Somaliland's opposition leader Ahmed Silanyo, has been declared winner of the presidential elections held in the self-declared Republic last weekend, the electoral body said. Silanyo, who stood on the platform of the Kulmiye Party, secured nearly 50 per cent of the vote, defeating incumbent President Dahir Riyale Kahin, who garnered more than 33 per cent of the votes.

The candidate of the Union for democratic forces in Guinea (UFDG), Cellou Dalein Diallo, who won 39.72% of the votes, and Alpha Conde, of the Rally for Guinean people (RPG), who got 20.67%, will compete for the secon d round of the Guinea presidential election, the country's National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) ruled. Announcing the result of the 27 June elections, CENI said the leader of the Union for Republican forces (UFR), Sidya Toure, came third with 15.60%, followed by Lansana Kouyate, of the party for hope and national development (PEDN), with 7.75 %.

Despite holding several meetings, aimed at fixing a date for the often-postponed elections, Guinean authorities have again failed to come up with a date. The latest in the series of meetings, involving President Laurent Gbagbo, his major opponents, Henri Konan Bedie, Allasane Dramane Ouattara, the representative of the mediator (Blaise Compaore), officials of the country's independent electoral commission (CEI), was held Wednesday in the capital, Abidjan, and it also failed to come up with a date.

Across some of South Africa’s most impoverished neighbourhoods, a youth photography programme is helping students document their lives – while also raising wider awareness of their communities’ struggles. The Umuzi Photo Club is run entirely by a volunteer staff of dedicated teachers and organizers. The innovative organization integrates technical and creative skills with organic community development, helping young people see their communities – and find solutions to problems – in new ways.

Southern African trade ministers have pledged to sign a significantly scaled down economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) before the end of 2010. Could this be the conclusion to years of divisive negotiations? It was a mere sentence in the draft minutes of the meeting of Southern African Development Community (SADC) ministers in Gaborone on Jun 17: "Ministers noted the strategy proposed by senior officials aimed at concluding an inclusive EPA by the end of 2010."

Part of improving the levels of quality in education and health is providing infrastructure that responds to global needs in terms of skills, technology and sports, writes Victor Modiba. One of the critical success factors to the growth of the South African economy is infrastructure investment. Key areas of government expenditure, which account for more than half of the total public sector infrastructure investment and incorporate all spheres, are: provincial and local roads, bulk water infrastructure and water supply networks, energy distribution, housing, schools and clinics, business centres, sports facilities, and multi-purpose government service centres, including police stations, courts and correctional facilities.

Kenyan politicians have been accused of plundering state coffers after awarding themselves a monthly pay rise of nearly 25%, making them some of the best-paid legislators in the world. After resisting calls to pay income tax for years, MPs finally agreed to pay the tax, but only after giving themselves a sweetener of 240,000 shillings (£1,960) taking their monthly pay to 1,091,000 shillings (£8,920).

Progressio, the Development Planning Unit of University College London (UCL) and Somaliland Focus (UK) congratulate the people of Somaliland and the National Electoral Commission on a peaceful expression of the popular will at the conclusion of their mission to observe Somaliland’s presidential election on 26 June 2010.

The Black Consciousness Movement is barely acknowledged in commemorations of the Soweto uprising, yet the role it and its AZAPO cadres played in mobilising the masses was critical, writes Nelvis Qekema. June 16 does not ‘belong’ to the ANC, argues Qekema; it belongs to the people.

The emerging water crisis in the Nile Basin, a lack of women participating in making a new constitution for Zimbabwe, the dark side of the overseas aid industry in Somalia, and the lengths some politicians will go to to hold onto power in Nigeria are among the stories featured in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, from Sokari Ekine.

The infiltration of ‘gangsta’ culture into Sudanese refugee communities in Cairo has alerted hip hop artists in the city to the need to redirect the misplaced association between rap and gang-related violence, writes Nahed Nassr. Nassr investigates how the energy of this music can in fact be harnessed to encourage the rehabilitation and integration of these refugee gangsters into Egyptian society, as a tool for progress rather than as a way of life.

The situation in Jamaica and the Caribbean is connected to the plight of the black urban poor in the US and the relationship between former colonial powers and black Africa, writes Keith Noel.

Nahed Nassr walks in the footsteps of migrant labour, through the experiences of two young men from Egypt, Mohamed and Salah. Both men have left their communities and families behind on a perilous journey to find work abroad. They talk about the danger and extreme insecurity migrant labourers face and the desperation that drives them to pursue it. The story of Mohamed and Salah is a shared experience of thousands of young Egyptian men who have either made the trip to find work or died trying to do it. The solution Egyptian and foreign authorities favour is heightened border controls, rather than tackling the root causes of the young generation’s suffering.

Decades of recent history are witness to plots by ruthless dictators to enslave the minds of youth and perpetuate a one-party, one-leader rule; but one by one, these leaders failed and fell. Alemayehu G. Mariam writes that like his autocratic predecessors – Hitler, Mao, Stalin – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi will lose his bid to conform Ethiopia’s youth to his party mentality. What is less clear is how Ethiopia’s youth will react to the increasingly deplorable social and economic conditions their government is cultivating. Mariam cautions these marginalised youth are a ‘ticking bomb’. Conflict prevention, he writes, requires the older generation and youth in the diaspora to actively empower this sidelined generation.

Mamadou Goïta

Samba Diouldé Thiam

As civil society organisations we are profoundly disturbed by the nature, content and potential impact of the homophobic stance taken by Jerry Matjila, South Africa's representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, on the 16th of June 2010. This stance is the latest in a string of problematic actions by South African representatives in international forums such as the UN.

As oil giant Chevron faces off against Nigerian activists and their families over the company's alleged role in the deaths of two protestors in the Niger Delta in 1998, Dana Wagner discusses the case and its significance for corporate responsibility.

The world worked together to help bring South Africa's apartheid system to an end, writes Kader Asmal. So why allow such a system to live on in Israel/Palestine?

at times i stare at black pages of night's sky
at times i stare at blank screens of my mind.
i do so wish then, within my heart of hearts,
that one day i will write three new stanzas
that will paint in ink of poetry or philosophy
the paradise-like land of our national anthem:
a poem that will consult spirits of those poets
whose work wished for justice, peace, liberty
in a kenya of their times and fellow kenyans,
a poem that will let these spirits and our own
arise and defend the land against endeavours
of a few but formidable kenyans whose politics
plays chess with our future and ethnic heritage
a poem that will be a spirit itself like Harambee
binding us all as has Annan's National Accord
into one national force, which like the words
of the three stanzas of the national anthem,
gives the heart of the land a feeling of hope.

As voters in Somaliland prepared to finally cast their ballots in a tight, oft-delayed presidential election on 26 June, there was one outcome for which almost everybody in the territory, regardless of political or clan affiliation, was rooting. Peaceful and well-conducted polls “will lead to international recognition of Somaliland”, said Mohamedrashid Sheikh Hassan, who is running for vice-president on the opposition Justice and Welfare Party (UCID) ticket.