The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has rated Nigeria among the nine countries with the highest rate of illiteracy in the World. Education Minister, Professor Fabian Osuji, dropped the hint at a press conference in Owerri at the weekend.

The first issue of the Kwani? literary journal proved that Kenyans are interested in Kenyan writing, with 1 000 copies being snapped up in the first months and 2 500 copies having being distributed to date. Readers work in corporate Nairobi, or in the NGO sector or policy institutes and think tanks. Anyone interested in advertising in subsequent editions of Kwani? and reaching Kenyans in Kenya and abroad can find out more about the journal and advertising rates by clicking on the link below.

This issue includes:
* Modernity, tradition and the demystification of cattle in Lesotho by David Turkon;
* From Manenberg to Soweto: race and coloured identity in the black consciousness poetry of James Matthews by Mohamed Adhikari;
* Inland fisheries, tenure systems and livelihood diversification in Africa: The case of the Yae´re´ floodplains in Lake Chad Basin by Christophe Be´ne´, Koane´ Mindjimba, Emma Belal, Thomas Jolley, Arthur Neiland;
* When tea is a luxury: The economic impact of HIV/AIDS in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe by Miriam R. Grant, Andrew D. Palmiere.

UNESCO is working with WorldSpace Corporation, the operator of the Afristar satellite for digital radio broadcasting in Africa, to demonstrate and test the potential of digital radio to deliver low budget, effective, multimedia based and real time distance education to rural learners in Africa. The project will involve a short course in February 2004 on Community Telecentre Development aimed at African telecentre staff, and at NGOs and decision makers working in the area of application of ICTs for development in Africa.

Jeebleh is a Somalian who returns from the comfort of New York to his homeland of Somalia after an absence of more than 20 years. He has returned to his birthplace to mourn the death of his recently deceased mother. He has left his anxious family behind, and arrives in Mogadiscio as foreigner with a Somali passport. His distance, his separation, from his nuclear family, is a metaphor for the similar distance between the reality of Somalia and his/our notions of family. His journey into his unfamiliar homeland is about the discovery that family is not nuclear, it is clan, and this requires a re-learning of the language that circumscribes our definitions of self.

Volume 30 Number 96/June 2003 of Review of African Political Economy is now available.
This issue contains:
* War & the Forgotten Continent by Rita Abrahamsen, Ray Bush;
* Africa: The Next Liberation Struggle? by John S. Saul;
* Land Reform in Southern Africa in World-Historical Perspective by Henry Bernstein.

This is the story of one young woman’s struggle to regain her life after her entire family is slain during the 1994 genocide of Rwanda. It tells of her pain and triumphs in her relationship with an American doctor whom she meets at the refugee camp where she works as a nurse, and of her quest to seek asylum in the United States.

In this 2004 edition, the Worldwatch Institute examines how our world consumes, why we consume, and the impact that our consumption choices have on the planet and its people. With chapters on food, water, energy, the politics of consumption, and redefining the good life, State of the World 2004 asks whether a less-consumptive society is possible - and then argues that it is essential.

Is civil society the big idea for the 21st century? Or will the idea of civil society - confused, conflated and co-opted by elites - prove another false horizon in the search for a better world? By illuminating the uses and abuses of different theories and traditions in clear and engaging prose, this book will help readers of all persuasions to answer this question for themselves. Drawing inspiration and examples from history and contemporary experience, Islam and Christianity, South and North, and activists and academics, this book gives voice to a rich and diverse account of civil society in its many different guises.

In 2001, Steve Connolly, MD of New Holland Publishers, asked Geoff Hill to interview ordinary Zimbabweans and find out what was really happening in the country. Over the past two years, Geoff sought the views of more than a thousand people -- mostly black -- in Zimbabwe and among the three million exiles now living in South Africa, Botswana and the UK. Geoff spoke to people inside the ruling ZANU-PF party; victims of the Matebeleland massacres of the mid-80s; opposition figures; Mugabe's childhood friends; people who had been tortured and some who had committed acts of torture and murder for both ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC. What emerged was a picture of a country that had gone astray. The resultant book, “The battle for Zimbabwe” looks at what went wrong in Zimbabwe, how to avoid the same thing happening in South Africa and what the world could do to bring Zimbabwe back into the fold.

