Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi has said he believes an attack by gunmen on his convoy last week was an assassination bid by enemies opposed to his campaign to stamp out corruption in the small West African state. Yayi, a technocrat banker who was elected last year on a platform promising change, escaped unhurt when unidentified attackers opened fire on Thursday while he was campaigning in the north for parliamentary elections to be held on Sunday.

The rural society in Benin is involved in a number of important dynamics: decentralisation, privatisation and the transfer of central state functions to local authorities and the private sector, including farmer's organisations. Other ongoing changes are the search for an adequate access to and delivery of basic services, a better and equitable access to economic markets, migration to urban and coastal areas, increasing pressure on natural resources.

The Republic of Benin's National Assembly voted July 17 to pass the country's first comprehensive sexual harassment legislation aimed at protecting girls and women in schools, workplaces and in homes, according to the Women's Rights Initiative, a program of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Benin is preparing to swear in a new leader, this after a former head of the West African Development Bank won the second round of presidential elections held earlier this month in the West African country. Results issued by the National Autonomous Electoral Commission showed that Boni Yayi garnered an overwhelming majority of votes: 74.51 percent. His challenger, attorney Adrien Houngbedji, received only 25.49 percent. This was reportedly the first time a presidential candidate had won by such a large margin.

Boni Yayi, a former banker making a maiden bid for political office, has won the first round of Benin’s presidential elections, according to provisional results released on Monday. Yayi, who ran for the 5 March poll as an independent candidate backed by a coalition of groups and parties, won 35.6 percent of the vote, the National Election Commission (CENA) said late on Monday after counting 96.39 percent of the votes.

Some four million registered voters in Benin began queuing Sunday (March 5) at polling stations throughout the West African country to choose a successor to President Mathieu Kerekou who has been in power since 1972, except for a five-year break when Nicephore Soglo ruled. Twenty-six candidates are in the race for president. But political analysts believe candidates Adrien Houngbedji, Bruno Amoussou and Yayi Boni are front runners. Kerekou and Soglo are not running this time because the constitution bars people in their age category, 70, from contesting the presidency.

Six of Benin’s seven trade union confederations on Tuesday (January 24) began a two-day stoppage to demand that the government hand over funds needed for presidential elections next March. Schools and government offices ground to a halt and state television and radio broadcasts were cut back due to the strike call, but many businesses remained open as usual due to the refusal by the country’s biggest trade union, the CSTB, to sign on to the stoppage.

A continuing economic crisis in Benin has left the government without funds to pay for presidential elections in March 2006, according to Finance Minister Cosme Sehlin. Unlike the heads of states of regional neighbours Chad, Burkina Faso and Gabon, President Mathieu Kerekou has agreed to step down next March when his second mandate expires. But Benin's cash crunch could harm this gesture of democracy. During parliamentary question time last week, Finance Minister Sehlin confirmed that government books are in the red to the tune of US $57 million, with no means of raising the US $58 million more to pay for elections.

Benin has deposited with the AU on the 13th October 2005 the instrument of ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, adopted in July 2003 in Maputo. Only one precious ratification is still missing before we celebrate our protocol. It won’t be long as Togo has also sent today its instrument of ratification to AU by express mail.

The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the United States has given added urgency to Benin's plans to protect its coastline against erosion. The quick advance of the Atlantic Ocean is visible in the small West African nation. The fury of the sea waves have eaten up many homes, hundreds of beach residents have been forced to pack up and go, and experts are warning of catastrophe if vigorous action is not taken immediately. One great danger is that the country's main city, Cotonou, with a population of more than 500,000, lies below sea level - like New Orleans in the US. So should there be violent floods, a large chunk of the city could be submerged by water and possibly even wiped off the map. .

What seemed like a student exchange programme over three days was really the result of coordinated efforts to make sure that Togolese children who recently fled into Benin can continue their education even in exile. The prompt action taken by the Beninese government, various aid agencies and refugee teachers is a textbook example of ensuring access to education in refugee emergencies.

An American defence contractor, accused of pumping $2 million into the re-election campaign of President Mathieu Kerekou of Benin, has pleaded guilty to charges of overseas bribery. US regulators said Titan Corp made the payments in 2001 at a time when the company was seeking a four-fold increase in the fees it charged for managing a telephone network in the West African country.

SNV Benin provides advisory support to some 30 mostly rural and middle sized municipalities (population 25-100.000) with the objective to strengthen the capacities of the local governments, especially in the fields of planning, local finance and project preparation and management. These activities take up a large part of the programme.

For International Action Against Female Genital Mutilation, a German group active in Benin and other African countries, 2005 will be a year in which past successes in the fight against mutilation are celebrated – and efforts to eradicate it continue with renewed vigour. A ‘No More Excisions’ festival is planned for Benin in April. President Mathieu Kerekou, who first suggested 2005 as a deadline for rooting out female genital mutilation (FGM) in the country, is expected to attend this event.

Banikoara Community Multimedia Centre (CMC) in Benin has provided many essential services to the large but isolated local community in this cotton-growing region since 2002, but until recently, it was hampered by poor Internet connectivity. Since UNESCO provided VSAT in September 2004, use of the CMC's telecentre has shot up. "Even though nine computers are available for email and Internet from 8a.m. until 11 p.m., queues often form and we frequently have to stay open until midnight", explained CMC director Mohamed Alidou.

"The follow-up committee on the Protocol informed us that the National Assembly of Benin voted unanimously in authorizing the ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) on the Rights of Women in Africa. The instrument of ratification must still be officially deposited at the African Union to be effective. Let us remind you that in addition of Benin, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Nigeria in West Africa are in the same situation. When the deposits will be done, the total of ratification will be ten (10), of which five from West Africa. The Protocol will come into force thirty days after the deposit of the fifteenth (15th) instrument of ratification."

Normal business ground to a halt in Benin on Tuesday as the country's main trade unions began a three-day general strike to demand higher pay for government employees, better pensions and lower university fees. Only senior managers turned up for work at government offices, schools, banks and most businesses were closed in the economic capital Cotonou, health centres were short staffed and the city's normally busy streets were empty of traffic.

The Government of Benin has been unable to control the illegal sale of petroleum products in Benin, which are often smuggled from neighboring Nigeria. This black market trade has caused Beninese fuel distribution companies to lose 50 percent of their share of the Beninese market and has led to numerous health concerns and human casualties.

At least four Beninese reporters face criminal defamation charges and two of them have already spent time in prison this year - the first journalists to be imprisoned for their work since 1996 in the West African nation. The defendants include Patrick Adjamonsi, publication director of the private daily L'Aurore, who was released after spending six days in prison. Adjamonsi, whose original sentence was overturned, faces a new trial.

Benin is moving to protect pregnant women and small children from malaria with insecticide-treated bed nets with funds from the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis distributed by UNDP. The initiative will help Benin's progress towards achieving Goal 6 of the Millennium Development Goals, which calls for reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases.