You can join GCAP activities in your country. Click on the URL below to find the contact email addresses for organisers in 25 African countries.

The Global Call to Action Against Poverty was officially launched at the Miatta Conference Hall Youyi Building in Freetown, Sierra Leone on the 25th May 2005. Participants came from platform memebrs and from other Civil Society Organisation (National and International), School children, the Media, Government officials, the Private Sector and the general public.

Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian president, accused Switzerland of blackmail for linking the return of $500 million in looted funds to the repatriation of suspected Nigerian criminals. Switzerland agreed last August to return money traced to the late dictator Sani Abacha, who died in 1998, and the Swiss Supreme Court ruled in Nigeria's favour in February, but Switzerland has yet to make the transfer.

President Thabo Mbeki has issued a stern warning that corruption will not be tolerated among members of his cabinet and the executive structures in provincial and local government. Mbeki says the government will have to ensure that the work of its executive structures - national ministers, provincial premiers and provincial ministers as well as mayors and members of their executives - "is not undermined or compromised by corruption". Mbeki's comments come amid intense scrutiny of Deputy President Jacob Zuma's financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, who is on trial in the Durban High Court, facing fraud and corruption charges for allegedly soliciting a bribe from French arms company Thales. Zuma has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.

I do share all the sentiments, pain and grief that we are witnessing in the world today, especially in Africa. I feel that there is a lot we can do at a personal and household level.

The value of each human being: When we omit or fail to emphasize the value of human life, we are leaving others to place it at commodity level and human beings become mere statitics. Lets us start teaching, coaching and mentoring at a personal and household level to ensure that every age groups starts to value human life. After all, what other asset surpasses the human being when it comes to basics.

Sharing: In the traditional society, people grew up knowing that they had to share and there would something, even if no surplus for each person. We have described such societies as "I am because we are" and advocated to the new value of "me, mine and myself. What can we expect when such a person gets to the position where they have to decide on allocation of resources? The greed, corruption, selfishnees and outright theft that we witness today is born out of this self-oriented thinking and acting. We have to shift gears and start adressing the value of "the other" at personal and household level. Start at home, in schools, in religious gatherings and teach ourselves and others that sharing does not lead to dispossession. We are not going to change anything about poverty until and unless the spirit of giving and sharing is ingrained in the mind and heart.

Debts: You will remember the saying "A borrower nor a lender be". I know someone will scream about this but the truth is, we have become so committed to begging and borrowing that we are fast losing the capacity to see even what is under our very nose. No one who is in a decision making position today is ignorant of the effects of structural adjustment programmes on the economies of developing countries. Yet, we - or our governments on our behalf - have continued to adopt economic programmes that go against the grain and throw us deeper into the pit of debt. We have seen the pain of unserviced debts all around us and we keep going for more.

For example, Kenya was not able to get donor aid for some time and yet the country survived even though the GDP and other economic indicators hit an all time low. Why are we now trying to get back to more borrowing rather than get serious on assembling and harnessing our resources. We are still getting outsiders to come and do feasibility studies on issues that we are living with daily, and then getting a prescription on how to resolve what we know we can do by simply being fair, just and committed.

Abuse of women and children - or even men has absolutely nothing to do with poverty. It is a matter of loss of values at individual and society level. When a father rapes his infant daughter, where does poverty come in? When a soldier rapes a mother who has just delivered, how does poverty come into play? When a minister rapes a girl who is seeking employement, where is poverty in his act? The girl is seeking employment that should be there and she might have appropriate qualifications and the minister may not even be the right contact but greed and selfishness makes the minister act as if they have the key to the job. Abuse is abuse and is bred by attitude and loss of values. We cannot keep blaming poverty for our loss of morals or values. We have to be honest and handle the situation of abuse openly and directly. There are hardly unknown sexual offenders. They live with us, we protect them. While I would be the first one to want to find out why they do it, I would also like to be counted among the first to call for punishment and removal of sexual abusers from civilised society. After all, they are robbers of the very essence of human worth.

We in Africa and the rest of the world have to face the truth of our situation if we are to save ourselves.

As for the debt, we need to simply say no to them because those who came to be owed have been looting these countries for centuries and that is how they accumulated the wealth they claim to lend out.

Take the issue of 'Boer' out of this and I agree 100% and have been saying for years that SA won the South African war of destabilisation. I remember in 1984 being in Harare working with Zimbabweans on a book on regional politics, when we had a team of SA venture capitalists visit us. They told us that SA entrepreneurs were opposed to apartheid, and to the war of destabilisation, and were keen to move beyond both. 'We are well placed to serve the rest of Africa,' they assured us, better placed than the industrialised West, 'as we understand Africa. We are closer and have the infrastructure to serve Africa'.

They were looking forward to the time when politics would allow them to move out from SA's borders. I doubt the impetus comes from the 'Boers' though - this is internationalized capital and its going to be increasingly black SA capital (as Black Economic Empowerment takes hold).  Mugabe and his people were well-aware of the SA 'threat' as Zimbabwean entrepreneurs hoped to spread beyond their borders too. When I was working in Uganda in the late 90s I took note of the struggle there between SA and Kenyan capital, both anxious to capture the re-emerging Ugandan market, in terms of media, supermarkets, hotels, travel companies, etc.

Who owns the Kenyan capital and companies? Is it 'Indians' (as Ugandans complained)? Probably in part, but the issue is not ethnicity any more than it is in SA's case with the Boers - its a matter of capital doing its capitalist thing, moving in to places where there are markets, profits to be made, and competing with other capital in the process. Now, the question is, is this bad for Africa?

Well, having lived in 'black' Africa for 14 years and worked in 6 different 'black' African countries, I can say that there is a lot of room for improvement in the way things operate on the continent, e.g., in the provision of goods and services, development of infrastructure, raising of capital for investment, etc... all those things needed to improve livelihoods and living conditions. Will capitalism do this, SA, Kenyan, international or not? If not capitalist forms of production, what other ways to improve the livelihoods of Africa's millions?

People talk of trade (rather than aid) doing the job of development - but trading what? How to raise production without capital and capitalist forms of ownership/work/etc? We are running out of alternatives as we have seen state-sponsored economic development, local capitalism and patrimonialist forms of economic organisation fail to serve the needs of the masses. What other form of development can we try that have a good chance of improving the living standards of Africans? SA's entrepreneurs have seen an opportunity and have moved in. Will that help improve Africans' standard of living (compared to aid? compared to the otherwise minimal investment/trade in Africa coming from the North?)  Its a problem I have debated in my own head for years.

I always read Pambazuka with great pleasure, anticipation and passion. Once in a while I find myself disappointed about the "Western Mass Media" not reporting the positive activities of our continent. But that is the way it is. But I feel encouraged and hopeful your information can spread around the globe, so that good people can read and hear it. Please continue doing what you already doing.

For My Sister From Kenya, of Ethiopian Makeda, I say Bravo Sister, do not worry about the Western controlled media. I, you, and other Africans are happy about it. Do not forget that, we were victorious over the colonizer and they are still afraid of us. They are not going to forget our bravery and our determination. Therefore, they are not going to talk about our positive achievements but wish our destruction.

At first sight, international migration, despite its growing scope and magnitude, does not feature prominently in the original framework of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). The relationship between migration and the MDGs has not been widely explored, although both the migration and development communities are becoming increasingly aware of the link between international migration and development.

EDITORIALS: Hellen Tombo, executive director of the Kenya Youth Education and Community Development Programme, issues a call for debt cancellation and trade justice on behalf of African children and youth
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Yassine Fall writes on Africa Day and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty
- Makeda Tsegaye asks why the international community hasn't made a fuss about the handling of recent elections by the Ethiopian government
- What out Africa! The second great boer trek is underway, reveals Issa Shivji
LETTERS: Walter Rodney and Zimbabwe feature
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: "Don't agonise, organise!" says Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION AGAINST POVERTY: The latest news and updates from campaign partners around the continent
CONFLICTS AND EMERGENCIES: AU calls for mission support as 30 killed
HUMAN RIGHTS: Pressure mounts for Charles Taylor to face justice
WOMEN AND GENDER: Discussing the first lady syndrome
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Protests over bad services spread in South Africa
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: World Bank and IMF hampering Aids funding
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Using radio for peace/IRIN Launches Reconciliation Radio Drama
ADVOCACY AND CAMPAIGNS: Sign on against Wolf 2

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Together we can demonstrate overwhelming support from Africa for debt cancellation.

Since the defeat of apartheid, South African capital has begun a brutal march northwards that is reminiscent of a “Second Great Boer Trek”. South African supermarket chains have sprung up across Africa, as have cell phone companies, mining groups and even South African style water front developments. The next big sector being eyed by Afrikaner farmers is land, writes Issa Shivji.

Nature did not create a group of people with capital on one side and another group with only muscle-power but no capital on the other side. Political economists tell us that this great division of the human race, what we call the system of capitalism, is the result of a long historical process. In this historical process, the original capital was acquired through a gruesome process of plunder, expropriation, looting, wars, invasions, slavery, indentured labour and colonialism and imperialism. Political economists call this process of acquiring original capital ‘primitive accumulation’.

Even after capitalism has established itself and capital more or less follows the laws of the market to accumulate more capital through profits, the processes of primitive accumulation continue side by side in different areas and under different circumstances. Under today’s system of international capitalism called globalisation the processes of primitive accumulation are most intense on the African continent. Let us palaver on one example which is close to this part of the world and which concerns us directly. This is the inflow of South African capital into neighbouring countries after the fall of apartheid.

Apartheid itself was the great human invention to enable primitive accumulation in South Africa. The 1913 Native Land Act declared that the whole of South African lands belonged to white South Africans with a small print provision which stipulated that 13 per cent of the land will be “scheduled areas” held in trust for the welfare and benefit of “natives”. Thus the whites came to own 87 per cent of land while the majority blacks were bundled into the remaining 13 per cent, the reserves.

On this system of segregation was built the whole edifice of South African capitalism in which the state – not the market – played the pivotal role. Migrant labour from the reserves and homelands in South Africa and from neighbouring countries, including Tanganyika, provided the muscle-power to exploit the land and minerals of the southern tip of the continent. Thus was built the modern South Africa in which the Whites created and lived the ‘heaven on earth’ leaving the Blacks to burn out in the man-made hell of apartheid.

The 1913 Land Act was the turning point in the First Primitive Accumulation of the South African capital. The turning point in the Second Primitive Accumulation is the fall of apartheid enabling South African capital to move out into the rest of the African continent. The process is still unfolding whose end result cannot be predicted but certain interesting trends are taking shape.

Africa is the third largest export market for South Africa. Africa’s share of the South African exports rose from 4 per cent in 1991 to 12 per cent in 2001. Much of this export goes to SADC countries. Today we see South African onions and potatoes and oranges and, of course, wines and beers and spirits and steaks and dried meats in “our” supermarkets and restaurants and hotels called Shoprites and Steers and Debonairs and Protea. Shoprite has branches in 15 African counties and is in the process of expanding in other countries.

Then there is the South African investment, both from parastatals as well as private. Over the five years (1997-2001) South African investments in Africa increased by 300 per cent. It stood at 77 billion Rand in 2001. Almost half of this was direct investment and 80 per cent was in SADC countries. South African capital went into strategic sectors: mining, banking, insurance and finance and telecommunications, airline and railways.

The beer industry, which is trumpeted as a success story in this country (Tanzania), is only a showcase. The jugular vein lies in the strategic sectors. The South African AngloGold, now merged with Ashanti Goldfileds, and Randgold control our gold. Vodacom is dominant in cell phones; ABSA, through NBC, and Stanbic dominate banking; Networks “manages” TANESCO; and South African Airways (SAA) have taken over the national airline ATC with a view to create an East African hub for SAA. SAA wanted to create a similar West African hub through taking over Nigeria’s national airline but the deal has apparently fallen through because Nigerians demanded 10 per cent equity in SAA which the South African government refused.

Escom Enterprises, a giant South African electrical corporation, has presence in 33 African countries. It has utility management contracts in Malawi, Mali, Uganda and Nigeria. It would not be surprising if eventually TANESCO falls in Escom’s laps.

Then there is a South African company called V&A Waterfront which has contracts in Mauritius, Gabon and Nigeria to construct waterfront complexes. A similar project is afoot in our ‘Heaven of Peace’ in which, sooner than later, heavens will line the ocean leaving behind “hell-holes” of slums in Kariakoo, Manzese and even the city centre and Upanga.