Zimbabweans trying to leave the country in search of economic opportunities are having to deal with government officials whom they allege are turning their plight into profit, IRIN has learnt. Rising incidents of graft by public officials has coincided with Zimbabwe's worsening economic conditions, according to the anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International (TI). It ranked Zimbabwe as among the world's most corrupt countries in a report released in October.

The "Pleasure through Reading" project uses television programmes to stimulate and promote reading in Zambia. The project is being promoted by Window Images-Media in Development in the light of growing concern that reading habits in Zambia were rapidly falling and that most Zambians ranging from school going children to adults do not read for pleasure. The organisers hoped that through “Pleasure Through Reading” a broad cross-section of people would find the programme not only interesting and educative but also challenging and motivating to the extent of taking up reading.

This issue includes:
* NGOs and the Constitutional Debate in Zimbabwe: from Inclusion to Exclusion by Sara Rich Dorman;
* The Politics of Decentralisation and Donor Funding in South Africa's Rural Water Sector by Mary Galvin and Adam Habib;
* Globalisation and Africa's Economic Recovery: a Case Study of the European Union-South Africa Post-Apartheid Trading Regime by Richard Gibb; and
* André Brink and the Implications of Tragedy for Apartheid South Africa by Isidore Diala.

Structural Stability is a particular focus for reconceptualising developmental strategy and development aid and has provoked unforeseen responses in the course of a recent, mainly German debate. This debate began late in 2000 when a number of prominent German scholars in African Studies initiated a policy dialogue through a widely circulated and publicly discussed "Afrika Memorandum" centred on the notion of structural stability. Its arguments are relevant not only to a German audience but offer stimulating and thought-provoking inputs into the debate in the wider European context on bilateral and multilateral relations with Africa. This Discussion Paper presents the revised contributions to a Consultative Workshop on Structural Stability in an African Context that took place at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala on 31 March and 1 April 2003.

In the shade of an acacia tree, a cluster of Kenyan women work busily, weaving baskets from sisal plant fibres. Their children are learning in a nearby schoolhouse. The school fees are paid by the money the mothers make from selling their baskets. Mary Masika, a widowed mother of seven, learned to weave sisal baskets from her mother. Now her weaving group is a part of the Machakos District Cooperative Union (MDCU), a union of artisan groups that market their products through the LWR Handcraft Project.

"We Are Still Here Ambuya," sings mbira player and activist Machingura in his new CD released recently in Berkeley, California. Linking struggles for social justice in Zimbabwe, the United States, and around the world, Machingura's music-making in California follows on his experience as vocalist in Harare's Luck Street Blues band in the late 1990s. It has also led to his selection as one of six "Artist Ambassadors" for the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India in January. He follows in a rich tradition of Zimbabwean musicians whose music has both reflected and inspired their people's quest for justice, reports the AfricaFocus Bulletin, whose latest newsletter features words from the title track of Machingura's "We Are Still Here," along with a link to download the song or order the CD. It also features a selection of links to introduce the reader to the rich world of Zimbabwean music online, with reviews, downloads, background articles, and more.

From its humble beginnings when it attracted a mere 135 entries, this year 308 artists entered the 8th Annual Kora All-Africa Music Awards. The event, held in the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg on December 6, has over the years grown into the most important platform for African artists to expose their talent. The ceremony is telecast live all over the world.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has announced that it will work with a Swiss government agency to set up 150 multimedia centres in marginalized communities in Africa, providing locals with access to information and communication technologies through the Internet. In a statement released at its headquarters in Paris, UNESCO said the community multimedia centres (CMCs), which will have radio, telephone and fax facilities, as well as computers, connected to the Internet, will be built in three countries: Mali, Mozambique and Senegal.

A fully revised and comprehensive overview of the history and global development of tourism, often considered the largest industry in the world. Despite promising great benefits to hosts and guests alike, tourism has often resulted in some very stark and painful consequences for local host communities and the environment. This second edition provides updated information on global tourism and examines how local communities in different parts of the world, especially indigenous peoples, have responded to the challenges and opportunities that tourism and eco-travel brings.

Free trade and its virtues are a mantra of contemporary economics, and a fixed point of policy for the World Trade Organisation. But there are many economists who disagree, and there are many ideas for alternative ways of organising world trade and increasing the development chances for poor countries. Little wonder that trade has moved beyond the realms of intellectual dispute, and become a leading campaigning issue for social movements and development NGOs.