The Executive Director, who will be based in Dakar, Senegal, will be responsible for directing and managing the OSIWA office and providing leadership and acumen to all aspects of program development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation to achieve the foundation’s objectives. The Executive Director should have a demonstrated commitment to open society values, excellent understanding of the social and political context of West Africa and familiarity with organizations and networks in the West Africa region.

The United Nations affiliated University for Peace welcomes applications for the position of Director of its Africa Programme. The director will be based in the Addis Ababa office of UPEACE (once launched in 2004), and will be part of a unique university that functions as a global knowledge network, created by a General Assembly resolution of the United Nations two decades ago.

EcoNews Africa (ENA) is a medium-sized sub-regional NGO headquartered in Nairobi with a mission to enable African civil society to be actively involved in decision-making on sustainable development by promoting timely information flows at all levels. We focus on governance in the areas of trade, environment and information. We seek to recruit an Executive Director with vision, innovative ideas and proven leadership skills to head ENA’s team of professional staff and partners to realize this mission.

Ibis is a Danish NGO with a long history of working in Angola going back to pre-independence support for the liberation struggle. The Ibis programme in Angola is clustered around two major areas, Organisational Development of Civil Society and Education for Change. At the moment, we are looking at two positions to be filled: Civil Society Programme and Senior Programme Manager/Consultant.

The Freedom of Expression Institute has written to the University of Pretoria protesting the planned holding of a conference 'Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Africa' to be jointly hosted by the University's Centre for International Political Studies and the Embassy of the United States of America in Pretoria, at the Sanlam Auditorium on Tuesday March 23, 2004. “It is inappropriate that a public institution like the University of Pretoria should host a conference on a matter of such profound public importance behind closed doors. It is also difficult to understand why speakers - who one would imagine would be committed to the basic tenants of academic freedom - would agree to participate under such conditions. What do they have to hide if they are really committed to open debate?”

The US-based NGO International Partnership for Human Development (IPHD) is helping ensure that 737 indigenous (or "pygmy") children remain in school in Sibiti District, in the Lekoumou Department of southwestern Republic of Congo, Paul Mouanga, an IPHD representative, told IRIN. "To help motivate them, the children received school supplies, uniforms and laundry soap," Mouanga said in the nation's capital, Brazzaville. "We also help to ensure they receive medical attention on a regular basis. And so that they do not abandon classes during the harvest or hunting seasons, canteens have been installed so they can eat at school."

Ethiopia’s Karayu pastoralists have called upon the government to step up its efforts to assist them and protect their rights in consultation with community representatives. The Karayu have lost much of their ancestral pastoral lands to commercial farming interests, agro-industry and for use as nature parks and game reserves, leaving their traditional nomadic livelihoods threatened and offering them little alternative means of survival. Representatives have called for a share in new opportunities and for efforts to ensure the possibility to continue traditional practices and pastoralist lifestyles.

Government troops and members of an armed Islamic group have clashed in recent weeks in the north of Niger, Defence Minister Hassane Bonto told parliament on Tuesday. Bonto said there were three clashes between the armed forces and the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC - le groupe salafiste pour la prédication et le combat) between 22 February and 5 March.

This paper looks at what the 'right to education' means in theory and practice, and outlines what a rights-based response to education in Africa would entail. It argues that although the concept of rights has become increasingly commonplace in the discourse of international development there is a massive gap between the language and practice of rights. This is starkly apparent in education, where the basic rights of millions of people are routinely violated, and particularly in Africa.

Two teachers' unions have called on government to pay teachers their February and March salaries with immediate effect. In separate interviews, Primary Education Teachers' Union (PETUZ) general secretary Cosmas Mukuka and the Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT) spokesperson Joel Kamoko urged the government not to take teachers' patriotism for granted.

The 5th International Workshop on Resource Mobilisation (IWRM) is an annual workshop organised by the Resource Alliance. The workshop is taking place at the Birchwood Executive Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26th-28th March 2004. 220 attendees from 45 countries worldwide have already booked to attend this year's IWRM making it the largest and most international to-date. The reputation of the IWRM is obviously spreading worldwide, as delegates from countries ranging from Malaysia and India to Egypt and Ecuador are travelling to South Africa to attend this leading international forum for training and policy discussion on local resource mobilisation.

The Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) is offering Sabbatical Research Grants to successful applicants based in Eastern and Southern Africa. Proposals may be submitted by researchers from any of the disciplines in the social sciences involving applied social and economic analysis of contemporary development issues.

Calls for women to move from their cooking pots into decision-making positions are growing stronger by the day. During the celebrations of International Women’s Day, both Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Kaire Mbuende, and Women’s Action for Development Executive Director, Veronica de Klerk, called on women to take up positions of power. Four elections, namely, local, regional, parliamentary and general elections are scheduled between May and December this year.

ACORD is an Africa led International Agency working in alliance with others to promote social justice and development. With an income of approximately £8 million p.a. we implement long-term development programmes in 18 African countries that unite practical work with advocacy, research and social action. ACORD employs some 500 staff across Africa, has its Secretariat in Nairobi and a small advocacy and fundraising office in London.

The seminar will interrogate and critically analyse the approach employed in developing South African cities, and explore challenges faced by the cities in light of increasing globalisation and decentralization. Issues such as integration of various communities through planning that were previously separated by apartheid legislation and how this process is developing will be looked at. A critical analysis and discussion will ensue around integration strategies adopted by various cities.

Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012), the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in Africa (Dakar, Senegal) is launching a new website dedicated to literacy in Africa. The website currently presents basic information but the aim is to develop an observatory and a platform for information exchange for all those working to promote literacy in Africa. This will require the active participation of all partners. Comments, suggestions and contributions are therefore most welcome.

The Dondo Community Radio was launched in the central Province of Sofala in Mozambique in late February. Inaugurated by UNESCO Maputo, the Dondo radio will bring education and information to over 100,000 rural people, covering a radius of 100 km. As other community radios, the Dondo radio will work for the development of communities covering such issues as education, health, agriculture, economy, children, youth, woman, sports, culture, democracy, and good governance.

It is increasingly acknowledged that visual traces and records, whether art or documentary, offer new routes to the past – especially where the life experiences and expression of people of the South have been marginalized in external or dominant literary sources. The immediate goal of this South/South workshop is to bring together esearchers from Latin America, Africa, Southern Asia and the Caribbean, with a view to exchanging experiences, theories and methodologies on the visual. Interested applicants should include a three page academic CV, the proposed paper (maximum of 5 pages), including its summary (500 words) and a recommendation letter by 15 June 2004. An international scientific committee will select the candidates by 15 July 2004.

The Double Bottom Line (DBL) is a relatively new concept for business leaders. The authors of this report think of DBL businesses as entrepreneurial ventures that strive to achieve measurable social and financial outcomes. As the lines between grantmaking and investing continue to blur, the idea of measuring social return concurrent with traditional financial accounting has caught on among investors, funders and entrepreneurs. Additionally, there has been widespread movement toward more tangible accountability for the social impact created for each invested or granted dollar. Unlike the business community, where generally accepted principles of accounting and legal infrastructures help manage the reporting of financial returns, there is no comparable standard for social impact assessment.

On February 20, 2003 two reporters working for Radio Lyambai, a community radio station in Mongu, 581 kilometers west of the capital, Lusaka, were detained by police for about four hours for allegedly inciting people in a local township to riot.