Africa has huge economic potential: a billion mostly young people; 40 per cent of the world’s hydroelectric power capacity and vast geothermal and solar resources; 60 per cent of the World’s uncultivated arable land and much more, writes Obadias Ndaba, the regional director of the World Youth Alliance Africa. Africa has great potential for long term economic take off. Africa’s leaders and individual citizens need to make fundamental shifts in the way they do business by focussing on productivity and value addition. This will ensure sustainable economic growth and improved living standards, he writes.

Kenyan citizens feel strongly that they have not been involved in the procurement processes at Local Authorities (LA’s) as per applicable laws, a new survey report commissioned by the Kenyan Alliance of Resident Associations (Kara) and supported by USAID/PactKenya now reveals. A majority (76 per cent) of members of the public in all LA’s sampled had not seen a copy of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act 2005 and Regulations of 2001/2006.

As the international community commemorated Africa Industrialisation Day last week, United Nations officials expressed mixed emotions about a beleaguered continent plagued by a rash of political, economic and military crises. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that a continuing global economic crisis has not only reduced the demand for African exports but also constricted foreign aid and hindered the flow of remittances to the cash-strapped continent.

Burundi is cracking down on civil society, media, and opposition parties in the wake of troubled local and national elections from May through September 2010, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report. The 69-page report, 'Closing Doors?: The Narrowing of Democratic Space in Burundi', documents abuses including torture, arbitrary arrests, banning of opposition activities, and harassment of civil society groups.

The person to head the crucial Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) could be known this week, reports The Standard newspaper. 'This will be the highlight of a hectic week in which crucial decisions for Kenya must be made, both within and outside Parliament, but eyes will also be on Justice Miniser Mutula Kilonzo in whose office the process is domiciled. Worries are growing that implemention of the new laws has been hijacked by the politicians who led Kenya to the brink of civil war in 2007. Heightening these fears is the growing conviction that the process has not been entirely devoid of political interference at the highest level of government.'

Few people from Southern Sudan who live in the north are turning out to enrol as voters for the referenda on the future of the south, the chairperson of the United Nations-appointed panel monitoring the process said today, citing various reasons for the dismal turnout, including lack of awareness and uncertainty. The people of Southern Sudan are scheduled to vote on 9 January on whether the south should secede from the rest of the country, while the final status of Abyei will be determined in a separate vote on the same day, as set out in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended two decades of war between the north and the south.

Uganda ranks lower than Rwanda and Kenya in putting in place reforms to facilitate doing business, putting the country at risk of losing investments to its neighbours, which would negatively impact employment, the tax base and general economic growth. That is according to the latest Ease of Doing Business Report 2010 released by the World Bank Group in September. The report ranks countries basing on ten parameters, including business procedures, time required, extent of flexibility and financial cost of starting a business. The other parameters are dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business.

Over the last century the Indian Ocean region has experienced social, political and cultural reconfigurations that are the outcomes of distinct regional circumstances, but also mirror broader global transformations since the colonial era. This workshop aims to explore how systems of power and approaches to development have shaped the societies of the Indian Ocean rim both in the past and the present.

‘Can we truly silence a group or deny them a voice at the one place they should feel the safest?’ writes Asha Ramgobin, in a plea for the ACHPR to reconsider its decision not to award the Coalition of African Lesbians observer status.

Given that there is ‘no legitimate basis to deny the application of CAL and to do so contravenes the provision of the African Charter and existing international human rights instruments’, Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition is calling on the ACHPR to reconsider its decision.

The ACHPR’s refusal to award observer status to the Coalition of African Lesbians is further evidence of its desire to silence the voice of African women, writes Rose Wanjiku. It's time to speak out.

‘If the body that is supposed to protect our human rights denies us that space … everyone is going to take advantage of that denial to harass us,’ says activist Kasha Jacqueline, following the ACHPR’s refusal to grant observer status to the Coalition of African Lesbians.

The Coalition of African Lesbians meets all the eligibility criteria for observer status. So why has the ACHPR refused to award it to them, asks Joel Nana.

By denying the rights of LGBTI people, ACPHR is ‘facilitating the continual criminalisation of LGBTI individuals and is ‘absolutely complicit in the verbal, physical and sexual abuse of LGBTI people which goes unchallenged in country after country,’ write Sokari Ekine and Mia Nikasimo.

This paper discusses the relevance of the issue of sexual orientation to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, while recognising the controversial nature of the subject, and suggests ways in which the commission can proceed.

The Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP) outlines the stigmatisation of people based on sexual orientation in the context of the African Commission rejecting an application for observer status from the Coalition of African Lesbians.

By denying observer statues to the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL), the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights is endorsing ‘the flagrant impunity’ enjoyed in most African states for violations of the rights of lesbian and gay people, argues Wendy Isaack.

The decision by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to reject an application for observer status from the Coalition of African Lesbians has serious political implications, writes Jane Bennett.

The Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) says it is ‘extremely angered’ that their application for observer status before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights was rejected. ‘…this decision, if not challenged and reconsidered, will legitimise ongoing state and non-state violence against LGBTI people in Africa.’

The Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) has been refused observer status by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. In the face of increased homophobia, the message sent out is that members of sexual minorities are ‘free game’, says the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria.