Authorities in Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of Puntland have begun repatriating hundreds of Ethiopian migrants, officials have reported. "These are people who decided they wanted to return but could not afford to do so," said Mohamud Jama Muse, director of the Migration Response Centre (MRC) in Bosasso, Puntland's capital.

Despite continuing tensions, Zimbabwe’s year long Inclusive Government has resulted in significant economic and political changes giving great relief to long suffering Zimbabweans. Considerable as these changes are, a lot remains to be done for Zimbabwe to fully transition to a peaceful and democratic order, particularly in terms of critical political reforms and national healing. In addition, to institutionalize irreversible political reforms, key questions must be addressed in relation to how Zimbabwe’s economy long ravaged by Structural Adjustment Programs and corruption, among other factors, can be reconstructed in the interest of ordinary people.

The conference theme, ‘Dare to Shape the Future’ emphasizes thinking outside the box and encourages participants to creatively imagine and help construct a different future for Zimbabwe, moving away from destructive polarization and conflict to justice, healing and reconciliation. And from repression, exploitation and poverty to freedom, equity and development. The conference will take place within the context of the yearlong existence of the Inclusive Government in Zimbabwe and will coincide with Zimbabwe’s 30th independence anniversary. In line with the theme of daring to shape the future – the conference will pioneer a culture of inclusive dialogue among a diverse range of stakeholders of different opinions and political stripes to help forge a new culture of tolerance. Speakers from Zimbabwe will help bring a better understanding of civil society struggles on the ground and how the solidarity community can help and will help shape people centered U.S. policies at a crucial time in Zimbabwe’s history.

For more information visit http://www.africaaction.org/conference-home.html or contact Africa Action at 202-546-7961 or [email][email protected]

More than £1tn may have flowed out of Africa illegally over the last four decades, most of it to western financial institutions, according to a new report. Even using conservative estimates, the continent lost about $1.8tn (£1.18tn) – meaning Africans living at the end of 2008 had each been deprived of an average of $989 (£649) since 1970, according to the US-based research body Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

Morocco plans to train schoolchildren to help lure other youngsters into the classroom under a government initiative aimed at boosting enrolment rates. Some 500,000 schoolchildren will be trained to take part in the "Child for Child" census-taking programme that the Department of Education launched on Thursday (March 25th). Students aged 6-15 will work with teachers and officials in April and May to encourage youth who are not enrolled in school to return to their studies.

High-quality education is the foundation for success and growth. There is a need for empowered teachers, strong school leaders, better curricula, and the ability for students to connect with one another and the rest of the world, says Anthony Salcito, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector – Education, Microsoft.

The children are afraid. There are armed bandits hiding with stolen animals in the thickets behind Nawoyaregae Primary School in Kaputir Location. Cattle rustling and gory battles between the neighbouring Turkana and Pokot communities are the order of the day in this area, some 700 kilometres northwest of Nairobi. A long tradition of cattle raiding has been sharpened by competition over grazing land and water.

This manual is designed to help NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) who may be interested in the field of Human Rights but feel that they do not know enough about it or where to start. Sections include:

Understanding the Problem
The Skills a Human Rights NGO needs
Building Cultures that favour Human Rights
Interventions
Working in Co-operation
Helping the Damaged
Further information (web links)

Within the framework of the 50th anniversary of African independence, the Social and Human Sciences Sector of UNESCO (SHS) is launching a “Call for Ideas” for prospective proposals in favour of Africa’s development within the next decade.

Tanzania-based Consultant
Wellspring Advisors

Wellspring Advisors seeks a Tanzania?Based Consultant to provide critical support and oversight to its Tanzania grantmaking, which focuses on pro?poor economic development, children’s rights and development, women’s rights, and human rights. These wide?ranging portfolios cover such issues as women’s land and property rights, prevention of violence against women, reproductive rights, countering impunity, freedom of speech, disability rights, education, child protection, smallholder agriculture, and small and medium enterprise development.

