Bridges.org's "Comparison Study of Free/Open Source and Proprietary Software in an African Context: Implementation and Policy-Making to Optimise Public-Access to ICT" was published last week to provide needed background information and advice to people who want to make sound software choices that are right for their local environments. The report represents the first comprehensive analysis of software choices in the African public-access context. The study looked at 121 computer labs in Namibia, South Africa and Uganda, examining the range of factors that affect software choices; the realities of the current situation in Africa; and the long-term implications of software choices for Africa.

A new study on climate change has warned of escalating drought in southern Africa, directly linked to the warming of the Indian Ocean. According to the US-based National Centre for Atmospheric Research, since 1950 the Indian Ocean has warmed more than one degree Celsius; "well beyond the range expected from natural processes", but consistent with projected increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

As the Africa leg of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) campaign gears up, Hellen Tombo explains that the symbolic white bands that will be worn by campaigners are not indicative of surrender. Rather they are a demand to world leaders to cancel crippling debt burdens and end the unjust trade rules that are killing African children and youth.

“I am a symbol of many of the children and youth of Africa wearing white, crying out to be heard.”

The wearing of white bands is not significant of surrender. Instead, it represents the innocence of the children and youth who make up half of the population of the continent. Our white wristband defines our stance in solidarity with the Global Call to Action against Poverty.

Twenty years ago, a cry was heard. Soweto wailed for her slain children as they were mowed down by proponents of the apartheid regime as they peacefully marched along the road to demand their rights. Today the world mourns for the 30 000 plus children and youth that are killed everyday through denial of basic human rights.

Children and youth are at the core of GCAP. African countries are called upon to put in place statutory, developmental and governance interventions to address the plight of the children and the youth. As world leaders prepare to meet at the Gleneagles G8 summit in July, the voices of children and youth call for an increase in aid and debt cancellation. Answering this call is key to opening up space for children and youth to enjoy their basic human rights. The aim of wearing the whiteband and joining the GCAP community in this struggle is to create widespread mobilisation of youth and children to demand action and accountability from leaders in their commitments to eliminate poverty.

Poverty is a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is further compounded by trade injustices that keep people poor. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other national and international statutes, protects the rights of all people to an adequate standard of living and well-being. These include education, food, clothing, housing, and medical care: rights whose achievement is undermined by inadequate commitment and policies that do not favor the implementation of globally-agreed upon declarations and statutes.

Today, millions of children and youth are trapped in abject poverty and lack access to basic education. Every day more than 800 million people, a high percentage being children and youth, go to bed with empty stomachs. HIV/AIDS kills more than 2 million people every year and adds to the league of orphans. Hunger is a daily norm rather than an exception: every year six million children die of malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

Who can tell the torments of the grave better than the dead? Who can fathom the discomfort that a poor girl has to live with month after month, year in year out due to a lack of sanitary pads. Unjust trade policies have destroyed the social infrastructure so much that more than school fees, it is the shame of using leaves or pieces of mattresses as sanitary towels that is locking the girl child out of the school system.

If you are a leader who has put food in the dustbin while 8 000 children and youth die of hunger in the last 24 hours, be the first to cast a stone. Cast it if you have not uttered the word ‘my right’ while six year olds are being married off, thousands consoling themselves with drugs due to unemployment. If these leaders cannot cast a stone, let them put on a white band and highlight the issues afflicting the children and the youth, such as:

- Children and young people whose school uniform doubles as their Sunday best because they cannot afford another set of clothes.
- Serial rapists who traumatise girls and young women.
- Children and young people who are exposed to the danger of rape by the long distances they have to cover in search of water or fire wood or forced to commercial sex by the need to feed siblings.
- Children and youth who are left out of government strategies and national plans.
- Children and youth who have to drop out of school to take care of their siblings when their parents die of HIV/Aids.
- Girls and young women who are married off as property.
- Children and youth who have to balance heavy home duties and school work on an empty stomach.
- Youth who have to console themselves with alcohol, ganging up and committing crime to get money to buy food and clothes, getting into drugs and roaming the streets due to lack of employment.

