Category Archives: AFRICA
From Aid to Enterprise – An African Businessman in London
Guest Post on Aid to Enterprise by Herman K. Chinery-Hesse
I was asked to attend an event in London earlier this month to share my perspectives on aid in Africa and its role in poverty alleviation, Aid to Enterprise. As a Ghanaian businessman with real life experience of aid and the affect it has on local enterprise, I readily accepted the invitation. Let explain my reasoning.
Enterprise in Ghana is not encouraged by the government. Why? Because institutional aid is very profitable for select political individuals. They enjoy large kickbacks from ensuring the aid keeps flowing into my country. Unfortunately it comes with prerequisites – these include business deal approvals on public sector contracts. Even if a Ghanaian company produces a quality solution or product at a much, much lower price point than a Western equivalent, it’s unlikely the Ghanaian business will be in the running for the contract. I know this because I’ve been in that very situation.
As a local business you pitch for a public sector contract, receive positive feedback but then hear nothing for six months. You wonder why, but then you read in the newspaper that a foreign company has bid and won the contract at a price point around 50 times higher than what you offered to complete the deal for. Unfortunately, this is commonplace. Our government has to run all public sector procurement decisions past the aid organisations, as they control the flow of money into the country. Once alerted, these organisations approach suppliers in their home countries, who are then awarded the business. In this example a French company tendered for and won the contract, along with similar deals in several other African nations depriving them of the economic benefits as well. Ironically, the kickback the government official received from outsourcing the business to the Western company was around 20 times the price we quoted for the entire project.
The reality is that institutional aid is responsible for a rift between the political and business classes. They see us as an irritant and attempt to stifle enterprise with multiple tax audits or new financial regulations. The politicians don’t want the business class to create a local economy. This makes Ghanaian banks nervous about lending to Ghanaian businesses, as they know it’s unlikely they’ll be winning the bigger public sector contracts. It becomes a vicious circle and makes it very difficult for the local economy to prosper without taking extreme measures like we did with our new business.
We recently set up an e-commerce company allowing the general Ghanaian public to start exporting goods to the rest of the world it’s based on SMS and an online portal. However, we anticipated that the government would want to run all communications through a recently installed exchange. In order to counter this we registered the company in Panama, hosted the servers in Europe and built the SMS platform in Eastern Europe. As soon as we started publicising the new service and doing business we were contacted by the government who threatened to close us down. It soon realised that the company was beyond its jurisdiction and grudgingly retreated. But this isn’t how we want to operate.
Institutional aid has existed and been well publicised for decades, yet poverty still exists. All it does is allow governments to ignore their people. The long term solution for poverty alleviation in Africa is local enterprise: businesses building local economies that can then employ the population and create opportunities for future generations of Africans. It may sound cliched, but we want a business deal and a handshake, not a handout.
Earlier this month, Herman Chinery-Hesse spoke at an event in London entitled, From Aid to Enterprise: Economic Liberty and Solutions to Poverty, hosted by not-for-profit organisation, the Acton Institute. Listen to his presentation here.
Related articles
- Ghana: An African Success Story (bigthink.com)
Impact of Chinese competition in Zimbabwe
ZIMBABWE: Chinese Become Unwelcome Guests
Harare. Image via Wikipedia
Suggested Books
Is China a rogue donor, as some media pundits suggest? Or is China helping the developing world pave a pathway out of poverty, as the Chinese claim?
Among the specific topics tackled here are China’s interest in African oil; military and security relations; the influx and goals of Chinese aid to sub-Saharan Africa; human rights issues; and China’s overall strategy in the region.
Related articles
- ZIMBABWE: Where pensions can mean poverty (irinnews.org)
- Workers claim abuse as China adds Zimbabwe to its scramble for Africa (guardian.co.uk)
- Hand me down knicker ban: Zimbabwe introduces law making second-hand underwear illegal (dailymail.co.uk)
- Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping Meets with Zimbabwean President Mugabe (appablog.wordpress.com)
- Zimbabwe’s government under fire for award of overseas business contracts (guardian.co.uk)
- ZIMBABWE: Some are more indigenous than others (IRINnews.org)
Blood shortage causing death in Ivory Coast
Lack of blood supplies and funds for transportation and donor drives is causing deaths in post conflict Ivory Coast. This IRIN NEWS report outlines the tragedy this is causing for local people. Malaria causes iron deficiency anaemia in children. This can be severe after repeated infections. I remember one little boy in the village in Gambia where we lived over 20 years ago whose palms and inner eyelids were white. The poor little mite had very severe anaemia after repeated infections of malaria and died. Children are dying now in Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast: Blood shortages causing deaths in west
MAN, 4 January (IRIN) – Blood shortages at hospitals and health centres in western Ivory Coast are causing unnecessary deaths, especially among children, say local and international health officials.
Eighty-six people in need of blood transfusions died at the main hospital in the western city of Man during the first 11 months of 2011, with three-quarters of the deaths being children, hospital records showed.
“A lot of people are dying in the west due to the lack of blood and lack of access to blood,” said Bisimwa Ruhana-Mirindi, coordinator of the World Health Organization (WHO) health cluster.
Post-election violence in 2011 made access to blood nearly impossible for several months, Ruhana-Mirindi added. Residents feared travelling to hospitals or to the region’s only blood bank in Daloa (180km from Man) because armed groups continued to man illegal checkpoints; routine blood collection campaigns halted.
Records show that of the 923 people who needed blood transfusions at Man hospital, 19 percent failed to receive the service, and half that number died.
Most of the patients requiring transfusions were children like Soumaila Djire, 13, with malaria-induced anaemia. When IRIN visited the hospital, Soumaila was breathing heavily and very thin. Doctors had one packet of blood for him, but the paediatrician said he would need more. The family had no money to visit the blood bank in Daloa.
Soumailia’s relatives could not have donated blood on the spot either: “The hospital [in Man] is not properly equipped to collect and store blood, according to national standards,” said Anderson Latt, WHO regional health coordinator.
During the post-election violence, the health system in the west virtually shut down. Health facilities were pillaged, health staff abandoned their posts, and the government stopped paying salaries to health workers.
Since President Alassane Ouattara took office in May 2011, his government has ordered all medical staff back to work, has started paying them regularly; and is carrying out field visits to monitor clinics, according to Latt.
“The government is helping to restore health systems, and has also been equipping health centres with supplies,” Latt said. The first lady, Dominique Ouattara, has also donated several ambulances to hospitals in the west.
Money woes
However, some ambulances had been stolen, and the difficulty and cost of reaching the region’s only blood bank had caused many deaths, Latt explained. Patients’ relatives have to travel to the blood bank and transfusion centre in Daloa, which takes over four hours in an ambulance, and blood is not always available there. Man hospital charges US$140 to send the ambulance to the blood bank. Few families can afford the cost, so rely on public transport.
“Meanwhile, the child could be dying,” Latt said.
While the blood bank distributes blood to the hospital in Duekoue, south of Man, Man hospital lacks proper blood storage facilities, said hospital director Alassan Coulibaly. Save the Children delivers blood from Daloa about once a week, which the hospital uses “immediately” Coulibaly said, adding: “Each time someone needs blood, they have to go to Daloa.”
Duekoue’s hospital also experiences blood shortages, said a physician with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) at the facility. MSF provides free care, including surgical procedures, which has attracted a large number of patients. However, demand outstrips supply, said MSF doctor Sarah Pestieau, adding: “This hospital would really benefit from a transfusion centre.”
Man hospital, meanwhile, has just one ambulance, lacks MSF support, and is farther from the blood bank. Because of the cost and inconvenience of accessing blood, families and doctors wait until cases become severe: “We end up waiting until they have severe symptoms like difficulty breathing. or coma,” Horace Akapo, a pediatrician at the hospital, said.
WHO and the UN Population Fund carried out a blood donation campaign between March and June 2011, the months of heavy fighting, and then distributed almost 5,000 blood packets to barely accessible hospitals in the west, said WHO. However, the funds ran out in June. “We had support for a little while but we no longer have money in our budget [for blood collection and distribution],” Latt said.
This report on line: http://www.IRINnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=94583
© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org/
[This item comes via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States. Reposting or reproduction, with attribution, for non-commercial purposes is permitted. Terms and conditions:Â http://www.irinnews.org/copyright.aspx]
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Book (free) : The Struggle over Land in Africa, Conflicts, politics and change
The struggle over land in Africa, conflicts, politics and change is a new book from HSRC Press. I’ve already downloaded my free PDF copy and I’d like to suggest you do the same. The Human Sciences Resource Council is committed to open access to quality social science in Africa and has a range of books for download or purchase. Download a pdf copy from: http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2275
Land Issues across Africa
The Struggle over Land in Africa, Conflicts, politics & change, Ward Anseeuw & Chris Alden (eds), 280pp· R 280.00· 978 0 7969 2322 6 · March 2010
Conflicts over land are frequent across the African continent, ranging from local disputes amongst urban squatters to large-scale challenges to the prevailing political order. Loaded with economic, symbolic and emotional significance, land is often at the epicentre of violence and, concurrently, of any attempts to develop sustainable solutions to conflicts.
The Struggle over Land in Africa compellingly analyses the role of land as a place and source of conflict, especially in relation to policy issues, crisis management and post-war/post-conflict reconstruction. While highlighting the diverse and critical nature of land disputes in Africa, the book draws attention to the complex root causes of these disputes a complexity that is often neglected and to the challenges they present for governance of both state and market. By adopting a continental perspective, the various chapters compare responses to internal crises across a range of African countries and regions.
The book covers land issues in Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, northern Cameroon, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Some of the themes explored in this powerful volume include: Ethnic and indigenous land conflicts, Traditionalism versus modernity, renewed land interests, land use and conflict, state building, politics and land (for example Agricultural land reform); land policy development, planning, inclusiveness/non-inclusiveness; regional scopes of land conflicts and changing norms.
With authors from the academic, diplomatic, political and civil sectors, this book is the essential reference on the debate about land issues in Africa.
Editor Information
Dr Ward Anseeuw is a CIRAD Researcher in the Post Graduate School for Agriculture and Rural Development at the University of Pretoria.
Dr Chris Alden is a reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
How to get a copy
HSRC Press publications are available in print and for free download. You can either purchase this publication in hard copy or download it for free in PDF format from the website.
http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2275
From Amazon
The Struggle Over Land in Africa: Conflicts, Politics and Change
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- Hands Off Our Land: Planning reforms threaten ‘beauty and history of our countryside’, says Loyd Grossman (telegraph.co.uk)
- Africa can feed itself but lacks political will to place food first (foodsecuritysm.wordpress.com)
Africa Politics : Malawi Land Policy
The following Guest Post was originally posted by J Kainja on Eldis Community blogs on January 4th 2010. There has been a lot written recently about so-called ‘land-grabbing’ by foreign powers of African lands. This article brings a different view of land policy in Africa by focusing on Malawi and the impact of internal land exchange on vulnerable communities.
Malawi’s Land Policy Headed for Catastrophe
Over 200 years after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade – one of the worst ever crimes against humanity – the blame game still lingers. Were African chiefs who sold their own people for petty material things like a piece of cloth at fault? Or, was it the Europeans who initiated the act? Our answers to these questions are determined by one’s political leanings and prejudices.
Nonetheless, the most rational position I find is that the Europeans were in the wrong, not only because they bought human beings, subjected them to inhuman conditions, and sold them, but also because they were cognisant of what they were doing. The Europeans were aware of the evils of the trade, unlike their trading partners, the naive and ignorant African chiefs. In other words, the Europeans took advantage of vulnerable people.
Today the world is “more enlightened†in that it recognises various forms of human rights and punishes those who abuse it. Working in cooperation with the governments of this “enlightened†world, are various charters and legislations that have been introduced to protect vulnerable people: women, children, people with disabilities, illiterate and the elderly.
I was appalled to learn that my beloved country, Malawi continues its “willing seller – willing buyer†land policy. The policy states that any Malawian can sell their private (freehold) land to fellow Malawians so long as the two parties agree on terms.
On a paper this policy seems very good but it is a dangerous one given Malawi’s social inequalities and it could have very serious social implications in the future.
For instance, in my home area, Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, only six miles to the south of the city; a lot of villagers have sold their lands to affluent Malawians. The area has now got very few agricultural fields than it used to be just over a decade ago; it now boasts huge brick fences with expensive SUVs moving in and out.
Many vulnerable villagers have sold their cultivation land unaware of the future consequences at the lure of holding a few thousand Kwachas (Malawian currency) in their hands – more money than they could ever dream of earning in their lives. This paltry sum of money is never invested and it is often shared among numerous family members. Moreover, many villagers return to the land buyers to work as security guards or gardeners for meagre wages.
Apart from worsening the already huge, unhealthy gap between the haves and the have-not’s, this policy will inevitably create generations of “wage slaves,†who will have no land for cultivation, and thereby forcing them to labour for the rich. Land is the only asset poor Malawians have and selling it leaves them with nothing and nowhere to cultivate, forcing them to seek work from the rich who take advantage of the situation to impose working conditions as they please.
This is where the policy resembles the slave trade. Foresighted rich people taking advantage of vulnerable poor people who lack foresight of the actions. At least slave masters fed their slaves so they could be strong enough to work again the following day. Landowners will not worry about feeding their workforce; workforce will outstrip demand.
These issues cannot be overlooked any longer. If we consider world growth indicators, the future is quite bleak. According to a recent report by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), “40 years from now the world will need to produce twice as much food to feed us all.†And today over a billion people around the world are already without food.
As for Malawi, the World Food Programme already estimates that 45 percent of Malawians – nearly half the population – will be without food between now and December 2010. This appeal has come at a time when Malawi has been reported to have an average of 3.1 metric tones of surplus maize in the last three harvesting seasons. Yet the WFP’s estimated 45 percent of hungry people in the country could double in 40 years time, as FAO has projected.
Furthermore, Oxfam estimates that about 86 percent of the 13 million Malawians depend on rain-fed agriculture. This is even more worrying given that the current trend indicates that poor people will inevitably have even less land for cultivation, as families grow and children are born in landless families. The 2008 population and housing census confirm this population growth.
As the Malawi population continues to grow, there will be more poor mouths to feed and less land for cultivation. Any form of agriculture requires land. How will these landless, vulnerable people fend for themselves? This is a pure recipe for catastrophe – there will be no peace!
The question is who is to blame? Do we blame the vulnerable villagers who lack foresight for “willingly selling†their land or the foresighted “willing buyers†who are taking advantage of the situation?
The truth is, this land policy can only work in places where all people have the same intellectual capacity. This is not the case in Malawi; there is huge gulf between literate and illiterate people.
My question is: what is the government doing about it? Maybe I have missed something? The government’s role is to protect vulnerable people. Let us heed Albert Einstein’s call: “strive not to be a success, but rather be of value.†And the value of any government is to protect its vulnerable populations.
Suggested Books
- Malawi Land Privatization and Management Handbook
- The Emergence of Land Markets in Africa: Impacts on Poverty, Equity, and Efficiency<
- Malawi, 4th: The Bradt Travel Guide
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The need for a coordinated approach to child protection in West Africa
The following article from IRIN NEWS highlights a problem manyoutside Africa may not be aware of.
WEST AFRICA: Call for more coordinated approach to child protection
DAKAR, 4 January (IRIN) – A new report on child migration in West Africa says thousands of children are being sold, exchanged or transported out of their communities each year in violation of internationally-recognized rights of the child, and calls on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to persuade governments to better protect these children.
Among the recommendations identified were: the need to align social norms, national laws and international standards of protection; the need to improve the development of children within their locale; the promotion of community mechanisms for child protection; the inclusion of children’s views in any protection regime; and joint initiatives to protect children from unlawful cross-border movement.
The 79-page report drawn up by representatives of several national and international NGOs, entitled Quelle protection pour les enfants concernés par la mobilité en Afrique de l’Ouest? (What Protection for Child Migrants in West Africa?) looked at the problem in Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Togo in 2008-2010.
“At the governmental level measures are generally limited to passing national laws. Joint action might simply amount to police intercepting and repatriating children,” said Moussa Harouna, programme coordinator for NGO the African Movement of Child and Youth Workers, stressing that greater unity of action was required by governments and international organizations to support village development initiatives and set up child protection measures.
The report calls on states and development agencies to integrate child migration into their development and child protection strategies. It wants any future ECOWAS action on the movement of people, particularly children, to be an essential part of a “coherent and pragmatic policy” against human trafficking and child labour.
In addition, it calls on individual states to boost their ability to find victims of child trafficking and to differentiate this practice from other forms of mobility.
Push factors
Children may leave their communities because of conflict within the family, or the desire for education, apprenticeships or job opportunities to help their families. Some parents force their children to leave, but often departure is voluntary and motivated by the quest for a better life.
Zelmet Fatimah and Zeydata Amina from Niger, two girls who beg along the Teteh Quarshie Interchange, a busy highway in the Ghanaian capital Accra, say they left home because of hunger. “There is no food there,” said Zeydata, “I come here every day with my sisters and my parents to beg for money. I beg because we don’t have money and I am hungry.”
However, push factors are many and varied: “The children’s motivations are rooted in the current changing world. It is misleading to believe that a state, civil society and development partners have the capacity and sufficient legitimacy to end, simply, this many-sided practice of child mobility,” said the report.
Positive outcomes
While no one knows the precise scale of child migration, the report says outflows of children are generally from Mali, Niger and Guinea-Bissau, and their destinations are Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo.
Outflows north are less intense. The report says just 10 percent of the total number of children seeking to reach the Maghreb and Europe are from West Africa. Many are seasonal travellers, leaving for short or medium periods at the end of the farming season.
The migration of children is not always a negative phenomenon: migrant children send money home. Those from the same community might collectively fund a project.
Harouna said this had been the case in some villages in the Niger region of Makalondi, near the border with Burkina Faso, where migrant children had jointly paid to build a school for their community. The effect had been to encourage those who were too young to migrate to remain in their communities, at least for much longer, and others to return.
“The objective is no longer to stop migration at all cost,” Haround said. “It is also to improve conditions in the communities so that children do not have to leave to seek fortunes and a better life. Yet, even if they do, then organized protection must be provided within their host states or new communities in their own countries.”
This report on line:Â http://www.IRINnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=94582
© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org/
[This item comes via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States. Reposting or reproduction, with attribution, for non-commercial purposes is permitted. Terms and conditions:Â http://www.irinnews.org/copyright.aspx
Suggested Books
- Social Protection for Africa’s Children (Routledge Studies in Development Economics)
- International Human Rights: The Protection of the Rights of Women and Female Child in Africa: Theory and Practice
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Nigeria on Edge Trying to Avert North-South Clashes
By Mustapha Muhammad
KANO, Jan 2 (IPS) – Africa’s top oil producer is on edge, poised to deter possible sectarian clashes between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, while Christians are becoming more vulnerable to attacks from Islamist militants.
Boko Haram, Nigerian Islamists inspired by the Afghan Taliban, have claimed responsibility for a spate of suicide bombings and attacks on United Nations buildings, police targets and churches over the last year.
In its latest report on the casualty figures for Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria, dated Nov. 8, Human Rights Watch said 425 people have been killed. Though there are no newer statistics from the human rights group, the number was estimated to have reached over 500 deaths by the end of 2011.
The group claimed responsibility for bombings on Christmas that mainly targeted churches in the northern cities of Abuja, Jos and Damaturu, killing at least 40 people and injuring over 50, according to police reports.
“The recent Christmas bombings may spark off retaliation against Muslims,” Shehu Sani, president of the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, a human rights group, told IPS by phone.
“The Boko Haram wants to gain sympathy from the larger Muslim society claiming that they perpetrated the attacks in revenge for Christian attacks on Muslims in Jos during the Eid ul-Fitr (Muslim holy day) congregational prayers on Aug. 29, 2011, to further aggravate confrontations between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south,” Sani said.
Nigeria has almost equal numbers of Christians and Muslims, with the oil-rich south being predominantly Christian.
Boko Haram has now issued an ultimatum giving Christians living in northern Nigeria three days to leave the area.
The recent Christmas holiday bombings sparked fears of reprisal attacks, and the government and religious bodies are intervening in an attempt to calm the tension.
“We are totally against what has been happening; we totally condemn it. Nobody can take anybody’s life, it is un-Islamic, it is un-Godly, all lives are sacred, must be respected and protected by all,” Sultan Abubakar Saad, Nigeria’s top Muslim spiritual leader, told reporters after meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan and National Security Adviser Andrew Azazi on Dec. 27.
In a separate meeting with Jonathan, Christian leaders warned that if the federal government did not take a more active role in providing security they would have to defend themselves.
“The consensus is that the Christian community nationwide would be left with no option than to respond appropriately if there are any further attacks on our members,” said the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor.
Two days after the Christmas bombings, a Christian was arrested attempting to bomb a church in the southern city of Yenagoa. A senior State Security Service (SSS) official told IPS “the bomb attempt has nothing to do with Boko Haram as it was confirmed that the attacker was a Christian from Edo State.”
On the same day an Islamic school with over 100 children was bombed in the predominantly Christian southern city of Delta. But it was too early to attribute the attacks to reprisal by the Christian community, the Civil Rights Congress said.
The international community condemned the Christmas bombings in Nigeria, and the government vowed to take a new approach towards quelling the Boko Haram insurgency.
“We are going to adopt a new strategy to fight Boko Haram, I am assuring Nigerians with total commitment,” Interior Minister Abba Moro told reporters at Madala village, a few kilometres outside of the capital Abuja, where a bomb killed 35 people at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church on Christmas day.
The government declared a state of emergency in some parts of four states troubled by bombings and suicide attacks: Borno, Yobe, Plateau and Niger. Just hours after the measure was announced, clashes erupted over land in the mainly Christian south between two rival ethnic groups, the Ezillo and Ezza, leaving 66 dead, including women and children.
The Boko Haram insurgency
Areas where Boko Haram insurgency took place. Image via Wikipedia
The group Boko Haram, whose name means “western education is sin”, is fighting for the implementation of its strict interpretation of Sharia law in Africa’s most populous country. Founded in 2002, the self-proclaimed Muslim sect became internationally known in 2009, when a military crackdown on its members began in Maiduguri, the capital of the remote state of Borno near Nigeria’s borders with Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Several members of Boko Haram were killed, including the group’s leader Mohammed Yusuf, who died in police custody. But they regrouped, and have launched continuous attacks and suicide bombings in northern Nigeria.
They claimed responsibility for the August 2011 car-bomb attack on U.N. headquarters in the capital that killed 26 people, and for the June 2011 suicide bombing at police headquarters, also in Abuja, that claimed eight lives. The deadliest series of suicide bombings and attacks for which the Islamist group has claimed responsibility were carried out in the northern city of Damaturu on Nov. 4, leaving a death toll of more than 150, according to Sani of the Civil Rights Congress.
Alleged links with Al Qaeda
There is growing evidence for the much speculated links between Boko Haram and Al Qaeda.
Western security experts say any ties with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – an Algerian terrorist group aligned with Al Qaeda – could make Boko Haram a more potent threat, especially to Nigeria’s oil industry.
Algeria’s deputy foreign minister Abdelkader Messahel told reporters that “We have no doubts that coordination exists between Boko Haram and Al Qaeda. The way both groups operate and intelligence reports show that there is cooperation.”
Algeria has the biggest intelligence-gathering operation on Al Qaeda of any country in the region.
The Nigerian Islamist group’s purported spokesman Abu Qaqa, who has been speaking on their behalf over the last year, stated that Boko Haram and Al Qaeda are fighting for the same goal.
“We have links with Al Qaeda and other Jihadists in the world, and we help each other,” Qaqa told reporters by phone.
French foreign minister Alain Juppe said that his country will partner with Nigeria to fight terrorism by providing technical training for security agents and sharing intelligence.
“If Nigeria accepts the French assistance, it will strengthen its fight against Boko Haram,” Juppe told Kano governor Musa Kwankwaso, on his visit to this northern city.
If there are indeed ties between Nigeria’s Islamists and Al Qaeda, Boko Haram’s skills and area of operations would be strengthened and expanded, Sani said.
Attacks on banks
The Islamist insurgents in Nigeria’s Muslim north have also claimed responsibility for attacks on banks. “Islamist insurgents attack banks as a source of finance for their activities,” Sani said.
Officials from the Central Bank of Nigeria said common thieves and Boko Haram robbed more than 100 banks in 2011.
The unabated bank robberies, suicide bombings, and attacks on churches and police stations by suspected Boko Haram members are scaring foreign investors away from this West African nation of 167 million people.
“I think it is a very bad signal to the Nigerian economy that lives and property are not safe,” economist Shuaibu Idris Mikati told IPS.
“Nobody will come to invest in the country facing these security challenges, nor is it good for the tourists; everybody will be jittery whenever they go to a bank,” said Mikati, a banker-turned-business guru.
[Copyright Inter Press Service (IPS) 2011. Stories reproduced in print or web must acknowledge IPS and the author, and may not be sold to other organizations]
More Africa News:
KENYA: Inflation Deflates New Year Joy
SUDAN: No Clear Studies on Impacts of Merowe Dam
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SWAZILAND: Small Loans for Young Entrepreneurs to Help Fight Crisis
NIGERIA: Not Everyone Pleased with New Vitamin A-Fortified Cassava
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Suggested books
Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink (Council on Foreign Relations Books)
My Nigeria: Five Decades of Independence
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Africa Conference : African Entrepreneurs, Past and Present, May 2012
This is a call for papers for a conference on the theme, African Entrepreneurs, Past and Present, to be held at Tel Aviv University from 20-21 May, 2012.  Abstracts need to be in to the organizers by February 15th 2012. Please respond directly to the conference conveners Africa@bgu.ac.il. For further information, please contact: Lynn Schler:  lynnsch@bgu.ac.il
Galia Sabar:  gsafrica@tau.ac.il Ayala Nissan: Africa@bgu.ac.il
CALL FOR PAPERS
Conference: African Entrepreneurs, Past and Present
Tel Aviv University, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
May 20-21, 2012
The aim of this inter-disciplinary conference is to deepen our knowledge and understanding of African entrepreneurship from both historical and contemporary perspectives. The efforts and activities of African entrepreneurs have had a deeply transformative impact on African economies, societies and cultures, and this conference seeks to bring together scholars
whose work can enrich our understanding of African business practices, ideologies and strategies across the continent.  We seek papers examining African business development, capital accumulation, management styles, and business cultures from economic, cultural, political and social perspectives.  We hope to engage in deep and comparative analyses of how Africans in both Africa and in the African diaspora have mobilized creativity, resources and innovation to initiate and foster business enterprises.  We seek to understand how the globalization of markets, beginning in the early modern period, has impacted local strategies for accumulation and business development, as well as options for trade, investment and expansion. The conference will highlight the interplay between local initiatives and regional, national and transnational economic
and political forces, and the ways in which African entrepreneurs have confronted and negotiated the volatility of economic landscapes over time. While we seek to understand the dialogue and interplay between African and international business cultures and models, we also hope to highlight the deeply local groundings and conceptualizations of entrepreneurship, investment and exchange.
The following is a list of possible themes, but it is by no means exhaustive:
- Biographies of African entrepreneurs, traders, and merchants
- African Entrepreneurs, expanding markets, and globalization
- African entrepreneurs and African labor, past and present
- Gendered perspectives on business practices in Africa across time
- Decolonization and the indigenization of business and industry in Africa
- The culture of business in Africa across time
- The business of corruption in Africa
- The impact of SAPs on African business ventures
- The initiatives and enterprises of African migrants in the contemporary and historical global economy
- Business across the Black Diaspora
-  The impact of religious beliefs and practices on African business cultures and practices
- African entrepreneurs and foreign capital
- African entrepreneurs in the informal economy
- Informality and illegality in African business
- Cultural engagements with enterprise and capital
- Marketing and advertising strategies in Africa across time
Please submit abstracts (maximum 300 words) by February 15th to:
Please include your name, institutional affiliation and contact information along with your abstract.  We will notify accepted abstracts by March 15, 2012.
Organizers and Sponsors:
This conference is being co-sponsored by the Inter-University Program in African Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Tel Aviv University and the Open University of Israel, The Africa Centre at Ben Gurion University, and the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Suggested Books
A series of profiles on some of the most successful and dynamic businesspeople currently operating in Africa.
Trailblazers is the first title to investigate the lives of South Africa’s most influential black business people, celebrating them and inspiring young leaders of tomorrow.
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Kenya, Unga Revolution over food prices
Kibera Slum, Nairobi. Image via Wikipedia
An IRIN NEWS report on the Unga Revolution in Kenya highlights the effect high food prices is having among slum dwellers in Kenya.  This film follows activist Emily Kwamboka as she takes to the streets to demand the government do something to help address the plight of ordinary Kenyans.
Throughout 2011, Kenyans have faced the strain of rising food and fuel prices. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, late and erratic rainfall led to an estimated 3.75 million people across the country becoming food-insecure. The World Bank’s Food Price Watch report states that the price of maize rose by 43 percent globally between September 2010 and September 2011.
Kenya’s Unga Revolution follows activist Emily Kwamboka as she takes to the streets to demand the government do something to help address the plight of ordinary Kenyans.
View Film Particularly affected were those living in Kenya’s urban areas, especially slum-dwellers. “Things have become so expensive, people are not even able to buy vegetables,” said Joash Otieno, a resident of Mathare, one of Nairobi’s slums. “Those who live in Mathare and other slums earn very low incomes,” he added.
The rising prices and inflation prompted the creation of a movement led by a grassroots civil society group, Bunge la Mwananchi, or The People’s Parliament. It staged demonstrations throughout the year to pressurize the Kenyan government to bring down the price of unga, or maize flour, from Ksh120 (US$1.40) a kilo, to KSh30 ($0.34).
Suggested Books
Foods of Kenya (Taste of Culture)
A review of food, cooking & daily life in Kenya for children.
African Development Report 2011
The African Development Report 2011 is the twenty second annual survey of economic and social progress in Africa. The Report provides comprehensive analysis of the state of the African economy, examining development policy issues affecting the economic prospects of the continent.
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Africa Tanzania : Involving children in education research
Involving children in qualitative research
Some time ago when I was conducting some research in classrooms in Mali I considered involving the children in the research. Although it seems simple, it is not actually an easy thing to do. I wondered about taking a small group from one class to visit another class which was using a different teaching technique and asking them to share their experience with their classmates. It didn’t work. The teachers were not happy about it, and I could not obtain parents’ permission to involve their children in the research.
Following my own experience, I was interested to read on the communication Initiative about a study in Tanzania which has tried to involve children in an education research programme. The children are considered as ‘consumers’ of education and their opinions have been sought on a range of issues related to education’. As a precurser to the report a report brief was published called ‘Children participating in research’ (PDF). One of the most interesting aspects of the research to me was that it was proposed to involve children in the analysis of the data.
You can download a PDF of the full report of Tanzanian Children’s Perceptions of Education and Their Role in Society : Views of the Children 2007.
This report contains children’s opinions on a range of issues related to education, such as school services (including healthcare, water supply, and food), textbooks, performance by teachers, discipline, extra charges, and their desired improvements to education.
I was particularly interested to look at the methodology section of the report. The tools the researchers used were:
- For quantitative questions (yes or no): Responses were gathered by a show of hands, or “voting” with small seeds, stones, or whatever was locally available. Alternately, the game “the sun shines on” would be played, where children would move in a loose circle. The facilitator would say something like, “the sun shines on those who pay school contributions†and those for whom the answer was yes would move to the centre of the circle.
- For qualitative questions: Children performed scenes from their daily interactions in role plays.
- For mixed answers: Opinion lines were used. A line is marked on the ground and children are told that at one end their teachers are kind, listen to them, and help them, and on the other end teachers are disciplinary figures you are afraid of. The children are asked to place themselves on the line according to their estimation of their teachers. This gives quantitative response (70% of children feel their teachers are more helpful than disciplinarian) and qualitative response (children discussing amongst themselves where they should be).
Suggested Books
- History and Development of Education in Tanzania
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Q and A: Time for a New Agricultural Revolution†in Africa
Busani Bafana from the Inter Press Service Africa interviews KANAYO F. NWANZE, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
KANAYO F. NWANZE
The combined effects of a ballooning world population, poor productivity and threatened water resources present fresh pressures on agriculture to deliver food, money and livelihoods in Africa.
A grouping of agriculture and advocacy organisations presented an open letter to South Africa’s Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tina Joemat Patterson calling for the inclusion of agriculture as an adaptation approach in the text to be agreed on by climate change negotiators.
The group, which includes the World Bank, CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Securityand the World Farmers’ Organisation, has said that COP 17 should be the time for agriculture, which has been repeatedly taken off the agenda in two previous climate change negotiations.
“The most vulnerable regions of the world – developing countries – are disproportionately affected by climate change, despite contributing little to carbon emissions,” said the letter. “People in developing countries depend heavily on agriculture for their livelihoods, yet are increasingly challenged in their ability to produce sufficient food for their families and for markets.”
President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development Kanayo F. Nwanze told IPS that a new agriculture revolution needs to deliver smart solutions to the current challenges posed by climate change.[ Excerpts from the interview follow:
Q: Why a new revolution now? 

A: The whole discussion we are having right now is basically how to achieve climate smart agriculture, which essentially means getting the maximum out of smallholder farmers who make up the large population of farmers in Africa, and who are mostly women. They have to have access to basic inputs and financial services. It has to respond to all the current issues that have to do with the impact of climate change on agriculture.
We have to talk about sustainable agricultural systems. The Green Revolution was successful because it focused on very clear messages: increased fertiliser use, increased improved seeds and irrigation. But we found out in the long term that it is not sustainable. So now we need to look for sustainable approaches to production that do not destroy the environment and are available to a wide spectrum of farmers in Africa and in the world as a whole.
A new green revolution is needed to meet the challenge of feeding more than nine billion people in 2050. There is no magic bullet for eliminating hunger overnight because I do not believe that ideas can feed people. Ideas for a new green revolution are needed and climate smart agriculture can deliver those ideas.
Q: Agriculture is threatened by many factors, what is the first step to make it sustainable? 

A: The first step we need to take is on the policy agenda. We must have a commitment from the highest level of policy makers of government to say agriculture is a priority and they must put their money where their mouth is.
Q: You have expressed concern with the slow progress of negotiations. What are your expectations? 

A: We are dealing with an issue that transcends what we call simple equations. You are dealing with an issue that brings a lot of political arguments and then people lose the sense of priority. It becomes very slow.
We are negotiating a political issue and there are a lot of things at stake. We are negotiating simple issues that are founded on facts and are fact-based arguments. Some people today are still denying there is climate change. How do you negotiate with someone who does not believe? That is the problem we have. We need real leadership. South Africa is doing a fantastic job leading this whole argument of putting agriculture on the agenda.
It is impacted by climate change, but agriculture is also a solution to climate change because agriculture is at the cross roads of food security and climate change. So we cannot ignore it in climate smart business.
Q: What have we done well in agriculture development in Africa? 

A: Ten years ago you would not hear people talking about agriculture … but with the events of 2007/8 with the food price hikes and volatility, with riots, now people say agriculture equals food security, food security equals political stability and global peace. With that kind of linkage, you cannot ignore agriculture and that is something we have done well.
[Copyright Inter Press Service (IPS) 2011. Stories reproduced in print or web must acknowledge IPS and the author, and may not be sold to other organizations]
More Africa News:
Climate Change Killing Womens’ Livelihoods
http://www.ips.org/africa/2011/12/climate-change-killing-women8217s-livelihoods/
EGYPT: Round One Goes to the Islamistshttp://www.ips.org/africa/2011/12/egypt-round-one-goes-to-the-islamists/
ELECTIONS-DR CONGO: Will the Candidates Accept the Results?
http://www.ips.org/africa/2011/12/elections-dr-congo-will-the-candidates-accept-the-results/
A Recipe for Carbon Farming
http://www.ips.org/africa/2011/12/a-recipe-for-carbon-farming/
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Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa
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Africa and AIDS : A Weakening Relationship
Guest Post by  Melanie Slaugh
 A major hurdle still to overcome
For a long time Africa has remained one of the frontrunners in the AIDs epidemic, with staggering numbers of people infected with the deadly disease. And while they still are the leader of the pack, significant headway has been made in reducing the number of people who are suffering from AIDs. In fact, everything related to AIDs has been on the decline: from new infections to people who have lost their lives fighting the disease, the numbers are lowering across the board. Despite decreasing numbers, though, the AIDs virus still remains a major hurdle to overcome, especially for women. A staggering 76% of women who are battling AIDs reside in Africa.
Currently Ethiopia is hosting the 16th annual International Conference on AIDs in Africa and there is a huge push for continued support of the disease to hopefully allow for even more drastically reduced numbers in the upcoming years. With the outpouring of support that AIDs has received they have already managed to put a big dent in the numbers.
“Preventing new infections, especially among young women, must remain a critical part of our responseâ€, said Mr. Sy. “Two thirds of young people between 15 and 24 years of age living with the virus are female. Unless we tackle the gender dimension of the HIV/AIDS crisis, we will fail to meet our goal of reducing by half the number of new infections among young people by 2015. We have to comply with our commitment to create an AIDS- free generation.â€
Unfortunately a recent cutback in funding by the Global Fund Board could slow down or halt the steady decline in AIDs victims. The programs in effect will continue to receive support, but new initiatives have been put on the back-burner for the time being.
“The recent medical advances around HIV and the progress achieved in scaling up treatment to half the people in need today are pointing us in the right direction,†said Dr Leslie Shanks, MSF Medical Director. “But this will all be meaningless if there is not enough funding to match the political promises we’ve accrued to date. All governments should fund further treatment scale-up to save lives while reducing transmission of the virus.â€
After having such success in bringing down the number of AIDs victims, especially throughout the African region, it would be detrimental to lose the support that has been the driving force behind the success. And as much success as there has been, AIDs continues to devastate Africa, making it imperative to find a way to continue the efforts to reduce and eliminate the disease.
Author Bio
Melanie Slaugh is enthusiastic about the growing prospects and opportunities of various industries and writing articles on various consumer goods and services as a freelance writer. She writes extensively for internet service providers and also topics related to internet service providers in my area for presenting the consumers, the information they need to choose the right Internet package for them. She can be reached at slaugh.slaugh907 @ gmail.com.
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- Today Is World AIDS Day (zocdoc.com)
