The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) is a worldwide alliance of trade unions, community groups, faith groups, youth and campaigners working together across more than 100 national platforms. GCAP is calling for action from the world’s leaders to meet their promises to end poverty and inequality. In particular, GCAP demands solutions that address the issues of public accountability, just governance and the fulfilment of human rights as well as trade justice, aid quality and quantity, debt cancellation and gender equality. In Africa, 34 national coalitions are active and participate in GCAP mobilisations and events. For details of actions planned in 2007 go to

Please visit the civil society and AU Summit calendar.

All civil society and African Union meetings and events will be regularly updated before and during the Accra Heads of States. Details of each event will appear on your screen as you click the title of the event. Please refer to the AU-Monitor Countdown Calendar throughout the summit.

To add events or meetings to the calendar, please email hakima at fahamu.org.

11 June 2007, Cape Town - Leaders of the G8 countries met in Heiligendamm, Germany between the 6th and 8th June 2007 to deliberate on the worlds’ problems. Chancellor Merkel’s efforts to ensure that Africa is central to the agenda of this summit is appreciated. Furthermore, the efforts to strengthen the partnership with Africa by ensuring that the G8 supports activities that have been targeted and prioritized by the African governments is a progressive step. Despite this however, the outcomes of this summit have been disappointing.

It was a fitting tribute to Ghana’s first president and pioneer of the formation of the Organisation of African Unity, forbear of the African Union, that on the day the mortal remains of his wife Fathia were interred beside him, Ghanaians from all walks of life gathered at the Teachers” Hall, Accra, for a non-partisan debate on the goal of achieving Africa’s integration by 2025.

The draft programme for the African Citizens Directorate (CIDO) Pre-Summit Civil Society Forum in Accra, Ghana on the 19th -21st June 2007 is now available at

Join the delegation of African veteran leaders, intellectuals, activists, faith leaders, entrepreneurs, dignitaries and students in the 2007 Pan Afrikan Movement (PAM) Summit at the University of the West Indies, Kingston Jamaica on July 11-18, 2007. The theme of the 2007 Summit is “Political Determination for Cultural and Economic Rebirth”. Some of the key goals are to (1) Build a political structure for an African Diaspora Union (ADU) as part of establishing a (6th) sixth region of a unified African continent; (2) organize cultural campaigns and institutions for African people to promote African values, heritage, history and spirituality; and (3) promote economic initiatives for businesses, trade and commerce amongst Africans in the Diaspora and Africa.

Participants at an interactive session on the AU Grand Debate on the Continental Union Government have called for the adoption of the Union Government proposal to be tabled at the African Union’s July Summit in Accra, Ghana. Under the theme “Informing Ghana’s Position on the AU Grand Debate”, the forum organized by the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) and the Ghana AU Civil Society Coalition with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and NEPAD had three main objectives: (a) to find out Ghana’s official position, if any, on the Grand Debate; (b) collect and collate civil society’s views on the matter; and (c) to provide a platform for civil society-Government engagement on the issue, aiming to impact the formulation of Ghana’s official position on the Debate.

Bougouma Diagne is based in Senegal and works for the Cultural Association for Social and Educational Self-Promotion . In March, Saloman Kebede interviewed him on the upcoming Grand Debate on the Continental Government during the next African Union Summit, June – July 2007. This interview is one of several interviews with African citizens and CSO leaders on the AU proposal for Continental Government. Emily Mghanga of Pan Africa Programme Oxfam edited this interview.

Salomon Kebede: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current proposal?

Bougouma Diagne: The current essence of the proposal is that if we unite, we become stronger and will realise the same objectives and goals. A weak point to note is that many African countries are dependant and in-directly controlled by stronger economies in Asia, North America and Europe.

Salomon Kebede: Should it be adopted in Accra in July 2007, what would you like to see the African Union Commission achieve within the first phase (2007-2009)?

Bougouma Diagne: The African Union Commission should first popularize that decision across the continent in order to involve all citizens in the process.

Salomon Kebede: Why would this form of continental union be important to African citizens & particular the poor and marginalized?

Bougouma Diagne: The AU Commission has to create ways of African citizens to participate. It is most acceptable to have organs that ignore or unaccountable to public opinion.

Salomon Kebede: How could states and non-states ensure that continental union efforts are transparent, participatory and driven by an appreciation of political and economic rights?

Bougouma Diagne: The main objective should be to implement the AU charter and particularly sections that safeguard the rights of people. This will ensure citizen involvement in the AU agenda. That way we can be sure that people will have an interest in continental union.

Salomon Kebede: What obstacles must the AU overcome for the continental union to be successful?

