http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/393/oxfam.jpgEritrea. Ethiopia. Kenya. Sudan. Rwanda. Tanzania. Uganda. Democratic Republic of Congo. Somaliland. The countries that make up the Horn East & Central Africa (HECA) region face some of the toughest humanitarian challenges in the world. Nowhere is real and lasting change more urgent. Nowhere are your strategic leadership & project management skills more pertinent. Which is why we need you to help us make a sustainable difference to the lives of millions in the region.

GBP 24,100 – 32,640 net per annum plus attractive benefits
Global open-ended contract

The Role
As our Regional Programme Development Manager, you will play an active role as a member of the regional management team and your role will be to:

• Plan and design strategies for programme learning and quality across the HECA region working with various stakeholders including partners
• Provide direct technical and advisory support to specific country and regional programmes to ensure better impact
• Manage a diverse team of regional programme staff

The Person
You will have senior management experience in development and humanitarian contexts in at least two different countries and a thorough knowledge of how to integrate gender and HIV AIDS into programmes. We are seeking an exceptional senior manager who has proven strategic and implementation ability, and strong conceptual and analytical skills for planning, monitoring, impact assessment and learning. You will demonstrate strong people leadership and management, as well as an understanding of concepts and applications in organizational learning and knowledge management. You will have a proven record of innovative project management and strategic resources management experience. Critical to the role are your networking, representation, facilitation and influencing skills to forge effective relationships and partnerships with different stakeholders.

Bring new and creative ideas and Oxfam will offer you the environment to put them into practice. If you want to tackle poverty over the long term, we will support you at every step. We are a movement for change. Be part of that change. This is an exciting opportunity for a dedicated and highly motivated professional, with a strong commitment to Oxfam's values and beliefs. If you believe you are the candidate we are looking for, please apply online at using the reference number INT2914 or send an email to [email][email protected] by 29th August 2008.

We are committed to ensuring diversity and gender equality within our organization.

For three years running, with your help, Pambazuka News was voted one of the top 10 who are changing the world of Internet and politics. Pambazuka News has once again been shortlisted amongst the top 25 – and once again the only Africa-related website to have been shortlisted. “This prestigious award seeks,” the judges write, “to recognize the innovators and pioneers, the dreamers and doers who bring democracy online. This year marked the toughest year ever in choosing the top 25 finalists.” This year the competition is really tough, so we need you and all your friends to vote! With Pambazuka News approaching its 400th issue, it would be wonderful if we were once again to be voted one of the top 10. With your help, we can. Please . The deadline for voting is September 8, 2008. ONLY A COUPLE OF WEEKS AWAY -- DON'T DELAY!!!

Botswana's president, Seretse Khama Ian Khama, will not attend a regional summit if Zimbabwe's ruling party and opposition fail to reach a power-sharing agreement, Botswanan officials said.

Negotiators from Zimbabwe's rival parties are meeting to try to reach a settlement to the country's crisis before this weekend's regional summit, a spokesperson for an opposition faction said on Friday.

Gambian police have captured the head of Guinea-Bissau's navy, who had escaped house arrest and had fled his country by boat after he was accused of trying to stage a coup. Maria da Conceicao Nobre Cabral, Guinea-Bissau's foreign minister, flew to Gambia on Thursday, following the capture of Rear Admiral Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchute.

Five Ivorian ministers will be interviewed as witnesses as part of an anti-corruption crackdown in the world's biggest cocoa grower, the government said Thursday. More than a dozen top industry officials, including the then head of the Coffee and Cocoa Bourse (BCC), were arrested in June in a crackdown on graft ordered by President Laurent Gbagbo.

Intimidation of opposition parties and the media ahead of parliamentary elections in Angola, as well as interference in the electoral commission, threaten prospects for a free and fair vote in September, Human Rights Watch has said.

The African Union (AU) has condemned the military coup in Mauritania and insisted on a return to constitutional government while sending its peace and security commissioner ‘to assess the situation and assist in promoting a peaceful solution to the crisis’. The AU went further to suspend Mauritania's membership until a democratically elected government is in place and demanded the release of Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. The suspension is ‘a powerful reminder that Africa is not prepared to return to the dark days when military coups were the tradition’. Analysts have further called for the AU to urge the coup leaders to ‘immediately form a caretaker government’ to restore democracy. International condemnation of the coup has been widespread with threats by the United States and the European Union to cut non-humanitarian aid.

Still in peace and security news, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the AU has expressed concerns at the resignation of a number of cabinet ministers from the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and ‘its impact on the ongoing peace and reconciliation efforts’. The PSC also condemned the attacks against the AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and humanitarian workers saying that ‘all acts of violence aimed at undermining the ongoing process in Somalia furthered instability in the region as a whole’. The PSC also called on opposing parties in Burundi to avoid ‘procrastination and delay tactics’ that affect the implementation of the peace deal despite the return to Bujumbura of the representatives of Palipehutu/FNL. Meanwhile, ‘the Kenya style power sharing’ solution, favoured by the AU and the Southern African Development Community, appeared to be close to agreement in the Zimbabwe talks.

In health related news, the former Botswana president Festus Mogae ‘launched a new initiative that will try to use the energy and experience of a group of renowned and forthright African leaders to persuade their peers on the continent to inject fresh energy into their efforts to combat Aids’. The group will include former presidents and other African prominent individuals.

African and Turkish non governmental organisations will meet in Istanbul under the theme ‘cooperation and development’ to set a joint cooperation platform and declaration tackling issues of development, gender, communication and environment, amongst others, to be submitted to the ‘Turkey-Africa cooperation summit’. The aim of the heads of states and government summit is to promote and strengthen political, economic and cultural relations between Turkey and the continent.

Finally, in an interview with the Mail & Guardian, the AU Commission chairperson, Mr. Jean Ping noted with optimism the AU’s vision of an Africa free from war and dictatorships and noted the progress made in peace and security with only Somalia and Sudan remaining as protracted conflicts on the Continent. However, he noted that the AU faces considerable financial constraints and claimed that “we should build the capacity of the African Union to deal with all these issues. We should also convince the staff that they should move from reflection to action. There will be resistance everywhere—they are used to meetings and committees. I hope that before my departure we will triumph by bringing our tool, the African Union, into action’.

Dear Reader

We are taking a break to recharge our batteries. The next issue of Pambazuka News will be on 4 September 2008. We trust you will survive without us until then.

Meanwhile, we hope you will enjoy this special issue on the implications of an Obama presidency for Africa. We welcome your responses to the perspectives offered by our contributors.

Best wishes

The Editors

The UN has found that its peacekeeping troops from India may have engaged in abuse and exploitation while serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply troubled by the findings. The Indian authorities say they are investigating the allegations and the vice chief of the Indian army had visited Congo in May to look into them. India has said it will take strict action against the perpetrators if the allegations are proved.

Nigeria has handed over the potentially oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon, bringing an end to a long-standing dispute over the territory. The handover ceremony was moved from the peninsula's main town to Calabar in Nigeria amid security concerns. Over the past year about 50 people have been killed in clashes. The majority of the local population considers itself Nigerian, but an international court ruled in favour of Cameroon in 2002.

The new military ruler in Mauritania has had been boosted by support from many of the country's politicians. More than two-thirds of the members of parliament, and the same proportion of senators, have put their names to a statement supporting the coup.

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was prevented from travelling to South Africa on Thursday for a summit of Southern African leaders after he was detained at Harare airport and his travel documents were confiscated. Tsvangirai was released shortly after but his documents were not returned to him, said his spokesperson, George Sibotshiwe.

"In 1979, under Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile-Mariam, the Ethiopian government sent thousands of Ethiopian children to Cuba to be educated. Cuba, an ally of Ethiopia in the Ethio-Somali war, offered housing and education for war orphans. The Cuban government accepted 2,400 Ethiopian students, aged seven to fourteen, to study at Escuelas Secundarias Basicas en el Campo (basic rural secondary schools) - on the small island of Isla de la Juventud. This is an interview from our archive with photographer Aida Muluneh, who is filming a documentary about their lives in Cuba:

Robert Mugabe stood defiant on Monday in the face of mounting pressure to relinquish the executive power he has held for 28 years. As regional trade unions met in South Africa to discuss a boycott of goods bound for his country, Zimbabwe’s president emerged from marathon talks with Morgan Tsvangirai, his arch-rival, to address a rally honouring fighters killed in the country’s liberation war.

On Friday, August 1st, I led a contingent of the Uhuru Movement into Barack Obama’s town hall meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida to raise the question, “what about the black community, Obama?” Without the benefit of a big media budget, our organization attempted to bring the serious issues experienced by African working class people across this country into the national political debate.

