The World Bank has announced it was doubling its education financing this year in low- and middle-income countries to $4.09 billion to help poor countries battle threats to their education systems during the global economic crisis. The announcement came as the Bank released a new report that describes how developing countries are increasingly using private education organizations - such as faith-based organisations, local communities, NGOs, private for-profit institutions, and not-for profit schools - to help deliver education services.

cc Following a community hall meeting held to commemorate Haiti’s revolutionary history and spirit, Wangui Kimari affirms that Kenyans and Haitians must connect with one another’s suffering and inspire each other in the struggle for social justice. While discussing Haiti, it became evident to Kimari and participants of this meeting that Kenyans share Haitians’ struggles. The agendas, policies, and governing forces responsible for creating injustice in Haiti are simultaneously compromising the livelihoods of Kenyans. Through the expression of solidarity, and awareness of persistent global inequality, social change may prevail.

cc Reflecting on Haiti’s current instability and tumultuous existence, Kimani Waweru provides an historical analysis of the Caribbean island, speculating that the root causes of problems affecting Haiti also transpire in Kenya and much of the developing world. By establishing a correlation between Haitian and Kenyan experiences, the author proposes a need for Kenya to learn from Haiti’s struggle. Despite its remarkable success in being the first Latin American country to gain independence, the first post-colonial nation with a black leadership, and the only country to have gained independence through a successful slave rebellion, Haitians have been subjected to unfathomable duress. Colonialism, slavery, exploitation, invasion, occupation, and corruption in politics have permeated Haiti’s historical landscape. Through the adoption of revolutionary ideology and the elimination of Western rhetoric, which fails to prioritise citizens’ interests, Waweru believes Kenyans can counter imperialism's strength and foster an arena for social justice.

Up to 1.7 million people in Africa, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Asia are at risk of antiretroviral treatment interruption due to the global financial downturn, according to a survey published by the World Bank.The World Bank report Averting a human crisis during the global downturn was published in advance of the World Bank’s spring meeting in Washington DC.

Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, battling to block an investigation into his alleged illegal activities at the bank, has splashed out cash to sponsor a 20 page supplement in the state owned Herald newspaper on Monday. In the advert Gono, who is accused by Finance Minister Tendai Biti of running a parallel government structure, admitted raiding US$18 million that was meant to go into the accounts of tobacco farmers. This he did without their authority. On top of owing wheat farmers US$2 million the governor has already admitted taking more than US$30 million from accounts belonging to the country’s gold mines.

No-one knows whether the 1964 union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika was dictated by cold war considerations first, with pan-African ideals of unity playing second fiddle to ideology and personal survival, writes Haroub Othman. But what is clear, Othman argues, is that despite Tanzania’s controversial history, the union brought peace and stability to the region, in contrast with the secessionism and violence seen elsewhere. While corrective measures – supported by the people – are required to ensure that it is fit for purpose, the union is a better option than breaking into a federal structure with Kenya and Uganda, says Othman.

cc Vision 2030 may be a good blueprint for Kenya’s development, but the government must remember that people are more important than plans, Mars Group writes. As politicians shilly-shally in parliament without implementing promised reforms – from civil liberties to the resettlement of IDPs – desperation is setting in among Kenyans too hungry to wait until 2030 for food and jobs.

© Poet and performer Shailja Patel celebrates the life of Bantu Mwaura (1969-2009) – Kenyan artist, activist and academic – through a series of reminiscences about what he meant to different people. Mwaura, husband of Susan and father of Makeba and Me Katilili, died on 26 April. ‘He was expression without hindrance; the way Africa used to be. He left behind power and energy; people speaking. In his dreadlocks and movements and smile and dress, Bantu carried an entire people.’

A United Nations-backed workshop aimed at identifying ways for West African farmers to limit the damaging effect climate change has on their livelihoods has kicked off in Burkina Faso. West Africa, home to 43 per cent of the total population of sub-Saharan Africa, is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change in the world.

The authorities in Zimbabwe have continued their persecution of two officials of the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Gandhi Mudzingwa and Kisimusi Dhlamini have been detained under armed police guard in a Harare hospital since 20 April, despite having been released on bail on 17 April.

The decision by the Washington-based International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) came after a six-year legal battle between a group of Dutch farmers and President Robert Mugabe's government. It finally ruled last week that Mr Mugabe's government had broken a bilateral investment treaty with the Netherlands and awarded the group more than £14 million in compensation.

Cash-strapped residents of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city are digging in their heels and refusing to pay utility bills despite the municipality teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. At the heart of the dispute are dismal service delivery and the conundrum of using multiple currencies in an economy that boasts world record inflation.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/430/55957_Petina_Gappah_tmb.jp… an interview with , the Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah talks about the influences behind her work and the pressure she feels in being published by Faber.

cc Following the director of Kenya's largest referral hospital's blocking of an operation for a transsexual person, Audrey Mbugua argues that the director's actions constitute a basic infringement of a person's human rights. Denouncing the insistence on a 'no objection letter' from the 25-year-old individual's parents as 'insane and barbaric', Mgubua underlines that one does not have to be transsexual to understand the injustices transsexuals face. With anecdotal reports indicating a 97 per cent success rate for male-to-female reassignments and gender-identity disorder well-established within international psychological knowledge, Mgubua emphasises the underlying ignorance informing the director's actions.

© In an interview with S’bu Zikode, Richard Pithouse questions the president of South Africa's Abahlali baseMjondolo shackdwellers’ movement about his understanding of a living politics and the considerable struggles faced by the movement. Zikode, the elected leader of the group, discusses the core importance of looking to ordinary people for political direction and beginning within the needs of your community as part of an inclusive approach which embraces debate and differences of opinion. As an antidote to the South African state's domination, Abahlali, Zikode explains, works to challenge the underlying greed advanced by the state's endeavour to sustain social divisions through empowering people to engage and shape the struggle in a way sensitive to the needs and roles of all.

cc In response to Mahmood Mamdani's article

In response to Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's article last week entitled , Kintu Nyago criticises the author's blaming of Kampala for warmongering around Migingo.

Ivory Coast's ambassador to the United Nations has said his country's much-postponed presidential election will take place by the end of this year. Ilahiri Djedje told the UN Security Council the vote, due since President Laurent Gbagbo's mandate ran out in 2005, would be held by 6 December. Efforts have been continuing to reunify the country after a civil war that left half of it in rebel hands.

Presidents of oil-producing African countries who are close allies of France are not used to questions being asked about their luxury cars or their homes in chic parts of Paris, but that is changing fast. French anti-corruption activists are trying to prod the justice system into questioning how the leaders of Gabon, Congo Republic and Equatorial Guinea and their families could afford to acquire assets worth tens of millions of euros in France.

The board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was meeting on Monday to discuss Zimbabwe, an official said. The IMF’s Africa Department Director Antoinette Sayeh added that the financial institution is satisfied with the progress made so far by the inclusive government and as such it would offer “small, technical assistance” in due course and encouraged other donors to follow suit.