GDN is recruiting a Project Coordinator/Coordination Unit to manage and provide intellectual leadership for the Bridging Research and Policy project. This 3-year, $3 million global project seeks to learn more about research-policy linkages, and promote better policy making world-wide. GDN welcomes applications from developing and transition country candidates as we seek to establish a broad-based team. Prospective candidates should consult the GDN website for detailed application instructions.

This is the first call for applicants for Adilisha distance learning courses for human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Fahamu, in association with the Department for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford, will be offering courses specifically designed to meet the needs of human rights and advocacy organisations in southern Africa. Developed together with international and regional experts, seven courses will be run in the course of the next 12 months.

Nigeria is potentially Africa's richest country. As the world's sixth largest producer of crude oil, with huge reserves of mineral and agricultural riches and manpower, it should be enjoying some of the highest global living standards. But available indicators point, ironically, to some of the lowest living standards in Africa, for a large majority of Nigeria's 120 million people. And the latest signs are that the situation may be getting worse.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has welcomed the results of research done on HIV Benefits in Medical Schemes in 2002 by the Centre for Actuarial Research at the University of Cape Town in association with the TAC. The TAC said the survey showed conclusively that the Medical Schemes Act has been successful in ensuring coverage by medical schemes of people with HIV/AIDS.

Although South Africa must train 30 000 new teachers every year to ensure education for all children, it is training less than half this number.

Four international organisations have called for a more integrated approach to control the tsetse fly, which transmits sleeping sickness to human beings and causes Nagana in livestock. These diseases, found in 37 sub-Saharan countries, threaten 50 million people and 48 million head of cattle.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended on Friday that Guinea- Bissau and Niger strengthen efforts to combat female genital mutilation (FGM) and all other abuses against children, UNHCHR reported.

Non formal schools in Ghana match education programme with the farming pattern and become a hit among rural children.

Almost a month after the special session, the final version of the much-awaited outcome document - A World Fit for Children - has been released.

Warring leaders are destroying those who can ensure there is a new future for their countries and African leaders are not doing enough for the reconstruction of Africa, says Olara Otunnu, the United Nations special representative for children and armed conflict.

OVER 50% of children below 10 years of age have been sexually abused, the chairman of Uganda Child Rights NGO Network (UCRNN), Basil Kandyomunda, has said.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has called for the free registration of all children at birth, noting that millions of babies go undocumented each year, automatically denying them an official identity, nationality and status.

One of the many problems the present government faced when it seized power in 1994 was what to do with the thousands of children who were orphaned by war, genocide and now AIDS. Many of these children are not in orphanages, but roam the streets in one of the poorest countries in the world. Theophane Nikyema, the representative of the United Nations Children's Fund(UNICEF) in Rwanda, on 6 June gave IRIN his views on the situation of children in the country.

Ethiopia is aiming to extend an education programme for millions of children to ensure it meets the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Two Malawian academics have produced a comprehensive report that looks at the role of NGOs in the education sector in Malawi. The report, titled 'The changing roles of non-governmental organisations in education in Malawi', is aimed at highlighting the role NGOs are currently playing in strengthening education and to assist donors and host governments in the design, use and management of NGO-implemented programmes.

Several humanitarian agencies in Sierra Leone have developed action plans to respond to issues of sexual exploitation of vulnerable children, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which also reported that a national coordinator for sexual exploitation and abuse is to be recruited. The coordinator is to be based in the OCHA office in Freetown.

Two humanitarian organisations and a Mauritanian-born Frenchman, Mohamed Baba, have sued Mauritania's police for allegedly torturing Baba. The complaint was filed in a court in Clermont-Ferrand, France, the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) has announced.

The new vice chancellor of the University of South Africa (Unisa) and former chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission, Barney Pityana, who oversaw the hearings into racism in the media, has accused the "Mail and Guardian" newspaper of racism and is threatening to take it to court for defamation.

An internationally renowned South African composer has rejected a call by Nelson Mandela to apologise for the lyrics of a new song which portrays the country's Indian population as abusing black people and being more racist than whites. A barrage of criticism has led to Mbongeni Ngema's song AmaNdiya - Zulu for "Indians" - being banned by some radio stations and record shops.

The African Network Information Center (AfriNIC), the African Regional Internet Registry, seeks two highly qualified candidates to fill the vacancy of Hostmaster in 2002. Candidates must be nationals of a member state of the African Union. AfriNIC offers competitive salary structure and benefits.