The next big sector awaiting South African “investment” and keenly eyed by Afrikaner farmers is land; as one South African official put it: “For the Boers, land is next to God and the Bible”. As South Africa attempts land redistribution to redress the wrongs of the apartheid period, it has to find a place for its white farmers. Mozambique has already given 50 year concessions of thousands of acres of land to South Africa’s Boers who are busy recreating apartheid-like settlements.

Mozambique, which is being hailed in the Western, especially the American, official circles as a success story, is almost a text-book case of South African investments. Almost half of South Africa’s corporate investment in Africa is in Mozambique. South Africa has become the single largest investor in Mozambique, Between 1997-2001 some 250 South African companies opened operations in Mozambique.

It is ironical that the land of Samora Machel which was in the forefront of the struggle against makaburu should be the first to fall in the “Second Great Boer Trek”, this time around to the North of the continent. The first Boer Trek was in the mid 19th century when Boer farmers ran away from the British into the interior opening up new lands, in the process decimating African communities. This is how the Boer republics of Free Orange State and Transvaal were created. Tanzanians may do well to study the Mozambiquen experience as they may be next in the path of the “Second Great Boer Trek”.

© Issa Shivji. Shivji is Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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In May elections, Ethiopian voters made their mark for change, but shortly after the elections the government declared a state of emergency, banned demonstrations and declared victory. Makeda Tsegaye questions why the international community has chose to remain silent about these actions. "Why is the hotly contested election in Ethiopia not getting even one third of the attention that the former Soviet Republic of Georgia received via popular media such as CNN and BBC, which reported the event live from the small European nation? Is it because what is expected from a poor black African nation is nothing but starvation and war?"

Despite being Africa’s oldest independent nation, endowed with adequate natural resources and massive social capital, most people in the world associate Ethiopia with grotesque starvation and war. Indeed, these two unfortunate episodes have easily caught the attention of popular media such as CNN and BBC and the international community. But why is an equally important but rather positive episode not drawing as much attention?

On May 15, 2005, for the first time in the history of the country, some 25 million Ethiopians turned out to vote in the country’s historic parliamentary and regional assembly elections. The huge turnout was prompted by the participation of various political parties who presented an alternative political and economic agenda to people desperate for a change. International observers, including former president Jimmy Carter and his team, and the European Union team led by Ms. Anna Gomez, monitored voting in some of the polling stations. The observers admired the general discipline and peaceful participation of the public, while at the same time highlighting some of the irregularities in the polling stations that they visited.

It is important to note that Ethiopians’ participation in the election, which was characterized by remarkable discipline and peaceful attitude, occurred amid the ruling party’s unconstitutional, illegal and intimidating acts prior to and during the election, including harassment and detention of supporters of the opposition parties mostly in the rural areas. It was these unlawful and clearly undemocratic acts by the ruling party that prompted Human Rights Watch to describe the election as a ‘hollow exercise’ in some parts of the country. Nevertheless, taking advantage of this window of opportunity, Ethiopians have made their demands for a better life and better future clear in an unprecedented way. One week prior to the election, the peoples of Ethiopia demonstrated their support for the opposition parties in the most disciplined and constitutionally approved manner. They repeated the same discipline and peaceful demand for change during the May 15 elections. On the other hand, the opposition parties reported to the National Electoral Board major irregularities in many rural polling stations where their observers were barred whilst expressing their optimism in other areas. What followed this remarkable process is at the crux of this piece.

A day after the election, the ruling party declared a state of emergency in the capital and ordered a month-long ban on demonstrations. Shortly after this announcement, they claimed victory using the state controlled media while admitting defeat in the capital, although votes were still being counted. Worse yet, the National Electoral Board decided to announce results piecemeal, as opposed to publishing provisional results from all constituencies on Saturday May 22, 2005 as originally planned. The National Electoral Board, which is not entirely independent, failed to provide an explanation for the delay. Unsurprisingly, the delay in vote counting elicited major concern amongst the public, especially in light of the ruling party’s repeated claims of victory. In fact, some delayed results appear to have reversed previous results which had been reported in favor of the opposition parties. In the face of all these atrocities, the peoples of Ethiopia could not peacefully protest and defend their votes due to the month-long ban imposed on them by the ruling party. These undemocratic actions of the ruling party are apparent to representatives of the international community within and outside the country. In addition, in March 2005, the international community witnessed the expulsion of three American Civil Society Organizations, namely International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute and IFES that had been working with the National Electoral Board for not more than two months.

