To inform development in Southern Africa, the region needs information that is locally produced, analysed and delivered. This background paper considers the concepts of Knowledge for Development (KfD) as it applies to southern Africa, placing it within the context of regional development and cooperation plans currently being rolled out by the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

This paper examines the role that may be envisioned for the courts in Angola with respect to the poor. Looking at the period from 1992 - 2004, it analyses the factors that are necessary for getting social rights litigation successfully through the courts and identifies the type of impediments which exist. The paper finds that the failure to implement social and economic rights in Angola is not primarily due to constitutional limitations, but rather due to the lack of resources among the poor as well as to lack of human and technical resources within the justice system itself.

The finalisation of a joint action-plan for the establishment of a so-called ’Strategic Partnership’ between South Africa and the European Union (EU) - proposed by the EU last year - would be prioritised during Germany’s Presidency of the EU, which runs from January to the end of June.

The Open Source Centre at the Meraka Institute will be hosting a two-day colloquium from February 6-8 on the importance of ICTs to development and transformation. Issues to be discussed at the meeting include open content and open access in academia, open content and development, free and open source and accessibility, research policy and access, the digital divide, intellectual property and policy, digital rights management and free and open source software.

The World Social Forum (WSF) is holding its Seventh Session in Nairobi, for the first time in Africa, 20-25 January 2007.

This is a global Movement against globalization and the triumphalist neo-liberalism that underpins it. For any African who is casually aware of the painful history of this continent in relation to the rest of the world globalization should not be a new term. Slavery was global and so was colonialism. And Imperialism has always been global.

So why are we using globalization today as if it was discovered a few years ago? It is used as if it all has to do with technology, internet, freer movement of goods, services, people, skills, knowledge, etc. It is all these and more. It has both an ideological, political and class context. Technology is not neutral.

What is distinct about globalization today? One, it is happening in the context of a UNIPOLAR world that is dominated by an illiterate lone superpower: USA. Two, it asserts an end of ideology with another ideology: There Is No Alternative (TINA) thereby turning neoliberalism, into a gospel truth, from which there can not be deviation.

Democratization, progress and survival of humanity, in this discourse, become linked or even interchangeable with western political structures, capitalism and Western culture. Consequently the destiny of the world is to become Westernized and even more brazenly become Americanized!

If Westernization produced prosperity for all the peoples of the world and respect the dignity of all human beings there may not be much opposition to it and its hegemony. But slavery, colonialism, genocide, mass violence, expropriation of majority by the minority, destruction of cultures and peoples and many more atrocities in the pursuit of raw materials, profits and markets are the heritage and contemporary expression of this ideology. Hence it has always provoked resistance from its victims and other peoples who desire social justice and a better humanity.

The WSF movement has evolved from the late 1990s becoming organized expression of the peoples of the world at its first meeting in 2001 at Porta Allegro in Brazil. It brings together all kinds of anti-globalisation forces and social movements struggling against all kinds of class, racial, ethnic, religious, gender and other kinds of oppression at all levels of human existence. It is united by the twin ideology of opposition to the current imperialist anti –people globalization and the totalitarian ideology of there being no alternative to Neo liberalism.

Those may be the only two things they agree on because different groups, organizations and individuals decide where and how they go about confronting the two evils they identify. To the untutored in WSF dynamics it may look like an anarchists’ bazaar. But there is a method to the madness. These are people committed to changing the world they live in and are prepared to sacrifice for it. They may sound like lunatics and champions of lost causes but so did many thought of Mandela who, as a firebrand youth believed they could overthrow Apartheid and bring about Black Majority rule at a time when people thought White power was impregnable.

Winston Churchill infamously and loquaciously declared his opposition to Independence for Non White British Colonies in his rude reaction to Mahatma Ghandi’s mobilization of ordinary Indians against colonialism insisting he had not become the Prime Minster of ‘His Majesty’s government’ to hand over the British Empire ‘to a half-naked Kaffir’. But it came to pass in his life-time. Not only India, but also Ceylon (Sri Lanka now), and several Asian and African Countries became independent before Churchill’s life snuffed out and they were welcomed to England by the British crown in pomp and pageantry at Buckingham palace.

