The Education Portfolio Committee was on May 31 briefed on 'Emerging Voices: Report on Education in South African Rural Communities' which was a study on rural education in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. The Nelson Mandela Foundation, the University of Fort Hare, the Human Sciences Research Council and the Education Policy Consortium had been involved in producing the survey and report. The presenters covered the philosophy underpinning the research methodology and did not provide any hard findings, although these do exist. The philosophical approach of the Report was based on looking at rural communities as having potential within themselves to challenge problems of poverty and not looking at them as "deficit models" (communities where resources are so lacking that the only solution is to provide them with resources from outside).

The Project Director will head a team of researchers and analysts. (4 - 6 staff members in total). She/He reports to the Africa Program Director and to the President of the organisation. The Project Director will supervise the work of a small team of specialists responsible for producing high quality research, analysis and reporting. The Project Director will also oversee the preparation of report drafts. She/ He will be based in Nairobi conducting research and advocacy work in Great Lakes region and surrounding countries. Extensive travel will be required.

Crisis Group is seeking a senior analyst to work in Nigeria for its West Africa Project. The job involves working with other members of the West Africa team to research and produce reports on security, conflict, political, governance, human rights and social issues related to West Africa sub-region with particular emphasis on Nigeria. The senior analyst will carry out research and advocacy for Crisis Group in Nigeria and neighbouring countries.
Extensive travel within West Africa is required.

SANGONeT will host a Thetha forum on 29 June 2005 to provide South African civil society organisations (CSOs) with an opportunity to reflect on the focus and objectives of WSIS and related processes. It will also provide a platform to discuss the position of the South African government and civil society in this regard. A similar meeting will be held in Cape Town during July 2005.

The 4th World Conference on Mobile Learning, mLearn 2005, will take place from 25 to 28 October 2005 in Cape Town, South Africa. This annual conference is the key research and networking event for researchers, strategists, educators, technologists and practitioners from all over the world. Previous mLearn conferences have attracted participants from more than 60 countries, and is, therefore, the world's largest conference on mLearning and emerging ambient technologies

Part of the African Social Forum and the World Social Forum, the 4th Edition of the People’s Forum will take place in Fana in Mali from the 6th to the 9th of July, 2005. It is a counter summit of the G8 planed from the 6th to the 8th of July 2005 in Gleneagles, Scotland, United Kingdom.

Debt cancellation poses a problem for powerful countries in that the absence of debt implies a loss of control over weaker countries. Soren Ambrose points to a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) "facility" that would allow conditions to be imposed on countries even if they were no longer officially indebted to the IMF or taking loans from it. The use of this "facility" could limit the positive impact of debt cancellation, he writes.

A recent announcement by International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Rodrigo Rato while he was at the annual meeting of the African Development Bank in Abuja, Nigeria may signal the inauguration of a new tool for ensuring IMF, and by extension, US and G7 control of national economic policies in Global South countries.

The idea - a new IMF “facility” - has arisen in the context of G7 negotiations on multilateral debt cancellation. If it realizes its potential, it could significantly limit the positive impact of any G7 debt cancellation.

Since last year’s G8 summit in the US, there were encouraging signs that the US and the UK were both pushing for substantial multilateral debt cancellation programs. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) Gordon Brown have, with their customary competitive flourish, both been using the issue as part of their political appeal to British voters, and in the process have staked a lot on the outcome of this year’s G8 meeting, which the UK will be hosting in Scotland during the second week of July.

Since the most recent G7 Finance Ministers meeting, in April just before the IMF/World Bank spring meetings, hopes for a significant accord to announce at the Scotland meeting have dimmed. The different methods the two protagonists have proposed for “financing” the cancellation of IMF debt - the US wanting to use IMF assets, including the noxious Poverty Reduction & Growth Facility (formerly the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility), and the U.K. wanting to sell IMF gold - seem to be incompatible, and neither side is budging. In addition, some of the other G7 governments, in particular Japan and France, have been reluctant to get on board with either plan.

In the US, debt activists have been surprised by the stance taken by the Bush Administration on debt cancellation, and suspicious about its motives. Its advocacy of a 100% write-off of multilateral debt owed by between 27 and 42 countries (they’ve been a little vague) is considerably more far-reaching than the UK proposal (which has been echoed by Canada and the Netherlands), which would only cancel debt service payments for ten years. The US plan requires no additional funds from the donor countries, unlike the UK’s. Its consequent lack of “additionality” - the question of whether the ultimate result would be more cash for the countries to use to combat poverty - has moved the UK government and many European civil society groups to oppose it. Groups in the US are inclined to view debt cancellation, especially 100% multilateral cancellation, as considerably more important than “additionality”, arguing that it is the persistence of the debts that keep countries tethered to the IMF’s loans and crippling conditions.

It now appears, however, that the suspicions US groups harbor regarding the Bush Administration are not unfounded.

