said. "For example, the boat can drown in the Mediterranean Sea. But it is not easy to convince them because it is almost impossible for them to get authorization to leave the camp for Khartoum and more difficult to leave the country." 
 
 In partnership with the Sudanese Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR registers each new arrival using the refugee status determination protocol. Registration is supposed to make it easier for them to get refugee documents. 
 
 Many Eritrean men, for example, are soldiers fleeing military service, which, though officially limited to 18 months, can extend indefinitely. So the investigators question them on their unit and the weapons they carried to verify their identity. 
 
 Integration 
 
 During her visit to Shagarab on 20 June for the International Day of Refugees, Janet Lim, the operational assistant to the High Commissioner, focused on the integration of refugees into the local population, the only effective lever, in her opinion, to reduce the phenomenon of people smuggling and allow refugees a better life. 
 
 Lim also promised that UNHCR and various international organizations would install water pumps and distribute food to the local population on the condition that they allow new refugees to work and integrate into their communities. 
 
 Between toiling in the midst of local communities or moving to Khartoum to risk the perilous journey East, Mokonen Teolebrhomes, 60, does not know what to do any more. 
 
 A political dissident, Teolebrhomes fled his country for the first time for Shagarab in 1981. Thanks to sisters in Japan, he was able to live in exile in Asia for more than 20 years. In 1995, his homesickness led him back to Eritrea. 
 
 "When I was back in Eritrea, I was still registered as a political activist," he said. So, I fled again two months ago. And here I am back in Shagarab. I can’t go to Japan again because my step-brother was my sponsor the first time. Now, he’s retired. He can’t sponsor me any more. I don’t know what to do. In Japan, it was paradise, here it is hell." 
 
 mg/jb/js/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/93118/ERITREA-SUDAN-Refugees-battling-for-a-better-life</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201107011035070354t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">KHARTOUM/KASSALA 01 July 2011 (IRIN) - The first official Eritrean refugees arrived in Sudan in 1968; today, an estimated 1,600 cross the border every month to seek refuge in Shagarab, a large camp in the east of Sudan.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>EGYPT/ISRAEL: Tortured for ransom in the Sinai desert</title><pubDate>Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201106071115580301t.jpg" />]]>CAIRO/TEL AVIV 07 June 2011 (IRIN) - Sarame had looked forward to leaving Eritrea with her husband and living a better life in Israel, until they found themselves kidnapped for money by local Bedouins in Egypt’s Sinai desert.</description><body><![CDATA[CAIRO/TEL AVIV 07 June 2011 (IRIN) - Serame* had looked forward to leaving Eritrea with her husband and living a better life in Israel, until they found themselves kidnapped for money by local Bedouins in Egypt’s Sinai desert.
 
"They threatened to kill me and my husband if we did not pay," she said. "They did not beat me, but other people were told to take off their clothes and were beaten. At the end, they separated the women from the men; they came in the night and took two girls. When the girls came back they were crying. The others did not ask what happened to them because they knew they had been raped."
 
Serame, who spoke to IRIN in the Israeli city of Jaffa, is just one of the hundreds of asylum-seekers trafficked by international gangs every month from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East, mainly through Sudan, ostensibly in search of better opportunities. However, say human rights groups, many of them end up in captivity. Bedouin tribes in Sinai, which borders Israel, often hold them until their relatives pay a ransom. 
 
"Over the past year, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel's Open Clinic [ http://www.phr.org.il/default.asp?PageID=100&ItemID=1044 ] has treated thousands of victims of torture who have entered Israel after surviving captivity and torture in the Sinai desert," said Shahar Shoham, director of the organization's refugees and status-less persons department. "Out of 284 interviewed, 59 percent report being held captive in chains; 52 percent reported that they were subjected to serious violence, including punching, slapping, kicking and whipping. 
 
"We salute our colleagues in Egypt working to protect and defend the rights of refugees and call on Egyptian authorities immediately to put an end to the horrific acts we have documented, to free the captives, and provide full protection to the victims."
 
Testimonies
 
Like Serame, another captive, Nasih, left Eritrea after a friend said there was a good job in Sudan. "Seven people were taken, but the employer took us to a house in Kassala [northeastern Sudan], where we found two girls chained," he said in Jaffa. "He [the employer] kept us in the house for one month, before he brought the seven to Sinai. It took 10 days to enter Sinai. Here, they beat us severely.”
 