Children and the youth can be empowered to take charge of their lives. While some people may dislike and work against the conditions that would force them into accepting these challenges we want to ensure that children and the youth are mentored and provided for so that we are ready for any obstacle. Do this not for the children but with them.

Efforts to tackle poverty and deliver sustainable development, as pledged in the Millennium Declaration, have been grossly inadequate. Governments too often fail to address the needs of children and youth. Aid from rich countries is inadequate in both quality and quantity. Rich countries have yet to act on their repeated pledges to tackle unfair trade rules and practices: promises of debt cancellation have not been realized.

Debt servicing currently costs the world’s developing nations $39 billion annually. This, often times illegitimate debt, accounts for the lack of funding for the most basic healthcare, education, access to clean water, food, shelter etc. Behind the cold statistics of failed promises and empty rhetoric are lives of real children and youth: millions of children and youth abandoned; without basic health care, sleeping on the pavements in our cities. These children and young people must be cared for, taken in and treated as children.

Poverty is a very unnatural and abnormal state. It is man made and can be eradicated and overcome by the actions of human beings. Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity; it is the protection of a fundamental human right to dignity and a decent life. We do not wear white to surrender to poverty. We display our wristbands to mark our solidarity in the calling of others to action against poverty. It is a reminder to the G8 leaders and world leaders in the UN summit and WTO that with greatness comes responsibility: 2005 is the time to demand they take responsibility.

Naturally trade can create prosperity for Africa as it has in other regions. However, our actions have designed the same trade to deny many children the right to live to see their fifth birthday. We must address the widening gap between the rich and the poor if we aim to safeguard the security of our children and youth for today and tomorrow. Trade must be facilitated in such a way that it builds a future asset base for all children and youth irrespective of their culture, race, sex or creed. All children and youth worldwide must be born free: free from debt and free from any form of deprivation. Somebody must answer the cries of the children and youth.

I am crying as one of the millions of African children and youth. Debt is killing us, trade injustices are killings us, poverty is killing us, empty promises are killing us…

My call to our African and world leaders is:

We need strategies, interventions and real programs to serve us today and for the future of Africa and the world…

African leaders, you have had your priorities wrong. It is not too late to change. Let the children and youth be your priority and you will save the world…

World leaders, cancel the debt – it is killing us. We demand trade justice and better and more aid. We demand that world leaders keep their promises in achieving the MDGs.

* Hellen Tombo is executive director of the Kenya Youth Education and Community Development Programme (KYCEP).

* Please send comments to [email protected]

What is the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP)? In short, GCAP is a global alliance that aims to force world leaders to live up to their promises to end poverty in 2005. The main demands of GCAP are trade justice, debt cancellation, a major increase in the quantity and quality of aid and national efforts to eliminate poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals that are sustainable and implemented in a way that is democratic, transparent, and accountable to citizens. Visit www.whiteband.org to find out more about the issues involved and activities taking place in your country.

In Africa, the GCAP process is well under way, with the key dates for mobilisation set as June 16 (Day of the African Child); July 01 (Pre African Union Summit and G8 meetings); September 10 (pre United Nations MDG Summit) and December 10 (pre World Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong). Show your support for GCAP by wearing a white band on these days.

Anyone can join the campaign. Some of the ways you can get involved include:

1. Using your mobile phone
You can join the call by sending an SMS message with “No to Debt”, followed by any comment you wish to make and your name and surname to +27 82 904 3425 .

You can also access more information about the campaign by
- Sending a SMS/text message with ‘subscribe’ and ‘your name and surname’ to +27 82 904 3425
- Sending an email to [email protected] with subscribe in the subject line and your name and mobile/cell phone number (including country code) in the body of the email.