Bougouma Diagne: The AU has to take cultural diversity into consideration and plan so that we are all accommodated. This will bring harmony and acceptance from all citizens in the continent.

Salomon Kebede: In what policy area, would you like to see greater convergence and unity across Africa and why?

Bougouma Diagne: Education is the main problem in Africa, because an illiterate society is undermined in many ways.

The views expressed here are the perspectives of the interviewee. Bougouma Diagne can be reached by email: capes at sentoo.sn/acapes at acapes.org

George Adhanja is based in Kenya and works for the Kenya National Council of NGOs. In March, Saloman Kebede interviewed him on the upcoming Grand Debate on the Continental Government during the next African Union Summit, June – July 2007. This interview is one of several interviews with African citizens and CSO leaders on the AU proposal for Continental Government. Emily Mghanga of Pan Africa Programme Oxfam edited this interview.

Salomon Kebede: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current proposal?

George Adhanja: If the heads of states continue to meet and work together in one spirit then this strengthens the proposal. However, the relationship that still exists between countries across this continent is challenged by dishonesty and mistrust. This may weaken this proposal and in the end, hamper the success of a Continental Union.

Salomon Kebede: Should it be adopted in Accra in July 2007, what would you like to see the African Union Commission achieve within the first phase (2007-2009)?

George Adhanja: The AU Commission should bring an end to civil wars in Africa.

Salomon Kebede: And why would this form of continental Union be important to African citizens & particular the poor and marginalized?

George Adhanja: African citizens will enjoy free movement and free trade across the continent that will be of great benefit to the poor and marginalized in particular. We need to see a unity that will uphold and respect citizen rights.

Salomon Kebede: How could states and non-states ensure that continental Union efforts are transparent, participatory and driven by an appreciation of political and economic rights?

George Adhanja: Let the member states become the engine that will run the continental Government devoid of western influence. The only way we will move forward in a Union Government, is by focusing entirely in doing what is right for the African people.

Salomon Kebede: What obstacles must the AU overcome for the continental Union to be successful?

George Adhanja: We must be financially independent in order to be self –reliant and stop depending on the west.

Salomon Kebede: In what policy area, would you like to see greater convergence and unity across Africa and why?

George Adhanja: I strongly would advocate for free trade and free movement. Without these, there is no need for Africans to unite.

Salomon Kebede: Do you have anything that you would like to add?

George Adhanja: Yes. Let us have a Union that respects civil society. It is fundamental for the civil society to be given more room to engage without discrimination as seen in some countries.

The views expressed here are the perspectives of the interviewee. George Adhanja can be reached at Email: admin at ngocouncil.org

From the very start, the recent Nigerian elections, which saw Olusegun Obasanjo placing his hand picked successor, Umaru Yar’ Adua, into the Presidential palace, were mired in controversy. The ballot papers for the election, which were printed in South Africa, contained no counter foils or serial numbers – features which would have made vote rigging difficult.

The new president of impoverished Mauritania and his cabinet have taken 25 per cent pay cuts because of a drop in oil production. Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi took power in landmark democratic elections in March after power was handed to the civilian government after more than a year of military rule.

The Comorian island of Anjouan has held elections for its presidency, defying a national one-week delay and putting fresh strain on the archipelago's national union, according to a Al-Jazeera report. The government had ordered the delay over security fears after police shot three people during protests on Tuesday against the national president, Ahmed Abdullah Mohamed Sambi.

A new World Bank report on HIV/AIDS launched in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, says the mobilization of empowered 'grassroots' communities, along with delivering condoms and life-saving treatments, are beginning to slow the pace of the continent's epidemic, which last year killed more than 2 million African adults and children, and left another 24.7 million Africans struggling to live with its deadly effects.

Debate on the prospects for continent-wide government in Africa is heating up ahead of the African Union (AU) summit that is scheduled to begin on 25 June in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. The gathering will focus on plotting a course towards full political and economic integration on the continent, a central goal of the AU. The dream of a 'United States of Africa' also underpinned the creation in 1963 of the union's predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity.