After three days, he escaped but was caught again by the traffickers. "They beat me until my body was swollen," he told IRIN. "Then they told me to beat the others. An old man told me to beat the others because I had no choice. I was crying while doing this, so did the persons that I was beating. Then I was forced to build a house with the other men. The men were working while chained. 
 
"We escaped from the smugglers again. I was weak and had swollen legs. The others ran, but they caught me again. I did not call my mother because she is very poor and I have no family abroad to ask for money to pay the ransom. They tied me for many months, and made me do dirty jobs. For 12 days I did not eat. I stayed 10 months with them, working like a slave. I lost sense of the days and months. Eventually, they sent me to Israel after friends I met in the Sinai paid US$3,000 for my release."
 
Another victim was Samuel who also now lives in Jaffa. "After we arrived in Sudan from Eritrea, we waited for 21 days but the traffickers did not come," he said. "During this time, five in the group died of thirst. I don't dream of them but the words 'give us water, give us water' keep playing in my head. We drank our urine to survive. After the traffickers came, I was moved between five different groups [of smugglers]. I was held in a camp for 20 days, chained. I witnessed others die. I was beaten, denied food and water and tortured by exposure to the hot sun."
 
Like the other three, Fethawi went through a traumatic experience. "I saw four people die of thirst, after they were left without water for four days in the desert. They cried for water and for their mothers and there was none to give to them. I was really traumatized by this experience, and never thought I would get out alive. I could not speak due to thirst; it was a terrible experience and I suffered from nightmares long after."
 
Some of the survivors of this ordeal, now calling themselves the Sinai Group, regularly meet in Neve Sha'anan in Israel to pray both for those who died and for those still in captivity. "Some of the members come every month, some don’t, but it is good if they come and talk together," Serame said, adding that not all traffickers treated their captives badly.
 
"There are more than 15 groups in the Sinai," she said. "Some of them treat the refugees well, give them food, advise them. There are three or four that are bad."
  
Forms of torture
 
According to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, the forms of torture used include burial in the sand, electric shocks, hanging by the hands and legs, branding with hot metal, as well as rape and sexual abuse. "Forty-four percent of respondents stated that they witnessed violence and/or fatalities of other asylum-seekers," Shoham said. "Most mention being deprived of food or water during their period of captivity in Sinai."
 
In Egypt, local human rights groups have called on their government to ensure the asylum-seekers are protected in line with May 2010 legislation which criminalizes people-trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation.
 
“Our government must have clear plans for dealing with migrants who try to cross the border from here to other countries,” said Ahmed Badawi, chairman of NGO the Egyptian Organization for the Rights of Refugees. “Egypt has signed many agreements in this regard and it must abide by the terms of these agreements.”
 
In December, 13 Egyptian human rights groups issued a statement [ http://www.anhri.net/en/?p=1877 ] calling on their government to intervene. The victims, they said, were being beaten, burned, and lashed with electric cables, while the captors communicated with their relatives to pressure them to pay ransom.
 
"Women are separated from the men and repeatedly gang raped by their captors," the statement said.
 
These groups say they have continued to get reports about the inhuman treatment the migrants receive at the hands of their Bedouin captors. A group of 200 Eritreans, they say for example, has been detained for months now in inhuman conditions in Sinai.
 
The Bedouin have traditionally occupied the Sinai peninsula, a triangle-shaped region wedged between the Suez Canal to the west and the Israeli-Egyptian border to the northeast. The Bedouin, a historically nomadic people, complain of government neglect and discrimination. As a largely demilitarized zone under the terms of the 1979 Camp David peace agreement, Sinai is only lightly policed by the Egyptian authorities.
 
Transit country
 
Egypt, according to the 2010 US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children who are subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically for forced labour and forced prostitution.
 
The report [ http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010/142759.htm ] says Ethiopians, Eritreans, Sudanese, Indonesians, Filipinos, and possibly Sri Lankans migrate willingly to Egypt where they are sometimes subjected to forced domestic work.
 
A November 2010 report by the UN Refugee Agency said 39,461 refugees and asylum-seekers were registered in Egypt. Most of these, it noted, were Sudanese, followed by Iraqis, Somalis, Ethiopians, and Eritreans.
 
