The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is a worldwide network of judges and lawyers united in affirming international law and rule of law principles that advance human rights. The ICJ’s international secretariat in Geneva is seeking to recruit a Legal Officer to lead its long-standing and expanding work on economic, social and cultural rights.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is a worldwide network of judges and lawyers united in affirming international law and rule of law principles that advance human rights. The ICJ's international secretariat in Geneva is seeking to recruit a Legal Officer to develop and lead its rule of law and human rights advocacy work in Africa. The independence and accountability of judges and lawyers and access to justice are dominant themes in the ICJ’s Africa Programme, with a focus also on counter-terrorism in East Africa and responding to rule of law crises in the continent.

Shifting M+E from being a chore or externally-driven necessity to an insightful learning experience for your organisation. What is the true value (or not) of your work? Are you making a difference?

The Centre of West African Studies announces its third annual resident fellows’ programme and workshop built around a current theme in African Studies. Two to three fellows will be appointed to participate in a two-month schedule of seminars and discussion groups, culminating in an Interdisciplinary Conference in May 2006. One aim of the Fellowship scheme is to assist new scholars to develop a research paper and bring it to publication, and it is expected that the conference papers will form the basis of an edited book or a special issue of a journal. Fellowships will cover return air-fare, accommodation and living costs for a period of up to ten weeks. The deadline for applications for fellowships is 1 December 2005.

Some 12,500 girls currently belong to government and non-government forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and a programme to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate all militias into society is failing them, Save the Children, an NGO, said in an August 2005 report. The report, titled "Forgotten Casualties of War", said many girls did not want to be in the disarmament and reintegration process. It said they did not see themselves as "child soldiers", but as "wives" or camp followers and, therefore, were not entitled to demobilisation and reintegration benefits.

The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has announced it has temporarily suspended its five grants to Uganda citing evidence of mismanagement, Reuters reports. The organization made the decision after an investigation of one of the grants by PricewaterhouseCoopers found evidence of "serious mismanagement" by the Project Management Unit in the Ugandan Ministry of Health, a unit that was established to implement the grants.

African universities need access to communication and information technologies to compete internationally. But they are constrained by the speed at which data can travel to their computers — a measure known as bandwidth. In this article, Steve Song of the Canadian International Development Research Centre argues that wider, cheaper bandwidth could transform the way these universities function.

A prominent newspaper distributor was released on bail Tuesday after four days in police detention in the capital, Addis Ababa. Fikre Gudu was arrested in connection with an interview he gave to the private Amharic-language weekly Asqual about his one-month imprisonment in June, according to local sources who spoke to him after his release. In the interview, which ran after his release on July 7, Gudu talked about his arrest and subsequent imprisonment in a detention center outside the capital. According to local sources, he described poor prison conditions and criticized the government for jailing him, saying his arrest was part of a crackdown on Ethiopian independent media.

Reporters Without Borders has said it is appalled by the impunity with which anonymous phone callers have been making death threats for more than a week against Eddy Péhé, the editor of the opposition daily Le Nouveau Réveil, forcing him to flee his home. "This latest episode in the grim saga endured by Côte d'Ivoire's journalists must be taken seriously," the organisation said. "Whether under pressure or in bad faith, the Ivorian police have failed in their duty to protect citizens, because any police force should be capable of tracking down the source of such phone calls."

Reporters Without Borders has voiced outrage at the "perverse methods of intimidation" used against the Lagos-based weekly The Exclusive by Nigeria's intelligence agency, the State Security Service (SSS), which carried out a heavy-handed raid on its offices on 19 August and then used threats to deter street vendors from selling its latest issue. "President Olusegun Obasanjo can pose as an African peace-maker as much as he likes, but Nigeria continues to be one of the continent's most violent countries for journalists," the press freedom organisation said. "His intelligence service has no scruples about punishing dissident voices and using perverse methods of intimidation if necessary."

Gender gaps in schooling in Senegal are pervasive, says a paper from the Population Council, USA. In both urban and rural areas girls suffer from marked disadvantages relative to boys in all three measures of schooling. In wealthier urban households, girls' disadvantages are smaller, but not completely eliminated. Furthermore, no systematic reduction in female disadvantage is apparent in rural Senegal, even in the uppermost stratum of households. Judging from these findings, income growth alone is unlikely to close the schooling gap between urban and rural areas or between boys and girls in Senegal.

Over 18 years of civil war in northern Uganda, fought mainly between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan military, has prevented young people from getting a good education. Over 90 percent of people live in camps for internally displaced persons and most schools in Kitgum and Pader districts are closed despite efforts to achieve Universal Primary Education.

Africa Insight reflects thinking on theoretical and practical developments in African studies, and about contemporary affairs on the continent. The Journal aims to provide insight into the processes of change in Africa. With this goal in mind, the Africa Institute of South Africa is planning a special issue of Africa Insight to focus on Youth in Africa over the past 10-15 years. The aim of the special issue is to undertake a wide-ranging assessment of youth development.