Wellspring Advisors, LLC coordinates grantmaking programs that advance the realization of human rights and social and economic justice for all people. Wellspring is a private philanthropic consulting firm with offices in New York and Washington, DC. Our services include donor education and helping to shape a strategic vision; identification and presentation of appropriate funding opportunities; grants administration; and reporting.

Wellspring Advisors is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Wellspring Advisors seeks a Tanzania?Based Consultant to provide critical support and oversight to its Tanzania grantmaking, which focuses on pro?poor economic development, children’s rights and development, women’s rights, and human rights. These wide?ranging portfolios cover such issues as women’s land and property rights, prevention of violence against women, reproductive rights, countering impunity, freedom of speech, disability rights, education, child protection, smallholder agriculture, and small and medium enterprise development.

The consultant will report to Wellspring’s international program team. The initial time commitment associated with this consultancy will be part?time, approximately 4 to 8 days per month, for an initial period of three months. Wellspring Advisors will not sponsor any candidates to relocate to Tanzania and/or obtain any necessary legal documentation in Tanzania, such as visas or work permits. Similarly, Wellspring will not sponsor candidates to move to or work in the United States.

Responsibilities

As requested by the international program team, the consultant will:

• Conduct due diligence and site visits for current and prospective grantee organizations; monitor activities and use of funds by current grantees; evaluate grantee performance;
• Identify and suggest prospective grantees that might align with Wellspring’s clients’ programmatic priorities;
• Research and make recommendations about new issue areas of interest to Wellspring’s programs;
• Report findings and recommendations to Wellspring’s international program staff through regular written updates and conference call meetings;
• Provide Wellspring with updates on unfolding current events that may have an impact on its partners or program focus;
• Support grantees and applicants to ensure completion and submission of applications and reports;
• Engage and network with donors and NGOs working in relevant fields in Tanzania; attend relevant forums, meetings and conferences;
• Provide support in the planning and coordination of grant-related activities, including technical assistance provision, trainings and convenings;
• Support Wellspring staff in planning and executing site visits to local partners in Tanzania; and
• Perform related duties as requested and as needs evolve.

Qualifications

• 5+ years professional experience working in the fields of international development and/or human rights in Tanzania;
• University degree required; graduate degree preferred;
• Expertise in the areas of human rights, economic development, women’s rights, and/or children’s rights, ability to work across a range of programmatic issue areas highly desired;
• Excellent English oral and written communications skills required, knowledge of local languages a plus;
• Prior experience with grantmaking or grants management a plus;
• Strategic planning and other organizational development skills a plus;
• Excellent analytic abilities and impartiality;
• Initiative, resourcefulness, and flexibility—ability to work independently with minimal supervision;
• Demonstrated commitment to Wellspring’s grantmaking priorities;
• Ability to handle confidential client information with complete discretion; and
• Ability to work and travel within Tanzania.

How to apply

Send an email to [email][email protected] with “Tanzania Consultancy” in the subject line, to which you have attached the following three documents:

1. Cover letter highlighting relevant qualifications and salary history;
2. Current resume with three professional references; and
3. English writing sample (5-page maximum).

Héctor Cariño, Recruiter
Wellspring Advisors, LLC
1410 Broadway, 23rd Floor
New York, NY 10018-5007
Facsimile 212/ 609.2633

Applications must be received by May 1, 2010

Due to the high volume of applications received, Wellspring Advisors regrets that it is only able to respond to finalist candidates.

Despite continuing tensions, Zimbabwe’s year long Inclusive Government has resulted in significant economic and political changes giving great relief to long suffering Zimbabweans. Considerable as these changes are, a lot remains to be done for Zimbabwe to fully transition to a peaceful and democratic order, particularly in terms of critical political reforms and national healing. In addition, to institutionalize irreversible political reforms, key questions must be addressed in relation to how Zimbabwe’s economy long ravaged by Structural Adjustment Programs and corruption, among other factors, can be reconstructed in the interest of ordinary people.

