FEATURES: China – The new kid on the block or an old wolf in new clothing? Stephen Marks investigates
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Hydro-power, big dams and broken communities. Frank Muramuzi reports on a hydro-power conference in South Africa
- Ochieng Rapuro on the night the Kenyan government cracked down on the media
- Questions and answers on biopiracy, the new resource robbery
- Hetty Kovach on reforming the International Monetary Fund
LETTERS: Cartoon anger and Uganda’s no-party to multi-party elections
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Remember Kwama Nkrumah? Tajudeen Abdul Raheem takes us back to the coup of February 24, 1966
BLOGGING AFRICA: Sokari Ekine summarises the voices of African bloggers
BOOKS AND ARTS: Kenyan Indian poet and spoken word artist Shailja Patel catches up with Faustin Linyekula, Congolese Dancer and Choreographer
CONFLICTS AND EMERGENCIES: Diamonds still driving DRC conflict, says new report
HUMAN RIGHTS: US to launch predator strikes in the Horn?
WOMEN AND GENDER: Bridging the gender digital divide in FOSS
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: New-look Ugandan parliament as big names fall in poll
DEVELOPMENT: African 'Cotton Four' preparing new proposal on domestic support
CORRUPTION: Kenyan private lawyers earning millions from government
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: The science of HIV/AIDS in South Africa
EDUCATION: 115 million primary school-age children out of school, says report
ENVIRONMENT: The interaction between the environment and trade
LAND AND LAND RIGHTS: State sends police after land grabbers in Kenya
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Radio station unblocked in Uganda
FUNDRAISING AND USEFUL RESOURCES: Online fundraising workshops
PLUS… information on Courses and Jobs.

* Pambazuka News would like to apologise to its readers for the lack of updates to the website This has been necessitated by the changeover to a multi-language website. will be fully functional shortly.

* Can trade in the era of globalisation be 'just'? Read our issue on the subject and send your feedback to [email protected] www.tsotsimovie.com

In addition to its Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe nominations, Tsotsi has already won numerous awards including: Audience Award, LA Art Film Festival; People’s Choice Award, Toronto International Film Festival; Audience Award, Edinburgh International Film Festival; Audience Award, Denver International Film Festival; Greek Parliament Award, Thessaloniki Film Festival.

Screening takes place on Friday 10th March at 8pm
At Magdalen College Auditorium (Longwall St entrance), Oxford
Entry £5 (£3 concessions)
Proceeds to Fahamu’s programme in South Africa

WIN FREE TICKETS!
Email [email][email protected] with the names of the countries that by 12 February 2006 had ratified the African Union's Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. Closing date 6 March at 0900 hrs GMT. The first 10 correct entries picked out of a hat will each receive a free ticket.

When it comes to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), most people agree that change is needed. Disagreement arises when discussing the type of change. Some say the IMF has done so much damage and is so discredited that it should be scrapped altogether. Others argue for varying degrees of reform that will move the IMF towards being an organisation that is accountable and democratic. Here, Hetty Kovach from the European Network on Debt and Development discusses what needs to be reformed.

Over the last couple years, many emerging economies have turned their back on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), due to a serious lack of faith in the Fund’s policy advice and frustration at their severe under-representation and lack of voice within its structures . In December 2005 for example, both Brazil and Argentina made surprise announcements that they would settle the entirety of their debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ahead of schedule. According to the Argentine Government, this decision was taken explicitly to free Argentina from IMF conditionalities and interference. In South Africa, the Government refused to even start borrowing from the IMF, probably after having looked at the rest of the continent’s experiences with the Fund.

One might think that with the announcement last year by the IMF to cancel its portion of debt owed by some HIPCs, many developing countries would also at last have the choice to be IMF-free; unburdened by the load of IMF debt payment. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Firstly, last year’s debt cancellation deal only covers a handful of developing countries. For example, in Africa only14 countries will benefit this year, with a further 18 still pending. Secondly, as long as nearly all official donors/creditors continue to tie their much-needed aid and bilateral debt relief to the presence of an IMF program (or signal in the case of the new Policy Support Instrument in Nigeria), developing countries will remain in the IMF’s grip, pushed to take out new programs and implement new Fund conditions, no matter how politically intrusive or development unfriendly these policies may be.

Civil society organizations both in the South and the North have campaigned for many years for bilateral donors to de-link their funding from the IMF, but progress has been slow. Donors argue that they are dependent on IMF macroeconomic analysis in the absence of another institution with the Fund’s economic capacity and reach. A couple of years ago the European Commission made it an official policy to not automatically withhold money from a developing country that goes off-track with the IMF, reserving the right to continue lending if it feels this is appropriate. The UK Government last year also announced a new conditionality policy, which again in theory de-linked funding from the IMF signal. However, in reality, neither of these policies have been put into practice and tested and remain firmly on paper only.

If exit from the IMF is not an option for most developing countries in the foreseeable future, then how can the IMF better meet developing countries needs or at the very minimum do least harm?