History is full of the contributions made possible by people who were regarded as ‘lunatics’ by their contemporaries and the powers that be that they challenged but with time many of these ideas and issues they fought on became common sense.

Many will snigger and even be amused by the clarion call of the Nairobi WSF: “Another World is Possible”. The cynicism will in part be due to many people believing that the world as we live it today has come to stay, that America will always gets its way and the west will always dominate therefore since you cannot beat them you had better join them or get lost. But this reading of the world’s history is so short sighted as it is ahistorical.

Most of the territory we now know as the USA today used to be a colony of Britain, but now Britain especially under TORY Blair has become a vassal state of Britain. Yet at the height of British Imperial grandeur in the 19th and up to the middle of the 20th century its imperial propagandists use to boast that: ‘The sun never sets on the British empire’ because the colonies stretched against all continents.

Those struggling against British Colonialism used to retort that the reason the sun never sets on the British Empire was because: God never trusted the British in the dark! The Empire did collapse. Why should the American empire be any different? Were not Rome and the Catholic Church imperial power before? What happened to the Egyptians and Greek civilizations? From generation to generations, from one epoch to the other human beings continue to seek alternatives making change the only permanent condition of humanity.

Empires rise and fall. Just imagine the next fifty years with China, India, and Africa, Latin America and other previously marginalized peoples and regions of the world on the rise. The apostles of neoliberalism want to put an end to our imagination but the ‘strugglists’ assembling in Nairobi from all corners of the world for the WORLD SOCIAL FORUM (which should really be World Socialist Forum) just as the beneficiaries of the current unequal and unfair global power structures gather for their annual vultures’ festival in Davos, for the World Economic Forum (really WORLD EXCPLOITERS FORUM) are defiantly reaffirming the truism that Another world , without hunger, poverty and greed is possible and desirable. But more than that they are prepared to work for it.

Karibuni to Nairobi to all of you. A luta continua

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director, Africa, for the UN millennium, Campaign. He writes this weekly column in his personal capacity as a concermed Pan Africanist.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

This week a number of us are at WSF in Nairobi. To keep you up to date with events, analyses and commentaries, we will be sending out Pambazuka News on several occasions, mostly with single articles. We hope that readers will find this service useful.

We have also set up a blog site in collaboration with Institute PANOS West Africa to provide regular features. You will find these published at

Bookmark this site. We plan to bring you recorded interviews that you can listen to online or download, or you can subscribe to them as podcasts. There will also be video footage, documents, photos and other interesting items.

To start this week's report, we bring you the popular column 'Pan African Postcard' by our regular columnist, Tajudeen Abdul Raheem.

Best wishes from Nairobi

Firoze Manji
Editor

Africa is facing many challenges during the current decade. The challenges are both external and internal. This demands continuous review of plans and programmes deemed necessary to address these challenges. To effectively redress the current situation in coherent manner, the AUC strategic plan has been updated and consolidated with the newly identified programmes/ projects, which reflects the African Continent’s ambitions. The AUC Strategic Plan for the period 2004-2007 defines the core business of the Commission within the African continent as mainly to achieve accelerated Continental Integration and to squarely set the Commission as a prime mover of Africa’s socio-economic development and integration endeavors.

A number of civil society organizations keen on engaging the AU around key policy discourses are set to meet in Nairobi for a strategy meeting on January 21, 2007.