These issues include the targeting of African and Latino communities with predatory “sub-prime” mortgages – a scheme that has made millions for people like Obama’s chief financial advisor Penny Pritzker, while stripping black families of billions of dollars, the greatest loss of wealth our community has suffered since being brought in chains to this country. We also challenged Obama to take a stand against the police shootings of unarmed African people, and explain why he has publicly defended the judge’s acquittal of the NYC police who murdered Sean Bell.

He has said that he cannot speak out on behalf of those who have been historically oppressed for fear of offending other people. Yet in Miami, he promised the Jewish community, which considers itself a historically oppressed community, that he supports turning all of Jerusalem over to Israeli control, despite the internationally enforced sharing of that city with the Palestinians. When Obama speaks to black audiences, he attacks us, attributing our community’s poverty, not to systemic oppression, but to bad culture and lack of work ethic.

On Saturday, August 9, a holiday marking the contribution of women to South Africa's liberation struggle, three members of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign joined close to 500 mourners at the funeral of Irene Grootboom held at the Wallacedene informal settlement.

Eight years ago, Irene Grootboom brought her communities case before the SA Constitutional Court, calling attention to the apalling conditions faced by the adults and children living in her community.

Her case resulted in a landmark judgment calling upon the state to design and implement "a comprehensive and co-ordinated programme to realise the right of access to adequate housing." On 30 July, 2008 she died in a shack, still waiting for the SA government to meet her constitutional right to a home.

At the funeral, AEC members listened to several friends, relatives, and pastors eulogize Grootboom as a powerful fighter who put the needs of others before her own. Several people even spoke passionately about the fact that they would not have been able to get access to a house if it had not been for her tireless efforts. And as a testament to her contribution to the community, the street on which she lived bears her name.

However, the AEC members found it sad that members of the ANC were asked to speak at her funeral, with no acknowledgement that this same political party was responsible for initially opposing her court case and later failed to provide her with a home, even after being instructed to do so by the highest court in the land.

It is a shame that Irene Grootboom's funeral was presided over not by friendly legal advocates or fellow community activists, but by the same political party that left her to spend her last years in a shack. Perhaps, she and tens of thousands of her fellow citizens would be alive today if they had the decent and affordable housing that is there right.

Sokari Ekine reviews a selection of African blogs:

Mostly Maurice
Black Looks

On the . I would like to acknowledge the initiative by the media to bring to everyone's attention to cases like this one where a woman decided to do something about sexual abuse, especially against a girl child. I do not mean to encourage women to take law into their hands, but to point to governments that there is a problem with the justice system if some women are going this far.

I'm yet to read on a daily basis about other cases of sexual abuse, where women have not taken drastic measures to break the silence. Does that mean they are less important or all of us should cut the penis and hope it will be eaten by dogs?! How can we punish perpetrators of sexual abuse without resorting to drastic mesures like castration,lest we are labelled as having 'penis envy'?

There have been a number of meetings where a problem of sexual abuse was discussed, but it seems attitudes of some men are not changing! I think we need to have a forum where we can draw attention to the "PENIS" itsself. Discuss different ways (positive) it can be used and celebrated instead of only looking at it as a weapon or a gun as in the Zuma case in South Africa.

Let me begin by making a few disclaimers. First, I am a registered Democrat (for lack of a better alternative). Second, I support Barack Obama's candidacy for the presidency. Third, I believe that he will pursue a more enlightened foreign policy towards Africa than George Bush has and more importantly than John McCain would.

But let's not delude ourselves, Barack Obama is not Africa's prodigal son, he is an American politician running for the presidency of the United States of America. His family ties to Africa (Kenya to be exact) have, however, given him a greater personal connection to the continent and its people than any other American presidential candidate before him. As far as I am aware he also has the most cosmopolitan upbringing of any presidential candidate to date. These facts combined with his intellectual strength, eloquence, and ability to think outside of the box suggest that if elected president he will pursue a more diplomacy-oriented and judicious foreign policy in general. With regard to Africa, the simple fact that the continent is already on his radar further suggests we can expect him to have a greater hand in proactively crafting his administration's Africa agenda, rather than doing what most US presidents have done before him: neglect Africa except when the US's strategic interests are involved, and we all know how that story repeatedly turned out. Without exception, US intervention to secure its interests in Africa has been disastrous for the continent. The Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, still hasn't recovered from decades of Mobutu Sese Seko's US-sponsored kleptocracy.