There are three key areas which are in urgent need of reform if the Fund is to play a more constructive role in developing countries. Firstly, the IMF must radically reform the conditions it attaches to its lending programs. The Fund needs to provide developing countries with more space to determine their own economic policies. The 2005 G8 Declaration argues that ‘developing countries have the right to decide their own economic policies’). However, current Fund conditions severely restrict the economic policy choices available to developing countries. Specifically, the Fund needs to provide far greater fiscal flexibility, allowing countries to scale-up their spending in order to meet the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals. The Fund also needs to stop imposing trade liberalization and privatization as a condition of their lending. These are clearly beyond the Fund’s mandate, are highly political and have unproven poverty impacts.

Secondly, the Fund needs to realize process matters and radically transform the way it goes about devising and negotiating its lending programs. The Fund should move from imposing a one-size-fits-all approach to macro-economic stability and growth and instead provide developing countries with a set of different policy scenarios, giving countries the final choice. Negotiations should also be far more transparent, participative and subject to democratic oversight.

Thirdly, and finally, the Fund needs to rapidly change its own institutional set up. Not only is it unrepresentative of developing countries, despite these countries comprising of 40% of its members, but it is also inadequately structured and ill-equipped to deal with developing countries needs. The Fund needs to decentralize further and employ more staff with social science backgrounds.

The case for radical reform of IMF conditionality

What is wrong with the type of policy conditions the Fund is imposing on developing countries? International policy makers, civil society organizations (CSOs) and academics from both the North and the South are extremely concerned that the Fund’s insistence on setting very low inflation rates and stringent fiscal deficit targets as a means to achieving macroeconomic stability are undermining the ability of countries to grow, hindering their ability to reach the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and, in some cases, causing countries to refuse increases of much-needed aid.

No one, least of all civil society, is arguing that macroeconomic stability does not matter, but there is a significant degree of latitude in academic and policy circles as to what levels of inflation, budget deficit and reserves are needed to achieve ‘stability’, particularly in relation to achieving growth. Take inflation, for example, the Fund almost consistently imposes inflation targets of 5% or below in developing countries, arguing that any higher than this is harmful to growth. However, a recent United Nations Development Program (UNDP) study argues that inflation rates anywhere between 5 – 10%, if not higher, correlate well with growth, with lower than 5% inflation rates often having a harmful impact (UNDP 2005, Mckinley, T. MDG-Based PRSPs Need More Ambitious Economic Policies. Policy Discussion Paper, United Nations). This is extremely worryingly, as according to a recent study by Oxfam International 16 out of 20 countries they looked at with an IMF program had inflation targets of less than 5% (Oxfam International, “The IMF and the Millennium Goals: Failing to deliver for low income countries” September 2003. Briefing Paper No.54).

On budget deficits, the picture is even worse. The Fund imposes a high degree of fiscal austerity, with their policy conditions targeting deficits of 3% and below. This is something even developed countries find hard to achieve, the United States being a case in point. What is the danger here? Imposing limits on the budget of developing countries is often at odds with the spending these countries desperately need to meet the MDGs.

The most recent example of the negative impact of IMF fiscal austerity can be seen in Mozambique, where an IMF cap on budget spending has resulted in Mozambique effectively turning away donor money in order to stay within the confines of IMF spending limits. In November last year, Mozambique issued its draft PARPA (Plano de Accao para a Reducao da Pobreza Absoluta 2006-9; Mozambique's PRSP) which said aid would increase from $889 million in 2006 to $1,044 million in 2008, but remain constant after that. Donors, however, were upset and said they had stressed to the government that more money was available. But the Ministry of Planning and Development appears to have based its figures on the IMF cap, rather than money actually available. The IMF has put a limit on the government's current spending, committing it to cutting its deficit from 4.5 bn new meticais ($225 million) in 2005 to 3.8 bn new meticais ($190 mn) in 2006. This is, in effect, the amount of budget support the government is allowed to spend, yet budget support is predicted to increase from $274 million to $308 million.

Another clear example of the impact of harmful IMF budget deficit caps is on healthcare in Africa. A World Health Organization study in 2004 showed that overall healthcare to Africa is falling (World Health Organisation (2004) Public Health Spending Per Capita Per Region table cited in ActionAid 2005, Rowden.R ‘Changing Course: Alternative Approaches to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals and Fight HIV/AIDs’ p28).

However, according to a recent study by the Joint Learning Initiative on Human Resources for Health and Development, in order to fight HIV/AIDs effectively, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa need to radically expand their healthcare spending, tripling the size of their current workforces ((2005) The Joint-Learning Initiative Strategy Report: Human Resources for Health Overcoming the Crisis, Harvard University Press cited in ActionAid 2005, Rowden.R ‘Changing Course: Alternative Approaches to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals and Fight HIV/AIDs’ p28). This type of increase to the wage bill is totally out of the question in many African countries due to expenditure ceilings imposed by the IMF. Zambia is a case in point. In June 2003 Zambia was disqualified from receiving the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) due to the Government breaking the Fund’s strict budget deficit ceiling, which did not allow the government to go beyond a 3% budget deficit. The budget overrun was largely a result of the Government raising the pay of public sector workers, after union negotiations and a parliamentary decision to give low paid public sector workers a pay increase. The IMF withheld US$175 million in funds, with other donors following suit; the European Commission, for example, froze US$38 million in aid.

