There is room for improvement in early childhood care and education in the world's nine high population countries, according to UNESCO's latest Policy Brief on Early Childhood. Favourable demographic trends means that there are fewer children to serve and if the countries' investment in early childhood remains constant, more can be spent on improving quality, says Soo-Hyang Choi of UNESCO. Early childhood care and education was the topic chosen for the 5th E-9 Ministerial Review Meeting, held in Cairo, Egypt, in December 2003. The Policy Brief represents some highlights of progress achieved in ECCE access in the nine countries - Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.

The Department of Arts and Culture (DAC), invites applications for joint projects between Sweden and South Africa. The application is open to NPOs and foundations for funding over a three-year period.The main goal of the Culture Partnership Programme is to promote access of information, freedom of expression and capacity-building between Sweden and South Africa.

In Uganda when one talks about art it stipulates three things. One may think about the beautiful artefacts like mats, table spreads and baskets whose production occupies a good number of hours of many a housewife. Or better still the numerous utilitarian items like stools, headgear and body accessories made from beads most of which are imported from Kenya. The third and rather obvious evocation is the paintings, sculptures and drawings that are produced as a result of formal and informal training. Among artists and art promoters in Kampala, art refers to the paintings (Kampala artists are of late obsessed with painting; a tendency dictated by the ready market for them) and sculptures produced in conformity with western aesthetics. Read the rest of this article on the African Colours website.

In We Did Nothing, veteran journalist Linda Polman draws on her experience in war zones of Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia and Somalia to expose the shortcomings of international intervention in these contexts. Her thesis is that United Nations (UN) member states, particularly those on the Security Council (SC), privilege national interests over UN goals. This seriously weakens the UN, which is given ambitious mandates at the same time as it is chronically under-funded and under-resourced. While constrained by member states' interests, the UN is often criticised for its failures, as if it were an independently functioning organisation.

According to Polman, this criticism would be better aimed at UN member states, particularly powerful Western countries that push for peacekeeping operations, but then are noticeably under-represented in terms of personnel on the ground. The book also exposes examples of 'Blue Rinsing', in which powerful SC members intervene unilaterally in conflicts, and then call for UN involvement once more difficult and lengthy stages of reconstruction and democracy-building begin. Polman makes a powerful case against such practice in analysing US involvement in Somalia and Haiti, and French intervention in Rwanda.

In an era of UN-bashing, We Did Nothing is a refreshing re-take on the UN's "failings", showing that they are not organisational, but rather a product of structural power plays in international relations. However, by focusing on self interests as the root of the problems of the international community's reaction to conflict, Polman tends to paint all individuals she encounters in conflict zones with the same brush of egocentricity. International staff members are reduced to national stereotypes, while local populations are portrayed as either passive, helpless victims or unscrupulous profiteers and militia.

This dehumanisation overlooks the extraordinary capacity for resilience, coping and collective action that many people display in conflict. Absent from Polman's often cynical accounts of chaos and confusion are examples of how ordinary people - both local and international - go to extraordinary lengths to help each other eke out a daily, 'normal' existence in the face of adversity. While these examples are less sensational than the US military bullies, the quavering UN officials and the local racketeers portrayed in Polman's book, it is only just, not to mention good journalism, to give equal weight to both sides of the story.

* Reviewed by Christina Clark, Fahamu

Many pupils in the eastern and southern African context leave school long before completing what might be described as a basic education. Thus, as a way of compensating for the adverse effect of early drop-out rates, there has been considerable 'talk' about including life skills as a key part of the primary curriculum. The idea behind this being that if pupils are taught skills for life and survival after school, rather than the present largely academic curriculum, they will be better able to cope with unfavourable economic climates. This exploratory research from Kenya is part of a three-part study conducted in Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe that focuses on the provision and teaching of life skills in primary schools, how the process of sexual maturation for both boys and girls is handled in schools and at home and, finally, exploring whether there is a link between adequate sanitation and sanitary protection for girls and their retention in school.

