Botswana signed up to the goal of universal primary education (UPE) in 1980. Facilities have improved, many more teachers have been recruited and enrolment rates have risen dramatically but many argue that the introduction of UPE has led to low quality education. The quality of public education remains low in those poor and remote rural districts with stubbornly high drop-out and repetition rates.
* Related Link: Reintroduction of school fees draws mixed response
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46252

PovcalNet is an interactive computational tool that allows you to replicate the calculations made by the World Bank's researchers in estimating the extent of absolute poverty in the world. It also allows you to calculate the poverty measures under different assumptions and to assemble the estimates using alternative country groupings or for any set of individual countries of your choosing.

You will act as the policy focal point for Oxfam GB and support the Sudan Advocacy Co-ordinator to develop and implement a coherent advocacy strategy for Oxfam in Sudan. You will specifically focus on issues of conflict analysis, humanitarian space and the ongoing peace processes.

The Rothamsted International African Fellows Programme aims to provide problem-focused training in Europe for mid-career African scientists. The purpose of the programme is to assist in capacity building, institutional strengthening and knowledge transfer in order to find relevant solutions to the problems of achieving sustainable agricultural production, as well as improving rural development and conservation of biodiversity.

One of the major weaknesses of social science research is its lack of consideration for epistemological and methodological issues. While the complexity of the social dynamic involved here should call for an accurate interrogation of the investigation procedures, we are on the contrary witnessing a serious trivialisation of research protocols, which are reduced to being, in the best cases, and under the appearance of a fake superficial rigor, a mere fetishist evocation of superficial recommendations, in the service of a social form of instrumentalisation, or are simply ignored, in the name of a so-called specific immediacy that excludes African social realities from the universal debates on the validity of science.

Officers of the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court in the capital, Monrovia, are demanding 500 Liberian dollars (approx. US$10) from "Forum" newspaper's management as a pre-condition for reopening its office. According to a Media Foundation for West Africa-Monrovia source, the officers were to reopen the newspaper's office on 11 March 2005, after the management handed over US$200 to the state in payment of a fine for "disregarding a court order." The officers, however, said that they would not reopen the office unless the newspaper's management "gave" them 500 Liberian dollars. The paper's managing editor, Augustine Fallah, told MFWA that the demand constituted a "bribe" and was part of a deliberate attempt to silence the newspaper.

CIFOR is looking for a Regional Coordinator for its Central Africa office (Yaounde, Cameroon) and a Senior Principal Scientist for its Forest and Livelihoods Program (Bogor, Indonesia).

The Secretary-General is responsible for providing strategic leadership, coordination of programme development, management and implementation, servicing of the network, provision of an effective interface with partner institutions and funding agencies, monitoring and evaluation of programme delivery and operational performance, staff supervision and general administration.

The African continent appeared to adopt a 'wait and see' approach to the findings of the Commission for Africa report released last Friday, although this was tinged with widespread doubt over whether words would ever translate into action.

Newsletter Africa Confidential set the tone when it described a leaked version of the report as “offering little new thinking on African development” and there was a feeling amongst other critics that there remained a failure to acknowledge the extent to which the developed world contributed to Africa’s woe.

In terms of recommendations made by the 17 member commission panel (of which nine were from Africa), most media seized on the angle of weak governance in African states coupled with corruption as a major bloc to development. The report called on African governments to commit to transparent governance and ratify international conventions related to corruption. The report said governments, states and banks in rich countries also had a duty to tackle corruption. This included the repatriation of illicit funds from Africa and transparency in business dealings.

In the important area of trade, the report said that Africa faced an enormous challenge to reverse its sliding global trade share. Western nations were called on to "agree immediately to eliminate trade-distorting support to cotton and sugar and commit by 2010 to end all subsidies and all trade-distorting support in agriculture".

But without added resources in education and health, for example, the report acknowledged that development would not take place and therefore the volume and quantity of external aid to sub-Saharan Africa would have to change. There should be an immediate $25bn (£13bn) a year increase in international aid to Africa, followed by a further $25bn a year from 2010. Donor countries "should aim to spend" 0.7% of their gross national product on development aid.

On the issue of debt cancellation, the debts of poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and African Development Bank should be written off, the report recommended, but recipients must be committed to good governance and use the money to deliver "development, economic growth and the reduction of poverty".

Other recommendations were that Western nations should fund at least 50 percent of the African Union’s peacekeeping budget and that negotiations on an international arms trade treaty must open no later than 2006.