The Zambian Government was forced to renege on its wage agreement, undermining its own democratic procedures and in November 2003 it began new negotiations with the IMF, with the condition that it must keep its budget spending in line with their conditions. After a long civil society campaign to raise awareness of the need to employ more teachers by the Global Campaign for Education, the IMF did in the end revise its deficit targets, but this is the exception to the rule.

A recent Oxfam paper looked at the trade-offs countries make in reaching severe deficit reductions of 3% or below in relation to health and education spending. They examined 20 countries and calculated how much money these countries could have channeled into health and education had it not been for the need to meet the IMFs fiscal deficit targets. The result was that current expenditure on health and education could have been doubled and in some cases even tripled.

When the Fund is challenged on the matter of budget deficits, its standard reply is that countries must live within their means. This disregards a well-tested economic policy model which allows for expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to enable growth in productive areas. Historically, periods of rapid economic growth in Continental Europe, the USA and Japan were associated with large programmes of public expenditure and even larger budget deficits. Right now the Fund denies governments the ability to borrow domestically on productive areas.

The bottom line is that the Fund needs to ensure that it is not stopping countries from scaling up their spending on development.

Another area of concern is the structural or more institutional conditions the Fund sets. In particular, imposing privatization and trade liberalization, both of which can have harmful poverty impacts and have little to do with achieving macroeconomic stability.

The UK Government in its new conditionality policy set out last year has acknowledged that privatization and trade liberalization policies have had dubious poverty impacts and should not be set as conditions, unless serious analysis of their poverty impacts has been undertaken beforehand. The Fund argues that it has dramatically reduced the number of structural conditions it sets, but progress has varied across countries according to a Eurodad study, with reductions of 50% in some and virtually none in others (Eurodad (2003) Is the IMF pro-poor? ). Numerous countries are still subject to this type of condition. Cameroon, for example, has a water privatization condition as part of its IMF PRGF. Cameroonese trade unions and NGO partners are preparing a mobilization against this, as happened in Ghana a couple of years ago around World Bank driven water privatization.

Process Matters - Ensuring Better Negotiations

The second major area in need of reform is the way the Fund negotiates its lending programs in LICs. The Fund must stop prescribing a one-size-fits-all approach in this area and move towards a scenario building approach. This would entail taking account of specific country conditions and being explicit about the trade offs of different policy approaches. This is clearly not happening right now. A recent study by AFRODAD of IMF low-income programs in seven African countries, revealed that in all but one country, the IMF had failed to provide different scenarios regarding inflation, deficit and public spending targets (Afrodad (2004) Understanding the PRGF and its implications for Development). A recent IMF review also found “little evidence that the staff advises the authorities on a range of available policy options and implementation plans during the process of program development” (2005b:40). Instead, the review noted that “process of program design… tends to be driven more by an interplay between the staff and the authorities’ initial views, with the staff exploring the room to accommodate the authorities’ preferences rather than proactively developing policy options”(IMF 2005b:40). The review calls on the staff to be more proactive in this area in the future.

Secondly, the Fund needs to carry out, in a much more systematic way then present, poverty social impact analysis (PSIA) on differing macroeconomic policy choices. The Fund did promise to start undertaking more PSIAs in 1999, but progress to date has been dismal. The unit in the Fund charged with undertaking this analysis, for example, has only four people. This is clearly not good enough. Eurodad analysis has also shown that IMF has undertaken very few PSIAs to date, particularly on fiscal policy issues (Eurodad Hayes L. (2005) Open on Impact).

Finally, the Fund has to do more to ensure that negotiations happen in an open and participative manner, with civil society groups and other government line ministries than the finance ministry present. Importantly, the Fund should do more to ensure that its program documents are subject to parliamentary oversight before being signed. All too often citizens are forced to head to the streets to be heard. Between late 1999 and the end of 2002, the World Development Movement documented 238 separate incidents of civil unrest involving millions of people across 34 countries against IMF and World Bank imposed economic policy conditions (World Development Movement (2005) Denying Democracy).

Governance – Need for an Overhaul

Thirdly, and finally, there are major problems with the IMF’s governance. Most commentators point to the lack of representation and voice of low-income countries and middle income countries at the top of the organization. This is undoubtedly true, but little is said about other aspects of organization, like the need to allocate greater administrative funding to work in LICs. Currently 75% of lending programs are in LIC, but these programs only receives 11.5 % of administrative funds. There is also a real need to decentralize the IMF further to give greater decision making power to resident representatives who operate within country. Last, but not least, there needs to be more staff recruited from social and political science backgrounds to ensure a cultural change in the way programs are designed and implemented.

Undertaking these reforms would go someway to making the Fund more development friendly. Given that developing countries cannot vote with their feet and exit the IMF, it is imperative the IMF cleans up its act and does the least harm in the developing world.

* Hetty Kovach is Policy and Advocacy Officer for the European Network on Debt and Development (www.eurodad.org)

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Anti-suppressants, treatment for diabetes, antibiotics, anti-fungals, infection fighters and vaccines - all of these are naturally occurring in Africa, and have been used for centuries, but these practices are being threatened as Western laboratories pilfer both knowledge and resources. With the release of "Out of Africa: Mysteries of Access and Benefit Sharing," some light has been shed on the increasing trend of biopiracy across the African continent. Beth Burrows of the Edmonds Institute, a non-profit public interest group which focuses on environmental education, answered some questions from Pambazuka News about this report.

Pambazuka News: Can you define biopiracy?

Beth Burrows: As was noted in the introduction to Out of Africa, the agreed to definition for the purposes of the Out of Africa work was: "Where there is access to or acquisition of biodiversity (and/or related traditional knowledge) without prior informed consent, including prior informed consent about benefit sharing, on the part(s) of those whose biodiversity (or traditional knowledge) has been ‘accessed’ or ‘acquired’, there is biopiracy - i.e., theft."

PZN: How are the development of Africa and biopiracy related? What does sustainability have to do with protecting biodiversity?

BB: Africa has a great wealth of biodiversity. It should be able to control how that "wealth" is used and to ensure that it is always used for the benefit of the (current and future) peoples and other biodiversity of the continent. Exactly how each country and group of people envisions its own development is beyond my competence (or audacity) to say; each group would have to be asked that question for itself.

If biodiversity cannot be sustained, then clearly it will not be "protected" or available to future generations. It is likely that those who have stewarded biodiversity for centuries - the people who live with it - are the best judges of how to sustain and protect their own biodiversity.

Merely consuming biodiversity to facilitate short-term development schemes would not seem wise in terms of conservation (and future use). This was the understanding of those who created the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The treaty was meant to stand on three legs - conservation, sustainable use, and equitable sharing of benefits derived from sustainable use. As Hamdallah Zedan, former Secretary of the CBD once wrote referring to equitable sharing of benefits: "The latter objective is of particular importance to developing countries, as they hold most of the world's biological diversity but feel that, in general, they do not obtain a fair share of benefits derived from the use of their resources for the development of products such as high-yielding varieties, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Such a system reduces the incentive for the world's biologically richer but economically poorer countries to conserve and sustainable use their resources for the ultimate benefit of everyone on Earth."

PZN: What are the ethical considerations behind biopiracy, and what sort of protection is currently in place for biodiversity in Africa?

BB: The ethical considerations behind biopiracy - or, more correctly, behind the objection to biopiracy - are the same as those behind the objection to theft and disrespect and colonialism.

Whatever "protection" against biopiracy that exists in Africa would have to exist on the national level (although in some places in other parts of the world, some local communities have set their own rules of access and refused access to biodiversity for anyone not abiding by those rules). National protection would be reflected in laws on access to and benefit sharing (ABS) from biodiversity in each country. There would also have to be rules governing the recognition of the rights of indigenous and local communities to their biodiversity.

Although many countries have signed the Convention on Biological Diversity, many still do not have such ABS rules or have not implemented those they may have. Further, the CBD itself has still not agreed to binding international requirements for access and benefit sharing. (The CBD parties are in the process of negotiating such requirements right now.) Unfortunately, many of the signatories have not yet passed national laws to govern access and benefit sharing in relation to the genetic resources of the country (and that of various indigenous peoples within their countries).

PZN: What are the repercussions, both environmental and social, that occur as a result of biopiracy? How are indigenous cultures and communities denigrated when biopiracy occurs?

BB: This is a question you would have to ask each group from whom material or traditional knowledge has been taken (with permission, recognition, and/or remuneration). Not all groups would necessarily feel or think the same. Not all loss of biodiversity (or degradation or overconsumption of biodiversity) would have the same effect in every place.

In general, the human repercussions may range from a sense of having been robbed, to a sense of having been disrespected, to a sense of having been neglected altogether. Each people must decide for themselves what is the repercussion. It is not for a "non-member" to make this decision.

On the environmental level, it is also difficult to give a general answer to the question of repercussions from biopiracy. This is a subject for investigation on the national (and local level). At its worst, it is possible that biopiracy may put so much pressure on a genetic resource that it may disappear altogether from the place in which it originated. Biodiversity can become rare and expensive and finally entirely unavailable to those for whom it was once abundant and freely used.

PZN: Can you estimate, in financial terms, how much profit has been made as a result of biopiracy in Africa?

BB: No. You would have to do this research on a theft-by-theft basis. While some "thefts" may have turned out to be entirely unprofitable, others may have resulted in profits of billions. And then, of course, there is the whole problem of deciding what is "profit" and who keeps the books.

PZN: What needs to happen, at both an international and local level, to ensure that biopiracy doesn't occur? What policies need to be in place, and what do communities need to do to protect the biodiversity of their areas?

BB: At all levels, communities need to decide under what conditions they will allow access to their biodiversity and traditional knowledge. They need to have a system in place to deal with those who may come to access their biodiversity. The system should be known to everyone.