By doing this, you will be able to;
- Subscribe to a free information service
- Be able to send messages to world leaders voicing their support for debt cancellation throughput the year
- See your messages on the website www.whiteband.org

You will only be charged the standard fee from your network provider. There are NO other hidden costs

2. Acting by
- Wearing a white band on your wrist in solidarity on June 16th, July 1st, September 10th and December 10th
- Wrapping buildings with white bands, participating in G8 lobby visits, public hearings/meetings in Parliaments, schools, universities, football stadiums, public radio programmes, caravans and petitions that target youth, religious leaders and women.
- Attending regional music concerts in Accra September and Kenya December/August

3. Listening and watching

- Six ten minute debt cancellation radio programmes are to be aired in at least ten African countries
- Short audio and video adverts are to be aired on public broadcasting radio and television programmes in fifteen African countries (English, Arabic and French)

4. Reading about the campaign and contacting your national coordinating coalition by visiting www.whiteband.org

By clicking on the link below, you can read a Preliminary Communiqué from Africa Consultation of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, held on
March 30-31st 2005 in Kenya; a declaration from a Johannesburg GCAP meeting in September 2004 and an April 2005 ultimatum to G8 leaders on debt cancellation.

Governments are betraying their promise of a world order based on human rights and are pursuing a dangerous new agenda, said Amnesty International as it launched its annual assessment of global human rights. Speaking at the launch of the Amnesty International Report 2005, the organization's Secretary General Irene Khan said that governments had failed to show principled leadership and must be held to account.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development is built on one crucial but unexamined assumption: that more aid will lead to more development. So far, nearly $1 trillion has been spent on aid to Africa, but most of the continent is poorer today than at independence. The Cold War played a big part, keeping aid flowing to loyal but corrupt regimes that should have been cut off from external assistance. War is also a culprit. Only 10 countries on the continent have not had a conflict or coup d'etat. Poor governance and venal political struggles - such as those tearing apart Togo and Côte d'Ivoire today - have destroyed economies and negated the positive effects of aid. Click on the URL provided to read the rest of this article from the South African Insitute of International Affairs.

The findings from this working paper suggest that conditions in the origin countries known to produce refugee outflows influence the way in which destination countries allocate protection to asylum-seekers. However, the amount of protection provided by destination countries is found to be impervious to refugee-generating conditions in origin countries.

Last Sunday - for those who may not have noticed - was World Biodiversity Day. This is an annual event nominated by the United Nations, and intended to deepen awareness of the fact that human survival depends on safeguarding plant and animal life on Earth. This year's biological diversity day sought to capture this concept in its theme: 'Biodiversity is the life insurance of life itself'.

Global banking group Barclays has just paid 33 billion rand (£2.9 billion or $5.5 billion) for a controlling stake in South African bank Absa, a cash injection that supporters of the deal have hailed as good news for Africa’s largest economy. Critics have slammed the deal as likely to benefit mainly foreign shareholders and lobby group Jubilee South Africa have called for Barclays to pay reparations for doing business with the apartheid regime. In the context of overwhelming corporate power devoid of ethics and based on the primacy of profits, this article charts the strong moral case to be made for reparations from corporations who cause suffering because of their actions.

Let's not kid ourselves. This world's socio-economic engine runs on capitalism, and corporations are driving the bus. Ever since the end of the Second World War, the power of transnational corporations has been in the ascendancy while that of organised labour, civil society, and the State has declined.

This rise - the spreading reach of financiers and businessmen into every corner of the globe, with no place free from a Coca-Cola sign and a marketing team - of corporate power in the latter half of the 20th Century has been well documented, starting with Dwight Eisenhower's prophetic warning in 1961 about the domination of America by an military-industrial complex. The fact that Eisenhower only warned the American people after serving as President hints at, even back then, the dark power of corporations to muzzle 'elected' politicians. Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal and others have since charted the rise of the corporate (and branded) sun, an ascent yet to reach its apex.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent end of an alternative to Yankee-style capitalism - known for its neo-liberal, trickle-down theories of economic nirvana and pushed, punted and rammed home by IMF and World Bank bureaucrats - marked the beginning of a sustained process of hyper-consolidation of corporate power and the total integration of each local economy into one financial system. We've noted and tagged this process. We've given it a name, globalization.

And it is a process accountable only to a specific minority, the shareholders of the transnational corporations that are leading the global economy. Shareholders, it might be pointed out, are almost always interested in one thing, the maximisation of profit in the shortest period of time possible.