Hard-hitting criticism of the report came from Action Aid, who parodied its release by announcing an African Commission for Britain. The organization said its commission started from the premise that the first step in supporting Africa must be to do it no harm.

Pointing to areas that clearly showed the hypocritical nature of the moral high ground adopted by the Commission, Action Aid noted that in 2003 there were 14 African countries facing conflict situations and ten of these had bought arms from the UK. In the area of corruption, British banks were holding US$1.3bn looted from Nigeria by the Abacha family and the UK government had not co-operated with Nigerian efforts to recover this looted wealth.

Meanwhile, in the West African country of Ghana, over two million Ghanaians lacked access to clean water. Yet the UK, the fourth largest shareholder in both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, supported the World Bank when it made water privatisation in Ghana a condition of aid, said Action Aid.

Britain and its EU partners were also involved in pushing for potentially devastating free-trade deals. Ghana's tomato canning industry, for example, had been "decimated" following tariff cuts forced by the EU. Other commentators noted that although the report called for an end to trade subsidies, this was unlikely to happen in the short term, especially from some countries in the European Union.

But leading pan African networks and international NGOs cautiously welcomed calls in the report for 100% debt cancellation, an end to World Bank and IMF conditionalities and the right of African countries to decide their own social and economic policies to fight poverty, corruption and injustice in Africa.

However, a statement emphasized that problems facing Africa would not be resolved by repeated statements of intent, but by well-structured and time-bound strategies derived from Africa's own analysis of her circumstances. According to Thomas Deve of the Harare based MWENGO: "The report marks a creative shift in policy thinking on Africa. 2005 is the time for this bold rhetoric to be matched with real measures that will transform structures that cause poverty in Africa."

Achim Chiaji, coordinator for the Kenyan national CSO campaign on the Millennium Development goals, said: "This report basically confirms what African NGOs and Governments have been saying all along. Core structural adjustment policy conditionality associated with debt and aid packages for Africa for the last two decades have been destructive to human security and economic growth. With this report, the World Bank and IMF must stop."

How will history judge the Blair report? It will probably note that its recommendations were hamstrung by divisions between the EU and the US on the exact approach to Africa’s development and the amount of money that the financial markets could allow for it. It might note that Tony Blair, in an election year, was desperate to regain the moral high ground after a disastrous invasion of Iraq and at the same time assert his leadership of the G8 and EU. But in the end analysis, history will probably note that the report gathered dust in the same manner as its predecessors.

At the recent launch of 'African Voices on Development and Social Justice: Editorials from Pambazuka News 2004', published by Mkuki na Nyoto Publishers, Fahamu (http://www.fahamu.org) summmarised the reaction to the report as follows:

'Although there appears, at first glance, much to be welcomed in the Blair Commission’s report, Africa is portrayed – once again - as the object of pity, a ‘basket case’, a 'scar on the conscience of the world'. Charity, not justice, governance, not self-determination, appear to be its watchwords. Although it calls for 100% debt cancellation instead of debt relief, the fine print makes clear that such cancellation of debt remains, as ever, conditional. While the Commission’s report says its “starting point … was the recognition that Africa must drive its own development”, in practice it seems that Africa faces once again an externally driven agenda for social development that combines a narrowly defined programme of privatisation with a broadly defined program of globalisation – the recipe of structural adjustment programmes and poverty reduction strategy papers that have become so tediously familiar over the last two decades and which, many would claim, have exacerbated the destitution of the region.'

Compiled by Pambazuka News using the following sources:

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20389175~me… http://www.wdm.org.uk/campaigns/cambriefs/africacommissionfinal.pdf http://www.actionaid.org.uk/1543/press_release.html http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/news/media/pressrel/050311p.htm http://www.oxfam.org.uk/press/releases/blair_caf110305.htm http://www.actionaid.org/documents/commissionforbritain.pdf http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L10127897.htm http://afronets.org/pubview.php/102/ http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/africa_fails_to_address_ke… http://www.commissionforafrica.org/english/home/newsstories.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/200503120001.html
http://www.cafod.org.uk/policy_and_analysis/commenteditorial/reviewing_…

The postholder should have a degree in education or equivalent in a relevant discipline and a minimum of three years experience at community level. S/he also needs to have at least five years experience in teaching and/or training and the ability to support implementation and monitoring of an educational programme. S/he needs to be able to relate to young people, as well as to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders, including the San at grassroots, government ministries and non-governmental levels. Cultural sensitivity and orientation to the needs of the San people is also required.