On the national level, this system must be enfolded in law, as it must on the international level where, it is hoped, a floor on ABS (access and benefit sharing) will be set (below which it is not acceptable to go). There may need to be capacity building in some places to ensure that effective laws are created and obeyed. In some parts of the world, this might mean capacity building in law. In other places, it might mean capacity building in ethics. For the system to work, academic researchers would have to understand that times have changed and the conditions under which they access biodiversity have changed as well.

Further, there would also need to be concurrent changes in patent law on the national and international level to ensure that no one gets a patent on any invention without revealing the source of any biological material used in the "invention" and without attaching a copy of the relevant access and benefit sharing agreement to the patent application. Here, I must note that it is even more complicated than I have stated. For example, many peoples find patents granted on biological materials to be unethical and undesirable; for them any ABS agreement would involve agreements not to patent the material, knowledge, or any derivatives from either.

The necessity of resolving all these many difficult issues is why the nations of the world, with a few exceptions, see the benefit of negotiating an ABS treaty in the context of the CBD.

* Interview conducted via email by Karoline Kemp, a Commonwealth of Learning Young Professional with Fahamu.

* Please send comments to

South Africa will host a high-profile conference next week that aims to unlock the “hydropower potential of Africa as a major energy option to promote sustainable development, regional integration and poverty eradication in Africa in support of NEPAD.” But as Frank Muramuzi of the African Rivers Network points out, civil society participation - and the voice it gives to communities who have been devastated by the big dams needed for hydro power – has not been a given. Meanwhile, the World Commission on Dams (WCD), which provides a tool for dam projects to better meet needs, for greater transparency and for equitable sharing of benefits, is still largely standing by.

Next Monday, 6 March, African governments and the hydropower industry will gather for an event that will weigh heavily on the future of dams in Africa. ‘The African Ministerial Conference on Hydropower and Sustainable Development’, hosted by the South African government and planned in close collaboration with the International Hydropower Association, has a single objective: "to unlock the hydropower potential of Africa as a major, renewable energy option to promote the sustainable development, regional integration and poverty eradication in Africa in support of NEPAD." Conference organisers have a clear plan to present an African declaration on hydropower mid-March at the World Water Forum in Mexico.

The conference planning process has been fraught with resistance to civil society participation. But things are looking brighter as a shift in the planning has opened up, albeit late in the process, to civil society inclusion. What space will be given for the voice of civil society at the conference remains to be seen.

However, the conference may serve as a gateway for the significant funding earmarked for African development which received high priority by financial institutions and northern governments in 2005. But without critical analyses of projects, this support may deliver ill-chosen infrastructure selected without fair consideration for more equitable and sustainable options. Large dams rank among the most notoriously flawed development projects. In Africa, as elsewhere around the world, large dams have too often failed to deliver promised benefits while impoverishing rural communities in their wake.

The story may sound like a broken record to many Africans, but it does not have to be played into the future. A tool for planning energy and water development including large dams, the World Commission on Dams (WCD), has been standing by for five years; it could result in projects that better meet local needs, while also leading to more transparent planning processes, less corruption, and more equitable sharing of benefits.

On November 16, 2000, Nelson Mandela and other notables including the president of the World Bank launched the report of the WCD report at a glitzy ceremony in London. The report, “Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making”, was the result of two years of intense research and analysis. Initiated by the World Bank and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and run by a team of commissioners from all sides of the big-dams debate, the report was the first independent evaluation of the performance of the world’s large dams.

The WCD found that large dams provide important water and power supply services, but that their social, environmental and economic costs are often unacceptable. The Commission estimated that large dams have displaced a total of 40 to 80 million people, and that many of these people were impoverished in the process. The WCD managed to find consensus through a process that brought conflicting interests -- the dam industry, governments, affected communities, and civil society organizations - to the table. It was hailed as a new model for resolving international conflicts. Its lessons could readily apply to much of Africa’s resource conflicts.

Dam projects such as the Kariba (Zambezi River) and Manantali (Senegal River) have shown that the environmental, social and economic costs of large dams are often higher than predicted, while benefits to everyday Africans have been overstated. The World Bank-financed Kariba Dam, the largest man-made reservoir in the world at the time of its construction, neglected the 57,000 Tonga people forced to move for the project. Their lives and livelihoods, and those of their children, have been diminished by the project, and today they are poorer than they were before the dam. Two more large African dams, High Aswan (Egypt) and Akosombo (Ghana), were similarly constructed at the expense of displacing tens of thousands of Africans.

Akosombo was built for an energy-intensive aluminum smelter, yet a great majority of Ghanaians still lack access to electricity. Today, Cameroon wants to build the Lom Pangar and Nachtigal dams for the Canadian aluminum company Alcan, but Cameroonians who are not yet on the grid will continue to wait in the dark for modern energy services. The livelihoods of those downstream of such dams as Cahora Bassa (Mozambique), Tiga and Challawa (Nigeria), Lesotho Highlands Water Project (Lesotho) and Manatali have seen their economic livelihoods squeezed as the river ecosystem on which they depend is degraded, their health impacted as water quality is reduced, and their communities broken apart by the flooding from large reservoirs. Across most of Africa, the lessons of these projects - which informed the WCD report and its recommendations - have not yet been translated into African water and energy planning processes.