The hints have been there since the IMF/World Bank fall meetings in October 2004. After the G7/G8 failed to reach an agreement on debt at its June 2004 summit, public statements from Canadian Finance Minister Ralph Goodale and US Treasury Secretary John Snow in September alluded to the possible creation of a new IMF “facility” that would serve the needs of countries that neither want nor need a full-blown IMF program.

The communiqué of the IMF’s oversight body at the April 2005 meetings put the institution and its most powerful members on record for the first time as supporting such a facility, though its definition was left vague. Goodale and Snow made it sound like a staff monitoring program, in which a country submits to IMF supervision without getting any new loans; in April it was described more as a new program to “pre-qualify” countries for IMF loans if they were hit by a currency crisis.

Whichever way it was framed, it was likely to serve the same purpose: a formal way of continuing to impose its conditions on countries even if they were no longer officially indebted to the IMF or taking loans from it. This may answer the suspicions that arose with the Bush Administration’s support for sweeping debt cancellation. After all, if one accepts the premise that the primary function of debt in the global economy is to allow powerful countries to maintain control of weaker countries' economies - with the IMF and World Bank's primary purpose being to serve as the tools for doing that - an obvious question when a debt cancellation program is proposed would be "how will they continue to maintain that control?"

Some more specifics came into view in Abuja. Rato finally gave the new program a name, referring to it as a “Policy Support Agreement.” Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters on May 18 that her country was the “pilot” for the new program, adding “The IMF makes sure it is as stringent as an upper credit tranche program and then monitors it like a regular program, but the difference is that you develop it and you own it."

Those are promises Africans have heard before (e.g. with the poverty reduction strategy papers); it would require a confirmed optimist to accept Okonjo-Iweala’s assertions at face value. She even went so far as to call it a “breakthrough” in Nigeria’s campaign for debt cancellation, since it would provide members of the Paris Club (the association of bilateral creditors) with the evidence they required that Nigeria was adhering to IMF standards - something that its reluctance to accept a more formal IMF program made difficult.

In Abuja, Rato indicated that the Policy Support Agreement facility has not yet been formally created, but that even when it is it will not represent a significant deviation from current practice: “The board is discussing the possibility of having a new instrument, which would be a monitoring agreement, but the fact is that if it is decided, and I think it will be, it is very similar to what we are already doing in Nigeria. It would be formally defined, but it will not require any changes in our relationship with Nigeria," he added. (all quotes from Reuters article of May 18, “Nigeria Set to Christen New IMF Agreement Fin. Min.”)

In fact, the IMF has monitoring programs with a number of countries that are not borrowing money. So why create a new name and make new announcements as if something new were happening? This is a change of form more than substance; it is the very fact of the spotlight thrown on the process that makes it news. By giving these programs a formal name and definition, and by publicizing them with press conferences and perhaps a new study (apparently to come in July), the IMF is assigning this function a new status, a new political profile. It is saying more straightforwardly than before that it will be "available" to impose its views on Southern countries even if they manage to extricate themselves from both multilateral debt and IMF programs.

If this Policy Support Agreement facility comes into common usage, it could effectively extend the IMF’s reach to most middle-income countries in addition to low-income countries not receiving IMF resources. Until now the IMF has relied on a very effective "unwritten agreement" whereby donors and creditors all defer to the IMF in determining which countries are creditworthy. When the IMF cuts off its loan program to a country for non-compliance with its policies, the World Bank, regional development banks, and bilateral agencies generally follow suit. With the prospect of the IMF’s relationship with low-income countries changing - to the point of irrelevance if current practices are followed - it was time to formalize this arrangement so that the IMF could continue overseeing those countries’ policies. That the new facility could also give the IMF a clearer path into middle-income countries not in crisis (e.g. South Africa, Brazil, the Philippines) is a bonus. It is now more likely that donors and creditors will make adherence to a "PSA” an explicit condition of loans or grants to any developing country.

The PSA has the potential to sharply minimize the potential benefits of new debt cancellation agreements, since they would be far less likely to free countries from IMF conditions.

The Policy Support Agreement, then, is potentially a significant expansion of the IMF's power, in both middle-income and low-income countries. There is some hope that it will never fully realize its potential, however. One of its quasi-predecessors, was the Contingent Credit Line (CCL), introduced several years ago as a “pre-approval” mechanism for countries that might need IMF loans when facing a sudden currency crisis. No country ever signed up for the CCL, and it was allowed to expire quietly in the last year. That Rato’s comments on the PSA, identifying it with existing monitoring arrangements, seem relatively unenthusiastic suggest that this, too, might not get off the ground. Let's hope.

Nigeria has been waging an unusual and innovative campaign for debt cancellation, with the government taking the lead and deploying the president, finance minister, and members of parliament. The comments by Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala - characterizing what amounts to a pledge to obey IMF strictures as a “breakthrough” for debt cancellation - raise the possibility that all the hard-hitting rhetoric employed by the Nigerians will fade away as soon as a somewhat better deal from the IMF and Paris Club presents itself. Recent debates in the Nigerian legislature on a proposal to repudiate external debt represent the most promising move by a Southern country government on debt in years. They appear to be a calculated move to expand the success realized by Argentina in its negotiation of a very favorable buy-out of its bondholders. If Okonjo-Iweala succeeds in getting a good deal from the Paris Club and short-circuits the legislature’s agenda for repudiation, Nigeria would be sending a very ambiguous signal to debt campaigners in civil society and governments around the Global South. Now is the time for increased pressure from civil society organizations and progressive politicians in Nigeria to ensure that does not happen.

* Soren Ambrose is with the 50 Years Is Enough Network, Washington, DC USA

* Please send comments to

How is education faring in Africa five years after the World Education Forum? This is the question posed at a regional conference organized by UNESCO Dakar from June 13-15 in Dakar, Senegal. The Conference is expected to: Review and analyse the state of the art of educational development in Africa; Highlight and discuss policies, practices and interventions that work, analyse factors behind them; Identify the nature of problems and constraints hindering the Education for All process and propose ways and means of moving the process forward; and Define concrete proposals on how to move the EFA process forward.

The prologue was a violent outburst of tempers on a stage occupied by armed men against calm students. In the tragic melodrama of the insurrection and anti-riot, the students and the troops portrayed violence apparently prompted by the Governor of the Southwest Province, Thomas Ejake Mbonda's instructions. The real drama began when the Governor arrived on University Street in the morning of Monday 24, where students had assembled to further search for a solution to their problem, for, previously, the usual imperial solution to insoluble problems of appointing a commission to report, and the report noted and filed for life did not seem to work.

Brain drain is hitting Uganda hard as it is estimated that 35 percent of Uganda's graduates live in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The ILO programme officer for Africa region, Mr David NII Addy, said this on May 26 at Hotel Africana in a regional meeting on Labour Migration for International Development in East Africa. "According to recent data of OECD, Uganda has over 35 percent of its graduates living in an OECD country. Comparable data for Tanzania is slightly higher while that of Kenya also stands at about 35 percent," he said.

With little time left before the end of the school year and exams, 1,600 Togolese refugee children went back to school on Monday in camps set up in Benin for refugees who have fled Togo’s post-election unrest. Children of all ages, from nursery school children to teenagers hoping to complete their final secondary-school exams, flopped down on mats laid out on floors of makeshift classrooms provided by the UN children’s agency UNICEF at the Lokossa refugee camp, which lies 18 km away from the Togolese border.

Mango and Fahamu are delighted to announce the publication of a new CD ROM: "Practical Financial Management for NGOs". Developed in collaboration with Oxford University, the CD has been enthusiastically reviewed. Owen Koimburi from Nairobi says: "If you only buy one book or CD to help you get to grips with all the financial management techniques you need for accountability and sustainability, this is it!"

This annual award has been set up jointly by the African Studies Centre (ASC) in Leiden, the Netherlands and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in Dakar, Senegal. It aims to encourage student research and writing on Africa, and to promote the study of African cultures and societies.

OneWorld Africa is seeking motivated, qualified and experienced individuals to fill in the vacancies of Web Development and Technical Operations manager and Digital Opportunity Channel Africa editor. OneWorld Africa (OWA) is part of the OneWorld network (www.oneworld.net) an international not-for-profit organisation founded to promote the effective use of ICT media for poverty alleviation, promotion of sustainable development and human rights.

Carolina for Kibera, Inc. (CFK) is a 501(c)(3) international non-governmental organization housed at the University Center for International Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Supported by private donations and grants from the Ford Foundation and the World Bank, CFK has established a youth sports association, girls' center, and medical clinic in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya.

The African Foundation for Development (AFFORD) has initiated Opportunity Africa, a project to provide a gateway to Africa-related careers, training & education for young people of African descent in the UK. Opportunity Africa's purpose is to enhance the skills base and job preparedness of young Africans in London for the world of international/Africa-related work. We envisage that this will help make the transition from a career aspiration linked with Africa to participation on a programme linked to building skills, gaining work experience or a paid job smoother for you.

Zimbabwe will be hosting the 2nd edition of the Southern Africa Social Forum 2005 in Harare, from 13-15 October 2005. This year's SASF is expected to bring together thousands of participants from community-based groups, social movements and civil society organizations from SADC under the theme, 'Popular and Democratic Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism'.

Applications for this one-year contract (renewable) with the South African New Economics (SANE) Network are invited from suitably qualified persons. SANE advocates and demonstrates a new paradigm of macro economic policy and sustainable development to end poverty and create an equitable society. To that end it designs and implements local economic development projects to demonstrate alternative models. It also conducts education and training for organisations and individuals to promote critical thinking.

This paper examines the social, economic and political situation of urban refugees in Kampala. In Uganda, refugees are expected to become self-reliant, and refugees who live in refugee settlements are given initial assistance to help them achieve this objective. In contrast, refugees in Kampala must attempt to access overstretched and underfunded city services.

Open University vice-chancellor Dickson Mwansa has called for education reforms in the country in order to solve some of the problems the University of Zambia (UNZA) and the Copperbelt University (CBU) are experiencing. He said Government had concentrated too much on basic education at the expense of secondary and tertiary education.