The "MDG Dashboard of Sustainability" is a free, non-commercial software which allows the presentation of complex relationships between economic, social and environmental issues in a highly communicative format aimed at decision-makers and citizens interested in Sustainable Development.

Namibia aims to transform its education system with a five-year Nam $23.4 billion (US $4 billion) plan. A recent World Bank report on Namibia's education system, 'Namibia Human Capital and Knowledge Development for Economic Growth and Equity', found that it was not meeting the needs of the country's economy and was "ineffective".

The International Federation of Journalists has condemned the detention of Somali journalist Abdirisak Ahmed Absuge who was arrested 5 March by the authorities of the Middle Shebelle region. "The authorities should either release Absuge or charge him. They can not indiscriminately detain journalists without reason," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. This latest event comes shortly after the murder of BBC journalist Kate Peyton which raised many concerns regarding the protection and safety of media professionals in Somalia.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has condemned "disproportionate" measures taken by a Monrovia court, on 4 March 2005, against the "Forum" newspaper. The court ordered the offices of the privately-owned weekly closed and issued an arrest warrant for the paper's managing editor and other editorial staff for "contempt of court" after they allegedly ignored several earlier summonses. The paper's offices are to remain closed until it pays the US$200 fine ordered by the court.

The distribution this Thursday (March 17) of more than Kshs. 1.1 Million (US$14,700) in initial seed grants to ten public primary schools in Kenya will mark the implementation phase of a School Safe Zones initiative intended to eventually embrace all public schools across the nation. Widely heralded free primary education in Kenya, introduced two years ago, is now facing its own set of challenges, including classroom congestion, lack of learning materials and desks, low teacher motivation, insecurity and drug abuse. But the government of Kenya, the global humanitarian agency Church World Service and a national task force of Kenyan educators, parents, religious leaders and other public and private sector stakeholders have been working together for nearly two years to create sustainable solutions for those problems.

Universal, free, primary and secondary education must be provided to all African children, says a new report from Save the Children. "This requires sufficient, predictable funding by donors and governments, and an end to International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies that result in cuts to education spending," says the report, which adds that governments and donors must address the need to improve the quality of education and eliminate discrimination due to ethnicity, gender, disability or HIV/AIDS.

The report says the failure to deliver sustainable development in Africa over the last 20 years has been compounded by a failure to put children at the centre of policy. "African children experience routine violation of their basic human rights. Tens of millions don't get adequate healthcare or education – many none at all. Millions more are victims of conflict, violence and abuse."

'One in Two: Children are the Key to Africa's Future' accused developed countries of under-delivering on their promises to provide aid to the poorest in sub-Saharan Africa.

* Compiled from the report by Pambazuka News. Click on the link provided for the full report.

The South African Historical Society is holding the biennial conference, Southern Africa and the World: the Local, the Regional and the Global in Historical Perspective June 26-29, 2005. The conference will look at topics that relate to themes in the history of the southern African region such as: liberation struggles and the limits of liberation; history and heritage; post-colonial and post-nationalist historiographies; new methodologies for teaching and researching history in the 21st century, including the use of film and video and digitisation. In addition the Society envisages panel discussions on such topics as the state of history in the different countries of the region, and how history teaching and research can be decolonised.

This USD $1 million Prize is awarded each year to any not-for-profit, civil society or non-governmental organisation based anywhere in the world for their contributions to addressing and progressing economic, environmental and/or social sustainability. Deadline: March 31 2005.

The 14th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) will be hosted by Nigeria in Abuja by December 2005.
ICASA draws participants from Africa and the rest of the world, a sizeable number of which are people living with HIV. Towards ensuring the attainment of the above goal, you are hereby invited to share your ideas, contributions, suggestions and thoughts on a discussion forum on PLWH Participation at ICASA 2005. The address of the group is: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/icasa2005_plwh/ To post message:[email protected] To subscribe: [email protected]

The purpose of this four-year contract position is to provide overall strategic leadership and management in implementing the 2005-2009 PPFN strategic plan: ensuring congruence between the country situation and the plan; facilitating linkages and contacts with government, IPPF, donors, and partners for resources to SRH and PPFN; and supporting PPFN governance and management organs at national and regional levels.