Women from Africa's Great Lakes region will spend a day trading ideas on peace and security in Kenya next week in preparation for a meeting of women's organisations in Rwanda later this year, the United Nations reports. "The participants at this one-day brainstorming session are expected to discuss their various inputs, give an update of ongoing efforts by women's organisations and NGOs [non-governmental organisations] and make suggestions on the way forward for a successful meeting of the women's organisations to be held in Kigali in May," the Nairobi-based Office of the Secretary-General's Special Representative for the Great Lakes region said in a statement.

The Coalition for Political Accountability to Women (COPAW) is a non-partisan alliance of rights based organisations and individuals committed to political accountability to women and to socio-political transformation in realising good governance in Uganda. COPAW in collaboration with Uganda Women's Network (UWONET) organised a series of meetings last year (2003) to chart out clear and distinct issues to put to political parties and organisations as Uganda transits to pluralism. The draft memorandum is available through the link below and comments can be sent to [email protected].

With a bumper crop of elections due in Africa this year, the extent to which women have a voice in government will be coming under renewed scrutiny. This is especially true of Cameroon, where the campaign to elect a female president during polls in October is gaining momentum. “It's time that women mobilized around this goal and catapulted one of us to channel our frustrations. She's the one we'll be looking to in the next elections,” says Eugenie Zambo, Vice President of the Campaign for Political Emergence of the Cameroonian Woman (CEPFC), a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Each year, since 1994, CODESRIA has organised a Gender Institute which brings together some 12 to 15 researchers for between four to six weeks of concentrated debate, experience-sharing and knowledge-building. CODESRIA is seeking applications for the following posts for the Gender Institute 2004: Director (senior scholars known for their expertise on the topic of the year and for the originality of their thinking on it); Resource persons (senior scholars or scholars in their mid-career who have published extensively on the topic, and who have a significant contribution to make to the debates on it); Laureates (African social scientists who have a minimum qualification of a Masters' degree, with a proven research capacity and who are currently engaged in teaching and/or research activities are invited to send in their applications for consideration for admission into the Institute). For more information, please contact the CODESRIA Gender Institute: [email protected].

Betty Murungi, Director for Africa, Urgent Action Fund, was awarded the Kenya National honor of the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear by President Kibaki for her work mainly with civil society and human rights issues. Betty was one of the very few women honored and one of the youngest on the list. Read the citation by clicking on the link below.

In March 2002 Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa) hosted the Great Lakes Regional Consultation on UN Resolution 1325, the first UN measure to endorse women's involvement in peace processes. That consultation stimulated African women's desire to learn more about and utilize African instruments and mechanisms for human rights and justice. In response to this idea to focus on instruments and mechanisms in Africa, UAF-Africa convened another consultation to determine how these regional instruments and mechanisms can be used to engender fairness and inclusiveness in peace negotiations, regional security, and transitional justice processes. Participants in this June 2003 meeting, held in Naivasha, Kenya, included women legal experts, human rights advocates, peace building activists, and development professionals. Discussion was based on critical analysis, review of documentation and presentation of case studies, tempered with role-plays, informal exchanges, and bonding/ networking.

Each year, since 1994, CODESRIA has organised a Gender Institute
which brings together some 12 to 15 researchers for between four to six
weeks of concentrated debate, experience-sharing and knowledge-building. CODESRIA is seeking applications for the following posts for the Gender Institute 2004: Director (senior scholars known for their expertise on the topic of the year and for the originality of their thinking on it); Resource persons (senior scholars or scholars in their mid-career who have published extensively on the topic, and who have a significant contribution to make to the debates on it); Laureates (African social scientists who have a minimum qualification of a Masters' degree, with a proven research capacity and who are currently engaged in teaching and/or research activities are invited to send in their applications for consideration for admission into the Institute). For more information, please contact the CODESRIA Gender Institute: [email protected].

Kenyan women bore the brunt of Kenya's economic and human rights violations. They struggled to hold their families together through difficult times. Still, countless families were destroyed and fell apart. Kenyan women received no support and no recognition, yet they endured. It is time their stories were heard. This is according to the summary of a report on an all-women forum on a proposed Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC). Urgent Action Fund-Africa collaborated with the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA-Kenya) to organize the forum. Participants heard testimonies from survivors of human rights abuses, discussed key issues about establishing a Kenyan TJRC and developed recommendations for the TJRC Task Force. The Forum's final report, a summary of which is available by clicking on the web link below, provides background information about TRCs; includes the full text of the keynote address; summarizes survivors' testimonies and views on reconciliation; and presents recommendations to the TJRC Task Force.

