July 3, 2008 at 8:00 am · Filed under AIDS
According to AfricaNews
By Elisabeth Benkam, VoicesofAfrica mobile reporter in Yaounde, Cameroon
A local Cameroonian non-governmental organisation known as Droits de l’enfant: un livre pour chaque enfant (DELICE)has began an intensive campaign against HIV/AIDS in Obala, a small town located some 35 km from the capital city Yaounde.
According to Pierre D, the district doctor, 12 percent of the 121,000 Obala inhabitants are HIV-positive. The town is, which is also a crossroad linking eastern and central provinces, which is a strategic position for such campaigns.
Pierre says that 12 percent is much higher than the national one which is 5,5 percent. He adds that the schooling generation is the most affected. At the end of the 2007-8 school year, his hospital recorded more than 300 pregnancies among young girls registered in different secondary school of the town.
He thinks that the infection is favoured by the increase of motorcycle drivers who take advantage of vulnerable girls.
François Nkeumi, the coordinator of DELICE who is also a teacher in Obala secondary school, says that from time to time, they receive support from agency of United nations organisation such as Unicef and UNAIDS, to carry out their campaigns.
Last year, Unicef offered them twenty bicycles and one motorcycle which help walk through the town to educate the population notably the young people. He thinks that it’s urgent to do more in Obala to reverse the situation.
http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/19218
July 3, 2008 at 7:59 am · Filed under Education
According to AfricaNews
By Mohammed Kamara, AfricaNews reporter in Freetown, Sierra Leone, photo: Olivier Nyirubugara
In an effort to increase computer literacy among Sierra Leoneans, the country’s parliament have passed an act allowing the 
government to remove all duties related to importing computers into the country.
Hon. Alpha Kanu, presidential affairs minister said this puts computer literacy among its major priorities.
“The information age is bringing the world closer and computers are becoming a necessity and with a computer you can access almost all the libraries in the world by doing anything online” Hon. Kanu said.
He added that the removal of the computer import duties will make computers available to everyone in the country even those in the remote parts of Sierra Leone.
An opposition Member of Parliament Hon. Tondoneh explained the importance of computer in any society but queried whether the Government has put mechanism in place to make these machines available to the intended beneficiaries.
Over 75% of the population of Sierra Leone could not use computer. Even so-called literates in schools and higher institution of learning are not comfortable with the computer. The programs are there but the computers are not available for these students to put into practice what they have learnt.
http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/19238
June 30, 2008 at 12:56 pm · Filed under Ghana
According to Public Agenda (Accra)
The National Programme for the Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour in Cocoa (NPECLC) coordinated by the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment has released two reports in relation to eliminating worst forms of child labour in cocoa.
A press statement last Thursday said the two reports; the Cocoa Labour Survey in Ghana also called scale-up survey and the Hazardous Child Labour Activity Framework, (HAF) were reviewed at a separate key stakeholder meetings about three weeks ago.
It said the survey was conducted in the current 2007/2008 cocoa season as a scale up to a pilot survey conducted in 2006 covering 15 cocoa-growing administrative districts within the six cocoa-growing regions that accounted for 60%of cocoa production in Ghana.
It said as part of a National Child Labour Activity Framework being developed for all sectors, HAF was also developed to clearly spell out hazardous conditions of cocoa related activities and determine which ones children should or not perform.
Over 1,700 households, 3,452 children aged between 5 and 17 and 1,391 adults were interviewed as well as 66 focus group discussions involving children and adults were conducted by a team of researchers drawn from the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness of the University of Ghana, Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana, Ghana Statistical Service, Employment Information Bureau, the University Ghana Medical School and Civil Society Organizations undertook the research which covered it said.
The survey examined specific economic and demographic information on the cocoa sector, child and adult working practices in addition to detailed description of legal frameworks and remediation activities to promote child welfare with analyses and recommendations to improve occupational health and family welfare within the cocoa communities in the country.
It said the government was committed to eliminating worst forms of child labour in cocoa and other sectors as a sure means to achieve overall child development.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200806301750.html
June 30, 2008 at 12:51 pm · Filed under Liberia
According to The African Development Bank
An African Development Bank (AfDB) Group delegation, led by its vice president, Joseph Eichenberger, last week participated in the 2008 Liberia Poverty Reduction Forum hosted by the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development in Berlin. The objective of the meeting was to present the country’s recently published 2008-2011 Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) in order to solicit support from development partners.