Confessions of a Gambler centres, almost incongruously, around a Muslim woman in Cape Town, South Africa, who develops a compulsive gambling problem. Her name is Abeeda Ariefdin, or Beeda to her friends and family, and she is, in no particular order, a faithful Muslim, mother to four sons, the ex-wife of a cheating ex-husband, a sister, daughter, neighbour, employer and friend to some of the most delightful characters ever to wend their way into a novel. Rayda Jacobs taps so deeply into the South African psyche in this book, and tackles so many of the taboos inherent within southern African society, that it leaves one almost breathless.

The international war crimes tribunals have made precedent-setting decisions on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch says in a new comprehensive book that organizes by topic the decisions of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. "The work of the two ad hoc tribunals represents the most significant effort since Nuremberg to bring perpetrators of the most serious crimes to justice," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program.

“Mother tongue languages should be favoured in education systems from the earliest age,” said UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura in his message for International Mother Tongue Language Day 2004. “It is widely acknowledged nowadays,” he added, “that teaching in both the mother tongue and the official national language helps children to obtain better results and stimulates their cognitive development and capacity to learn.” However, a survey being undertaken by UNESCO indicates that although the use of mother tongue languages as a medium of instruction is gaining ground, few countries have incorporated the idea into their education systems.

The back cover of Re-examining Liberation in Namibia: Political Culture Since Independence, edited by Henning Melber, asks the question of what Namibian children can expect from their future in ‘the land of the brave’ (as the national anthem proclaims)? This question frames the taking stock of emerging trends in the country’s political culture since independence in 1990 as the contributors critically explore the achievements and shortcomings that have been part of liberation in Namibia.

Dealing with a wide array of subjects relevant to recent history in Namibia, the collection weaves together a rich tapestry of diverse subjects. It succeeds in pulling together a picture of the sometimes schizophrenic liberation movement SWAPO, which led resistance to colonial rule from 1960, in terms of its worthy values and ambitions compared to the reality of a liberation movement in power.

The themes of this collection illuminate not only the challenges facing present-day Namibia but also resonate throughout the Southern African region. Issues related to land and indigenous people crop up frequently, as does that of truth and reconciliation, memory and forgetting.

Perhaps the contrast between liberation in action and the present day reality is best captured in the fascinating deconstruction of President Sam Nujoma’s personality in an essay by Christopher Saunders entitled ‘Liberation and Democracy: A critical reading of Sam Nujoma’s Autobiography’. This paints a picture of a heroic and committed Sam Nujoma as he travelled through the airports of the world gathering support for his just cause as a young man with little experience of politics. But this contrasts with Nujoma’s highly selective and sometimes inaccurate version of events in relation to the liberation struggle, so that Saunders concludes that “Nujoma’s work is more a work of propaganda than of history”. “It conforms that the liberation struggle was fought for national liberation, and that this meant, for Nujoma and others, the accession of Swapo to power.”

The attempt by Swapo and Nujoma to remember the past in a certain way, to construct it and stamp it on the nation’s consciousness, is also raised in an excellent essay by John Saul and Colin Leys entitled ‘Truth, Reconciliation, Amnesia: The “ex-detainees” fight for Justice’. Here the issue of missing Swapo activists allegedly killed at the hands of their own organisation is carefully examined in the context of the liberation movement’s inclination to bury historical record with the excuse that opening up old wounds would be harmful to national reconciliation efforts. This is contrasted strongly with efforts by those in Namibian society who believe that actively remembering the past will open up the path to a more meaningful reconciliation.

How is the past remembered and who has the right to remember it? Who has control over the nation’s consciousness? What is national interest and in whose interest does it operate? How do we go about understanding the sometimes contradictory and authoritarian nature of liberation movements? How do these liberation movements understand democracy? These are just some of the questions that Re-examining Liberation in Namibia touches on, and together with many others, the collection provides a critical understanding of Namibian politics and its current day state of health.
(ISBN 91-7106-516-4)

Reviewed by Patrick Burnett, Fahamu

This is a study of how the production of history is part of a global process forged by the struggle between colonialism and resistance. The author looks at the 1952 celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the landing of Jan van Riebeeck and the founding of Cape Town. Examining newspapers brochures and pamphlets, the author looks at how history and historical figures were reconstructed and how the ANC and others mounted opposition to it.