The conference theme, ‘Dare to Shape the Future’ emphasizes thinking outside the box and encourages participants to creatively imagine and help construct a different future for Zimbabwe, moving away from destructive polarization and conflict to justice, healing and reconciliation. And from repression, exploitation and poverty to freedom, equity and development. The conference will take place within the context of the yearlong existence of the Inclusive Government in Zimbabwe and will coincide with Zimbabwe’s 30th independence anniversary. In line with the theme of daring to shape the future – the conference will pioneer a culture of inclusive dialogue among a diverse range of stakeholders of different opinions and political stripes to help forge a new culture of tolerance. Speakers from Zimbabwe will help bring a better understanding of civil society struggles on the ground and how the solidarity community can help and will help shape people centered U.S. policies at a crucial time in Zimbabwe’s history.

For more information visit http://www.africaaction.org/conference-home.html or contact Africa Action at 202-546-7961 or [email][email protected]

The game of Niger Delta is an unfair one to which a whistle should have been blown long ago. Yet, the game continues in all unfairness and savagery; it has indeed become a first-come-first-swerve agendum. There’s no gainsaying that the whistle should be blown; but where is the whistle? And who is the Umpire Definitely not Saraba. By creating a collage of art forms behind an evocative front cover, we have neither changed the outlook of the Delta nor influenced it.

For a number of years now, particularly in the period of globalisation, trade unions have been faced with major challenges which call for strategic responses. These challenges include building trade union internationalism in the period of mobile capital, assessing relations with left political parties as these have been dragged towards the political centre, tensions between collective bargaining and defensive struggles and strategic, revolutionary unionism and so on. This, the first of a new series of Annual Conferences, hosted by ILRIG and other partners, is an opportunities for activists and analysts - trade unionists as well as those involved in social movement campaigns - in South Africa to debate experiences of organising in South Africa, and elsewhere, whilst hearing of other forms of trade unionism in South Africa and elsewhere.

Poor governance and management are jeopardising efforts to provide quality basic education in seven African countries according to a new report published today by Transparency International (TI).

Reporters Without Borders is baffled by the fact that Albert Yangari, the publisher and editor of the newspaper L’Union, and Jonas Moulenda, one of his reporters, have been summoned three times in connection with a libel suit brought by Alfred Nguia Banda, the former director-general of the Gabonese Shippers Council (CGC), which oversees maritime traffic in Gabon.

Following bloody fighting between Senegalese forces and rebels, in recent days, the rebel Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) have issued a statement, calling for negotiations with the government.

The aim of the conference is to increase trade and investment flows into Africa and to encourage a transcontinental exchange of knowledge and expertise.The conference will have as a specific objective, fostering business to business linkages, and in particular encouraging technology transfer, joint ventures, manufacturing contracts, franchising, sub-contracts, financial investments, equipment provision and inter-regional trade

The 2010 session of the CODESRIA sub-regional methodological workshops will explore the conditions for the employment and validation of qualitative perspectives in African contexts. To this end, the workshops will be open to all the social research disciplines.

Ethembeni Enrichment Centre, a school in a run-down part of Port Elizabeth, the largest city in Eastern Cape, South Africa's poorest province, has achieved a remarkable 100 percent pass rate for a dozen years. But officials from the education department, sent on a fact-finding mission to learn from the school's success, are running more than two hours late.

Higher education and research in Africa have largely been neglected, both internally and externally, since the 1980s. If Africa is to join the global knowledge community as an equal partner, it must revolutionise its research, education and training systems.

The Federal Government has threatened to revoke the N2.75 billion contract for the construction of the Oguta River Port, Osse-Motor in Aguta Local Government Areas of Imo State, following the inability of the contractor to effectively mobilise to site, nine months after the contract was awarded.