FEATURES: Robtel Pailey questions the legitimacy of the special court for Sierra Leone and the trial of Charles Taylor
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
-Wazir Mohammed reflects on the legacy of Walter Rodney
-Annwen Bates on the visual representations of the spectacle of aid in Africa
-Doreen Lwanga on DeBeers and blood-free diamonds
LETTERS:
- Takwa Suifon on Ochieng's article critically analysing poverty
- Matarr Njie on last week's Pan African Postcard 'Death of Nkrumah’s widow'
OBITUARY: Farewell, Sembene Ousmane
BLOGGING AFRICA: Review of East African blogs
BOOKS & ARTS: Poem by Annie Quarcoopome 'Unfinished Business'
AFRICAN UNION MONITOR: response to the G8; interview with Bougouma Diagne

PAN AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen says Khartoum is fooling the world - again
WOMEN AND GENDER: Women activists arrested in Zimbabwe
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Ethiopian troops attacked in Somalia
HUMAN RIGHTS: Focus on child labour in agriculture
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: Nigerian court frees Delta dissident
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Cost of conflict in Western Sahara
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Comorian island hold elections
AFRICA AND CHINA: Zoellick wants Beijing to heed the West
CORRUPTION: Deadline looms for Nigeria’s ex-governors
DEVELOPMENT: IMF calls for clearer Africa aid timetable
HEALTH AND HIV/Aids: New microbicide trials in South Africa
EDUCATION: Will e-learning make teachers redundant?
LGBTI: Namibia’s Gay Week set to attract straight community
ENVIRONMENT: East Africa bans plastic bags
LAND & LAND RIGHTS: Land returned in World Heritage site
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Leading Congolese journalist gunned down
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: Barring Winnie Mandela form Canada
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Zimbabwe’s exiles turn to the Web
PLUS: e-newsletters and mailings lists; courses, seminars and workshops, jobs and books and publications

*Pambazuka News now has a Del.icio.us page, where you can view the various websites that we visit to keep our fingers on the pulse of Africa! Visit

When European campaigners suggest that a free trade deal could harm the poor, they typically encounter a frosty reaction from civil servants in Brussels. Still, no one tries to muzzle them. Yet when a Namibian trade analyst insinuated that the European Union was trying to browbeat southern African governments into signing an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) before they had a chance to analyse its consequences, he found himself out of a job.

Egypt's ruling party won 69 out of 88 seats outright in Monday's parliamentary election while the opposition Muslim Brotherhood got none, a government statement said on Wednesday. The Brotherhood, rights groups and journalists reported many voting irregularities, including multiple voting and ballot stuffing. In some places where the Islamists hold a strong popular base, police denied voters access to polling stations.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Sudan's agreement on a large force for Darfur "a milestone" on Wednesday but U.N. envoys acknowledged challenges on command structures and finding enough troops. "It was a milestone development," Ban said. "Even though slow, we have been making steady progress ... and we are now moving toward the right direction." Sudan accepted the agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Tuesday.

Ochieng's critical analysis of poverty and the way we perceive it have ignited some deep thoughts in me. Africans must take this debate everywhere and must start reversing the false trend we have institutionalised in the name of poverty alleviation. Just see how we have condemned ourselves to perpetual enslavement even by accepting the fact that what we should do is just alleviate poverty! As Ochieng says, eradication (a word strongly opposed by the beneficiaries of our poverty) would deliberately be geared at eradicating the poor.

The capitalist version of development is becoming a zero-sum game (it has so been everywhere) and thus a developed Africa would entail 'large holes of poverty' in the developed world. I once argued that if there were a way to secure a patent right for air, Africa would be suffocated in a twinkle of an eye. With the millions of plant and tree species that are being tested in Western pharmaceutical laboratories, no single African country has a patent right. Let this generation of Africans rise up and claim what is theirs before it is too late.

* Takwa Suifon is an 'Africanist' and Conflict and Peace Analyst from Cameroon

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/308/blogs_01_tumwine.gif blogs primarily about the tobacco industry. An excellent resource as she monitors and reports on tobacco related issues from across the continent. In this piece she reports on the plight of tobacco farmers in Uganda’s West Nile region

'It reiterates Uganda’s Vice President’s recent plea for alternative crops to tobacco and highlights the fact that tobacco is labour intensive, environmentally destructive and impoverishes the tobacco farmer.'

One noteworthy mention is that the 'WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC),” supports the development of alternatives for tobacco farmers and the report will be ready in July 2007 so check back on Jackie’s blog for more news.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/308/blogs_02_countryboyi.gifCountry Boyi tells us why Idi Amin is his hero. Growing up he was repulsed by an Idi Amin presented as a wicked, torturing, human flesh eating dictator. Boyi takes issue with these stories of Amin and finds justification for making him a hero because he encouraged Ugandans to work with determination and there were more women managers in the country than elsewhere in Africa.

'He wanted Africa for Africans...He sent a telegram to Julius Nyerere that said, 'I want to assure you that I love you very much, that if you were a woman I would have considered marrying you'. Long after his death (2003), Uganda continues to reap big from his friendship with Libyan leader Muammad Gaddafi.