The following questions, therefore, remain: why has the international community chosen to be silent? What are the world’s most democratic nations saying about the ruling party’s unconstitutional and undemocratic measures to tamper with people’s votes? It was quite encouraging to see the European Union‘s press release on May 25, which tacitly condemned the ruling party’s undemocratic and illegal use of the public media, and manipulation of the electoral process in general. How long will it take the US to effectively react to the ruling party’s decision of banning post-election demonstration besides “monitoring the situation closely"? Surprisingly, the best resolution that the 21-member Foreign Ambassadors group could come up with on May 22 was to say that "we ask all political leaders to engage in constructive dialogue.” Are we still talking about political parties? Isn’t it clear that Ethiopians have already expressed their will for a change in the most responsible and peaceful manner? Isn’t democracy about responsible citizens exercising their democratic rights to positively change the course of development and governance in their own country? Or is this version of democracy considered a luxury when it comes to Africa?

What happened to the unwavering support that the peoples of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia enjoyed in their contested election of November 2004? Why is the hotly contested election in Ethiopia not getting even one third of the attention that the former Soviet Republic of Georgia received via popular media such as CNN and BBC, which reported the event live from the small European nation? Is it because what is expected from a poor black African nation is nothing but starvation and war? Would this not be a good opportunity for the global proponents of democracy to demonstrate that people’s peaceful protest can bear results irrespective of their geographic location in the world? Or is this not considered an option at all for Africans ‘whose fate is predetermined as eternal misery and oppression’?

At this historic moment in the lives of many innocent, hardworking and peace-loving Ethiopians, the world owes those starving children, battered mothers and frustrated farmers a REAL answer.

* Makeda Tsegaye is an Ethiopian woman with a Masters degree in International Peace Studies (with specialization in Economic Development and Peace) currently working for an international development agency in Nairobi, Kenya.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The African Women Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights (AWOMI), recently launched in Nairobi, Kenya. In this article, Yassine Fall, an economist and President of AWOMI, reflects on its significance in the context of the 42nd Africa Day and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

Today we commemorate the 42nd anniversary of Africa Day. The Africa Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) is using this day to organise a number of events to launch the anti-poverty campaign and disseminate its messages.

The year 2005 is indeed a year of key international events in the battle against growing poverty, inequalities and exclusion, the increased burden of work and a lack of rights for millions of impoverished women. It is now 10 years since the Beijing Conference and its Platform for Action to which almost all governments in the world signed up, but did very little to implement. Africa Day is being celebrated in a context where many of its children, in particular its girls, have either never been to, or have dropped out of, school. This is the year when the Education for All target was supposed to be met but it still remains a distant dream for many countries and communities of girls.

This September's UN General Assembly will also commemorate the 5th anniversary of the UN Millennium Summit and Declaration. The assembly will review whether the world is on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals and discuss again what actions must be taken.

The Millennium Project (MP) Report was launched in January this year. Among many strategies and interventions, it proposed debt cancellation and increased development assistance for poor countries; funding initiatives on violence against women; improving the availability of reproductive health services; providing substantial support to small-holder farmers; the abolition of user fees for poor people; and increased public sector social spending in poor countries.

These recommendations certainly mean a lot to Africans living in poverty, who would like to use this day and the GCAP process to send a message to those who make decisions that affect their lives. The MP recommendations represent a substantial step forward to reassessing debt sustainability combined with debt service payment, cost recovery, increased development assistance, user fees and the budget ceilings which have been set by the Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes (PRSP). The PRSP, developed under the framework of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Debt Relief Initiative (HIPC) spearheaded by the IMF and World Bank (WB), is implemented in most developing countries, and in particular in Africa, as the centrepiece of development assistance.

