Uganda’s government departments would do better to listen to the internal voices of staff and citizens than to the advice of external consultants if they want to develop policies that benefit the people, writes Norah Owaraga.

As tensions persist in Cote d’Ivoire following the contested presidential election result of 28 November, Cameron Duodu calls on incumbent Laurent Gbagbo to accept defeat and respect the victory of opposition leader Alassane Ouattara.

Fearful of a return to the days when ‘party youths went wild beating up opposition politicians with impunity’, Steve Sharra asks what can be done to ‘tame’ and ‘redirect’ Malawi's young people ‘toward peaceful, nonviolent expressions of their views and beliefs’. A discussion with a group of secondary school students provides him with some inspiration.

As the world marks Human Rights Day on 10 December, Henning Melber argues that it is time for people across the globe to take back the meaning of human rights.

Somaliland's Hargeisa government 'will need to be far more clear-sighted and long-term in its vision to obtain not just outside support but sustained momentum for democracy and development', write Steve Kibble and Michael Walls, in an assessment of the first few months of the new presidency.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga showed scant knowledge of homosexuality in recent statements on the subject. Now is the time for full apology, says Rasna Warah.

WikiLeaks has helped to shine a light on the web of lies and deceit surrounding US complicity in the 2006 Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam.

As she visits Haiti, Sokari Ekine writes of the history behind the community-run SOPUDEP school, the efforts of local organisations to organise in response to the devastation of the country’s earthquake, a micro-credit scheme and people’s broad lack of faith in the power of the current elections to promote change.

Thanks to international advocacy, attempts by Equatorial Guinean dictator Teodoro Obiang to sponsor a UNESCO prize have been thwarted. Abena Ampofoa Asare examines how, despite a dreadful human rights record, Obiang has managed to avoid international condemnation for so long.

The African Union and the Economic Community Of West African States should move swiftly to condemn the election hijack in Cote d’Ivoire and make sure they offer no legitimacy to Laurent Gbagbo, writes Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua.

Third World Forum’s (TWF) director, Samir Amin, discusses the background to the World Forum for Alternatives (WFA), ‘a network of networks which organises its own activities with a view to contributing to the progress of a positive alternative to the dominant capitalist and imperialist system’.

Calling upon international players such as SADC (Southern African Development Community) and the AU (African Union), Dewa Mavhinga stresses that it ‘is a waste of time to talk of any meaningful socio-economic development in Zimbabwe in the absence of a solid foundation of political stability.’

United Nations officials have launched development efforts to help communities affected by a Nigerian-Cameroonian boundary settlement that saw several border modifications, including Nigeria’s transfer to Cameroon of the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula. At the request of both Governments, the UN country teams (UNCTs) in the two nations met during a meeting chaired by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for West Africa Said Djinnit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to identify ways to create development programme synergies along the border, including in Bakassi and the Lake Chad area.

Nigeria has filed charges against former US Vice-President Dick Cheney over a scandal involving a former subsidiary of Halliburton energy firm. The case, brought by the country's anti-corruption agency, centres on engineering firm KBR, which admitted bribing officials. Cheney's lawyer has called the allegations 'entirely baseless'. Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive before becoming vice-president to George W Bush in 2001.

A much awaited November report from the UN high level advisory group on climate change finance (AGF) drew criticism for recommending an increasing role for multilateral development banks (MDBs). The noise generated by the report also highlights concerns about the development of a new climate fund hoped to be decided in Cancun, additional trust funds announced at the Bank, and the continued roll-out of the Bank-housed climate investment funds (CIFs).

In the quest for an international climate agreement on actions to address the climate change crisis, three aspects have to be the basis simultaneously: the environmental imperative, the developmental imperative, and the equity imperative, says this December policy brief from the South Centre. This formula requires that the different pieces of the climate negotiations be seen and addressed as a whole, in a holistic way. In particular, setting the global goal for emission reduction has to take account of the environmental imperative. A global carbon budget of how much more emissions should be allowed between now and 2050 should be fixed, and also how that budget should be allocated especially between developed and developing countries.

As Zimbabwe slowly staggers from an unrestrained decade of economic recession, the country’s huge debt burden totalling about US$7 billion in external arrears presents an albatross around the nation’s neck. Figures recently released reveal that of the public and publicly guaranteed debt of US$6,4 billion as of 31 October, US$4,7 billion is in arrears. Put simply, every Zimbabwean owes external creditors US$500.

The Kenyan government has said it could be losing nearly one-third of the national budget to corruption. Finance ministry officials told a parliamentary committee the losses could be nearly $4bn (£2.5bn) a year. They said individuals were taking huge sums meant for development projects.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said that elections could not take place in his country without reforms and a constitutional review, despite President Robert Mugabe's threat to call one next year. Tsvangirai formed a power-sharing government with Mugabe after disputed 2008 elections, and both promised to work together to reform the Constitution and organise a referendum to approve it before new elections.

With the climate world focused for the next two weeks on a summit in the Mexican city of Cancun, various players are questioning the role of the UN's climate change negotiations, writes Rehana Dada.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is supposed to create global governance for a global resource, putting into place international legislation that would prevent a human-caused planetary catastrophe by reducing and controlling greenhouse gas pollution. Hopes have already been dismissed that the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Cancun will produce a binding agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Africa’s lead negotiator, Ethiopian Premier Meles Zenawi, said Cancun would be a 'total flop'.