The 1990s saw not only the opening of virgin markets in Eastern Europe, Russia and elsewhere, but also the increasing use of stock options as an incentive for corporate management. Whether by design or by accident, stock options for management has resulted in an alignment of the interests of corporate brass and of shareholders -profit. Neither God nor glory factors into today's equation. The days of the wise chairman of the board, the old man who had built the company up from two pots and a piece of string, looking after the community that had spawned his company are lost in legend and myth. At most, modern transnational corporations have only the faintest of ties to geographical locations or people. They have become divorced from communities, economically, politically and ethically.

An ethical transnational corporation is an oxymoron. When risk analysts sit down at conference tables, the end result of any corporate action is assessed according to profitability factors. If it does not make a profit (or a small profit at high risk), an action is deemed unworthy of pursuit. The converse is also true; highly profitable actions at the lowest possible risk are extremely attractive. The ethical component of an action is not considered, and, if it is, it is usually weighed in as a risk factor (i.e. the bad press and damage to a brand that an unethical action (like using sweatshop labour) can cause). In all cases, the determining factor is profit.

Not all organisations or groups of human beings act in this manner. In fact, most don't. The ethical considerations of actions are at the fundamentals of a lot of decision-making. For example, societies often try to build legal codes on their moral codes. Aristotelian ethics and politics are quite explicit on this point; the reason behind legislation is to make men and women moral. At the very least, it is hoped that laws reflect society's morals (what those morals are is at the heart of most major disputes within communities), although this is often subverted by the vested interests of politicians and their backers.

Philosophers and religious leaders for millennia have been promoting the primacy of morals; one should do A because A is the morally correct thing to do. While it is very hard to implement morally right actions all of the time, most people make an honest attempt at a near instinctive level.

Transnational corporations do not subscribe to this primacy of morals. They believe in the primacy of profits, and that is why we see, over and over again, transnational corporations working with immoral regimes and engaged in shady practises. From no-bid contracts in Iraq, to oil for the Burmese junta and its tanks, to sweatshops in Central America stitching branded sneakers together for First World teenagers, corporations are engaged in immoral activities, working in collusion with unethical parties. Why? Because it is profitable to do so.

The abolition of transnational corporations is not an achievable goal in the short or even medium-term. Not only will this not occur any time soon, the likely outcome of globalization is, ironically enough, the withering away of the State. The signs are in contracts and budgets across the world. Governments have been increasingly outsourcing their traditional activities - those actions which seek to achieve the public good - to corporations; social services, such as healthcare and rubbish collection, have been outsourced to private companies on the economic argument that the private sector is more efficient (read cost-effective) than the State. Even the core of the State and its monopoly on legitimate force, is slowly being outsourced. The cutting edge of penal theory deals with how best to outsource the prison system, in its entirety, to private firms that transport, house and discipline inmates. The world's most powerful military moves these days with a critical baggage train of private companies that do everything from transport and cooking of food, to maintenance of military equipment, to the provision of ‘security consultants’.

Citizen pay taxes in return for protection and various social goods (healthcare, education, etc.) from the State. The State now pays the private sector to deliver these social goods and protective services. Sooner or later, someone will decide to cut the middleman out of this equation.

Further, governments are rapidly losing the ability to set their own economic policies, except within pre-determined limits. Economic policies that are unfriendly to corporations (living wage, perhaps) can provoke massive capital flight in the short-term and disinvestment in the longer-term. As many jobs have become tied (often through contractors and other such middlemen) to the activities of corporations, capital flight and disinvestment means job losses and, possibly, economic collapse. This economic threat has resulted in countries throughout the developing world scrambling over each other to provide the cheapest labour with the kindest corporate tax system. This is George Monbiot's infamous race to the bottom, and it is a direct result of the economic power that corporations hold over governments. In attempts to change the behaviour of corporations, civil society and organised labour are often lashed with a variant of this argument; if you don't stop criticising corporation X, it will leave these shores, the global business community will lose confidence, foreign investment will dry up, and the whole country will descend into an economic crisis of dust bowl proportions.

Corporations, on this analysis, are entities 1) with a overriding concern for the maximisation of profit in shortest possible time frame, 2) that do not believe in the primacy of morals, and 3) are so exceedingly powerful that it is possible to conceive of them replacing the State, let alone influencing government policy.

Enter the issue of reparations.

The concept of reparations is rather simple. It states that if damage (suffering) occurred because of an entity's actions, that entity should pay reparations to those who suffered. Various civil society groups across the globe have applied this concept in several different contexts: Creditor countries should pay reparations for imposing odious and crippling debt on debtor nations. Colonial powers should pay reparations for colonialism, slavery, plundering of national wealth, etc.. Polluters should pay reparations to those who suffered from their pollution (for example, victims of groundwater contamination). The concept of reparations is not an economic or political concept; it is a moral concept; the perpetrator of suffering inflicted on others needs to make amends. This is a basic moral precept: If you do something wrong, take responsibility and, if possible, try to correct the situation.

The case for reparations from corporations has many angles, but one of the most current is that corporations must pay reparations for their support (direct or indirect) of illegitimate regimes. The case is, perhaps, strongest in terms of direct support.

Corporations that support illegitimate regimes are committing fairly serious moral violations. For example, an oil company pays royalties to a military dictatorship. The revenue from these royalties is then used to purchase guns and tanks, which are then used to suppress the population. Why is this an example of a moral violation? After all, the corporation wasn't (via its employees) doing the actual suppressing, and it was doing nothing illegal. It was operating within the law of a sovereign nation.

The latter objection falls away quite quickly. The case for reparations is a moral case, and is independent of the law. Throughout history, including the modern era, there have been a variety of laws that make some of the most immoral acts legal; the Apartheid system was one such legal framework. The concept of reparations relies on a primacy of morals, not that of law.

It is the former objection that has more strength, and it is here that the relative power of corporations comes in. Countries cannot easily force transnational corporations to purchase a particular bond. Countries, especially in the developing world, have a hard time telling transnational corporations what to do in general. Corporations can move domiciles, threaten to disinvest, choose not to deal with illegitimate regimes. When corporations deal with illegitimate regimes that commit human rights abuses, they do so willingly and knowingly. They are like gun stores that sell weapons to the enraged husbands of cheating wives; there's only one reason why such individuals want to buy 9mm pistols and fistfuls of hollow-point rounds; there's only one reason why the South African Defence Force issued bonds in 1976.

Corporations that continue to support illegitimate regimes do so in full knowledge of the ramifications of their support, and do so despite having the ability to do otherwise. And, for this, they must pay. This demand for reparations from corporations is a part of wider attempts worldwide to impose morality on corporations. This will be resisted, mostly due to their non-acceptance of the primacy of morals; business, as they are fond of telling us, is war, and all's fair in love and war.

They are wrong. This world does not belong to them. It does not move according to the dictates of currency traders in New York, London and Tokyo. This is our world. It is for all human beings equally, and what makes us special is not that we crawled to the top of the food chain or that we can travel to the moon and back again or that we can bet on the futures market. What makes us special is that we are the only form of life we know of that can differentiate between good and bad, between the virtuous and the wicked, and then act accordingly. Without this, we would be nothing more than a bunch of particularly vicious apes. The belief that human inventions such as corporations and capital are different, are immune to moral judgment and action, is the great public relations trick of our times.

* Tristen Taylor is the Apartheid Debt and Reparations Campaign Coordinator at Jubilee South Africa, which is currently embroiled in a campaign to force Barclays National Bank Ltd to address and pay reparations for its Apartheid past. The views in the article above are his and are not necessarily those of Jubilee South Africa.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

This paper summarises the findings of a comparative research project on the contribution of civil society organisations to democratisation in Africa. Drawing primarily on empirical case studies of civil society organisations in South Africa and Uganda, and related material from Ghana, the research examines their ability to influence government policy and legislation through tangible shifts in policy and legislative priorities and their implementation, and to widen the opportunities available to citizens to participate in public affairs, promoting a culture of accountability and challenging the power of the state to dominate decision-making.

