Oil giant ChevronTexaco is to rethink its community aid strategies after acknowledging that some of the policies implemented by its Nigerian subsidiary in the oil-rich Niger Delta have contributed in fuelling violence in the region. ChevronTexaco said in a statement on Tuesday that its system of investment in community development in the region that produces most of Nigeria’s oil, has been “inadequate, expensive and divisive,” and would be revamped.

After years of a debilitating debt burden and declining aid flows to Africa, the winds are starting to shift. African and international demands for more support to Africa have been mounting. Now, the continent’s main creditors and donors finally seem ready to move towards real financial relief, which could ease one of the major obstacles to Africa’s development, reports Africa Renewal, a UN magazine.

An account of the phenomenal rise of transnational social movements which have opposed the financial, economic and political hegemony of large international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The conceptual debates, substantive themes and case studies have been selected to open up the idea of global resistance to interrogation and discussion by students and to provide a one stop source for researchers, journalists, policymakers and activists. African examples include the Ogoni people's struggle in Nigeria.

A recent Reuters article examines the many abortions performed each year in Kenya, where the procedure is illegal except when necessary to protect the health or life of a pregnant woman. Under Kenyan law, a woman found guilty of having an abortion in the country faces seven years in prison and anyone performing an abortion procedure on a woman could be sentenced to up to 14 years in prison. Approximately 2,000 women in Kenya die each year because of complications from illegal abortions, and 20 to 30 times that number experience permanent damage to their uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, intestines or bladder because of illegal abortions.

The World Trade Organisation was imperialistic and meant to enrich developed nations, a minister said in Parliament. The trade body would do nothing to reduce poverty in the country, Trade and Industry minister Mukhisa Kituyi said, putting WTO in the same league as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). "The WTO is not a development vehicle to deal with poverty. It is a tool of imperialism, which has overtaken IMF," he said.

The IMF and World Bank held their 2005 semi-annual meetings last weekend (April 16-17). It was a good weekend, from the standpoint of the activities organized by civil society. The official meetings, on the other hand, seem not to have gone well for our side. The G7 Finance Ministers issued a communiqué indicating that little progress was made on negotiations for 100% debt cancellation. The major bone of contention was between the US and UK plans for IMF debt relief: the Brits wanted to sell a substantial portion of the IMF's gold stocks to finance the relief, while the U.S. was against gold sales and wanted to finance it through the resources in the IMF's structural adjustment facility (the "Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility").

Saturday 16th April 2005, was a big day for Organisation Development and Community Management Trust (ODCMT) and the people of the eastern province, as it marked the end of the Global Week of Action. The Global Week of Action is a week when global trade campaigns are emphasised. In Zambia, the ODCMT with support from Christian Aid held its major events; a march past, a musical concert and signature mobilisation campaign in the Eastern Province. ODCMT’s campaign team from Lusaka included all members of staff and representatives from its partner organisations which included One World Africa, Civil Society Trade Network of Zambia, Green Living Movement, Zambia Council for Social Development, Social Economic Literacy Development Club (SELIDEC), Twikantane Womens Nutrition Group and a representative from Christian Aid.

Young people and education activists in more than 100 countries will join together this week to protest world leaders' failure to meet a major UN target on girls' education this year – a failure they say will lead to greater poverty and unnecessary child deaths. Five years ago, governments of the world promised to get equal numbers of girls as boys into school by 2005. The target – the first of all the UN's Millennium Development Goals to fall due - will be missed. As part of the Global Campaign for Education's (GCE) 'Send my Friend to School' campaign from April 24-30, children will be presenting politicians, cabinet ministers and even heads of state with colourful cardboard cut-outs, or "friends", each of which represents one of the more than 100 million children out of school.

As a response to failure of achieving the MDG for gender parity in education in 2005, this paper from the Global Campaign for Education proposes a new action plan to get every girl in school and learning. The paper argues that the 2005 girls' education target was neither unrealistic nor unaffordable, but rather it has not been met because both the international community and national governments have given insufficient political attention and inadequate money to meet it.