ActionApps is a set of collaborative web publishing tools for not-for-profit organisation. It offer a low cost solution for content sharing that both increases the functionality of not-for-profit and NGO websites and facilitates the creation of portals sites, improving the visibility of civil society information. They are driven by free/open source software (FOSS).

HRIP's mission and work are based on the belief that human rights activists have knowledge and skills, as a result of their day-to-day work, that are important to the success not only of their own work, but the work of other activists and organizations, whether in their own or in other countries and regions. IHRIP seeks to facilitate this exchange through sponsoring professional development and exchange projects for staff of human rights organizations; and the development of written resources focused on specific areas of human rights work.

Global Rights is a non-profit, human rights advocacy organization that partners with in-country activists to challenge injustice and amplify new voices within the global human rights discourse. With offices in 10 countries around the world, we help local activists create just societies through proven strategies for effecting change. A member of the in-country management staff, the Director of Program Performance and Monitoring will take lead responsibility in the areas of financial, grant, human resources, and administrative management of Global Rights’ Nigeria operations.

ActionAid International is active in over 42 countries in Africa, Asia, America and Europe regions in partnership with other organisations. ActionAid Kenya has been working in Kenya since 1972 to facilitate processes that eradicate poverty and ensure social justice through anti-poverty projects, local institutional capability building and public policy influencing. ActionAid Kenya works in 20 districts of Kenya and links key international, national and local institutions in favour of poor people. ActionAid seeks to recruit a dynamic and innovative person to lead, develop and coordinate a well- resourced public policy and research strategy across the country programme.

After the G8 top and broad international attention for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), its now time to make sure the MDGs are really being implemented. Not just by Western institutes but by local people themselves. Therefore SNV Dutch Development Organisation, the Municipal Development Partnership (MDP) and the UNDP are organising a regional conference, hosted by the Ministry of Local Government of Uganda, from 9-11 August in Kampala, Uganda. The conference will explore what role local actors can (and must) play in achieving the MDGs. A key outcome of the conference is expected to be a statement on the necessity and the feasibility of MDG localisation as an additional approach to assist African countries to work towards MDG attainment. Particular focus will be generated on the role of (local) capacity building organisations and coalitions in this localisation process. The conference targets on Capacity Development Practitioners with specific expertise and practical experience in local governance. For further information please go to www.snvworld.org/mdg or contact us at [email protected] (for content matters) or [email protected] (for logistical arrangement).

Yours is a great contribution to our cause of Pan-Afrikan Liberation. We would encourage more focus upon the increasingly powerful grassroots struggle throughout the continent and diaspora of Afrika on Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice. It is also imperative to begin to shift away from mere radical academic descriptions of the Afrikan and global situations in order to highlight more of the escalating grassroots battles against the neocolonialist order of the imperialist domination of the continent and diaspora of Afrika.

The real challenge of our times is to build the urgently required new forms of organisation within the Pan-Afrikan Liberation movement that can meet the challenge of confronting neocolonialism on the continent and in the diaspora of Afrika today. The Handbook of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah very well points the way forward. Our resurgent Pan-Afrikan revolutionary likes of the Zapatistas are already engaged in battle-testing skirmishes at the grassroots within and outside Afrika. Those who seek to know them and recognise and support their own self-determined efforts can do so! Those who want to hear only the sound and fury of empty pseudo-radical academic claptrap can also do so!

We of the Pan-Afrikan Task Force for Internationalist Dialogue (PATFID) will give wholehearted support to Pambazuka in bringing more into its very good spotlight the actual organisational efforts and mass struggles to confront the neocolonialist forces of imperialism. Our radical-sounding Afrikan intelligentsia of today are spending too much effort on academically interpreting our situation. As welcome as some of their academic contributions are, the point is to act in order to effect true Pan-Afrikan revolutionary change. We need more trailblazers along the revolutionary path of the likes of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and Amilcar Cabral - men and women who not only think as revolutionary freedom-fighters theoretically but also engage in the actual practice of mass organisational work for concrete transformations! Please, turn more of the Pambazuka spotlight on true Pan-Afrikan revolutionary organisational and fighting action throughout the continent and diaspora of Afrika! We of the PATFID can work together with you in promoting dialogue between grassroots Pan-Afrikan revolutionary activists and the rest of the world.

Uhuru! Amandla! Ngawethu!

A new development magazine is seeking writers and contributors. The magazine is being launched by the Black Star Media Services, a new media company based in Accra, Ghana. The magazine, called the Ghanaian oracle will be launched in October 2005. The Ghanaian Oracle is a monthly magazine of news analysis, information, campaigning and culture. It provides a forum for people of progressive orientation and thinking to debate ideas, opinions and action relevant to the development and progress of Ghana and its people. Please click on the link provided for more details and a list of available jobs.