Nigeria is ranked second in Africa - based on available statistics - for its high rates of infant and maternal mortality. It records 191 deaths per 1000 live births, behind Sierra Leone with 246. Worse still, Nigeria comes last in terms of efforts put in place to reverse this ugly trend in the past 10 years.

On Friday, November 15, an explosion destroyed the offices of the independent weekly National Pilot in Ilorin, the capital of Nigeria's west central Kwara State. Five people were seriously injured in the blast-which local sources suspected was a politically motivated bomb attack-including the paper's deputy editor-in-chief, Mudasiru Adewuyi.

Like many Zimbabweans, the main concern of Simon Marume is how he can stretch his salary to feed his family. Marume, 49, works for a milling company in the capital, Harare. His wife is unemployed and he has five children to support. He also has financial obligations to his extended family in his rural home area of Masvingo, in southwestern Zimbabwe.

The humanitarian community launched an appeal for the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday, requesting US $268.65 million in aid for 2003.Most funding in 2002 went to food aid and multisector assistance to refugees; with health, agriculture, and coordination and support services receiving lower levels, OCHA reported. Economic recovery, education, family shelter and non-food items, mine action and water and sanitation were largely under funded, or received no funding.

The government is sitting on close to R1-billion of Reconstruction and Development Programme funds it has received from foreign donors. A damning Auditor-General's report to Parliament on the RDP Fund shows that on March 31 this year, R997-million was unspent or unallocated.

Grass Incorporated Manufacturing Artists (Gima) employees collect lengths of rope and cart them back to a factory and shop at Casterbridge Farm, an upmarket shopping and dining centre in White River. Gima creates employment for about 500 grass collectors and pays them for the rope they produce. The company employs another 60 people at the factory, where the rope is made into mats, blinds and furniture. These products are sold to 27 shops around Africa and to passing tourists. The Department for International Development gave funding to start the project.

The Democratic Alliance has recently 'unveiled' a campaign around the Basic Income Grant, which it intends to be part of its election platform. But the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says the DA is only making a big song and dance in an attempt to create the impression that it really cares about the poor.

A conference is planned on the Eastern Cape, hosted by the Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Fort Hare, in East London and co-sponsored by the Chair of Race Relations, St Antony's College, University of Oxford.  The dates are from Thursday 28th to Saturday 30th of August 2003. The main purpose of the conference is to bring together academics from the social sciences, geography, humanities, and related disciplines, who are interested in the past and future of the province, in order to share their research and perspectives.  Participation by those involved in government and NGOs is also welcomed.

As the dust settles over the celebrations of the new Children Act, which came into operation in March this year, it is emerging that Kenya's Juvenile Justice System has for a long time been based on an adversarial and punitive model that does not appropriately deal with child offenders.

About 170 street children on the Simukai Street Youth Programme in Mutare have been reunited with their families since January following a successful rehabilitation exercise.
Simukai is an outreach partnership between Family Aids Caring Trust (FACT) in Mutare and Scripture Union Eastern Region. It is a joint venture formed in January 2000 to look into the welfare and plight of the children.

The National Human Rights Commission has called on the National Assembly to revisit the Child Rights Bill, which was thrown out by the House last month. Stressing that as signatories to the International Convention on Child Rights, Nigeria is bound to make laws that would improve the condition of the Nigerian Child, Mr. Bukhari Bello, executive Chairman of the Commission, suggested that the legislators were probably not sensitised enough on what the bill is all about.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers has released a 195-page report listing those governments and groups that use and recruit child soldiers, in advance of an upcoming United Nations Security Council debate on children and armed conflict. "This report is a 'list of shame' for the armed groups and governments using boys and girls in their conflicts in defiance of international standards," said Casey Kelso, Coalition Coordinator.

Many young people in southern Africa engage in AIDS-related migration. What are the patterns of this migration? What are the difficulties facing these children and how do they cope? What can be done to make it easier for them? Research conducted with urban and rural-based children in Lesotho and Malawi revealed that children are commonly sent to live with relatives resident elsewhere. They move in order to receive care, to care for others, or to support their own livelihoods.

The Aiding Youth for Life Country Coordinator (CC) position is an internship that will last 6 months and is dependant upon funding. The candidate will be operating centrally out of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The CC will act as the central representative of the AYL Board of Directors in Tanzania, and will be required to host governments, and international and national organisations; develop new programs; manage security and personnel.

The Research Triangle Institute (RTI) is seeking mid to senior-level candidates with expertise in the following areas to work in Mali and Senegal: School Based Teacher; Training Primary and Middle School Curriculum Development; Community/Parent participation in schools; Education Management Information Systems (EMIS); Gender in Education, especially increased participation of girls; Decentralized school management.

We seek a passionate and committed person to serve as Programme Representative. As Programme Representative, you will be responsible for representation, meeting quality programme standards by providing strategic and operational management, programme and employee development, security and management of the team, handling the budget and ensuring that capacity work, humanitarian and advocacy programmes are properly operational.

Some 40 coffee farmers in Mubende have benefited from a government donation of sh50m. This is in pursuit of the strategic policy of planting better quality clonal coffee which is more resistant to disease than the traditional varieties. He added that the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) had distributed about 40,000 seedlings to the farmers as they wait for more seeds later this month. He also added that private nursery operators had been approached to supplement seeds from UCDA.

Three Kenyan airports will receive equipment from the United States.The high-tech detection equipment, valued at over $750,000 (Sh60 million), will be used to improve security services at Jomo Kenyatta International and Wilson Airports in Nairobi; and the Moi International Airport, Mombasa.It includes modern baggage x-ray machines, walk-through metal detectors, hand wands and explosive trace detectors.

The Education Tax Fund (ETF) has approved N75 million as its contribution to the establishment of the Obasanjo Engineering Innovation Centre of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti.

Considered among the fist casualties of the four-year war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), demobilised child soldiers live anxious lives, despite hope of peace on the horizon. "I have been taken care of for nine months now, but I do not know what I will do [after the help stops]," Thomas Elongo, a demobilised child soldier in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, and chosen spokesman of his comrades, told IRIN recently.