According to Human Rights Watch, a network smuggling sub-Saharan migrants through Egypt to Israel has been operating in the Sinai region since at least 2007. In addition to smugglers who guide people across borders unlawfully for money but who do not otherwise exploit and abuse them, there are also human traffickers operating in Sinai who abuse the migrants under their control and hold them for ransom. 
 
The smugglers normally ask for $2,500-$3,000 for the trip to Israel border. But upon arrival in Sinai, the migrants often find themselves in the hands of traffickers who demand additional money - ranging from $500-$10,000. The traffickers threaten to kill or otherwise harm the migrants - in several cases, to remove and sell their kidneys for a large illegal market in Egypt - if they do not pay.
 
“Egyptian authorities frequently say they are cracking down on organized crime in the Sinai," Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW warned [ http://reliefweb.int/node/377927 ], in December. "But the government is slow to react when human traffickers are holding hundreds of migrants for ransom."
 
td/ae/eo/cb/oa

* Aliases have been used

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/92921/EGYPT-ISRAEL-Tortured-for-ransom-in-the-Sinai-desert</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201106071115580301t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">CAIRO/TEL AVIV 07 June 2011 (IRIN) - Sarame had looked forward to leaving Eritrea with her husband and living a better life in Israel, until they found themselves kidnapped for money by local Bedouins in Egypt’s Sinai desert.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>FOOD: Home-grown nutrition research for Africa</title><pubDate>Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2008/2008022618t.jpg" />]]>JOHANNESBURG 21 April 2011 (IRIN) - A group of international academic institutions and an NGO backed by the European Union (EU) have launched Sustainable Nutrition Research for Africa in the Years to come, or SUNRAY, to develop a nutrition agenda for Africa, with specific emphasis on the 34 sub-Saharan countries.</description><body><![CDATA[JOHANNESBURG 21 April 2011 (IRIN) - A group of international academic institutions and an NGO backed by the European Union (EU) have launched Sustainable Nutrition Research for Africa in the Years to come, or SUNRAY, [ http://sunrayafrica.co.za ] to develop a nutrition agenda for Africa, with specific emphasis on the 34 sub-Saharan countries. 
 
 "We want to make sure nutrition interventions in the next 10-15 years - when Africa faces potential environmental changes which will impact on nutrition - are sustainable, driven by African countries, and their priorities are not pre-defined by donors," said Carl Lachat, a researcher at the Belgium-based Institute for Tropical Medicine, one of the participating institutions. 
 
 A recent study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a US-based think-tank, found that in another two decades the effect of climate change on food production could drive child malnutrition up by 20 percent. 
 
 The two-year SUNRAY project has invited proposals for working papers from African researchers to review the relationship between nutrition and climate change; the influence of rising food prices; the future availability of water; social dynamics in households, and the effect of rapid urbanization, among other themes in order to identify the specific research needs for nutrition in these areas. 
 
 Research in Africa 
 
 Proposals for working papers will be assessed by academics at four universities in sub-Saharan Africa: North-West University in South Africa; Sokoine University in Tanzania; the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin; and Makerere University in Uganda. 
 
 "South Africa plays in a different league in terms of research when compared to the rest of Africa, but our research is more influenced by Western concepts, so if you are to look at good home-grown research pertaining to local foodstuffs, Nigeria and Kenya are a lot more advanced," said Prof Annamarie Kruger, director of the Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research at North-West University. 
 
 "This project is very attractive in the sense that we now have an opportunity to develop interventions suited for African conditions and we have a say in our agenda; we also know the gaps that need to be addressed - it is not like we are doing research for European driven projects." 
 
 Lachat pointed out that the backing of the EU meant rich countries are calling for African involvement in setting the priorities for nutrition research and funding. 
 
 Proposals for the project are being accepted by 22 April, with the first of a series of workshops with the authors being held later in 2011. 
 
 Ahead of the workshops, the collaborating institutions intend holding discussions with nutritionists, researchers, businesspeople in the food sector, and policy makers in seven African countries - Benin, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Togo and Tanzania. 
 
 Lachat said they realized that political backing was critical to ensure the research made the journey from paper to the real world, so "we are involving African political leaders in the initiative." 
 
 The project will produce a roadmap document summarising research priorities, strengths and gaps, resource requirements, opportunities for linkage and support between African and Northern institutions, or synergies between existing initiatives and research in other sectors. 
 
