Secondary and primary schools across Burundi reopened on Monday after teachers suspended a strike that began on 5 January. "We accepted to return to work for the love of Burundi's children, we wanted to prove our goodwill unlike the government which, instead of resolving the teachers' problems, complicates it," Philbert Ngenzahayo, a representative of the National Council of Secondary Education Staff, said on Monday. However, he said the teachers would resume the strike if the government refused to accede to their demands for better wages and housing allowances.

According to the Natal Witness, the National Lotteries Board has distributed R2bn in grants to 4 700 beneficiaries nationally since its inception in 2000. The National Lotteries Board spokesperson, Sershan Naidoo, indicated that the board has also allocated R1bn to 1 300 beneficiaries between April 2003 and March 2004.The biggest grant ever allocated thus far has been to the Children's Hospital Trust and other major beneficiaries include the South African National Council for Child and Family Welfare, South African Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, National Institute for Crime Prevention and Reintegration of Offenders, Project Literacy and the Association for People with Disabilities.

IOL reports that UNAids, a United Nations agency that funds Aids programmes, will no longer fund NPOs directly due to a lack of accountability. The move that NPOs have termed "retrogressive" was proposed by Zambia and Zimbabwe and was supported by Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana and Namibia. UNAids will instead channel funding for Aids programmes via government authorities dealing with Aids. Some donors criticised NPOs for spending too much money on salaries, with little money going to medicine and care programmes.

The seizure of the Hakhaseb multi-purpose community centre-kindergarten at Usakos on Monday has left many children and their family members traumatised. Usakos Municipal personnel, accompanied by armed Police officers, stormed the centre on Monday and locked the complex. Angry mothers told The Namibian that their children were having nightmares and anxiety attacks during the night. "The children are scared that the Police will come and lock them up," said Fielie Walda, whose one-year-old daughter attends the kindergarten.

Burundian gendarmes arrested on Tuesday the leaders of the two main teachers' unions in the country after they held a meeting with striking teachers in the capital, Bujumbura, to evaluate the stoppage that began countrywide on 5 January. Upon their arrest, the representative of the Union of Burundi Educational Workers, Eulalie Nibizi; and the leader of the Free Union of Burundi Education, Adolphe Wakana, were taken to a jail of the government's intelligence services, known as the Documentation Nationale; Wakana's deputy, Chantal Nahishakiye, told IRIN.

The Municipality of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) are inviting submissions for 'Best Practice' for the 2004 Dubai International Award. Previous submitters are also encouraged to submit updates of their best practices for eventual inclusion in the database. Contact [email protected] for submission guidelines. Best Practices are initiatives which have made outstanding contributions to improving the quality of life in cities and communities around the world. The original call for Best Practices was launched in 1995 during preparations for the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) as a means of identifying what works in improving living conditions on a sustainable basis.

Bangui Public Prosecutor Firmin Seindiro is seeking an 18-month prison sentence against Jude Zossé, director of the private daily "L'Hirondelle" (The Swallow"). Zossé is charged with "insulting the head of state". The journalist, who has been detained since 25 February 2004, was not granted a provisional release. A verdict in the case is expected to be delivered on 12 March.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has been working in Burundi since 1996, implementing humanitarian relief activities in water and sanitation, infrastructure rehabilitation, distribution of non-food items, education support, and assistance to vulnerable youth. In 2004, IRC Burundi is consolidating programming in two sectors - Environmental Health and Youth - making an effort to create programmatic and geographic synergies to the maximum extent possible.

In its role as a dual membership organisation, comprising 16,000 individual lawyers and 194 Bar Associations and Law Societies, the International Bar Association (IBA) influences the development of international law reform and shapes the future of the legal profession. The International Bar Association (IBA) is seeking a Legal Specialist to work for a period of six months to undertake capacity building work with the Malawi Law Society.