FEATURE:
- Pambazuka News at the World Social Forum
- Adan Abokor and Steve Kibble contemplate the crisis in Somalia
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- The WSF should not be abandoned; rather it should be appropriated, says Kameelah Rasheed
- M’du Hlongwa explores the role of NGOs in the struggle for social justice in South Africa
- Liepollo Lebohang Pheko discusses the impact of Economic Partnership Agreements on African women
- Durban is not as sun-kissed as the media portrays – especially if you’re a street child, says Saranel Benjamin
LETTERS: On Somalia and Zimbabwean poetry
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine tell us what bloggers are writing about
BOOKS AND ART: To watch or not to watch? A review of Blood Diamonds
WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Activities, events and news from the world social forum
AU MONITOR: Civil society meets on AU
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Links to news on Somalia, Sudan, CAR, Nigeria and Uganda
HUMAN RIGHTS: Human rights watch launches world report 2007
WOMEN AND GENDER: Women’s groups in Liberia decry post-war sexual violence
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: A different approach to refugee management
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Burundi court acquits ex-president over coup plot
DEVELOPMENT: UN predicts deceleration of world economy
CORRUPTION: Zimbabwe parliament to probe ministers over diamond deals
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: No refuge from HIV/AIDS
EDUCATION: Zimbabwean university withdraws diploma facility
ENVIRONMENT: The origins of Africa’s environmental problems
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Free papers or a free press
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops

Pambazuka News is participating in the World Social Forum () in Nairobi, Kenya from 20-25 January 2007. With its origins in a meeting of community organisations in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001, the WSF has grown to become an annual gathering of activists, social movements and progressive groups from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. Focusing on the global South, the quest to place social and environmental justice, international solidarity, peace and gender equality on the political and media agenda is at the heart of the initiative. This is the first such meeting to be held on the African continent, and tens of thousands are expected to attend.

Pambazuka News is proud to be collaborating with PANOS West Africa (http://www.panos-ao.org/) on media initiatives throughout the forum. These will include: articles, daily news bulletins, participatory video, online broadcasts, and electronic distribution of news and information. For the latest news, views, podcasts and blogs, please visit our dedicated WSF site at http://www.pambazuka.org/blogs/wsf2007/

Additionally, Fahamu will be hosting a delegation of African women's grassroots organisations, in collaboration with the New Field Foundation, and launching two new publications: Grace, tenacity and eloquence: the struggle for women’s rights in Africa (http://www.fahamu.org/pzbook.php), published by Fahamu & Solidarity for African Women's Rights, and African Perspectives on China in Africa edited by Firoze Manji & Stephen Marks and published by Fahamu. (http://www.fahamu.org/pzbook.php)

The future of the Cape Town government will be decided in talks on Wednesday (17 January 2007), the city's executive mayor, Helen Zille, said. "As this morning dawns, I am at the head of a minority government in Cape Town, which is never a comfortable place to be," she told SAfm presenter John Perlman.

One year after Liberia swore in Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as Africa's first elected female head of state, three young women braid each other's hair under a street light that didn't exist six months ago.

Somalia's Parliament voted on Wednesday (17 January 2007) to oust powerful speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, who fell out with the president and prime minister late last year after he made peace overtures to Islamists.

Findings of a global survey carried out for the World Economic Forum show a growing lack of confidence in political leaders to improve their people's lives. Findings of the Gallup International Voice of the People survey show that Africans were the most critical of their politicians.

Burundi's Supreme Court has sentenced two people to jail terms ranging from 15 to 20 years and acquitted four others, including former President Domitien Ndayizeye, over charges of plotting a coup.

With 99,750 people demobilised during 2006, The National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reinsertion -CONADER- is planning to continue with the DDR process, especially in the Reinsertion phase during 2007, with a view to consolidating the achievements of 2006.

The Development Specialist under the direction of the Africa Ministry Quality Director shall provide knowledge management support and services to the ministry quality team and National Offices. This involves research, documentation and dissemination of development programming information.

Essential Job Duties/Scope Of Work: Train five local psychosocial supervisors to carry out the ECD programme after your departure, including all the following activities; and manage the day to day activities of the coordinated ECD and Nutrition program in 5 sites.

Africa is on the move. Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa will likely exceed five per cent for the third year in a row, and prospects for 2007 are bright. Strong global economic growth has fuelled demand for primary commodities, and this has strengthened exports for many African countries.

When Marie Diongoye Konaté first encountered ITC at an exporters’ association meeting in Bamako, Mali, in March 2005, she was very much struck by the “Buying from Africa for Africa” initiative it was promoting. It was an idea to which Ms Konaté wholeheartedly subscribed.