Beware Development Aid - For Whose Agenda?

Development used to be a battle against deprivation and dependence. Nowadays it’s more about supporting the liberalisation of markets.

The Conservative party’s conversion to development in 2009, most evident in its support of higher aid spending, was seen by many campaigners as one of the development sector’s greatest successes. After years of being seen as a concern of Christians and the left, development had gone mainstream. Apart from a few Little Englanders on the far right, there was a broad consensus that we should fight global poverty.

But a closer look at One World Conservatism – “capitalism and development was Britain’s gift to the world. Today we have an opportunity to renew that gift by helping poor countries kick-start growth and development” – suggests that this victory was not all it seemed. For in equating it with the global expansion of capitalism under the British empire, the term development has clearly come to mean something quite different – indeed pretty much the opposite – to that which anti-poverty campaigners had worked for over several decades.

Back in the heyday of “development”, from the 1950s-1970s, the term had been closely associated with national liberation governments like those of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, which fought poverty, deprivation and dependence by using strong state intervention and provision.

Ugandan activist Yash Tandon went further, saying that development for him meant “people’s struggle for liberation from prevailing structures of domination and control over national policies and resources”. In other words, development was seen as a process of breaking with colonial exploitation and transferring power over resources from the first to the third world. For these activists, development represented a revolutionary struggle over the world resources.

The gutting of development of its political content wasn’t something that happened overnight. In the 1990s, after years of right-wing governments in the UK and US expressing the idea that poverty was an individual responsibility, and aid budgets slashed to historically low levels, some in the development sector actively embraced a new way of talking about what they were doing. The UN invented a new category of extreme poverty, denoting those who really deserved our attention, which separated the idea of poverty from inequality.

Campaign organisations pushed a technical “non-political” set of development policies addressing poverty at the micro level, by digging wells and supplying fertiliser, for example. These policies promised to lift the very poor out of their poverty so that they too could share in the wealth of the global economy.

From here, development quickly became a very different proposition. Because if the assumption is that more of the global economy will solve poverty, then developing countries needed to better embed neo-liberal policies. Aid was important because it meant using public money to facilitate the building the sort of liberalised market necessary for democracy and prosperity to flourish. Development became a chance for the political right to extend economic neo-liberalism into those parts of the world which other forms of intervention couldn’t reach.

Today we have arrived at the stage where development involves the UK spending aid money on private investments in gated communities in El Salvador, upmarket flats and a business hotel in Kenya, luxury beachfront homes in Mauritius. Or the World Bank funding five-star hotels in Ghana in conjunction with one of the world’s richest men. Even the mainstream of aid budgets today are used to foster better investment environments in Africa for the likes of Diageo, Coca-cola and SAB Miller, or private education in Pakistan.

Development, and fighting poverty, have been separated from any conception of politics or power; a fundamental misunderstanding of what poverty is. Poverty isn’t simply the difference between living on $1.20 and $1.40 a day. It’s about lacking power over those resources that you need to live a decent life – food, water, shelter, access to healthcare, education. If one person – or corporation – controls them, that means others don’t.

Today, in the wake of the financial crash, as those most responsible for the economic meltdown walked away, it seems clear that neoliberalism and globalisation has made a tiny proportion of people much better off, while the livelihoods of many others – not to mention the environment – has been eroded. Ironically, one of the areas of society most immune to this erosion is development, where neoliberalism still holds sway and has actually grown stronger.

This is why last week World Development Movement became Global Justice Now. We have taken this radical step to show how far the pendulum has swung. We have always maintained that poverty is deeply political. Despite what we’ve been repeatedly told by the political elite, you cannot get rid of poverty while a tiny minority enjoys wealth beyond imagination. In particular, the power that big business wields today is incompatible with a democratic society capable of solving the world’s problems.

Of course it’s true that sometimes people need immediate help – they can’t wait for a radical transformation. But unless we build that transformation into all of our work, the aid industry will not wither away but grow bigger and bigger. The work of democratic states will become the preserve of NGOs working with private companies. It’s time to take a stand against this ever rightward drift.


from here

THE WORLD BANK’S HYPOCRISY IN ETHIOPIA

The World Bank proclaims its mission is to strive to end extreme poverty at the global level and promote shared prosperity. But a leaked report reveals a conspiracy of silence to cover up crimes against humanity committed against the Anuak people in Ethiopia with the complicity of the World Bank itself.Ethiopians have been the object of a cruel bureaucratic joke by the World Bank.

Last week, an official investigative report surfaced online showing World Bank bureaucrats in Ethiopia have been playing ‘Deception Games’ of displacement, deracination, forced resettlement and a kinder and gentler form of ethnic cleansing in the Gambella region of Western Ethiopia. Tens of thousands of Anuaks in Gambella have been removed illegally and in violation of policy from their ancestral homelands and left high and dry and twisting in the wind, courtesy and cash of the World Bank!

The World Bank proclaims its mission is to “strive to end extreme poverty at the global level within a generation” and promote “shared prosperity”. The Bank purportedly seeks to accomplish this mission in Ethiopia through its “Ethiopia Protection of Basic Services Project (BPS).” According to the World Bank, the BPS in Ethiopia has four components: 1) “maintain delivery of basic services provided by regional and local governments”, 2) “provide predictable financing for critical inputs for the primary health service delivery subprogram”; 3) “supports activities at the Regional and city Administration, Woreda and sub- Woreda levels to significantly enhance transparency around public budget procedures and foster broad engagement and citizen representation on public budget processes and public service delivery”; and 4) promote “capacity building for and piloting of selected approaches to strengthen the voice of citizens and civil society organizations and also builds the capacity of citizens to engage in public budgeting processes. The World Bank has been supporting its PBS program in Ethiopia since May 2006 with a commitment of more than $2bn. In the last two years, the Bank has spent a cool USD$600 million.

The truth of the matter is that the World Bank’s managers have failed miserably in their mission. They have failed to “carry out the required full risk analysis to manage the concurrent roll-out of the villagization program in four PBS III regions.” They have failed to follow or comply with the Bank’s operational policies and guidelines. They have failed to interact or consult with the Anuak communities adversely impacted by the Banks’ programs. They are clueless about the “operational interface between PBS III and CDP as required by the Operational Risk Assessment Framework (ORAF).” They do not give a rat’s behind about “livelihoods, well-being and access to basic services, which are closely tied to the Anuak’s access to land and natural resources.” In their “Joint Review and Implementation Support” (JRIS) reports, they sugarcoat, finesse and massage facts or outright bury unfavorable facts to avoid transparency and evade accountability. They don’t do much planning, monitoring or supervision of the Bank’s program. They have abdicated their professional duties and obligations and transferred their fiduciary duties to corrupt woreda officials to ensure hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent properly. I am just curious: What do the World Bank managers in Ethiopia do all day, anyway?

For crying out loud, what kind of a mickey mouse operation is the World Bank running in Ethiopia?

In December 2013, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim declared, “In the developing world, corruption is public enemy number one… We will never tolerate corruption, and I pledge to do all in our power to build upon our strong fight against it… Every dollar that a corrupt official or a corrupt business person puts in their pocket is a dollar stolen from a pregnant woman who needs health care; or from a girl or a boy who deserves an education; or from communities that need water, roads, and schools. Every dollar is critical if we are to reach our goals to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to boost shared prosperity.”

I wish Kim would visit my Anuak brothers and sisters in Gambella in 2015 and tell them how many schools, hospitals, clinics, roads and water wells his Bank's USD$600 million has provided the people of Gambella.

For crying out loud, could someone tell me if there is anyone minding the World Bank store in Addis Ababa?

 By Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam from here

Go to the link for the detail of the leaked report in legalise and an understandable translation of it and discover why the WB didn't want the information made public.

Understanding Migration

A very much to-the-point article on migration by Mike Mavura

The “fear” of being swamped by foreigners is easy to mobilise on the social or political agenda as a social and security issue. Often, this fear fuels public perceptions in host countries that migrants increase employment competition, challenge religious, cultural or ethnic homogeneity, increase crime or threaten national security. This may result in xenophobic attacks, as seen by the unfortunate situation playing out in Soweto. Are these fears justified? If all the migrants in Soweto were to vacate, will the socio-economic problems of that community’s problems depart with them? Are these migrants not an easy target and temporary catharsis for a community frustrated and disenchanted with lack of state delivery and opportunities?

We still come across figures and estimates which state that for example the number of Zimbabweans living in South Africa is between a one million and four million. Zimbabwe has a population of about 14.15 million. At the high end of these estimates, it means at least a third of Zimbabweans live in South Africa, a dubious claim. According to Chiumia 2013, a report published on the website of SW Radio Africa, it stated that there are between two and three million Zimbabweans living and working in South Africa. Interviews conducted by the Inter Press Service news agency stated that the number of Zimbabwean nationals crossing the border have almost doubled since elections in Zimbabwe. What is often missed by these studies is that “crossing the border” is not a single event but a continuous process. By far, the vast number of people who cross the border into South Africa are also those who cross it back to Zimbabwe and other regional countries within days, weeks and at most a few months. Contemporary cross-border migration within southern Africa, better understood as transnationalism is not premised on permanent settlement in the receiving country but is highly circular comprising of migrants having a foothold in both sending and receiving countries and constantly shuttling between the two.

It takes its cue from historical intensive intra-regional migration dating back to the mid-nineteenth century when new industries were introduced that generated sustained interdependence between labour-supplying and labour-receiving countries in the region. The story of social transformations in the region, therefore, is fundamentally the story of migration; it is the story of human movements that continue to pervade the entire region unhindered by colonial boundaries. No wonder southern Africa has been described as a region on the move. Most cross-border practices by Zimbabweans have occurred in Botswana and South Africa and by Zambians and Mozambicans in Zimbabwe and by Malawians in Zambia and Tanzania. Despite the Southern African Development Community’s rhetoric of free movement in southern Africa, cross-border migrants continue to highlight the tension between the tendency of states to define space as “territory’-accentuating control, order, and security and the tendency of individuals to associate space with “soil”-emphasising free movement, shelter, and subsistence. To migrants, southern African borders are not barriers but windows of opportunities.

These opportunities require migrants to live their lives across various locations. Hence transnationalism is composed of a growing number of persons who live dual lives, sometimes speaking two languages and making a living through continuous regular contact across national borders. Leading transnational, multi-sited lives means that exchanges and interactions across borders are a regular and sustained part of migrants’ realities and activities. This means South Africa is but one of many regular destinations in the transnational migrant portfolios, a regular pit-stop in a nomadic life that might include Botswana, Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, Dubai and China in the destinations portfolio. These migrants make a living by exploiting the differentials in supply and demand of merchandise, products, seasonal labour among other goods and services across regional and international borders.

Thus migrant-owned spaza shops are not only in Soweto but scattered throughout the region together with flea markets, various import and export enterprises, buying and re-selling businesses among other ventures that feed into the regional informal trade and social network. Transnationalism speaks to a “condition of being”, a condition of constantly shuttling to and from sending and receiving nodes. As such, this movement is so encompassing as to virtually erase the distinction between “here” (home) and “there” (host state). Consequently, transmigrants cannot be neatly placed, they are neither for example, in Zimbabwe nor in South Africa, they are a moving target. This makes home and host society a single arena of social action, a third space between and across state borders. Such “third spaces” or migrant “imagined’ communities represent a theatre where kinship, social networks, cultural trends, and visions of individual and familial futures are enacted. A semi-autonomous space, isolated from the national order of things and populated by increasingly “sovereignty free” individuals whose only link back to the state is a passport.

What does this mean for identity in southern Africa? For traditional citizenship based on continuous residence in a given territory, a shared collective identity and participation in and subjection to a common jurisdiction? What does this mean for migrant identities traditionally associated with settlement in host states? What does this mean for outdated policies and approaches obsessed with quantifying migrants in host countries and inflaming fears of “migrant tsunamis”? We ought to re-think our approaches to migration and realise that permanent settlement and inclusion in host societies are no longer the outcomes of much contemporary migration within the region. Current conditions of flexible accumulation and globalisation economic practices militate against a facile incorporation into a national imaginary. Transnational migrants see southern Africa as a single arena of social action rather than territory divided by boundaries into states. We should realise that embeddedness in cross-border exchange is now a normal part of people’s contemporary social statuses. Transnational migrants are thus front-runners and actors in the regionalisation project with southern African states and state policies lagging behind, hamstrung by narrow, parochial and inward-looking interests. Transnational migrants in southern Africa expose the fiction of state sovereignty daily as goods, people, capital and resources flow freely and continually throughout the region creating flourishing informal sectors that ignore borders and evade taxes. This alludes to the waning of state and society convergence. Migrant third spaces offer an invitation to rethink the concepts, foundations and boundaries of states and identity formation. They represent tentative alternative locations of community, identities, economic, social and political (in)security that exists alongside, across and in competition with states. This makes scenario building for southern Africa’s future outlook an interesting project.

Full article here 

Turning The Commons Into a Marketable Commodity

Africa's land and seed laws under attack

The lobby to industrialise food production in Africa is not only pouring money into plantation projects on the ground, it is changing African laws to serve foreign agribusiness as well. This is the main finding of a new report from the civil society organisations Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and GRAIN.

The report, "Land and seed laws under attack", documents who is pushing what changes in these two battlegrounds across Africa. Washington DC, home to the World Bank, the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the US Agency for International Development, stands out the biggest source of pressure to privatise African farm resources right now. But Europe, through the European Union and various donor mechanisms, is also deeply involved, providing funds and legal frameworks like the plant patenting scheme known as UPOV.

Privatising land and seeds is essential for the corporate model to flourish in Africa. With regard to agricultural land, this means pushing for the official demarcation, registration and titling of farms. It also means making it possible for foreign investors to lease or own land on a long-term basis. With regard to seeds, it means having governments require that seeds be registered in an official catalogue in order to circulate. It also means introducing intellectual property rights over plant varieties and criminalising farmers who disregard them. In all cases, the end goal is to turn what has long been a commons in Africa into a marketable commodity that the private sector can control and profit from at the expense of small farmers and rural communities.
"More than 80% of all seed in Africa is produced and disseminated through informal seed systems, that is, on-farm seed saving and exchange between farmers," points out Bridget Mugambe of AFSA. "Marginalising and criminalising farmers' seeds through UPOV and by introducing strict marketing regimes will be great for multinational seed companies but a disaster for our small family farmers," she says.

The land privatisation agenda is also quite threatening. "In the name of land securitisation, which may sound great to vulnerable rural communities, donors and African governments are actually pushing to create Western-type land markets based on formal instruments like titles and leases that can be traded in one way or another," explains Ange David Baïmey of GRAIN. "In fact, the explicit aim of many initiatives, such as the G8 New Alliance, is to secure investors' rights to land."
The thinking is to make Africa more attractive to business. But this will only erode the rights of rural communities prevent them from continuing to serve as the backbone of the region's food and farming systems.
The report, "Land and seed laws under attack: Who is pushing changes in Africa?" is available at grain.org/e/5121

from here

Why So Many Myths and Lies About Africa? Who Benefits?

One of the myths outlined in the report The Poor Are Getting Richer and Other Dangerous Delusions that Global Justice Now (previously WDM) released last week to coincide with the Davos World Economic Forum, is that Africa needs our help. A variation of this myth, that African agriculture needs help from rich Western countries, is constantly spun out by the media, investors, agribusiness companies and other transnationals. It sometimes feels like we’re being forced to participate in a modified version of the BBC Radio 4 show The Unbelievable Truth where panellists have to give a lecture full of lies while smuggling a handful of truths past the other players. In the case of the ‘Africa needs our help’ narrative, the game is played so that a handful of truths are used to smuggle some hugely significant lies past unsuspecting governments, NGOs and civil society.

Take the issue of agricultural production in Africa. The truths that the mainstream narrative pick out are that one in four people in Sub-Saharan Africa are undernourished, and that Africa has the lowest levels of agricultural productivity in the world, with extremely low levels of inputs like fertilizers, improved seeds and irrigation. It is also true that high population growth rates, high levels of poverty, poor infrastructure and low levels of investment have compounded the problem and made food difficult to access for millions of people.

But from these truths, the mainstream narrative moves to a false conclusion: that with the financial and technical help provided by rich countries and international development agencies – such as the $10 billion of ‘responsible private investments’ committed through the New Alliance to date – employment and food production will receive a huge boost and Africa will finally be able to feed itself.

It is certainly true that millions of people in Africa suffer from hunger and malnutrition, but nonetheless this narrative is partial and misleading. It is missing context, crucially failing to ask why this has happened in a continent that used to be self-sufficient in food in the 1960s. There are two main reasons for this, and they point to a very different solution to the problem of African poverty.

Firstly Africa’s agricultural production was designed during the colonial era to benefit rich countries in the North with their enormous appetite for raw materials and luxury (non-staple) foods. In 2011, the top five exports out of Africa (by value) were cocoa beans, coffee, cotton, rubber and tobacco; more useful for satisfying rich consumers than feeding poor communities.
Secondly, African countries have been forced to deregulate their trade by rich countries and financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These institutions continue to lend money to developing countries while encouraging them to privatize public services and deregulate their economies. So, countries end up importing staple foods like wheat, palm oil, maize, sugar and soya-bean oil – crops largely produced by rich countries in the North, which can afford to heavily subsidize their agricultural sector. They have also opened up Africa to agribusiness companies that are rapidly increasing their control of resources such as land, water and labour.

Mainstream media, transnational corporations and government agencies tell us that Africa needs GM technology and chemical fertilizers to increase crop yields. What they don’t tell us is that the use of GM seeds actually leads to falling crop yields in the long term, and the increased use of pesticides and herbicides.

More and more evidence has been pouring in which shows that sustainable agriculture – or agroecology – can produce yields comparable to, and often larger than, industrial agriculture. But that’s not all. There are also huge positive knock-on effects of agroecology, such as increasing biodiversity, increasing income and employment opportunities, reducing the gender gap, improving health and nutrition, and helping to mitigate climate change.
Whether it’s by practising agroforestry, rice-duck farming or organic farming techniques, the evidence in support of agroecology is now indisputable. What we need is the political will to challenge the myth of corporate-controlled agriculture through reform of the aid system, opposition to unfair trade agreements, and by promoting the principles of agroecology and food sovereignty to help small-scale farmers regain control of Africa’s food system.

from here
 

One of the myths outlined in the report The Poor Are Getting Richer and Other Dangerous Delusions that Global Justice Now (previously WDM) released last week to coincide with the Davos World Economic Forum, is that Africa needs our help. A variation of this myth, that African agriculture needs help from rich Western countries, is constantly spun out by the media, investors, agribusiness companies and other transnationals. It sometimes feels like we’re being forced to participate in a modified version of the BBC Radio 4 show The Unbelievable Truth where panellists have to give a lecture full of lies while smuggling a handful of truths past the other players. In the case of the ‘Africa needs our help’ narrative, the game is played so that a handful of truths are used to smuggle some hugely significant lies past unsuspecting governments, NGOs and civil society.
Take the issue of agricultural production in Africa. The truths that the mainstream narrative pick out are that one in four people in Sub-Saharan Africa are undernourished, and that Africa has the lowest levels of agricultural productivity in the world, with extremely low levels of inputs like fertilizers, improved seeds and irrigation. It is also true that high population growth rates, high levels of poverty, poor infrastructure and low levels of investment have compounded the problem and made food difficult to access for millions of people.
But from these truths, the mainstream narrative moves to a false conclusion: that with the financial and technical help provided by rich countries and international development agencies – such as the $10 billion of ‘responsible private investments’ committed through the New Alliance to date – employment and food production will receive a huge boost and Africa will finally be able to feed itself.
It is certainly true that millions of people in Africa suffer from hunger and malnutrition, but nonetheless this narrative is partial and misleading. It is missing context, crucially failing to ask why this has happened in a continent that used to be self-sufficient in food in the 1960s. There are two main reasons for this, and they point to a very different solution to the problem of African poverty.
Firstly Africa’s agricultural production was designed during the colonial era to benefit rich countries in the North with their enormous appetite for raw materials and luxury (non-staple) foods. In 2011, the top five exports out of Africa (by value) were cocoa beans, coffee, cotton, rubber and tobacco; more useful for satisfying rich consumers than feeding poor communities.
Secondly, African countries have been forced to deregulate their trade by rich countries and financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These institutions continue to lend money to developing countries while encouraging them to privatize public services and deregulate their economies. So, countries end up importing staple foods like wheat, palm oil, maize, sugar and soya-bean oil – crops largely produced by rich countries in the North, which can afford to heavily subsidize their agricultural sector. They have also opened up Africa to agribusiness companies that are rapidly increasing their control of resources such as land, water and labour.
Mainstream media, transnational corporations and government agencies tell us that Africa needs GM technology and chemical fertilizers to increase crop yields. What they don’t tell us is that the use of GM seeds actually leads to falling crop yields in the long term, and the increased use of pesticides and herbicides.
More and more evidence has been pouring in which shows that sustainable agriculture – or agroecology – can produce yields comparable to, and often larger than, industrial agriculture. But that’s not all. There are also huge positive knock-on effects of agroecology, such as increasing biodiversity, increasing income and employment opportunities, reducing the gender gap, improving health and nutrition, and helping to mitigate climate change.
Whether it’s by practising agroforestry, rice-duck farming or organic farming techniques, the evidence in support of agroecology is now indisputable. What we need is the political will to challenge the myth of corporate-controlled agriculture through reform of the aid system, opposition to unfair trade agreements, and by promoting the principles of agroecology and food sovereignty to help small-scale farmers regain control of Africa’s food system.
Ian Fitzpatrick
- See more at: http://newint.org/blog/2015/01/26/african-agriculture-myths/?utm_medium=ni-email&utm_source=message&utm_campaign=intl-enews-2015-01-28#sthash.WREhwFex.dpuf

Another Land-grab

Nigerian communities have been vulnerable to land grabs since the government made international investment in its agricultural sector a priority. Nigeria is evicting local farmers from 300 square kilometres of fertile farmland to clear the way for a rice farm owned and controlled from the US and Canada. A 45,000-strong community faces landlessness and destitution. Farmers in Nigeria's north eastern state of Taraba are being forced off lands they have farmed for generations to make way for US company Dominion Farms. Dominion Farms Limited is a company registered in Kenya, with headquarters in Oklahoma, US, that is majority owned by US-Canadian businessman Calvin Burgess as part of his 'Dominion Group of Companies'. The company operates a rice farm operation in the Yala Swamp area of Western Kenya that local farmers say has resulted in the loss of their lands and livelihoods, and grave social, environmental and health impacts on the affected communities.

The Nigerian government's Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Federal Ministry of Investment are seeking to increase foreign direct investment in agriculture as a strategy to raise national food production. Under the policy, vast tracts of agricultural lands have been identified by the government for large scale projects by foreign companies - including 380 sq.km controlled by Taraba State's Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority (UBRBDA) - a government agency established in 1978 to support local farmers with irrigation schemes, flood defences, roads, stores and warehouses. The UBRBDA lands and the Gassol Community lie on the north-eastern shoreline of the Taraba River. Some 10,000 farmers depend on these lands for their livelihoods, of which 3,000 hold land titles inherited from their ancestors who first settled there. In all some 45,000 people are sustained by the fertile farmland. Along one side of the lands runs an 8 km long embankment that was built by UBRBDA to protect the farmlands from the river's overflow. The lands provide major ecological and hydrological functions and are a major source of livelihoods for the farmers of Gassol and other neighbouring communities. In 2010, Dominion Farms first made its appearance in Gassol seeking the allocation of lands, water resources, fishing ponds and grazing areas used by the community for the construction of a large scale rice farm. Two years later the company achieved its objective when it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Taraba State government and the Nigerian government for a 300 sq.km concession on the UBRBDA lands for the creation of a large scale rice farm.

UK Development secretary Justine Greening is facing questions over its involvement in the massive land-grab.  The project forms part of the UK-backed New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa and the Nigerian government's Agricultural Transformation Agenda. Both initiatives are ostensibly intended to enhance food security and livelihoods for small farmers in Nigeria. But a new report 'The Dominion Farms land grab in Nigeria', finds that the Dominion Farms project is having the opposite effect. The lands provided to Dominion Farms are part of a public irrigation scheme that 45,000 people depend on for their food needs and livelihoods. The local people were never consulted about the Dominion Farms project and, although the company has already started to occupy the lands, they are still completely in the dark about any plans for compensation or resettlement.

"Aid money should be spent supporting communities to develop sustainable agriculture rather than supporting initiatives which are enabling companies to evict those communities", commented Heidi Chow, food sovereignty campaigner from Global Justice Now. "Initiatives like the New Alliance seem to be more about providing opportunities for agribusiness to carve up the resources of African countries rather than trying to address poverty or hunger."

"The local people are united in their opposition to the Dominion Farms project", says Raymond Enoch, an author of the report and director of the Center for Environmental Education and Development in Nigeria. "They want their lands back so that they can continue to produce food for their families and the people of Nigeria."

Mallam Danladi K Jallo, a local farmer from Gassol, said: "Our land is very rich and good. We produce a lot of different crops here, and we farm fish and rear goats, sheep and cattle…We were happy when we heard of the coming of the Dominion Farms not knowing it was for the selfish interest of some few members of the State, Federal Government and the foreigner in charge of the Dominion Farms.” Dominion Farms has already filled in ponds and water canals that local people depend on for fishing and has stationed security agents in the area to prevent farmers from accessing their lands. People have also been forced to stop grazing their goats and cows on the lands occupied by Dominion Farms.

Some affected farmers said that a range of promises - about adequate compensation for their lands, about the building of schools, roads, hospitals and a farm training centre, and about the employment of local people - had been made when Dominion Farms and government agencies initially visited the area. However none of these promises have been kept. Pledges that were made during the process of allocating lands to Dominion Farms to improve the livelihood of the local farmers of Gassol have so far not transpired

Two Nigerian NGOs, Environmental Rights Action (ERA) / Friends of the Earth Nigeria (FOEN) and Center for Environmental Education and Development (CEED) found "Consultations with the affected farmers in Gassol community revealed severe irregularities. The farmers interviewed indicated that only the local elites and government agents were consulted, some of whom had personally endorsed the project in their community in spite of apparent widespread opposition amongst the members of the community. It further revealed that consultations did not deal with the question of whether or not the local communities accept the project and under what terms they would do so" The MOU between the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Taraba State Government and Dominion Farms Ltd was signed "without proper consultations with the affected communities", the investigators found.

 "Those consultations that did take place involved mainly government officials. The information that local people received about the project was insufficient and was presented in a partial manner in favour of the project. Local farmers were never asked if they agreed to the project or under what terms they would accept the project, and were thus kept out of a decision that has major impacts on their lives."

The agreement was also signed without a social and environmental impact assessment, and did not include any resettlement plan for the farmers that would be evicted from their farms.

"In spite of the New Alliance rhetoric on tackling food security, on the ground the Dominion Farms investment has resulted in land grabbing, reducing the ability and resilience of local farmers to feed themselves and their communities", says the report. 

The Football Trade

The world’s youth are not only captivated by the performances of the players who adorn their television screens, they are also made aware of the wealth and lifestyles associated with professional football. The idea that a career in football is a viable livelihood strategy capable of lifting an individual and their family out of poverty has among young, poorly-educated males from low-income families.

In Ghana football academies have been accused of exploiting talent and promoting trafficking in search of profit. Football administrators, academics and human rights activists have recently drawn attention to some unsavoury activities taking place in West African football academies. Analysts are concerned that the academy system has become a vehicle for neo-colonial exploitation that fuels human trafficking. They argue that European clubs and speculators take ownership or executive control of African-based academies to sidestep certain regulations, such as the ban on the international transfer of minors, in order to sign African talent at an early age and then profit from their subsequent sale to rich, typically European, clubs. Some commentators, including FIFA President Sepp Blatter, have gone as far as to label this situation a modern day slave trade. Meanwhile UEFA President Michel Platini has suggested this transfer process is tantamount to child trafficking.

In Ghana, like other parts of the world, these football academies take a variety forms. They range from well-funded establishments affiliated with professional clubs to amateur, neighbourhood teams set up on an informal basis and lacking qualified staff or proper infrastructure. Researchers have drawn attention to the transfer practices of professional teams and a handful of other high profile, corporately sponsored academies, and it is here that debates over neo-colonial exploitation tend to emerge. Less well documented are the changes taking place at smaller academies associated with amateur youth football or, as it is colloquially known in Ghana, Colts football (under 12, 14 and 17 years of age). According to the Ghanaian Football Association (GFA) regional office in Accra, approximately 700 clubs in 12 regional zones are in the national ‘Colts’ league. In Accra alone there are 240 clubs, and combined they boast a registration list of more than 20,000 players.

International transfer regulations introduced by FIFA in 2001 attempted to limit the international migration of minors by deterring rich—i.e. European—clubs from signing talented young players based in the Global South. A ruling was made stipulating that clubs involved in the training and education of players between the ages of 12 and 23 must receive financial compensation from the buying club. This compensation can range from hundreds to millions of US dollars. The 2001 FIFA regulations thus give the labour and investment spent training a youth player monetary value. This makes footballers at academies more than human resources. They are also a potential source of capital. Crucially, this financial value can only be realised when a player is transferred or sold to another club. This has resulted in intense financial speculation and increased trading of young Ghanaian players by academy owners, who are searching for a star to sell at a profit to a foreign club. This means that football academies no longer exist to merely create players for Ghanaian leagues, but are increasingly geared towards the grooming and export of players to foreign clubs.

Ghanaian youths are acutely aware that they either currently are, or eventually will become, solely responsible for ensuring their future economic wellbeing. They are also well aware that financial support in the form of state welfare is unlikely to be forthcoming. Alongside this construction of young Ghanaians as responsible for their future life chances is a widespread belief that migration, preferably to Europe, offers a solution to economic uncertainty and marginalisation. Problematically, this migratory disposition is accompanied by a realisation that obtaining a visa to enter a European country is easier said than done. It is here that a key appeal of a career in football becomes apparent. To many young Ghanaians, the rags to riches stories of the professional football player who used sport as a vehicle for migration offers a blueprint for obtaining the trappings associated with a successful life. In a context where youth are frequently encouraged to be job creators rather than job seekers, the idea that the answer to economic uncertainty resides within your own body is a particularly appealing proposition. In order to turn such ambitions into realities, entering the Ghanaian football industry and joining football clubs appear as obvious next steps. The increase in the number of youths involved in Colts football, as well as the upsurge in the number of football academies, both result from the convergence in the Ghanaian football industry of economic liberalisation with migration-based efforts at upward social mobility.

A generation of male youth are diverting their energies and attention to a profession that is unlikely to reward their devotion with the employment and social status they so desperately crave. As the Ghanaian Football Association executive Herbert Adika succinctly put it, ‘presently everybody wants to play football by force but all of us cannot be footballers’.

From here

Africa is not rising, saying it like it is

One thing rising - gold prices

“Africa is not rising,” Ali Mufuruki, Tanzanian millionaire said in a TEDx Talk. “I think that there is quite a number of profound flaws to the Africa rising narrative.” he said. “The first one being, we are coined not by an African, but a well-meaning Western journalist. Somebody who’s standing outside, looking in. And comparing the state of the continent today, to what it was fifteen years ago. Obviously it’s better today than what it was fifteen years ago. And we have embraced that narrative without questioning it, and I think that’s why we are where we are.”

Ali Mufuruki is both founder and executive chairman of Tanzania’s Investment Group, InfoTech. InfoTech holds the Tanzanian and Ugandan franchise for South African retail giant Woolsworth. He is also chairman of Africa Leadership Initiative East Africa Foundation, a foundation which aims to develop a new generation of value-based community spirited leaders in Africa. Occupying top positions in several high profile companies, Mufuruki is no doubt one of the most influential men in Tanzania.

 “If China could rise at 18 per cent at the peak of its rising, why would 6 to 7 percent be called impressive?” he  asked. “Unless of course we have accepted a special standard for Africa, a mediocre standard.”

Mufuruki explained that despite the attention on Africa’s partnership with the world on global trade, there is a disadvantage in the movement of products across Africa. Citing an example he said, it costs more to move cargo across African borders than it is to move cargo to African ports. “Moving a ton of fertilizer from a US port to the Kenyan port of Mumbasa, which is a 9000 kilometre journey costs $40. But moving the same ton of fertilizer from Mumbasa to Kampala, a thousand kilometres away, costs $120.”

Mufuruki stated that although cocoa is an $80 billion business with 35 per cent of it being produced in Cote de Ivoire, cocoa farmers in West Africa have been experiencing a sink in the retail price of cocoa. “In the 80’s they used to get about 16 per cent of the retail price of cocoa, today they get 6 per cent. So that cannot be rising.”

“Germany was a recipient of aid after the second world war. So was Japan, so was South Korea, so was Malaysia, or even famous Singapore. They all received aid, but there’s something special about them, which is, they all without exception graduated from being aid recipients within the space of 20 years.” Mufuruki pointed out the fact that our supposedly rising Africa is still an aid recipient 60 years later, and sadly still negotiating on a global platform, the next form of aid they want to receive. “Why is it that we are not able to graduate from aid, why is it that we are not able to start giving aid to others, 60 years later?” he asked.

“In Africa,” lamented Mufuruki. “In the past we used to blame colonialists, but today, the threat to African economies, the sabotage of African economies by Africans is on the rise. Between 2009 and 2011, Nigeria lost 136 million barrels of oil through theft and other forms of sabotage. This was equivalent to about a billion US dollars, the same amount of money Nigeria needed to import wheat, grain and rice, and other cereals over a four year period, between 2009 and 2012.”

“How much technology are we using in Africa?” asked Ali Mufuruki. Using agriculture as a case study to explain the poor state of technology in Africa, “Most Africans are supposed to rely for their livelihood on agriculture, yet, whereas an American farmer producing maize can yield ten tons of maize on 1 hectare, planted. The best we have been able to do in Africa, is two tons of maize per hectare.” With reference to this illustration, Mufuruki said the low number of agricultural output isn’t the problem. The problem is that while the rest of the world has embraced the use of technology in agriculture, Africa appears to be “marking time.”

On the issue of environment, Ali Mufuruki had this to say, “The threat to African environment is not from nuclear waste or industrial waste, it is from us. Because in this twenty first century we continue to live the same way we did a thousand years ago. Now, it’s not only Africans who use charcoal and firewood to cook and heat, fifty per cent of the global population does.  But it’s only sub-Saharan Africa where the use of charcoal and firewood is growing. And we have seen what it has done to our forests and to our rivers, and to our biodiversity.”

In spite of the recent praises for educational development in most countries; South-Korea at 67 per cent and Finland at over 70 per cent, Africa faces a major problem at a lowly 3 per cent. “In this day and age where higher level knowledge, not just basic knowledge is going to determine the winners and losers of the global fight that is on-going right now, for control of the precious resources that are left in this world, Africa has the lowest level of graduates per capita.”

Africa cannot be said to be growing when the education level of the continent is so mediocre and the share of global trade is on a decline. When Africans are constantly killing their economy and destroying their environment. “We need to make sure that we do not mistake hype for reality, we do not mistake hope for achievement.” He concluded.

The Need for Power

20 percent of Zimbabwe’s urban households do not have access to electricity, and rely mainly on firewood for their energy needs. Across the country slightly more than three million households, 44 percent are electrified. Of the un-electrified households, 62% percent use wood as the main source of energy for cooking, especially in rural areas where 90 percent live without access to energy.

Worldwide, energy access has become a key determinant in improving people’s lives, mainly in rural communities where basic needs are met with difficulty. In Zimbabwe, access to modern energy is very low, casting doubts on the country’s efforts at sustainable development, which energy experts say is not possible without sustainable energy.

Zimbabwe Energy Council executive director Panganayi Sithole told IPS that modern energy services were crucial to human welfare, yet over 70 percent of the population remain trapped in energy poverty. “The prevalence of energy of poverty in Zimbabwe cuts across both urban and rural areas. The situation is very dire in peri-urban areas due to deforestation and the non-availability of modern energy services,” said Sithole. “Take Epworth [a poor suburb in Harare] for example. There are no forests to talk about and at the same time you cannot talk of the use of liquefied petrol gas (LPG) there due to costs and lack of knowledge. People there are using grass, plastics and animal dung to cook. It’s very sad,” he noted. Sithole said there was a need to recognise energy poverty as a national challenge and priority, which all past and present ministers of energy have failed to do.

The need for energy to improve productivity in rural areas cannot be over-emphasised but current power generated is not sufficient to support all the energy-demanding activities in the country. The country has abundant renewable energy sources, most of which are yet to be fully utilized. France has a population of 65 million people, yet it generates four times more electricity than all the 47 sub-Saharan African countries generate for their 805 million people.

Making Tracks?

Among the major planned projects for Kenya is the construction of a 472-kilometre ‘Standard Gauge Railway’ (SGR), linking the Indian Ocean city of Mombasa, to Nairobi, and on to Uganda and Rwanda. The massive $353-million undertaking is financed by China’s Exim bank with a completion date of 2018. 5,000 workers will be shipped in from China for the railway project, allegedly to do ‘skilled’ work that locals have no expertise in. 

The Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) has made it clear that all structures, from dwellings to business sheds on the path of the SGR, together with their owners, will have to go. The KRC has made it clear that the residents, some of the poorest in the country, will not be compensated because they are squatting ‘illegally’ on government land. Some have been here for over 50 years. The railway’s human victims will be some 250,000 poor Nairobi slum-dwellers.

They must then brace themselves to start another life. Houses elsewhere in Nairobi are much more expensive, with the monthly rent for an average one-bedroom apartment $150; in the slums, a shack goes for $37 for those who rent, and about half the people live in shanties of their own.  A government project meant to upgrade the slums and build proper houses for its dwellers has been moving at a painfully slow pace. When the first 200 units were completed seven years ago, many were illegally allocated to government officials and their networks, leaving the poor of Nairobi’s slums in their usual place. What’s more, the majority of the people work as labourers in city factories, within walking distance from the three slums, so when they are evicted they will have to begin paying daily fares to work. With daily incomes of $3 and families to support, that’s something they can hardly afford. Those who run their own small businesses will have to look for employment or other sites from where they can conduct their trade

The reality of life under capitalism is a long way from the image we are sold. No matter how hard a lot of people work, they will not bridge the inequality gap. Real life under capitalism is characterized by high levels of obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction and mental illness. The fact remains that we’d all be a lot better off if we lived in a society that placed less emphasis on the private ownership of the means of production and instead opt for common ownership by people as a whole.  There is a lot of talk about changing society through revolution. Let’s make it happen. 

Realism is needed not myths

Isn’t socialism some sort of utopian fantasy proposal? 

What we do know is that the reality today is 80 people possess the same quantity of wealth as 3.5 billion and there exists many painful truths about economic injustices and the increasing gap between the rich and poor,  the shocking condition of men, women and children and the rise of political corruption. There is now posed a direct threat to the planet itself where capitalism destroys the planet and necessitates the extraction and burning of fossil fuels at a wildly unsustainable rate. Moreover, such policies and practices do not place the blame where it rightly lies but accuses working-class people for personal failure rather than a failure of the system. The machinery of government and its institutions are now commanded and controlled by corporate zombies, the walking brain-dead who have created a world of horror and fear. People are being turned into fools because we believe the lies that are fed to us.

Politics matters only when it changes the way people think, but it must also do more. It must not only inform, but also provoke people to act, to take collective solidarity action. We, in the Socialist Party, should find ways to make education central to politics, to develop new strategies and tactics of collective resistance.

The myth that African agriculture needs help from rich Western countries, is constantly spun out by the media, investors, agribusiness companies and other transnationals. The ‘Africa needs our help’ narrative, the game is played so that a handful of truths are used to smuggle some hugely significant lies past unsuspecting governments, NGOs and civil society.

It is true that one in four people in Sub-Saharan Africa are undernourished, and that Africa has the lowest levels of agricultural productivity in the world, with extremely low levels of inputs like fertilizers, improved seeds and irrigation. It is also true that high population growth rates, high levels of poverty, poor infrastructure and low levels of investment have compounded the problem and made food difficult to access for millions of people. It is certainly true that millions of people in Africa suffer from hunger and malnutrition. But the false conclusion is that with the financial and technical help provided by rich countries and international development agencies – such as the $10 billion of ‘responsible private investments’ committed through the New Alliance to date – employment and food production will receive a huge boost and Africa will finally be able to feed itself. Crucially missing from this analysis is as why this has happened in a continent that used to be self-sufficient in food in the 1960s.

There are two main reasons for this, and they point to a very different solution to the problem of African poverty.

Firstly, Africa’s agricultural production was designed during the colonial era to benefit rich countries in the North with their enormous appetite for raw materials and luxury (non-staple) foods. In 2011, the top five exports out of Africa (by value) were cocoa beans, coffee, cotton, rubber and tobacco; more useful for satisfying rich consumers than feeding poor communities.

Secondly, African countries have been forced to deregulate their trade by rich countries and financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These institutions continue to lend money to developing countries while encouraging them to privatize public services and deregulate their economies. So, countries end up importing staple foods like wheat, palm oil, maize, sugar and soya-bean oil – crops largely produced by rich countries in the North, which can afford to heavily subsidize their agricultural sector. They have also opened up Africa to agribusiness companies that are rapidly increasing their control of resources such as land, water and labour.

The media, transnational corporations and government agencies tell us that Africa needs GM technology and chemical fertilizers to increase crop yields. What they don’t tell us is that the use of GM seeds actually leads to falling crop yields in the long term, and the increased use of pesticides and herbicides. Ignored is the fact that more and more evidence has been pouring in which shows that sustainable agriculture – or agroecology – can produce yields comparable to, and often larger than, industrial agriculture. But that’s not all. There are also huge positive knock-on effects of agroecology, such as increasing biodiversity, increasing income and employment opportunities, reducing the gender gap, improving health and nutrition, and helping to mitigate climate change.

What we need to do is challenge the myth of corporate-controlled agriculture or calling for reform of the aid system and unfair trade agreements but instead promote the principles of agroecology and food sovereignty to help people regain control of Africa’s food system and that is only possible by replacing the exploitative global economic system - capitalism. The peoples of Africa and the rest of the world need socialism. It can only be achieved globally. 

Special Ops in Africa

US Special Operations forces in Africa are preparing for one of their biggest exercises of the year, a multinational event that spans several West African countries. Chad announced that it would host the Flintlock 2015 exercise, which kicks off Feb. 16 in the capital N'Djamena, with joint training exercises also taking place in Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Tunisia for several weeks before the event wraps up on March 9. The exercise will bring together approximately 1,300 troops from African and NATO countries, including 673 African forces, 365 NATO forces and 255 US personnel who will take part in a variety of tactical engagements. The operation is almost tailor made for the direction that the US Special Operations Command has set for the troops that it is training and equipping to operate in a post-Afghanistan and Iraq world.

While the SOCOM commander doesn't have operational control over the approximately 70,000 SOF currently on active duty, an initiative led by former commander Adm. William McRaven is helping to inform how the forces operate under the direction of the global combatant commanders, who exert operational control over the SOF under their command. When taking over the helm of SOCOM in 2011, McRaven introduced his plan to keep his forward-deployed operators supplied not only with the latest intelligence on their area of operations, but also to link them up with their SOF brethren around the globe. Dubbed the Global SOF Network, the program connects SOF around the globe to one another as well as with US government interagency partners and regional allies, building on the decade-long relationship that American and NATO SOF had forged through combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/warfare/2015/01/26/special-operations-partnership-africa-terrorism/22104187/

Angolan Austerity

With oil prices collapsing over 50 percent in the past six months, Angola -- Africa's second-largest oil producer -- has had to introduce austerity measures. Angola draws about 70 percent of its income from its oil resources. A price collapse, with supply outstripping demand, means a big revenue hit for the government.

"We will go through a difficult time now because the government cannot afford to implement the budget they had adopted for the year," said Jose de Oliviera, an independent consultant in the oil sector.

"There is a risk of even bigger problems, like being unable to pay the salaries of civil servants, or a drop in the quality and quantity of basic social services, which will affect the poorest the most," said Elias Isaac, director of the Open Society Foundation in Angola.
About 54 percent of Angolans live on less than two dollars a day.

 "Youth protest movements, which are viewed more and more favourably, are going to increase," said journalism professor and political analyst Celso Malavoloneke.

 Demonstrations have been held with increasing frequency in Angola since 2011 and are quickly repressed by the police. The young people behind these gatherings are demanding the resignation of Dos Santos -- already in power for 35 years -- while denouncing poverty, inequality, a lack of access to water and electricity, and failures in the health and education systems.

Hobson's Choice

A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered. As a person may refuse to take that option, the choice is therefore between taking the option or not; "take it or leave it".

There is no fear but the fear of hunger. Mosquito nets are widely considered a magic bullet against malaria — one of the cheapest and most effective ways to stop a disease that kills at least half a million Africans each year. An insecticide-treated mosquito net, hung over a bed, is the front line in the battle against malaria. It’s also the perfect mosquito-killing machine. The gauzy mesh allows the carbon dioxide that people exhale to flow out, which attracts mosquitoes. But as they swarm in, their cuticles touch the insecticide on the net’s surface, poisoning their nervous systems and shutting down their microscopic hearts. But many are not using their mosquito nets as global health experts have intended. Across Africa, from the mud flats of Nigeria to the coral reefs off Mozambique, mosquito-net fishing is a growing problem, an unintended consequence of one of the biggest and most celebrated public health campaigns in recent years.

Isabel Marques da Silva, a marine biologist at Universidade Lúrio in Mozambique explained “That’s why the incidence for malaria here is so high. The people don’t use the mosquito nets for mosquitoes. They use them to fish.”

“I know it’s not right,” Mr. Ndefi said, “but without these nets, we wouldn’t eat.”

“It’s simple economics,” said Carl Huchzermeyer, a fisheries manager for African Parks, a conservation organization in Bangweulu. “You could spend two days making a basket out of reeds, or just use a mosquito net.”

Scientists now worry about the collateral damage: Africa’s fish. But the unsparing mesh, with holes smaller than mosquitoes, traps much more life than traditional fishing nets do. The Malagasy word for these nets is “ramikaoko,” or the thing that takes all things together. A “real” net costs about $50, an enormous expense in a place where many people survive on a few dollars a day. Scientists say that could imperil already stressed fish populations, a critical food source for millions of the world’s poorest people. Many of these insecticide-treated nets are dragged through the same lakes and rivers people drink from, raising concerns about toxins. One of the most common insecticides used by the mosquito net industry is permethrin, which the United States Environmental Protection Agency says is “likely to be carcinogenic to humans” when consumed orally. The E.P.A. also says permethrin is “highly toxic” to fish. Most scientists say the risks to people are minimal, because the dosages are relatively low and humans metabolize permethrin quickly. But with coldblooded animals, it’s a different story. In many places, fish are dried for hours in direct sunlight on treated mosquito nets. Direct sunlight can break down the insecticide coating. Anthony Hay, an associate professor of environmental toxicology at Cornell University, said fish could absorb some of the toxins, leaving people to ingest them when they eat the fish. “We think we have a solution to everybody’s problems, and here’s an example of where we’re creating a new problem.”

“If you’re using freshly treated nets in a smallish stream or a bay in the lake, it’s quite likely you’re going to kill fish you don’t intend to kill,” said Dan Strickman, a senior program officer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has invested heavily in malaria research and development. “That’s definitely an environmental hazard.

Recent hydroacoustic surveys show that Zambia’s fish populations are dwindling. Harris Phiri, a Zambian fisheries official, blamed deforestation, rapid population growth and the widespread use of mosquito nets.

“They are catching very small fish that haven’t matured,” Mr. Phiri said. “The stocks won’t be able to grow.”

People fishing with mosquito nets tend to be those without boats or even tackle, often women and children, the most dispossessed. They work from shore, tugging the nets through shallow waters, precisely where many species spawn, creating another potential problem: the slow, steady destruction of sensitive aquatic breeding grounds.

Jeppe Kolding, a Danish fisheries ecologist, has challenged the conventional wisdom. He advocates a “balanced harvest” approach that calls for catching more juvenile fish and sparing some of the adults, arguing that mosquito-net fishing may not harm fish stocks as much as widely believed.  “Fish are more like plants than other animals,” he said, “in that they disperse millions of seeds.” But even he acknowledges that, for fishing purposes, it would be much better if the nets used were not treated with toxic chemicals.

Madagascar’s industrial shrimp catch plummeted to 3,143 tons in 2010 from 8,652 tons in 2002. Madagascar recently banned the use of mosquito nets at Antongil Bay, a crucial shrimping area.

Big companies like BASF, Bayer and Sumitomo Chemical design the nets. They are manufactured at about $3 apiece, many in China and Vietnam, shipped in steel containers to Africa, trucked to villages by aid agencies, and handed out by local ministries of health, usually gratis. The World Health Organization says the nets are a primary reason malaria death rates in Africa have been cut in half since 2000. But at the end of the line, in poor areas where little goes to waste, mosquito nets become many other things: soccer balls and chicken coops, bridal veils and funeral shrouds. Mosquito nets are literally part of the fabric of a community.

People know all too well the dangers of malaria yet also know loved ones will not last long without food.

Sub-Saharan Africa Suffering From Global Warming

Floods and fires across the southern african region are raising alarm bells on climate change once again. These effects are being felt across the globe as sea levels rise, tropical storms smash into coastlines, once-fertile lands battle with floods or drought and permafrost in the polar regions melts.

Although Africa contributes relatively little to global warming, the region is suffering from its effects. Over 180 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die as a result of climate change by the end of the century.

from here

Safari Luxury

South Africa's 'xenophobic' attacks Return

In 2008, more than 60 people were killed in a series of attacks on foreign nationals. In 2013, a 25-year-old Somali man died after being dragged through the streets of Port Elizabeth, and pelted with stones and rocks.

Police have arrested at least 121 people in connection with violence and looting of foreign-owned stores in Soweto  township  in Johannesburg that resulted in the death of at least two teenagers , prompting fears of renewed xenophobia in the country. Residents of the township attacked foreign nationals after a teenager was allegedly shot dead by a Somali shop owner earler in the week. The 14-year-old was allegedly part of a group that had tried to rob the shop. Riots and looting spread to other parts of Soweto, and another teenager was killed amid the violence. Locals targeted Somali, Ethiopian and Pakistani-owned shops in the area, forcing foreign shop owners to leave the area out of fear.

Homegrown V Homeflown

As South Africa take on Senegal in Group C in the African Cup of Nations, it will be Africa versus Europe.

Of South Africa’s 23-man squad, 18 play in their own country. Senegal have none: every footballer in their squad plays in Europe.

Censored Ethiopia

We’re getting a distorted picture of the Ethiopian story – a story that is a vital one in the context of African development. Ethiopia, along with Rwanda, is advocating a very specific developmental model, one that prioritises economic growth and socio-economic rights ahead of liberal luxuries such as democracy, participation and human rights. It sees the stifling of a free press as a justified causality in this process.

“Ethiopia’s government has systematically assaulted the country’s independent voices, treating the media as a threat rather than a valued source of information and analysis,” says Leslie Lefkow, Human Rights Watch deputy Africa director. “Journalists critical of government policies and their families live in constant fear of harassment, arrest, and losing their livelihoods,” writes Lefkow, as “the state controls most of the media, and the few surviving private media self-censor their coverage of politically sensitive issues for fear of being shut down.”

Reporters Without Borders said at least six publications had been forced to close in recent months and 30 journalists forced to flee abroad as the result of the biggest crackdown on privately-owned press since 2005.

“Most print publications in Ethiopia are closely affiliated with the government and rarely stray from government perspectives on critical issues,” said the findings from HRW, which explain how publications critical of Ethiopia’s government are regularly shut down, and printers and distributors of critical publications closed.

Social media is also heavily restricted, and many blog sites and websites run by those living in the diaspora are often blocked inside Ethiopia. In April 2014 authorities arrested six people from the Zone 9 blogging collective, who have now been in prison for more than 260 days under antiterrorism laws. Human Rights Watch says that this particular case has had a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression in the country, “especially among critically minded bloggers and online activists.”

It’s not just media, either. Ethiopia keeps a close eye on NGOs and think tanks working in the country too, even those with continental mandates, and has the power to grant or deny access to the African Union by manipulating visas – if you don’t get a visa for Ethiopia, you don’t get to visit. The result? Researchers and advocacy organisations are wary of being too critical of the current Ethiopian administration, even if they shout loudly about the failings of other African governments.

Ethiopia’s GDP is growing at about 10.4%. Over the past decade, the country has registered statistically significant growth in the welfare, education and health categories of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. But can we trust these figures? But in the absence of a free press, or a free civil society, this data goes unchallenged. In the absence of any kind of independent information we cannot gauge its effectiveness.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/23/ethiopias-media-crackdown-is-bad-news-for-africa

Leaked Report - World Bank Violated Own Rules In Ethiopia

Internal watchdog finds link between World Bank financing and Ethiopian government's mass resettlement of indigenous group

The World Bank repeatedly violated its own rules while funding a development initiative in Ethiopia that has been dogged by complaints that it sponsored forced evictions of thousands of indigenous people, according to a leaked report by a watchdog panel at the bank.

The report, which was obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, examines a health and education initiative that was buoyed by nearly $2 billion in World Bank funding over the last decade. Members of the indigenous Anuak people in Ethiopia’s Gambella province charged that Ethiopian authorities used some of the bank’s money to support a massive forced relocation program and that soldiers beat, raped and killed Anuak who refused to abandon their homes. The bank continued funding the health and education initiative for years after the allegations emerged.
The report by the World Bank’s internal Inspection Panel found that there was an “operational link” between the World Bank-funded program and the Ethiopian government’s relocation push, which was known as “villagization.” By failing to acknowledge this link and take action to protect affected communities, the bank violated its own policies on project appraisal, risk assessment, financial analysis and protection of indigenous peoples, the panel’s report concludes.
“The bank has enabled the forcible transfer of tens of thousands of indigenous people from their ancestral lands,” said David Pred, director of Inclusive Development International, a nonprofit that filed the complaint on behalf of 26 Anuak refugees.
The bank declined to answer ICIJ’s questions about the report.

Ethiopian officials who carried out the villagization program “always went with armed policemen and soldiers,” Kurimoto said. “It is very clear that the regional government thought that people would not move happily or willingly. So they had to show their power and the possibility of using force.”
Inclusive Development International’s Pred said it is now up to World Bank president Jim Yong Kim to decide whether “justice will be served” for the Anuak.  “Justice starts with the acceptance of responsibility for one’s faults – which the Inspection Panel found in abundance – and ends with the provision of meaningful redress,” he said.

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Africa - Made in China

Chinese intervention in Africa is nowhere near the scale practiced by the United States or France. But when civil war broke out in Libya four years ago, Beijing had to evacuate 36,000 Chinese nationals living in the country. China certainly didn’t want to ask Western powers to help rescue its citizens.

“China had to do the entire evacuation on its own without any assistance whatsoever,” recalls David Shinn, a former American ambassador to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso “That was a wake-up call for the Chinese.”

Since China’s initial contribution to anti-piracy activities, the country greatly increased maritime cooperation in with Africa, holding exercises with Tanzania and providing warships to the Nigerian navy. In 2013, South Sudan collapsed into civil war. China soon embarked on its first major military intervention in Africa—deploying 700 soldiers as part of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. While China had far more peacekeepers deployed to Africa than any other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the South Sudan mission is the first that explicitly includes Chinese combat troops.

The main thing is that China wants to be an economic and diplomatic superpower in Africa. Beijing’s most important businesses with African countries is the arms trade. China has exported massive amounts of heavy and light weapons to the continent in recent years. The Chinese government is signing security-related partnerships with Egypt

“If you go back to the ’60s and ’70s, Chinese weapons were somewhere about three percent of all arms going into Africa,” Shinn recalls. “If you look at it up until 2010 or ’11, around 25 percent of all arms going Africa, by dollar value are Chinese.”

Chinese companies don’t really care who they sell their merchandise to. “A lot of those arms go to effectively pariah countries like Zimbabwe and Sudan,” Shinn says. Both countries are under European Union and U.S. arms embargoes, and look to China as a no-questions-asked weapons supplier. In early 2014 media outlets began to report on a massive delivery of small arms and ammunition to South Sudan government troops from Chinese state-owned arms manufacturer Norinco. China is also arming South Sudanese troops with anti-aircraft missiles. China heavily invests in South Sudan’s oil infrastructure, and wants to protect it.