The Institute for Human Rights & Development in Africa is a pan-African human rights organisation with its headquarters in Banjul, the Gambia. The Institute specialises in the African regional human rights system, including impact litigation in national and international fora based on African human rights treaties, training and research and publication in the procedures of African treaty mechanisms. The Institute is recruiting a Senior Program Officer to coordinate its program activities.

WLP is an international, non-governmental organisation (NGO) established to advance communication and cooperation among the women of the world in order to protect human rights, facilitate sustainable development, and promote peace. WLP's programs promote women's leadership and participation in civil society, and women's equal engagement in the production and exchange of information and resources worldwide. Towards these aims, WLP has established programs in collaboration with local partner NGOs in 12 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. WLP provides multimedia training materials, equipment, and other tools to its partner organisations as part of our strategy to advance women's involvement in critical decision making processes.

Since independence in 1963, Kenya has made impressive gains in improving access to education, driven by substantial investments in education by the government. However, since the mid to late eighties there has been a decline in school enrolment rates, and a reversal of the gains achieved in previous decades. This paper from the Global Development Network explores the reasons for this decline in primary school enrolment. The paper discusses Kenya's education system and traces recent trends in enrolment rates.

Several hundred students went on the rampage in the capital of Guinea-Bissau after police used baton charges, tear gas and shots in the air to break up a demonstration by secondary school pupils protesting at a strike by their teachers. Eyewitnesses said several dozen students were arrested in the disturbances that took place last Thursday. Bissau’s main avenue was closed to vehicle traffic and the city’s main market was shut down as a result of the clashes.

Twenty-six-year-old Lucia stands confidently in front of a class of about 30 children aged between 12 and 18, asking them a series of direct questions about sexual practices, sexual transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. Lucia (not her real name) belongs to Kindlimuka (meaning "wake up" in Ronga, a local language), a non-profit association of people living with, or supporting those with HIV/AIDS. Lucia is HIV-positive. She has participated in training to give lessons to pupils aged 13 to 18 in a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) supported project, which began five years ago.

It is normally vibrant with pupils in classrooms and the yard, but the students and teachers are now at home. They will not return until a commission set up by the ministry of education to investigate the problems plaguing the school submits its report. The authorities in Gabon, which oil has made one of Africa's richest countries, closed the school a month ago following student unrest. "The Omar Bongo High School is sinking," said the minister, after participants informed him that there was prostitution in the school. The minister was informed that girls had sexual relations with teachers to get better grades and that expelled pupils offered bribes to remain in the school.

Africa needs an independent rapporteur to monitor and promote freedom of expression on the continent, said participants at a major conference co-hosted by ARTICLE 19 and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) last week in Pretoria, South Africa. A statement issued at the conference said despite recognition of the right to free expression in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and in the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, gross violations continue to occur in many African countries. ARTICLE 19 and MISA worked closely with the African Commission, the Media Foundation for West Africa and the Open Society Institute for Southern African in organising the conference.

A month after schools were due to have resumed classes in the rebel-held north of Cote d’Ivoire, the overwhelming majority are still shut, with no teachers and very little in the way of teaching materials, education officials told IRIN. Most schools in the north closed after Cote d’Ivoire plunged into civil war 19 months ago leaving 300,000 pupils idle.

The Eastern Africa Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) is seeking for applications from young women who wish to be attached to the organisation under its internship programme.

The Minister of Higher Education Herbert Murerwa says the government has no money to meet the demands of University of Zimbabwe lecturers who have been on strike for some weeks Murerwa told The Standard newspaper that only dialogue between the UZ Council and the University Teachers' Association (UTA) could bring normalcy to the UZ.

A Liberian government team is due in the northeast of the country this week to investigate reports that hundreds of fighters loyal to exiled president Charles Taylor are undergoing training there. A senior government official said the gunmen, mostly from Liberia and Guinea, were at a camp in Nimba County, the region near Ivory Coast from where Taylor launched a rebellion in 1989 that triggered nearly 14 years of war.