But the picture has changed from 50 years ago, and civil society is speaking out against bad development projects with an ever-louder voice. Today, communities in Sudan are struggling to obtain proper compensation and rehabilitation for the 50,000 people now being resettled for the Merowe Dam. In Mozambique, Uganda, and Cameroon, communities and NGOs are fighting for access to project information and to have public concerns addressed. In South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana, communities are working to get reparations for the past injustices they have suffered because of dam projects.

The WCD offers a people-centred approach that will avoid yesterday’s impacts and fulfill the water and energy needs of Africans without sacrificing communities and the environment. The report’s recommendations are a blueprint for international best practice against which all new projects are being measured. Key to better projects is to first assess the needs -be it energy, water supply, or irrigation needs - and assess all available options in a balanced, transparent and participatory manner. Policy, regulatory, and new project options should all be considered to find the most effective solutions. New projects, such as dams, should only go ahead if they find demonstrable public acceptance, and if the rights of affected people are guaranteed. By creating a level playing field and involving all legitimate interest groups, the recommendations of the WCD offer the best way to select water and energy development solutions.

The WCD report did not fade away after its launch. Today, it influences the decision-making of many institutions. Governments (including those from South Africa, Germany, Sweden and Nepal) initiated national processes to translate the report’s recommendations into policies. Multi-stakeholder dialogues are now being launched in more countries, including Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda. Many financial institutions are committed to considering the report’s recommendations in their future water sector lending. Communities affected by large dams have started to insist on respect of their rights as recognized by the WCD. A conference to commemorate the 5th anniversary was held in Berlin on November 16, 2005. Its focus: implementing the recommendations of the WCD.

The broad coalition that supports the WCD approach sees that its use will improve the planning processes for water and power projects. Yet critical actors are missing. After the WCD dissolved, the World Bank, a key financier of dams, walked away from the report that it had initiated, and announced that it would not follow its recommendations. Instead, the Bank embarked on a strategy to build more dams, which completely disregarded the WCD’s findings. The World Bank’s new dam strategy ignores 70 years of experience with corrupt decision-making, ruined rivers, impoverished communities, and unpayable debts. Dam builders are hoping that the Bank’s dam strategy will inject new lifeblood into their ailing industry.

The World Bank is now considering financing Bujagali Dam in Uganda, and keeping its eye on Lom Pangar Dam in Cameroon, as well as a few dams proposed under the Nile Basin Initiative. With the World Bank doling out the G8 funds for Africa, large-scale infrastructure such as dams will surely be big winners. Without applying the lessons learned from past flawed projects and the recommendations for improved planning by the WCD, the majority of Africans will once again surely be losers.

Organisations from across Africa, linked through the African Rivers Network, are anxious to work with governments and dam builders who are ready to follow the model of the WCD. African governments, NEPAD, the World Bank and the dam industry should fully embrace the approach of the WCD, which offers the best chance to avoid the costly and painful mistakes of the past. These entities should work to align their decision-making processes with the WCD recommendations, help rectify the outstanding injustices done by dams in Africa, and ensure that future dam projects in Africa comply with the WCD.

* Frank Muramuzi is coordinator of the African Rivers Network, a network of African dam-affected communities and NGOs working for justice in Africa’s energy and water development. For more information on ARN, please contact: [email protected] For the official conference website: www.hydropowerconference2006.co.za

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Afrobarometer (a series of comparative national surveys) has recently produced a paper outlining the relationship of poor people to democratic citizenship. A democratic political regime has long been regarded as an attribute of high-income, industrialized economies. If it turns out that democratic stability in the medium to long-term depends on the economic wellbeing of citizens, then democracies can be expected to be especially fragile in world regions where many people live in poverty. This research has some intriguing results based on the following questions: 1) Are poor people any more or less attached to democracy than rich people? And 2) Are they any more or less likely to act as democratic citizens?

The European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) announces the 2006 prize for excellence in development research. The prize, worth €1 000, will be awarded for an essay on an issue of development studies in any field of the social sciences submitted and written by a postgraduate student from an EADI member country or attending a programme at an institutional member of the Association. All entries for the EADI Prize for Development Studies should reach the Association's offices in Bonn no later than 31 May 2006 by e-mail.

This is a unique event for media professionals to exchange knowledge about media productions with children and youth in developing countries. Forum topics include: quality production; technical aspects; training; project planning; monitoring and evaluating Impact, networking and fundraising.

It is widely recognised that corruption can limit poverty reduction and economic growth. Improved accountability will help reduce corruption and improve the quality of crucial public services, but there is little evidence to demonstrate how a culture of accountability can be developed.