Women's already fragile land rights were being further eroded in a global context of privatisation, World Bank-sponsored land reforms, HIV/AIDS, changing employment and international trade patterns, and the food crisis in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa. This was the general consensus of issues raised in presentations and discussions at a workshop last year on Women's Land Rights in Southern and Eastern Africa.

Deborah, 46 cohabited with a man for eight years then separated after producing two bouncing boys. Her sister Anatasia, 40, separated after cohabiting for years and producing three daughters. Both of them returned to their parents in Kabermaido, where they were allocated a plot of land. However, last year their brothers evicted them on grounds that they had no right to inherit an inch of their father's land. Now they are not only landless but have no home.

Applications are now being invited for the Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa (LAWA) 2004-05 Fellowships for law school graduates and practicing attorneys in Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland who have a strong interest in and commitment to women's rights. This unique program offers African women's rights advocates an opportunity to come to Washington, DC, USA for 16 months to earn an advanced law degree at Georgetown University Law Centre and complete a work placement focused on women's rights.

In 1997 the SADC Heads of State and Government signed the Declaration on Gender and Development at a summit held in Malawi. The declaration mandated all member states to increase the number of women in all decision-making positions to at least 30 percent by 2005. Despite the signing of the declaration, the number of women in decision-making positions at all levels in many countries remains below the 30 percent target. Yet women’s involvement in decision-making is one of the key concepts of democracy, good governance and promotion of human rights in any country. According to a 2003 survey by the Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA), women in Tanzania constitute 21.3 percent in parliament and 14.8 percent in cabinet.

The death penalty as applied in Nigeria violates fundamental human rights and is sometimes used in a discriminatory way against women, Amnesty International says in a new and its first report on women and the death penalty entitled: "Nigeria: The death penalty and women under the Nigerian penal systems". "The Nigerian government should abolish the death penalty and place an immediate moratorium on any pending executions," the organisation said.

Women'sNet is hosting a regional workshop to be held in Johannesburg on the 23rd of February until the 25th of February 2004. The workshop is held with the support of the Food and Agricultural Organisation's (FAO) Dimitra Project. The workshop will bring together women's organisations, government officials, and gender and development practitioners and researchers, involved in gender and Information and Communication (ICT) projects and initiatives.

Our last issue “Youth Culture, Community Activism, Education and the Arts” featured a startling array of poetry from all around the world, as well as outstanding contributions to our knowledge (ujuzi wetu in Swahili) about the next generation and its relationship to this one. Now we are welcoming submissions that further develop themes (in the arts) that were championed by black women in particular. The Black Arts Quarterly seeks to publish written work of (preferably) less than 15-20 pages (double-spaced) that explores the role that the arts have played in the lives of black women, and vice versa: the role that women played in the black arts. What sort of consciousness-raising force came forth from black women? Tell us about the black woman who inspired you, your intellectual pursuit, your art, and/or your activism.

An age-long tradition which should have been thrown to the dust bin years ago, the circumcision of the girl-child, is a tradition still prevalent in certain parts of the country until now. About ten states of the federation have passed legislation in their houses of assemblies banning the practice.

A report released last month, ‘The Security Demographic: Population and Civil Conflict after the Cold War’, argues that much of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as parts of the Middle East and Asia, are at high-risk for future civil conflict. The report, which found a high correlation between demographics and conflict in the 1990s, also identifies the increasing toll of HIV/AIDS as a factor that will likely make some states more vulnerable to civil conflict in the future. Researchers at Population Action International argue that the best way to mitigate these factors is to improve women's access to education, family planning and economic opportunities.

The NGO Committee on Youth at the United Nations in New York is inviting young people to take part in a month long online discussion on: "Young people are the key in the fight against AIDS." This is a month-long moderated discussion for and by youth (aged 15-24) on the gender dimensions of the AIDS pandemic. AIDS affects everyone, but it discriminates against women due to their biological susceptibility to infection during sexual intercourse, cultural norms that prevent women from negotiating safe sex, and their lack of access to health care and education.

Niger’s Minister for Social Development and Women's Affairs has called for a government crackdown of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), widely known as female circumcision. The practice was made illegal in this poor West African country three years ago, but it remains widespread and no-one has ever been prosecuted for performing the crude operation.

Hail a taxi in New York City, and the odds are that your driver will be a wise-cracking male cabbie who's unafraid to share his philosophy about life with you. But, do the same in Kampala, and you may just get a sharp female graduate who's turned to taxi driving as a way of getting ahead in Uganda's uncertain job market. Margaret Isiko, 27, is a case in point. She's one of 16 women who've taken the wheel of metred taxi cabs that were introduced in Kampala last month. At the moment, 30 of these yellow cabs are plying the streets of the Ugandan capital.