 Only nine of the 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa are on track to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. 
 
 jk/he

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/92550/FOOD-Home-grown-nutrition-research-for-Africa</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2008/2008022618t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">JOHANNESBURG 21 April 2011 (IRIN) - A group of international academic institutions and an NGO backed by the European Union (EU) have launched Sustainable Nutrition Research for Africa in the Years to come, or SUNRAY, to develop a nutrition agenda for Africa, with specific emphasis on the 34 sub-Saharan countries.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>AFRICA: Opposition building to Great Green Wall</title><pubDate>Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201104081211530965t.jpg" />]]>NAIROBI 08 April 2011 (IRIN) - What’s green, controversial, 15km wide, 7,775km long, cuts across 11 African countries and is designed to reduce livestock deaths and boost food security for millions of people? Nothing yet, but the Great Green Wall project, a pipe-dream for decades, was recently endorsed by a swathe of African states stretching from Senegal to Djibouti.</description><body><![CDATA[NAIROBI 08 April 2011 (IRIN) - What’s green, controversial, 15km wide, 7,775km long, cuts across 11 African countries and is designed to reduce livestock deaths and boost food security for millions of people? Nothing yet, but the Great Green Wall project, a pipe-dream for decades, was recently endorsed by a swathe of African states stretching from Senegal to Djibouti. 
 [ http://www.thegef.org/gef/press_release/great_green_wall_2011 ] 
 
 An estimated 10 million people faced severe food shortages due to recurrent drought and climate change in the Sahel region last year. [ http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34840&Cr=Africa&Cr1=hunger ] In Niger alone, the famine in 2010 left half the country’s population needing food aid and one in six children suffering from acute malnutrition. Some villagers in Niger described 2010 as worse than the 1973 drought that killed thousands of people, according to Malek Triki, West African spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP). [ http://www.wfp.org/content/aid-workers-warn-famine-disaster-niger ] 
 
 The Great Green Wall (GGW) project, originally proposed by Burkina Faso’s Marxist leader Thomas Sankara in the 1980s, was later resurrected by former Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo in 2005 before receiving approval by the African Union in December 2006. In June 2010, 11 countries involved signed a convention in Chad to further the development of the project, but the plan remained on standby until February when it was officially approved at an international summit in Bonn, Germany. 
 
 During the summit, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) [ http://www.thegef.org/gef/whatisgef ] set aside US$115 million to fund the wall. Mohamed I Bakarr, a senior environment specialist with GEF, told IRIN the wall “is in reality a metaphor to reflect the vision of African leaders for an integrated land-use system that addresses environment and development needs across all affected countries”. The GEF foresees the wall adopting a “mosaic” of “sustainable land-management systems with stakeholders, including grassroots communities, in all 11 countries implementing options that are appropriate to the local context”. 
 
 The plan entails each country implementing its own land, water and vegetation-management projects on up to two million hectares of land, under the framework of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. [ http://www.thegef.org/gef/press_release/great_green_wall_2011 ] Monique Barbut, CEO of the GEF, said in a statement it would not fund “an all-out tree-funding drive from Dakar to Djibouti”, but rather, would allocate the funding according to national priorities, which have yet to be finalized. In a paper adopted by the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) in 2008, alleviating poverty is said to be one of the wall’s principal objectives. 
 
 The paper outlines national and regional objectives, including consolidating and expanding existing greenbelts of trees, conserving biodiversity, restoring and conserving soil and promoting income-generating activities, as well as carbon capture and storage of 0.5-3.1 million tons of carbon per year. [ http://www.grandemurailleverte.org/gmven/donnees/Concept_Note.pdf ] 
 
 Indigenous communities "threatened" 
 
 The project has faced opposition, despite its stated commitment to combating drought and desertification, which have exacted a heavy toll on the region as a whole. Wally Menne, a member of Timberwatch, the African NGO focal point for the Global Forest Coalition, told IRIN the organization was sceptical. “In our view it seems poorly conceived in terms of both ecological and socio-economic considerations. Its chances of being a success could be limited, and it may even cause more harm to the environment,” he said. The Global Forest Coalition campaigns for the rights of indigenous and forest people and for socially just policies. 
 
 Menne added that the inclusion of carbon sequestration activities and the potential future development of REDD projects (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) as components of the GGW would require converting suitable land within the belt to fast-growing foreign species of monoculture tree plantations and carbon sinks opposed by many indigenous groups in the Sahel. Growing plantations would also require displacing people living on land earmarked for the GGW and would lead to further depletion of scarce water sources. 
 
 A concept paper on the kinds of vegetal species to be included in the GGW states that the wall will run through both inhabited and uninhabited areas, but will be located in areas where the average annual rainfall is higher than 200mm. It also stated that the only species to be adapted to the wall would be "primarily those that are found, live and develop there". [ http://www.grandemurailleverte.org/donnees/especes_vegetal.pdf ] 
 
 However, in a statement to the Indigenous People’s of Africa Coordinating Committee, IPACC, Sada Albachir, director of Association Tunfa, a Tuareg human rights group in Niger, said that “international agreements in the past introduced alien invasive species into the Sahara, without tackling the root problems of poor governance, dangerous uranium mining, and a failure to conserve biodiversity and water security in the arid region. I think the idea of planting a Green Wall across Africa is not to be entertained by indigenous people living in the proposed sites, unless the project has been studied in collaboration with them and they are also involved in the implementation.” [ http://www.ipacc.org.za/eng/news_details.asp?NID=276 ] 
 
 The programme coordinator for the OSS, Jihed Ghannem, told IRIN such concerns were baseless. “The full participation of communities is essential,” he said. 
 
 Timberwatch’s Menne told IRIN: “In my experience, ‘consulting’ local communities usually means misinforming them about the potential impacts of a project by exaggerating how they will benefit, whilst neglecting to inform them of the negative impacts. When they say that local communities will be an integral part of the project, it normally means that they will be used to provide cheap labour.” 
 
 Part of the GGW concept plan includes a section on “Food for Work” designed to recruit unemployed workers in each country to help with the planting of the greenbelt in the Sahel. According to OSS, under the scheme, “members of the communities assuming responsibilities are paid in part at the time of planting. The remainder is paid two years later on the basis of the plant growth scale.” The plan also indicates that private businesses, including “initiators of safari parks, modern farming, ecotourist sites” will find “some economic opportunities” in the wall. [ http://www.grandemurailleverte.org/gmven/objectifs.php ] 
 
 Menne said the wall could be a useful tool to combat desertification only if “viewed as an exercise in adaptation, rather than as an opportunity for climate change mitigation and making money from CDM/REDD carbon offsets as presently envisioned”. 
 
 According to Khadija Hassan*, representative of an indigenous people’s organization, the GGW might also interfere with migration patterns of pastoral communities and instead should incorporate ancestral systems of land management. “It would be best to protect what already exists in the region, stop the felling of trees in valleys and oases, repair damage caused by climate change, educate communities about REDD and restore livestock that has been lost,” she said. “I find the project is good, but too ambitious.” 
 
 *Not her real name 
 
 zm/am/mw

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/92422/AFRICA-Opposition-building-to-Great-Green-Wall</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201104081211530965t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">NAIROBI 08 April 2011 (IRIN) - What’s green, controversial, 15km wide, 7,775km long, cuts across 11 African countries and is designed to reduce livestock deaths and boost food security for millions of people? Nothing yet, but the Great Green Wall project, a pipe-dream for decades, was recently endorsed by a swathe of African states stretching from Senegal to Djibouti.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>SAHEL: Meningitis - the role of dust</title><pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[<img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201101120725490578t.jpg" />]]>DAKAR 14 February 2011 (IRIN) - Researchers are analysing dust from the Sahel to study its role in the spread of bacterial meningitis in this region hardest hit by the debilitating and often fatal disease.</description><body><![CDATA[DAKAR 14 February 2011 (IRIN) - Researchers are analysing dust from the Sahel to study its role in the spread of bacterial meningitis in this region hardest hit by the debilitating and often fatal disease. 
 
 Study of the link between climate and infectious diseases is increasingly important as environmental changes appear to be pushing the so-called meningitis belt - from Ethiopia to Senegal – southwards, experts say. 
 
 Researchers with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) [ http://portal.iri.columbia.edu/portal/server.pt ] at Columbia University, which looks at how climate information can be incorporated into preventive measures or early warning systems, are collecting dust samples in Ghana, Niger and Senegal in the study’s initial phase. 
 