Seventeen years ago a militant University of Zimbabwe student leader, Arthur Mutambara, and the radical national trades union leader Morgan Tsvangirai openly criticised the way the country was being governed by President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF government. The two were among the first Zimbabweans to experience the wrath of Mugabe against his critics as popular discontent began to stir. They were arrested in October 1989 following a series of anti-corruption demonstrations which led to the first-ever closure of the Harare-based University of Zimbabwe. Today Mutambara, 39, and Tsvangirai, 53, are radical opponents, each leading rival factions of the badly split opposition Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, which for years was Zimbabweans' main hope of political change in their country. Whichever faction eventually triumphs will decide which man gets the chance to topple the ZANU PF government and become only Zimbabwe's second state president since independence in 1980.

Over the past year South Africa has seen pockets of municipal protests around the country as residents have vented their anger about poor service delivery. The government for its part appears to be well aware of the simmering dissatisfaction amongst citizens. The government’s ‘Project Consolidate’ implicitly acknowledges long-standing problems in the sphere of local government. ‘Project Consolidate’ is in effect a rescue plan for municipalities. 136 of the 284 municipalities country-wide fall within its remit, indicating the extent of the problem. In his state of the nation address, President Mbeki acknowledged that local government was, in part, failing to fulfil its mandate to citizens, according to IDASA.
* Related Link
ANC takes Khutsong with 232 votes
http://iafrica.com/news/sa/801759.htm

Sudan has begun a campaign to keep African Union troops in Darfur and prevent a UN force from taking over efforts to restore peace in the conflict-wracked region, the top UN envoy in Sudan said Tuesday. Jan Pronk said an anti-UN climate is heating up strongly in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, with threats and warnings that handing over to a UN force would put Sudan "in the same situation as Iraq a couple of years ago."

* See http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2006/03/from_darfur_to_.h… for the latest news from Sudan.

Ethioblog - http://nazret.com/blog/index.php?title=nigeria_to_send_671_university_l… - reports that Nigeria is to send 671 university lecturers to Ethiopia as part of an aid package – The Technical Aid Corps. They will also be sending experts on Cassava. President Obasanjo is quoted as saying:

“Like Nigeria, all other countries in the African continent need to do some soul-searching…Nigeria was passing through an interesting reformist period, which we believe we need. All of us in Africa need critical self-analysis if we are to get to where we should.”

Since when did Obasanjo do any soul searching – the Niger Delta is in flames and religious violence has taken over 100 lives with thousands injured, and then there is the state of education in the country. Yesterday Nigerian blogger Emmanuel Oluwatosin - http://www.yemma.com.ng/best-nigerian-university-ranked-6340-in-the-wor… - reported that no Nigerian university was ranked above 6000 in the world and only 2 were ranked in the top 100 in Africa: University of Ibadan (57 in Africa, 6304 in the world), Obafemi Awolowo University (69 in Africa, 6645 in the world).

Koranteng’s Toli - http://koranteng.blogspot.com/2006/02/comfort-food-and-rare-groove.html - publishes an extensive review of Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa by Fran Osseo-Asare.

“It covers the continent, dipping into all the regional flavours. There's lots of historical insight about the types of ingredients used, the crops, animals, fisheries etc. It's one of those books you can open at any page and find lots to chew on (pun intended, tongue in cheek etc). Most culinary books concentrate on recipes but this goes beyond that into the cultural and social significance of food (from who prepares it, traditions surrounding it, special meals etc).”

Koranteng is also a music reviewer and he takes the recipes and provides an appetising feast with a “musical menu of comfort food and rare groove”.

Kenyan blogger, ThinkersRoom -http://www.thinkersroom.com/blog/2006/02/get-real-poverty-eradication-1… -
posts a piece titled Poverty Eradication 101 in which he writes that poverty will not be eradicated because there are just too many vested interests in maintaining it.

“Poverty has created a proliferation of global bodies, departments, companies, organizations, boards as well as a host of jobs that allows millions of people and dozens of governments to butter their bread…Poverty has allowed NGOs to proliferate all over the world, purporting to be working round the clock to deliver man from his poverty and deliver him to a world of manna, wine and cake here on earth…Poverty has allowed countries to earn still more money, for its coffers and for its people.”

One Arab World - http://onearabworld.blog.com/586323 - comments on the recent discovery of yet “another ancient Pharaohs temple the size of a small city in downtown Cairo”. His main focus however is not the discovery but the man who always takes credit for anything to do with Egypt’s antiquities, Zahi Hawass, Chief of Antiquities.

“What pisses me off usually about this guy is how he completely eclipses everyone that works with him, intentionally I believe. Whenever something noteworthy is discovered it’s Mr. Hawas and noone else gets mentioned. Its as if he's literally an Indiana Johns!”

“Zahi Hawass really fancies himself. Why on earth does he wear that stetson hat is a mystery to me. The guy might know about his subject but you never hear of anyone else in that supreme council of antiquities, do you? Everything that is discovered, and many are by sheer luck, has to involve him one way or another, I have not seen another Egyptian name alongside Zahi Hawasss ever to the extent I feel he is superman who works alone, a modern day real Indiana Jones that is only missing the whip.”