The PRS is a follow-up to the Interim Poverty Reduction Paper (I-PRSP) for 2007 which was jointly supported by the AfDB and the World Bank through a joint interim strategy document. Under the PRS, support from the Bank is mainly in the areas of water supply and sanitation infrastructure as well as budget support. The Liberian delegation to the forum was led by the country’s president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, with the participation of key government officials and members of the donor community supporting Liberia’s social and economic development such as the United States, the United Nations system, the IMF, the World Bank, the EU, DFID, Sweden, Norway, Japan and France, among others. Liberia reengaged with the Bank Group after the clearance of some $240 million in arrears in December 2007 after nearly two decades of sanctions.
Speaking during the event, AfDB’s vice president Joseph Eichenberger, said the presentation of the country’s PRS was an opportunity for the AfDB and Liberia to express their shared commitment to achieve a common purpose. He noted that the AfDB’s common purpose with the Liberian people goes back many years. He recalled that the Bank Group’s charter was drafted at the Monrovia Conference in 1961. Two decades of tragedy, he said, had obscured and damaged that common purpose, but could not destroy it and the event offered both parties the opportunity to reaffirm their faith and confidence in a future of peace, dignity and shared prosperity for the Liberian people.
He pointed out that the poverty reduction strategy admirably captured both the immensity of the challenge and the common purpose with which it could be overcome, adding that it was hugely ambitious, but appropriately so.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200806270450.html
June 24, 2008 at 11:39 am · Filed under Africa (General)
According to BBC
Some 50 families displaced by post-election violence in Kenya have been turned away by neighbours after trying to return home. 
The families have been forced back to a camp in the western town of Eldoret.
The BBC’s Wanyama wa Chebusiri in Kenya says the development is a huge blow to the government’s plan to resettle thousands of displaced people.
Violence following Kenya’s disputed presidential elections in December left some 1,500 dead and 600,000 homeless.
Our reporter says ethnic Kalenjin supporters of Prime Minister Raila Odinga refused to let members of President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu community return home.
Samuel Njuguna, one of those forced back to the camp in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, said a district officer had earlier told the families they could move.
But when they arrived and started to unload their possessions they were threatened by their former neighbours, he said.
“The people were coming close to us and they started screaming, shouting… ‘Just go back to where you come from. We are going to kill you.’”
A local pastor said his church would be burned down if the families left their possessions there, he said.
Some Rift Valley residents are demanding an amnesty over the post-election violence before resettlement goes ahead.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7470049.stm
June 24, 2008 at 11:22 am · Filed under Health
According to: UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
The humanitarian situation in southern Ethiopia is becoming more critical, with increasing malnutrition being reported among young children in the past few weeks, a senior UN official said.
“The situation has actually [become] worse over the last few weeks,” the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative to Ethiopia, Bjorn Ljungqvist, said. “We saw the number of children requiring therapeutic feeding, including stabilisation, increase tremendously.”
More than 15,000 children are receiving treatment at therapeutic feeding centres in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s (SNNPR) and Oromiya regions, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“The nutrition crisis continues to escalate despite the concerted efforts of government and humanitarian partners to respond to the treatment needs of children,” OCHA said on 20 June.
Risk of death
“Children are now at risk of dying in numbers in the hardest-hit areas if help is not provided urgently,” Johnson said. “The government and partners are doing their utmost to help but needs are not met, at present, with adequate speed. More resources need to be provided.”
http://allafrica.com/stories/200806240945.html
June 23, 2008 at 8:37 pm · Filed under Assessment Trip 2008
Passport, check. Plane ticket, check. Malaria meds, check. Hat, sunscreen, check. Mosquito net, check. Good to go. Packed and ready.
Oh the usual worries and deliberation of what and what not to take is over. We are ready to head out. On the road to West Africa.
Africa Aid will be heading to both Ghana and Liberia in order to assess our current programs, in hopes of improving upon what we’ve already done, and look to expand our sustainable development initiatives into new areas of need. The trip will begin in the Buduburam Liberian Refugee Settlement in Ghana, in which most of our sustainable development initiatives operate. Buduburum lies about 40 km west of the capital, Accra, and houses about 42,0000 Liberian refugees. It is there that we work with a local Liberian-run ngo called Self-Help Initiatives for Sustainable Development (SHIFSD). SHIFSD has been an Africa Aid partner for several years now and has been absolutely central to the success of our programs thus far. During the trip we will be tabling the idea of expanding our operations into Liberia with the local support of SHIFSD as a well-respected organization.
