To help meet costs, Pambazuka News will be charging for advertisement of jobs. A modest sliding scale of charges have been established, with provision for small African organisations to be able to advertise at low or no cost. To find out more, please contact the editor at pambazuka dot org.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, in his 27th year of rule, is ignoring approaches from former South African president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela to step down, reports have said. The usually reliable weekly Zimbabwe Independent, quoting unnamed sources, also said that former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan had tried to meet with Mugabe to discuss his retirement, but he too had been ignored. No comment could be obtained from Mugabe's office.

An alternative macroeconomic framework oriented towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Sub-Saharan Africa is known and feasible. Currently, the effects of neoliberal reforms have been counter-productive with non-intervention leading to increased volatility of nominal exchange rates. This report published by the IPC finds that In fact, inflation-targeting is particularly detrimental to expanding investment which helps accelerate growth and human development. Another major obstacle to effectively implementing MDG-based macroeconomic policies is the underdevelopment of financial institutions.

Nibon Soro and Kartenin Silué, two children living in the Korhogo region of northern Côte d'Ivoire, should be in school. But, farm duties -- and their family's poverty -- stand in the way of education. The two, both under 10, drive the draught animals that help with ploughing. "We really want to go to school, but our father says that he doesn't have the money to educate us, and there is no-one to help him in the fields either," they told IPS.

The fifth CODESRIA/SEPHIS Extended Workshop on New Theories and Methods in Social History that will be held in Dakar, Senegal, has been postponed to 3-21 March 2008.

The Kenya Physiological Society (KPS) and the African Association of Physiological Sciences (AAPS) invite all scientists involved in basic, clinical and biomedical research to participate in this historic congress to be held at Chiromo Campus, University of Nairobi in Kenya. The theme of the Congress is "Physiological Sciences and Development in Africa".

A special Speak Africa virtual space (http://cairo.mepemepe.com/) has been set up for exchange of ideas amongst children and youth around the Cairo Plus V meeting. Like the overall Speak Africa strategy, the Speak Africa space is not branded with any agency, NGO or partner logos, and as such is an open forum for partners to contribute, share information and develop an infrastructure that will be easily extensible to other youth events, but more importantly to the SpeakAfrica platform as a whole.

Speakers: Mandira Sharma and Arnold Tsunga
Chair: Dr Jenny Kuper
Date and time: Tuesday 6 November, 12.30-1.30pm
Venue: New Theatre, East Building, LSE (click here for a How to get to

Demand for higher education in sub-Saharan Africa is exploding, and countries like Ghana are struggling to cope. Though sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s lowest university enrollment rates, Ghana has been forced to tackle Africa’s newest development problem — many more applicants than slots to fill.

They travelled from different places across Africa—Sudan, Tanzania, Niger, Nigeria, Kenya—but their common stories brought them together at Women Deliver, a landmark conference focused on curbing pregnancy-related death and disability. As part of the Campaign to End Fistula, a delegation of six fistula survivors shared harrowing tales of childbirth gone wrong in panel events and plenaries, building awareness—on a global platform—of this preventable and treatable injury.

Global Human Rights Leadership Training Institute, GHRLTI 2007 APPLICATION FORM DISTANCE EDUCATION COURSE Certificate Course in “Human Rights Leadership Development and Training”. 1st November – December 10th, 2007.

This position, based in Nairobi, is an exciting opportunity for a person of the Kenyan LGBTI community interested in supporting HIV/AIDS and STI prevention, care and treatment programmes for MSM and LGBTI.

Are you a teenager, or do you work with young people? If yes, take a look at the updated website The ‘Auntie Stella’ website is an adaptation of the dynamic interactive tool ‘Auntie Stella: Teenagers talk about sex, life and relationships’ developed by the Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) in Zimbabwe (see

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that the rate of smuggling boats reaching the shores of Yemen after crossing the Gulf of Aden has increased during the first half of October, along with the appalling death toll. More than 38 smuggling boats – an average of three a day – have been recorded arriving along Yemen’s coast during the first 13 days of October, carrying nearly 3,800 people, UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told a news briefing in Geneva. A total of 38 people were known to have died while 134 remained missing.

As a pan-Africa network of women organisations, FEMNET has continued to play a vanguard role in promoting African women’s rights and development. Through our bilingual Newsletter Femnet News, our members and partners have a platform to communicate and share diverse information, experiences and ideas related to women’s empowerment as well as showcase their individual and organisational activities in promoting women’s rights at national, regional and global arenas. Our next issue of Femnet News (September-December 2007) will focus on Enhancing African Women’s Leadership.

The FOSS Awards were inspired by a love and appreciation of Free Software., and a desire to share this with more people. Ian Gilfillan, who conceptualised the idea, writes: “As a student, I only learned proprietary software. It was only much later in my own explorations that I began to explore the world of FOSS. The openness, spirit of sharing and willingness to assist were an inspiration, and allowed me to learn much more, and to create for myself, than would otherwise have been possible.

The Swiss missionaries played a primary role in explaining Africa to the literate world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book emphasises how these European intellectuals, brought to the deep rural areas of southern Africa by their vocation, formulated and ordered knowledge about the continent.

Ruth Finnegan is renowned as the scholar who has made a whole generation of Africanists realise the singular importance of oral literature. She is the author of the classic "Oral Literature in Africa" and a whole range of other work in Africa. She asks whether Africa can still be considered 'the oral continent'. This book brings together all the contributions to the debate she started.

Batonga Foundation. Led by West African singer, songwriter, and UNICEF International Goodwill Ambassador Angelique Kidjo, Batonga’s mission is to provide girls with secondary and higher education so they can take the lead in changing Africa. It is currently operational in five African nations: Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mali and Sierra Leone.

African Journal of Political Science and International Relations (AJPSIR) is currently accepting manuscripts for publication. AJPSIR publishes rigorous theoretical reasoning and advanced empirical research in all areas of the subjects. We welcome articles or proposals from all perspectives and on all subjects pertaining to Africa, Africa 's relationship to the world, public policy, international relations, comparative politics, political methodology, political theory, political history and culture, global political economy, strategy and environment.