The "poor are not poor because they are lazy or their governments are corrupt". They are poor because their wealth has been appropriated and wealth creating capacity destroyed, argues this commentary on www.zmag.org "The riches accumulated by Europe were based on riches appropriated from Asia, Africa and Latin America. It was the violent take over of Third World resources and Third World markets that created wealth in the North - but it simultaneously created poverty in the South." The article concludes that "ending poverty is more a matter of taking less than giving an insignificant amount more. Making poverty history needs getting the history of poverty right."

Chairman of Transparency International (TI), Mr. Peter Eigen, has recommended that multi-national companies involved in bribing government officials and decision-makers to influence business transactions should be blacklisted and prosecuted. Speaking when he was received at the State House by the Senior Special Assistant to the President and Head of Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (BMPIU), Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, Eigen noted that such actions could become "some real important sanctions" that could deter corruption, especially in developing countries.

Jubilee South Africa has come out strongly against a deal that would see local South African bank ABSA taken over by Barclays. "All of these and similar actions show that Barclays gave substantial support to the Apartheid regime. This support kept the doors open to international capital and kept mechanised infantry on the move in the townships and neighbouring countries. Pure and simple, this support increased the lifespan of Apartheid." Read the full text of Jubilee's press conference by clicking on the link below.

This Le Monde diplomatique article sharply criticizes France for its role in Ivory Coast’s war and highlights the country’s interests in its former colony. Since Ivorian independence in 1960, France has maintained a tight hold on the country’s wealth, using one-sided contracts to repatriate 75 percent of the wealth generated there. A strong French military presence has enabled the former colonizer to install regimes favorable to Paris’s interests. The author deplores the lack of reaction to the “almost funny” French government line, deploying 3,800 French soldiers to West Africa “with the ethical purpose of preventing a bunch of machete-waving lunatics from dismembering their own country.”

China's rapid ascension as an influential economic and political force in Africa is raising complex questions concerning the security of the African continent and the future of its people. China's involvement on the continent has increased dramatically over the past several years, fueled by Africa's growing demand for cheap Chinese products and the need for greater infrastructure investment in the African energy and transportation sectors. But will China, with visions of global influence and economic growth, act in a more constructive manner toward Africa, avoiding the mistakes made by its Western predecessor?

This paper from the International NGO Training and Research Centre (Intrac) explores the importance of organisational learning in NGOs, drawing on examples gathered from interviews mainly with Northern NGO staff and from an extensive review of the literature. It looks into why NGOs need to provide the motive, means and opportunity for organisational learning, and introduces practical examples of how pioneering NGOs are doing this.

This report from the Global Campaign for Education assesses the aid efforts of 22 industrialised nations belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and grades countries on the quantity and quality of education aid they provide to poor countries. The report finds that rich countries are still falling well short of the financing targets they set themselves. Rich countries need to back the Education for All Fast Track Initiative, and pledge enough resources to expand the FTI to all poor countries that come forward with credible and transparent plans for achieving the education goals.

Between 19 and 28 April 2005 UN Member States participated in four rounds of interventions, based on the following four major themes of the Secretary-General's report, 'In Larger Freedom'. These themes were: development, security, human rights and UN reform. The governmental responses to the recommendations in the report were largely void of a gender perspective and, in particular, a focus on women.

This paper from the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa covers the campaign process during the 2005 Zimbabwe parliamentary elections. These elections in Zimbabwe were aimed at offsetting controversies that occurred in the 2000 parliamentary and 2002 presidential elections. Notwithstanding, as campaign issues are not legislated in the Zimbabwe Electoral Act, it was the SADC Principles that provided the basis in creating a peaceful process. This article seeks to examine whether the campaign in the recent parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe conformed to these regional guidelines.

The Southern Africa Centre for Economic Justice (SACEJ) and Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLF) will hold a 'Developing Economic Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism' workshop between 11 to 14 May 2005 at the Elijah Barayi Training Centre, Johannesburg.