Jewels in the Jungle - http://jewelsnthejungle.blogspot.com/2006/02/ugandan-elections-2006-til… - has an extensive review of media and blog posts and commentary on the Ugandan elections last Thursday.

“Museveni wins. The people of Uganda will have to wait ‘til the cows come home for real democracy and political freedom to take hold, yet again. Personally I find the fact that Museveni has won a third term as President of Uganda an affront on the struggles for true democracy all across Africa and around the world. That the Ugandan Parliament changed the country’s constitution to allow Museveni to remain in power speaks volumes about the real intentions of this leader and his political party, the National Resistance Movement.”

Confessions of the Mind - http://confessionsofnneka.blogspot.com/2006/02/africa-is-continent-and-… - is sick and tired of people referring to Africa as a country and not a continent. Her criticism is not just of Europeans using this term but her fellow Nigerians who talk about going back to Africa rather than Nigeria. She gives as an example a conversation she has with a Nigerian who did not know she too was Nigerian.

“I was highly irritated in the way he was going on about going to Africa, how he speaks African like it was some country, I asked what part of Africa and he looked at me and repeated Africa again.”

Is it really 2006, the 21st Century? One wonders when explanations like these still have to be made.

“No I don’t live in a tree when I go back to my country Nigeria which is in West Africa, notice the way I wrote it. Yes we have malls, supermarkets, cars, roads, buildings. Yes we were taught English, from school, at home, everywhere; in fact we speak English quite well, better than the people who own the language. 99% of Africans are multilingual, meaning we can speak 2 or more languages. No, not all Africans have flies circling our bellies and mouths.”

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The World Bank has agreed to a series of conditions needed to be met by the Republic of Congo, mainly improving transparency in oil revenue accounting, for the central African country to qualify for debt relief. The Bank said its board agreed in principle on Friday on an "approach" for Congo-Brazzaville to eventually take part in the global debt relief program for poor countries launched in 1996, known as Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). This approach, it said in a statement, was designed to "improve financial transparency and accountability and serve the interests of the poor" and was subject to the approval of the International Monetary Fund, according to Reuters.

As the Democratic Party and Uganda Peoples Congress come to terms with the resounding defeat of their flag-bearers in Uganda's presidential elections last week, the consensus is that they were victims of a growing trend towards militarism in Ugandan politics. Presidential candidates for the Uganda People's Congress and the Democratic Party turned in dismal performances, with a combined tally of less than 5 per cent of the vote. Given that they are Uganda's oldest political parties and that the candidates were no novices, analysts argue that three decades of violence in Uganda is taking its toll on young voters who believe that one can win political power only through the power of the gun.
* Related Link
Uganda: Opposition leader to challenge poll results in Court
http://allafrica.com/stories/200602280039.html

The African Union is coming under increased pressure from the breakaway Somaliland Republic to accord it recognition.
This follows revelations that an AU fact-finding mission to Somaliland between April 30 and May 4, 2005, had expressed the opinion that Somaliland had been made a "pariah region" by default. It strongly recommended the country's recognition, saying that since its declaration of independence in 1991, Somaliland has been steadily laying the foundations of a democratic "modern state."

It is not without justification that the breakaway republic of Somaliland is seeking international recognition and refusing to rejoin the Transitional National Government in Somalia. While the government of Abdullahi Yusuf is still looking for a suitable capital, Somaliland has been holding regular parliamentary and presidential elections, albeit without the international community paying much attention. Since the disintegration of Somalia provoked by the collapse of the Siad Barre administration in early 1991, leading to the breaking away of Somaliland into a self-declared independent republic, there has been an accelerated process of state building.

Big name losers in the Uganda general election and surprise wins in key constituencies have brought into focus what shape the country's eighth parliament is likely to take. A sizeable chunk of President Museveni's Cabinet were defeated in last week's general election. Significantly, powerful voices that characterised legislation in the past 10 years have been silenced or have dropped out, leaving the field for new MPs to take up the mantle of leadership.
* Related Link
- Uganda: Observers declare poll peaceful despite vote-buying and violence
http://allafrica.com/stories/200602280746.html

During her installation on 16 January 2006 as Liberia’s president and Africa’s first elected female president, 67-year old Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, said her main preoccupation would be to lead Liberia away from its turbulent past. She promised to end corruption in Liberia and work for its re-building after 14 years of devastating civil war. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf urged Liberians to join her in these tasks so that together Liberians could “begin anew, move forward into a future that is filled with hope and promise”. As concerns corruption in Liberia, she promised to “wage war against corruption regardless of where it exists or by whom it is practiced”.

The Mail & Guardian Online has invited South Africa's biggest political players to write blogs, or online diaries, in the run-up to the local elections, thus providing them with a new means of communicating with voters and promoting debate. All major political parties were approached with this offer. The political parties that were not represented, decided not to take up the offer to blog.

This is an international refereed journal of practice-based analysis and research concerning the social dimensions of development and humanitarianism. It aims to provide a forum for debate and the exchange of ideas among practitioners, academics, and policy shapers, including activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). By challenging current assumptions, the journal seeks to stimulate new thinking and ways of working.