Divided into clear subject chapters, this guide highlights the best links and web sites covering every aspect of African American history, society and culture and Black studies. Each chapter has a brief essay, and extensive annotation on the five best sites for each topic.

The latest issue of 'News from the Nordic Africa Institute' has a special dossier on CODESRIA, as a way of celebrating CODESRIA's 30th anniversary: interviews of the former and current presidents of CODESRIA, Professors Mahmood Mamdani and Zenebeworke Tadesse, two new members of the CODESRIA Secretariat, Francis Nyamnjoh, Head of the Publications and Communications Department, and Ebrima Sall, Head of the Research and Documentation Department, and an interview with Professor Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, the famous writer.

There is wide preoccupation with the vital issue of democracy in Africa, and its implication for the world at large. The reality is for the most part that on the African continent, democratic freedoms are suppressed; violence and atrocities flourish; and a critical mass of the citizens are disenfranchised with few or no rights in their own countries; for many, this process having been driven by their own governments. This book demonstrates that citizens have however always sought ways and struggled to expedite an arguably inevitable process towards greater freedom. It examines how barriers to democracy have been overcome in Nigeria; the legacy of the Babangida administration; state feminism and democratisation; civil society and democratisation, including the roles of the mass media, student vanguardism, intellectuals and academics, the left and trade unions; and liberties, rights, ethnicity and citizenship.

This is a collection of poems and a short story of wide thematic scope. The poet portrays, without bitterness, some of the grave injustices of the colonial system and their consequences as well as the problems, frustrations and joys of living in independent Namibia.

"A small blasting job is required in Bluff Hill, fix and supply: $4 million. I try to get hold of the client, Mrs Shambare, over the phone for a quotation. I spend two hours in the office. Waiting can be trying. I chat with the receptionist. Mr Mukamba, the engineer for CPG, comes to inform me that he can only manage to buy explosives next week. I walk out resignedly." Zimbabwean poet Julius Chingono works as a rock-blasting contractor in daily life to support his family. He is also a Mufundisi – pastor – in the Tsitsi dzaMwari Apostolic Church. This posting on the website of Kubatana.net reproduces the poet's diaries, which give a fascinating insight into life in Zimbabwe.

This issue contains:
* Zimbabwe out in the cold? by Ray Bush;
* Military corruption & Ugandan politics since the late 1990s by Roger Tangri, Andrew M Mwenda;
* The Bush administration & African oil: the security implications of US energy policy by Daniel Volman;
* Briefings Liberia: an analysis of post-Taylor politics by Thomas Jaye.

We at Kwani? kindly request you to donate children's books, particularly by African writers, to the libraries in Mathare North and Eastleigh, run by MYSA (Mathare North Youth Association). Mrs. Anne Moore ([email protected]) is a librarian and has worked very hard to get these libraries organised. The official opening of the Mathare North MYSA Library will be on Sat 27th Feb and will be presided over by Ms Beverly Naidoo, ([email protected]), a children's author from the UK, and Yvonne Adhiambo, Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2003 (www.kwani.org).

Michael, aged 25, was abducted by Lord's Resistance Army rebels in northern Uganda. His captors beat him on the head with rifle-butts when he was no longer able to carry their loot and left him for dead. Government soldiers found him a week later. "Termites had started eating me alive," he recalls. "They had begun building an anthill on my body." Michael's is one of many personal testimonies published in "When the sun sets, we start to worry...", a book launched by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in conjunction with its Integrated Regional Information Networks.

MMINO, a South African-Norwegian Music Education and Music Programme, is currently calling for funding applications for music projects. Grants are available for music education, documentation and research, choral music and music festivals. Funding will be granted twice a year and interested parties must submit their applications on the official MMINO application form.

A heated debate is underway in Swaziland about whether children who fail English should be forced to repeat the academic year. "The English language requirement is a millstone around the neck of every Swazi school child,” says Agnes Khumalo, a public school teacher in the northern Hhohho province. But, businessman Arthur Simelane disagrees. "You can't get a good job without a knowledge of English, or succeed in the business world without competence in the international language,” he told IPS.