A new Eldis key issues page examines the delivery of education in states that can be described as "fragile". This page aims to provide a starting point for discussion on education in fragile states, and specifically provides literature on service delivery and aid effectiveness in fragile states, looks at why donors should focus investment on education in fragile states, and examines how this should be done.

In this paper, the author compares the context, themes and outcomes of the two United Nations conferences, held within six months of each other in 1995: the World Summit on Social Development at Copenhagen and the Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing. The author finds that Copenhagen set the scene for the aid system’s over-arching policy instrument (the PRSP) while Beijing became invisible to the mainstream. Could it have been otherwise? Can the gender equality agenda still provide an opening to different ways of thinking about economy, society and politics that would allow international aid to support transformative processes for social justice?

In May 2003, a group of representatives of donor organisations agreed to undertake a collaborative evaluation process focusing on the theme of support to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). This synthesis report is based on 17 reports covering operations in ten countries: Angola, Somalia, Indonesia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Colombia, Liberia, Eritrea, and Sudan. Seven critical issues are identified: the rights of IDPs, the protection deficit, donor policy on IDPs, the categorisation of IDPs, needs assessments, coordination and the collaborative response, and when the need for assistance ends.

The Globalisation Studies Network (GSN), an association of over 100 institutions from nearly 50 countries around the world united by a shared preoccupation to promote a better understanding of the processes and structures of globalization, is pleased to announce its second international conference which is scheduled to take place in Dakar, Senegal, from 29 to 31 August 2005, and to invite abstracts and panel proposals from those wishing to be part of the conference.

Transparency International (TI) invites individuals and organisations to submit nominations for the 2005 Integrity Awards. The annual awards recognise the courage and determination of individuals and organisations fighting corruption around the world. The winners of the Awards are a source of inspiration because their actions echo a common message: corruption is surmountable.

It is important to question a few realities as all 53 of Africa's countries search for Universal Primary Education (UPE) by 2015 and ask why it will likely be closer to 2050 before this target is achieved. The goal is critical not only for people to achieve the dignity and equality that Nelson Mandela so eloquently advocates and for the path away from poverty that the Millennium Goals seek to achieve, but also for the radical transformation envisaged in the New Africa.  The latest February-May At Issue Ezine produced by Africa Files deals with education in Africa and is available for reading from their website.

Hundreds of thousands of activists, in 110 countries, are gearing up for the Global Action Week for Education. Across the world, children and campaigners are excitedly making model 'friends' in preparation for taking part in the 'Send my Friend to School' global action. Each one of these 'friends' represents a person missing an education. During the Global Action Week, from April 24-30, we will be confronting politicians throughout the world with millions of these 'friends'.

Jointly with its Global Unions partners (Global Union Federations and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) released a statement which called on finance ministers meeting at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to use the opportunity of the meetings to adopt an expanded debt relief initiative for low-income indebted countries and other measures that would provide additional resources to developing countries for achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, as part of the ICFTU's participation in the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP).

The Global Fund's board is meeting April 21-22 in Geneva. Activists are demanding that the Global Fund do more to make sure that life threatening delays in disbursement of Global Fund money are corrected. We are also concerned that not enough Global Fund money is focused on treatment scale up programs, despite the fact that addressing the crisis in lack of access to HIV treatment was the main reason the Global Fund was created. Please send your organizational endorsements to Asia Russell ([email protected]).

The dates April 10-16 mark a Global Week of Action where organisations, networks and movements take part in a worldwide mobilization aimed at challenging the free trade myth. In Washington DC protestors will take to the streets to mark meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on April 16 and 17. Pambazuka News interviewed NJOKI NJEHU, one of the organizers of the protests and director of 50 Years Is Enough Network, about the key demands the protestors are making, building links in the struggle against neo-liberalism and what the appointment of Paul Wolfowitcz as head of the World Bank means for global civil society. Njehu concludes: “We must absolutely recognize every day as the first day of the rest of our lives in struggle.”

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What will the people gathered in Washington DC be protesting about on April 16 and 17? What are their key demands? How many are expected?

NJOKI NJEHU : The people that will be gathering this weekend are part of long-standing movements that have demanded accountability, democratic practice, and transparency from the institutions. The four key demands articulated by the Mobilization for Global Justice are:
1) Open all World Bank and IMF meetings to the media and the public.
2) Cancel all impoverished country debt to the World Bank and IMF, using the institutions' own resources.
3) End all World Bank and IMF policies that hinder people's access to food, clean water, shelter, health care, education, and right to organize. (Such "structural adjustment" policies include user fees, privatization, and so-called economic austerity programs).
4) Stop all World Bank support for socially and environmentally destructive projects such as oil, gas, and mining activities, and all support for projects such as dams that include forced relocation of people.

In addition, the 50 Years Is Enough Network has broader demands that include reparations for the impact of structural adjustment and loans associated with environmental and social destruction; an end to assistance to the private sector; accountability for those in the institutions who abet corruption; and a process for democratically assessing the need for institutions like the IFIs.

In the U.S., global justice activists and IMF/World Bank campaigners have been energized by the nomination and appointment of Paul Wolfowitz to be the next President of the World Bank. We expect several hundred activists who will demonstrate in the streets, participate in teach-ins and strategy sessions, and as part of the Global Week of Action, call their members of Congress to denounce free trade as embodied by the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which is currently pending in Congress.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: For many people in Africa these protests may seem like a million miles away – even if they sympathise with the objectives and the message. What are the issues facing protestors in the US that you believe are similar to those facing communities around the world?

NJOKI NJEHU: I hope that African activists and observers do not view the activities this weekend as a million miles away and not related to them. People in the U.S. used to think this way about human rights violations, worker rights violations, and environmental disasters. But that has changed. The emergence of global civil society and globalization from below that allows for people-to-people exchanges and campaigning has taught us what we had forgotten. As has been said before, no one is free when others are oppressed, and so local struggles are global and they link and help people make common cause across countries, cultures, and the globe.

It is also the case that the ravages of corporate-led globalization and neo-liberal economics have not spared people in the U.S., especially people in communities of color, rural areas, indigenous communities, and immigrants. The tenets of neo-liberalism are being applied in the U.S. and other developed countries, not because governments are forced by the IMF and World Bank, as is the case in Africa, but because many policy- and decision- makers believe in this economic ideology.

The work of the 50 Years Is Enough Network focuses on the World Bank and the IMF, but the key intention is to educate people in the U.S. about what is being done by their government in their name and using their tax dollars. When we talk about water privatization in South Africa and Bolivia, user fees for health and education in Kenya and Tanzania, corporate exploitation in the Niger Delta, or dams in India, Lesotho, and Uganda we find that communities in the U.S. are also fighting the same kinds of things. Furthermore, the lessons learned in this era of economic globalization include the lesson that we cannot win by fighting corporate excesses, environmental devastation, or worker rights violations in one country when those same problems are being faced by communities in another country.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What needs to be done to build a greater sense of global solidarity against the polices of the World Bank and the IMF?

NJOKI NJEHU: We need to build people to people connections and to really understand what Samora Machel meant when he said: "International solidarity is not an act of charity: It is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objective. The foremost of these objectives is to aid the development of humanity to the highest level possible."   We also need to understand that these institutions are public institutions. They are funded by you and me, the taxpayers of the world and therefore we are the ones who can and must demand accountability and service for the common good, not corporate profits.

Malcolm X talked about the chickens coming home to roost, people in the U.S. and other developed countries have experienced World Bank and IMF-like austerity measures. If we do not drive these institutions out of Africa and defeat their policies around the world, our work will never be done and justice will just be a far-away unattainable dream.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: How deep is the understanding of the effects of neo-liberalism on communities worldwide amongst the kind of audience that will be protesting on April 16 and 17 and the American population at large?

NJOKI NJEHU: They get it. They see the effects of neo-liberalism in their communities and they fight against it. Here in Washington, D.C., otherwise known as the capital of the free world, privatization, corporate welfare, cuts in social programs for the elderly and children and lack of voting representation are everyday realities. In the last three years, we saw the closure of the last public hospital in the city. We see tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, and just in the last year a huge tax break to bring a baseball team to D.C. while programs for the homeless, youth summer employment programs and health services for the elderly are decimated. These are the experiences of one city, but they are repeated in cities and communities across the U.S. every day. People in the U.S. are experiencing hardship similar to what people in developing countries deal with on a deeper and more frequent basis. Granted that in the U.S. there are provisions and programs to ameliorate the hardships, it is a new phase and new experience for many.

The tragedy is that many do not seem to translate these experiences into activism or political action. Given the results of the last elections, it is also clear that many people do not vote in their economic or class interests. There is much work to be done.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: It really does seem sometimes that every time these meetings come around there is a flurry of press releases, sign-on letters, petitions and protests. Then the meeting takes place following which nothing more is heard. Without being overly cynical, has anything changed over the last few years? Has there been any progress and are these institutions really fixable?

I share the cynicism and the despair that grips us all from time to time. But there is also hope. There are many reasons to be encouraged. I think that the flurry of press releases, sign-on letters, petitions and protests that you refer to is a reason to be hopeful and encouraged. People still believe that there is something that they can do, that they can make a difference. What is not evident is the work and organizing that takes place in the “in-between times”.

Yes, much has changed. We saw victory, albeit short-lived, in Cancun. We see the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement stalled. And even once in a while we see politicians with some backbone. We come to this semi-annual meetings with the G7 discussing “up to 100%” multilateral debt cancellation. Much has changed in the way the U.S. environmental movement and the labor movement deal with environmental and labor rights issues. It is not just about the U.S. environment or U.S. workers anymore; it is about the global environment, and about all workers, union and non-union, documented and un-documented. Small steps, but huge political shifts.

On whether the institutions can really be fixed, it is a different matter altogether. I believe we need to apply our best thinking, strategies and tactics to this question. “Abolish the Bank and the Fund” is a fine slogan, but not much in the way of a policy approach. I think we’ve been limited and have forgotten the age-old African American saying: “the masters’ tools can never destroy the masters’ house”. If our goal is to abolish these institutions, I believe it has to happen in processes outside of the institutions. Self-preservation and perpetuation demand that they do everything they can to thwart an abolitionist agenda.

One of the challenges that we face is that in the post-Iraq war era, multilateralism for multilateralism’s sake is a very attractive policy. The specter of unilateralism ala the George W. Bush style stops many people in their tracks as they begin to contemplate reform of the multilateral system including the United Nations. I am of the view that we need multilateralism but the current version isn’t working from a democratic practice view or from a justice view, but perhaps I’m expecting too much of multilateralism.

We also need to be clear that reform or changes in the voting system of the UN or the IFIs does not mean UN Security Council seats for Germany, Brazil, India, Japan, etc. Nor does it mean a few more voting percentages for Japan, South Africa, etc. in the World Bank and IMF. We do not need to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water, but we do need to acknowledge the fatally flawed foundation of the current multilateral system. For instance, 140 current members of the World Bank and the IMF were not at the table in 1944 when these institutions were formed. In fact, many of the current member countries did not even exist. As visionary as the founders might have been, they could never have imagined our world today.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The global response from the social justice community over the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as World Bank president has been one of despair. The appointment has also raised a number of questions: Will the appointment reinvigorate protests against the WB and IMF by creating links with the anti-war movement? Or could it also mean that people will be less informed about the impact of WB/IMF policies as this is overlooked in favour of a form of character assassination protest?