Further, he gave full economic independence to the people of Uganda after expelling 80.000 Asians. His attempted Islamisation of the country was aimed at uniting a citizenry that are known to tear each other on religious grounds.'

I think you need to find another hero Boyi!

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/308/blogs_03_afromusing.gifAfro Musing was one of the African bloggers present at the recent TED-Africa held in Arusha, Tanzania.

'How to help Africa? Do business there TED Global felt like a seminal moment in Africa. I may have said this already but i will say it again. It was unlike any conference i have ever attended. Stupendous, challenging, interesting, eye-opening, heart-opening literally with Dr. Seyi Olesola and figuratively with Binyavanga Wainaina, Chris Abani and the music of Vusi Mahlasela. It was not uncommon to see people quietly wiping away tears during some of the talks. I would be curious as to the psychology behind the organization of the conference, it literally does something to your brain, sort of like neuron shock-therapy. By this i mean the speed, content, superb production, entertaining ‘mental breaks’ and the mix of amazing people. Its like being given knowledge speed in an engaging syringe with extra tablets of wonderful food.'

Sounds pretty grim, like a revival meeting of entrepreneurial evangelists using sleek media and marketing presentation – Who is the 'God' here? I just hope its not catching via cyberspace. For sure it is the talk of the African blogosphere everyone that attended has nothing but praise – my only regret is missing Vusi Mahlasela who would bring tears to my eyes!

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/308/blogs_04_mental.gifMental Acrobatics raises an interesting set of questions around the responsibilities of bloggers in reporting news events. In reporting the bombing in Nairobi this week he like other bloggers is full of qualifiers as the news is updated by the hour via Reuters and other news sources. Mental argues that this is an example of why blogs are an important news source

'I would argue that it is stories like this that rather than showing the danger of blogs, HIGHLIGHT the importance of blogs and other citizen media. While the MSM was stuck in its procedures, bloggers wrote about what they had heard, seen or were told. There is nothing wrong with quoting primary sources. The historians amongst us can confirm the importance with which primary sources are regarded on any historical event. The eyewitness account, the man on the street as it were. If you wanted to know what Kenyans were thinking and feeling at the time the blogs were a very good place to start...As for waiting for an official police statement before commenting on this blast, to that I would ask: where is the lengthy police statement on the Mungiki crisis? Where is the lengthy police statement on the Mount Elgon clashes? Both were major incidents in the past month which claimed more lives that the blast this morning, yet we haven’t seen the same coordinated response to dishing out information as we have on this blast. Are we to await the official statement on those events as well before stepping in with our take on events? How long are you prepared to wait?'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/308/blogs_05_mettyz.gifMetty'z Reflections - Tanzania in Focus comments on Tanzania and globalisation and refuses to attribute blame for Tanzania’s debt or lack of development to globalisation. His post is in response to comments on globalisation and that 'industrial countries impose barriers on agricultural products from Africa' and he concludes he is not 'willing to jump on the ‘we are not developing because of the West’ bandwagon'. Much easier to blame Tanzania’s and Africa’s 'bad attitude' whatever that is.

'With regards to ballooning of the African debt, we can’t simply run and attribute that to globalization. First of all, how that does globalization, which is pretty much a free market concept, cause African countries to acquire more debt? I would seriously need more education on that. As far as I know, the expansion of debt is an outcome of strategies, vision and policies. Case in point: the United States’ debt , which has grown over time, but has increased or decreased based on whether Democrats of Republicans are in power. All that happens when the country is a capitalist country. So why would one tell us the African debt has grown because of globalization?'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/308/blogs_06_bl.gifBlack Looks writes on World Walls – apartheid walls of segregation built to keep out the unwanted and protect the wanted internally and externally.

'Insiders, outsiders anyone from a different world or who is trying to make a different world. Will you be inside the wall living as a caged animal or outside, excluded and destitute? The G8 wall has shown that WALL BUILDERS are capable of constructing internal walls - walls that criminalise the poor, migrants, unwanted people and to keep them away from the the acceptable amongst their nations. The walls are symbols of a concrete and metal apartheid as nation after nation seeks to divide those who are legal and those who are illegal; those who are the right religion, colour, class, gender, have the right sexual preference. For the preferred insiders there is the superiority of knowing you are inside looking out. You have what THEY, the other, want as in Castillo’s diagram. The newer walls include sophisticated surveillance technology that can sense people approaching the fence/wall and prepare for attack. One wonders if the Spanish walls in Ceuta and Melilla will be able to pick up the colour of the approaching people and trigger some sort of automated reaction of bullets to shoot would be wall jumpers.'