The Non Profit Partnership together with the Provincial Parliamentary Programme will be hosting a one-week training course on Financial Sustainability for NGOs and government officials working with these structures in Kwa Zulu Natal. This is a newly established training programme, aimed at the current needs of the sector.

The Access Success Team have been working in the NGO sector, and contractors serving the NGO sector over the last four years. We have designed various project management; research; monitoring and evaluation; administration; project auditing systems; and quoting systems with great success.

CREA South Africa, under a contract to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will in June issue a request for applications to interested South African organizations for the award of cooperative grant agreement for a period of thirteen months to undertake a Community Empowerment Project for the Central Karoo District Municipality. This project forms part of the USAID/DPLG Local Governance Support Program.

The Ceasefire Campaign is inviting applications for a Director and Part-time Administrator.

University of SA principal Barney Pityana has denied newspaper claims he was squandering Unisa funds, saying the report was part of a racist campaign to discredit him and other black university heads. "It has never been my practice to demand any more than I am entitled to. It is evident there is a campaign underway," he said. Pityana said he and the university have instructed their attorneys to institute immediate action for defamation against the Mail & Guardian newspaper, as well as personally against journalist David Macfarlane.

United Nations Volunteers (UNV) has announced that it will run a five-year project aimed at transforming the lives of some 1,200 disadvantaged children in Burkina Faso's towns. So far, the project has received US $2,2 million from Luxembourg and close to $300,000 in kind from the government of Burkina Faso.

The International Council of AIDS Services Organizations(Icaso) has announced the release of a new research report, "The International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights: How are they being used and applied?" The report is an assessment of national efforts to improve access to HIV/AIDS treatment within the framework of the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights, and the role played by community groups.

Research released this February by Mike Jensen reveals that the Internet is now available in all 54 African countries and territories, up from four years ago when only a handful of countries had local access. [Source:TAD Consortium May 2002]

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)is co-hosting a National HIV/AIDS Treatment Congress, with the Treatment Action Campaign. It will take place at the Coastlands Conference Centre, Durban on 27-29 June 2002. The AIDS Consortium, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Southern African HIV/AIDS Clinicians Society and the Anglican Church also support the Congress.

The Department of Social Development will host a workshop in Pretoria tomorrow, to mark the beginning of the Child Protection Week from 27 May to 2 June.

United Nations Volunteers (UNV) has announced that it will run a five-year project aimed at transforming the lives of some 1,200 disadvantaged children in two of Burkina Faso's towns, Bobo-Dioulasso and Hounde.

Education for all means more than getting all children into school. It also means giving them a quality education. New reports from UNESCO’s Institute of Statistics show both goals are still distant in Latin America and Africa.

The third issue of the electronic bulletin on Education for All in Africa is now out. Prepared by UNESCO Dakar, it reports on progress made by African countries in preparing credible national EFA action plans before the deadline of September 2002. The Bulletin also reports on the series of regional and sub-regional meetings on EFA organized in recent months by UNESCO Dakar.

Guinea-Bissau faces a daunting task to improve children’s well being. While national immunisation coverage has improved, its 40 percent primary school enrolment was decreasing, the UN High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCHR) reported on Wednesday.

The instability and power vacuum created by the collapse of the Somali state poses the greatest danger to the outside world and to Somalia itself, according to a new report by the Brussels-based think tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG). In a press release to launch the report, the ICG said Somalia was one of the world's chief examples of a failed state. "Its highly fragmented internal security situation and the competing agendas of its neighbours have raised concerns that it may again become a base for international terrorism," the organisation said.

There are 1.9 million child labourers in Kenya, a government report says. Of these, 15,000 work in risky and hazardous conditions such as mining, quarrying, building and construction, fishing, commercial agriculture and road and transport work. The report, launched in Nairobi by Planning Minister Adhu Awiti, says close to four out of every 10 child labourers work more than the standard 40-hour week. Children in domestic service routinely work more than 41 hours per week.

Mpanga Primary School is situated inside the Kahunge Refugee Resettlement Scheme in Kamwenge District, southwestern Uganda. Here, a group of Ugandan displaced people - originally expelled from Tanzania - who arrived overnight on May 6 are starting to gather around aid workers who are distributing clothes, food, hoes and domestic implements. The Ugandan returnees are part of a group of 3,027 Ugandans, mainly ethnic Bakiga cattle herders, expelled from Tanzania in late 2000, allegedly for voting against Tanzania's ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party in elections in October 2000.

Did you ever wonder when exactly after the deposit of the 20th ratification or accession the Convention will enter into force, what needs to be done and how your organization could be involved ? December 18 has the following suggestions.

Fighting has been going in northwestern Liberia over the past few days, a diplomatic source in the capital Monrovia told IRIN on Friday. "There were reports today [Friday] that fighting was [still] going on in Suehn-Mecca, which is 70 km from Monrovia," the source said. "The situation is rather hard to ascertain. Most certainly there has been displacement but it is very difficult to know how many or where they could be," he added.

On 01-08 March 2002, I was privileged to represent AFJN and the Africa Trade Policy Working Group* (ATPWG) at a meeting on community and farmer rights, which was held at the Valley Trust, 1,000 Hills, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa. Forty-three participants took part, representing 31 NGO and professional groups from 12 African countries, and Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe. We met to support the rights of African local communities and farmers to sustainable agriculture, food security and sovereignty, bio-diversity, indigenous knowledge and technologies.