NJOKI NJEHU: The things you suggest are all possible, but not if we do our education, mobilizing, and organizing work. Wolfowitz’s nomination and appointment were a disaster on many scores. However, he is part of an entrenched system and that is the real problem. If Wolfensohn could not make progress in the opposite direction, as he professed to want to do, perhaps Wolfowitz will have the same kind of experience and the status quo will remain. And the world, especially the poor, will still be in peril.

We must hold Wolfowitz’s feet to the fire and keep the campaigns to delegitimize the World Bank and the IMF going. I was just listening to a nationally syndicated radio program called “Talk of the Nation” which featured Joseph Stiglitz and Washington Post op-ed page columnist Sebastian Mallaby. Mallaby made the argument that the U.S. is the right country to choose the leader of the World Bank, and elsewhere he has argued, as he alluded to today, that the world runs better with the U.S. in charge. What we have to fear about Wolfowitz is that he has these tendencies that assert U.S. exceptionalism, which is not only paternalistic, it is insulting, especially to the large number of countries who are always non-members of the right “G-grouping” of countries.

Wolfowitz is on record supporting the doctrine of odious debt in the context of Iraq. Here we agree with him. Our task will be to continue to push for the logic of odious debt to be extended beyond Iraq. Yes, cancellation of Iraq’s odious debt, but also cancellation of apartheid debt, Somoza’s debt in Nicaragua, Marcos’s debt in the Philippines, Suharto’s debt in Indonesia, Mobutu’s debt in Zaire/DRC, Abacha’s debt in Nigeria, and the debts of military dictatorships in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and elsewhere. Our work as global justice activists perhaps became more obvious but not narrower.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In the past the annual protests have made effective use of communication tools and the internet to get their message across through email lists, blogs, SMS, video streaming etc etc. How much of a factor is this in the preparation work, are there any innovations planned for this year and what websites would you recommend for people to monitor over the course of the next week?

NJOKI NJEHU: Any activist worth her/his salt must be willing to employ diverse tactics and have a fully-stocked toolkit. When we say that we are not anti-globalization, it is because we recognize that globalization has brought with it technology such as SMS, websites, listservs, etc. that have been invaluable in our struggles. I believe that the most effective way to campaign, mobilize, and educate the public as well as policy- and decision- makers is to use all the tools at our disposal. The list of things that are mentioned are all tools that we will employ this week and into future.

I believe that for every audience we need to speak to, there are different tactics/tools that we must employ. Sometimes a raucous protest gets the message across, sometimes a prayer vigil, sometimes civil disobedience, and sometimes thousands of people. We must learn all the tools in our activist toolkits. But we must also, most importantly, learn to recognize which tools are needed for each job. However, we need to remember that there is no substitute for people telling their own stories, and for people articulating their desire and processes for change. International institutions have failed the people; governments have failed the people; elected officials have failed the people; and even the would-be people’s representatives and spokespersons have failed the people. It is time for the ordinary and extra-ordinary people fighting for justice to come into their own, particularly their struggles, and take their rightful place for the challenges ahead.

This week is just one week in a continuum of struggles that stretch back further than recorded history and will stretch forward into the future as long as exploitation and oppression exist. This week is not important. What is important is what each of us does tomorrow, the day after, the week after, and every other day. We must absolutely recognize every day as the first day of the rest of our lives in struggle.

Some websites to watch this week: www.50years.org, www.ifiwatchnet.org, www.africaaction.org, www.jubileeusa.org, www.april2005.org

A luta continua!

* Interview conducted by email. Please send comments to [email protected]

Coming home is what we want for all children who are displaced, separated from their families, abducted or recruited by armed groups or armed forces. Children who have been with armed groups and forces tell us that they look forward to the moment when they can go home with hope and longing. But the idea of coming home can also generate fear, anxiety, and trepidation, especially if you are a girl.