James Elangwe, 87, belongs to the Balues, the only clan in which inheritance passes through the female line. But this doesn't mean that women inherit. Instead, it means that when a man dies, the first son of the man's sister inherits. Elangwe says matrilineal inheritance puts women at a greater disadvantage than patrilineal inheritance because wealth leaves the immediate family. Elangwe's wife belongs to a tribe where inheritance passes from father to son in a patrilineal system. Women cannot inherit, but he says at least it stays within the immediate family if there is a son.

Considering the debate generated by healthcare reform in the United States and the gradual withdrawal of the French state from public-funded social action, one might think that social protection is an endangered idea. On the contrary, the right to security is an integral component of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 22) and an important part of the Millenium Development Goals (MDG), as conceived by the United Nations. This Global Voices blog examines social welfare systems in several African countries.

In this broadcast, Africa Today speaks with Dame Babou, Senegalese journalist and host of 'Africa Time' and Hamadou Tidiane Sy of Questaf.com on recent developments in West Africa - the coup in Mali and the Tuareg insurgency in Northern Mali.

The film Seeds of Freedom charts the story of seed from its roots at the heart of traditional, diversity rich farming systems across the world, to being transformed into a powerful commodity, used to monopolise the global food system.The film highlights the extent to which the industrial agricultural system, and genetically modified (GM) seeds in particular, has impacted on the enormous agro-biodiversity evolved by farmers and communities around the world, since the beginning of agriculture. You can watch a preview of the film through the URL provided.

The 2012 Gender in Nigeria Report launched recently shows that gender inequality is at highly worrying levels. There is a lack of gender balance in the economy, education, politics, health, access to justice and almost all areas of human development. According to the report, 'Nigeria's 80.2 million women and girls have a significantly worse life chances than men and also their sisters in comparable societies; 60-79% of the rural workforce is women but men are five times more likely to own land. '

As a treatment provider for tens of thousands of HIV+ people across the globe, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says it is deeply concerned about the proposal outlined in the editorial piece 'ARV Programme Not Free Entitlement for Those Affording' which appeared in The Herald 15 May 2012 issue. The article proposes to shift the financial burden of purchasing antiretroviral medication (ARVs) to HIV+ people who can 'afford' as a response to the looming funding gap for ARV treatment (ART). While the increasing funding retreat by international donors is a serious concern that needs to be dealt with, making the already vulnerable group of HIV+ people pay for their treatment is the last option that should be considered.

The Angolan government announced on Friday in Luanda that it concluded fully the withdrawal of Missang forces in the territory of Guinea Bissau. According to a press note from the Angolan government, which reached Angop, the process included a complete withdrawal by sea and air of all military personnel, as well as all military equipment and techniques of Missang.

The oil industry in Uganda will be the most capital intensive that the country has ever seen. Many ordinary people believe that it may also result in mass job creation, alleviating unemployment and under-employment - said by some reports to run as high as 80 per cent among rural youth - that not only blights lives but could also foment social and political unrest. But the reality is that the oil industry is notorious for consuming large sums of money in its operations, while employing relatively few people, most of whom have particular expertise.

The Kimberly Process intersessional in Washington, with Human Rights Watch (HRW) urging the diamond monitor to tackle what it calls continuing human rights violations in Zimbabwe's Marange fields. The meeting, which ran from 4-7 June 2012, will take up a range of topics related to the mining and trading of conflict-free rough diamonds. Human Rights Watch Africa director, Daniel Bekele urged the Kimberley Process, under the chairpersonship of the United States, to address the ongoing rights abuses in Zimbabwe’s Marange fields and the lack of transparency by mining companies operating there.

AIDS activists and researchers are at loggerheads over the planned South African trial of a lower dose version of the controversial antiretroviral stavudine, which has in the past been responsible for debilitating side-effects in HIV patients. In the one camp, the Treatment Action Campaign, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without borders) and the Treatment Action Group have serious concerns about the proposed trial.

ARTICLE 19 has recently highlighted the critical issue of the right to information for internally displaced persons (IDPs). The international NGO delivered practical training sessions on the Right to Information for internally displaced persons to regional leaders and representatives of local community based organisations. Over 20 participants from the Coast province attended the training sessions held in the Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza regions of the country. The program aims to build the capacity of IDP leaders and civil society organisations to request and utilise government held information.

Walter Rodney's classic study, 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa' has just been republished by Pambazuka Press. You are invited to a Panel Discussion on the book at the Cipriani Labour College, CLR James Auditorium, on Wednesday June 13 at 6 PM. Click on the link for more information.

This is to invite you to Kilombo 2012, which is an event on Africa, Africans and Social Justice. This is going to be an annual event and the first which is Kilombo 2012 will lay the foundation for launching the Kilombo Centre for Civil Society and African Self-Determination.

Angola is bankrolling a concerted campaign to secure SA's efforts to win support for Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to lead the African Union (AU) with a $200,000 pledge to finance lobbying ahead of the AU summit. Oil-rich Angola, signalling its foreign policy ambitions on the continent, has combined in the campaign with SA, which is chartering aircraft to take teams of cabinet ministers to lobby around the continent.

Kenya has been plunged into mourning after Internal Security minister George Saitoti and his assistant Joshua Orwa Ojodeh were killed in a helicopter crash in Ngong Forest. The accident occurred on Sunday minutes after they had taken off from Wilson Airport in a new police helicopter, heading for a fundraiser in Mr Ojodeh’s Ndiwa constituency. The cause of the crash was yet to be established.

Malawi, one of Africa's poorest nations, has made significant progress in improving the survival of newborns and is on track to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal number four - to reduce the deaths of children up to the age of five by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. This is according to a new report released by Save the Children, which identifies how newborn infants have been overlooked by global efforts intent on improving child and maternal health. While newborns make up 40 percent of child deaths annually, they receive just six percent of development aid. According to the report, Malawi has the highest rate of pre-term births in the world (18 per cent). Roughly a third of all newborn deaths are due to complications that arise from such births.

Chad residents scrape the bottom of the barrel on most every indicator on the Human Development Index, despite vast oil wealth. In his new book 'Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power', Pulitzer prize-winning author Steve Coll examines ExxonMobil’s influence in poor countries.He examines the bankrolling of oilfields in southern Chad in 2001 that were conditioned on the use of revenues to eliminate poverty.

An uphill battle against mining, waged since 2007 by the impoverished South African Amadiba community, last year appeared to have been won. Now it's beginning again. A local subsidiary of Australian firm Mineral Resource Commodities has renwed its application to prospect for mineral sands along the Transkei's Wild Coast. The traditional owners of the area are outraged.

Egyptian liberals have walked out of a meeting to select members of a panel to write the country's new constitution, charging Islamists of trying to take seats allocated for secular parties. The walkout could throw the writing of the constitution, which would lay out the powers of the presidency, into further disarray at a time when uncertainties mar both the course of the presidential runoff election on June 16 and 17 and the legality of parliament.

According to a report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), pneumonia and diarrhoea are the leading killers of children under five years despite the fact that there are a number of cost effective interventions to curb these illnesses. Far fewer children are dying today than 20 years ago – In 1990, 12-million child deaths were recorded, compared to 7.6-million in 2010.