An envoy of four Africa Aid personnel will be participating in the trip and you should be hearing from all of us over the next few months. We will be looking at several program potentials. But mainly, we will be assessing the current situation and the future of refugees in Buduburam, and the potential of expanding our programs into Liberia by following and supporting refugees as some repatriate to their home nation.
Our main programming area is that of Microlending, as we look at economically empowering refugees as they return to Liberia. One of the biggest problems in Liberia is the limited access to employment, following a weak market economy.
We want to open economic opportunities for Liberians by investing in them. We want to align with the Liberian governments desires, after they work to develop — coming out of years of civil conflict that tore the country apart.
In addition, part of the Africa Aid envoy will be focusing on Microlending initiatives in Ghana. Ghana is known for it’s improved standard of living over the last 20 years, but there are still underserved and poor communities that we plan to target through our economic development initiatives.
Overall, we are exciting and optimistic.We hope you stay with us in this journey, as we look to improve our programming and expand our operations in West Africa.
June 20, 2008 at 10:47 am · Filed under Main
According to TurkishPress.com
 Zimbabwe schoolchildren queue for porridge provided by an aid agency in Harare. Zimbabwe has lifted a pre-election ban on charities involved in food distribution and AIDS treatment, but NGOs said the move will have little effect.
(AFP/File) |
Zimbabwe has lifted a pre-election ban on charities involved in food distribution and AIDS treatment, state media said Wednesday, but NGOs said the move will have little effect.
The state-run Herald cited the government’s acting welfare secretary as saying a recently imposed ban on all aid work would not prevent AIDS patients from “accessing drugs and therapeutic feeding from clinics and hospitals”.
Food programmes would also be allowed to continue since they do not “entail community mobilisation by NGOs,” Sydney Mhishi said.
NGOs provide food and medicines to children and clinics, mostly in rural areas.
The government announced a blanket ban on aid work earlier this month after accusing NGOs of siding with the opposition ahead of the June 27 presidential run-off election.
Charities said Wednesday’s announcement would do little to change the situation in Zimbabwe, which is heavily reliant on aid as it faces the world’s highest inflation rate and major food shortages.
The country has also been hard hit by the AIDS epidemic and aid groups had warned of a potential humanitarian crisis if the ban was not lifted.”
It does not amount to much because there is still very limited access, especially in rural areas due to politically motivated violence,” said Famdai Ngirande of the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO).
Violence has mounted ahead of the run-off, with the opposition claiming more than 60 of its supporters have been killed in a campaign of intimidation. …full story
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=237335
June 20, 2008 at 10:22 am · Filed under Main
According to The Nation (Nairobi)
Prime Minister Raila Odinga got the approval of US congressmen, agencies, financiers and diplomats for a further US$ 90m (Sh5.85 billion) funding for Kenya’s rehabilitation programme.
Washington also promised Kenya more money in the next two years as the PM articulated Kenya’s reform agenda at a luncheon attended by nearly 300 guests.
“Africa only needs investment and trade”, said the PM after he explained the aid was to avert the recent socio-political crisis that had severely dented Kenya’s economy.
He appealed to American investors to venture into public-private sector partnerships with Kenya noting continental foreign aid had mostly been diverted to individual accounts abroad.
The PM who is due to sign the Open-Skies Agreement Wednesday to allow direct US flight exports to Kenya said the arrangement was dual.
“With value addition to our horticulture, flowers, tea and coffee, Kenya will also expand its bi-lateral trade with US beyond AGOA”.
The PM urgently wants one-stop shops set up in Kenya to provide an enabling investment environment.
Taking a swipe at past African dictatorship and corruption, the Prime Minister exhorted Afro-optimism saying he believed the continent would see change. …full story
http://allafrica.com/stories/200806181115.html
June 20, 2008 at 10:07 am · Filed under Education
According to News24.com
Lagos - Nigerian teachers have threatened to launch an indefinite strike next week unless the government honours a promise to raise their pay, says a union leader.
“We will begin a full scale strike from June 25 if the new salary structure is not paid before then,” union leader Ade Ademeso said.
He said the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) took the decision following government’s repeated failure to honour a pay agreement.
The teachers went on a three-day strike last week, shutting down primary and secondary schools, but suspended the action after the government pledged to pay.
Teachers were among the worst paid professions in the oil rich country and the unions were demanding that the government start paying the new package immediately.
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2342738,00.html
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