 In the meningitis belt meningococcal meningitis outbreaks come with the dry season and taper off with the first rains, and dust has long been seen as contributing to the spread. Experts say mineral dust could be irritating membranes making people vulnerable to infection, or in other ways favour the spread of the bacteria. [ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs141/en/index.html ] 
 
 “The mechanism by which dust may influence meningitis epidemic occurrence remains unclear,” IRI senior research scientist Madeleine Thomson told IRIN. “But the most common explanation for this role is that physical damage to the epithelial cells lining the nose and throat in dry and dusty conditions permits easy passage of the bacteria into the blood stream.” 
 
 The study will further probe the dust’s characteristics. “We will look at the properties of the dust and other climatic and environmental variables and determine whether, or to what extent, they influence the spatial and temporal occurrence of either carriage [when bacteria are present in the nose and throat but are non-invasive] or disease [when the bacteria are in the bloodstream],” Thomson said. 
 
 Researchers must also consider other potential mechanisms, said Thomson. For instance, she said, dust particles may impact the fluid dynamics of airborne transmission of the bacteria as well as preceding viral infections, and the high iron content of Sahelian dust may help activate the iron-hungry meningococcus bacteria. 
 
 High dust levels might also affect human behaviour: Crowding in small rooms with windows blocked can reduce ventilation, and facilitate transmission. Dust could also have an impact on other climatic variables, such as temperature and humidity, which may also be important drivers of meningitis infection and disease, Thomson explained.
 
 While several diverse factors play a role in bacterial meningitis outbreaks, an understanding of how the dust might be affecting people’s vulnerability can significantly boost prevention efforts, experts say. 
 
 In support of vaccine strategies 
 
 The dust research adds to a broader international World Health Organization-led project called MERIT [ http://merit.hc-foundation.org/ ] (meningitis environmental risk information technologies), which is designed to support current vaccine strategies as well as the African Meningoccocal Carriage Consortium (MenAfriCar), [ http://www.menafricar.org/ ] and the distribution of the new proactive vaccine currently being rolled out in West Africa. The new vaccine provides 10 years of protection as opposed to two or three. [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=90773 ] 
 
 Meningococcal disease - bacterial meningitis - occurs throughout the world, but attack rates in the meningitis belt are many times higher than those in other parts of the world. Death rates are generally 5-10 percent, according to MenAfriCar. The disease can also cause blindness, hearing loss, brain damage and loss of limbs. 
 
 The dust study is being funded by the NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan [ http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/niehs/ ] and by a grant/cooperative agreement from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [ http://www.noaa.gov ] 
 
 IRI’s Thomson said interdisciplinary research into such burdens in poor countries is particularly difficult to fund, but that study of climate-sensitive infectious diseases like meningitis and malaria is increasingly important. “Climate and environmental change have the potential to impact on the effectiveness of disease control programmes,” she told IRIN. “For instance, there is a major concern that changes in the climate and environment are pushing the meningitis belt southwards; if this is the case there will be important implications for the development of meningitis control strategies.” 
 
 Burden 
 
 While meningitis is not the top killer disease in the Sahel, the frequent, major epidemics deal a heavy blow to health systems and to families and communities. 
 
 “Meningitis not only kills, it maims,” IRI’s Francesco Fiondella told IRIN. “It has long-term impacts on society. It draws resources from families and societies when people either die from the disease or become deaf or blind or lose a limb.” 
 
 Kandioura Touré, head of epidemiological surveillance and infectious illness in Mali’s Health Ministry, said meningitis is a constant burden and any progress in reducing cases has a huge impact. 
 
 “Meningitis weighs heavily not only on families - with deaths and cases of deafness and other disabilities - but also on the health system,” he told IRIN. “Each year we face these epidemics.” 
 
 Mali is one of three countries where the new vaccine is being rolled out. “These efforts give us hope we can finally eliminate the burden of this disease,” Touré said. 
 
 np/cb

]]></body><link>http://www.irinnews.org/Report/91916/SAHEL-Meningitis-the-role-of-dust</link><content:encoded><![CDATA[<table cellpadding="3"><tr><td valign="top"><img src="http://www.irinnews.org/images/2011/201101120725490578t.jpg"/></td><td valign="top">DAKAR 14 February 2011 (IRIN) - Researchers are analysing dust from the Sahel to study its role in the spread of bacterial meningitis in this region hardest hit by the debilitating and often fatal disease.</td></tr></table>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>