The content and process of the PRSP are laid down by the Breton Woods institutions, which then claim that all these reforms are owned by the governments and their people. But let's ask some questions. Who develops the conditions governments must meet before they can access HIPC funds? Who sets up the framework for maintaining macroeconomic stability along with its cohort of policy instruments? Without exception, these include "low-inflation-rate fundamentalism", market and trade liberalisation, the privatisation of water, and limiting social expenditure, such as on health and education. Who actually has a say in reviewing the content of PRSPs? Who determines the success or otherwise of the market-oriented reforms implemented by governments, without which there is no inflow of development assistance from bilateral donors? The answer is the IMF and the WB. Africans living in poverty would indeed like to use the Africa Day celebrations to speak sincerely with these institutions.

In parallel with the MP report, global civil society launched its own GCAP campaign at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil in January 2005. The campaign calls for 100 per cent debt cancellation, trade justice, democratic governance and increased development assistance as promised by rich nations.

The question is how we use the symbolism of Africa Day to ensure that this campaign delivers tangible results. Will this campaign be another big initiative from a few well connected civil society organisation leaders or will it change the course of history? Does this campaign have the ability to develop a large and participatory movement that will put so much pressure on world leaders that they have no alternative but to seriously address the issue of poverty and give priority to the interests of the most impoverished women and men? Will this campaign be willing for once to do business differently and change the practice of power hijacking, so much decried around Africa? Will it put men to one side and provide space to the voiceless women and youths who are more articulate than many of those who claim to speak for them? Will GCAP be willing to democratise the selection of national representatives, because some of the NGO selected to represent GCAP nationally do not have the mandate to speak for the others at home? Will this campaign engage in genuine policy dialogue about home-grown African issues instead of borrowing soft topics from GCAP's Northern partners -- which leaves the campaign unable to criticise the rich countries which provide it with its means of survival? Is GCAP willing to put the feminisation of poverty and human rights at the centre of its campaign?

The African Women Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights (AWOMI), recently launched in Nairobi, Kenya, with over 300 women from all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, would like to ensure that these questions get positive answers. Rural women, women from informal settlements, young women, women activists, NEPAD representatives, women in government and parliamentarians all participated in the AWOMI launch. They engaged in intense dialogue with leading members of government and international journalists. The Africa GCAP facilitators were invited but did not think it was important enough to attend. They missed one of the biggest and first meetings where women from all over the continent spoke about poverty, governance, international development, financial architecture and their human rights. They expressed their anger and disappointment at their leaders and recounted moving experiences of lives lived in poverty every day. This would have been a great opportunity for GCAP to learn about indigenous African women, which they were unable to do during their first meeting in April in Kenya.

In addition to adopting transparent processes and including the voiceless, Africa GCAP must use this day of celebration and the days ahead to tackle national governance policy issues more courageously. Furthermore, civil society's demands for trade justice must be GCAP's first demands because trade injustice is the most suffocating challenge for poor countries. They are asked to make all the sacrifices over tariff removals, privatisations -- including of essential services -- and the opening up of their markets while rich countries tighten their protectionist measures.

GCAP needs to have a clear position over international and trade institutions and corrupt governments. The PRSP, which is a recycled name for structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), has, like SAPs, failed to deliver its promises of poverty reduction and debt relief and this must be said clearly on Africa Day. Countries and poor people, in particular women and children, have paid tremendous costs and made huge sacrifices to implement enhanced structural adjustment facilities and growth and poverty reduction policies. However, the only visible growth has been in the figures that declare it. Poor farmers are asked under this framework to choose between health, education for their children and agricultural extension support. This is the evidence that impoverished women would like to see highlighted today.

Hungry women would like to ask how can they access reproductive health services when they have to pay user fees. How can HIV positive women be asked to support cost recovery when they suffer from malaria? In the village of Guerew in Senegal pregnant women are asked to buy a mosquito net for two dollars as a condition for receiving prenatal care. If they refuse they risk joining the long list of women who die when giving birth. Women in the slums of Korogocho and Kibera in Nairobi, and Ganaw Rail and Mbeubeuss in Senegal with whom I work say they have had enough of the PRSP football game between the so called donors, the IFIs and their governments that is mortgaging their lives. Rural women are demanding a stop to the comodification of agriculture and the privatisation of farm lands.

The message on debt cancellation is critical but it is seen as insufficient by the women's organisations and leaders who met under AWOMI. They would like the messages of this Africa Day to demand, on their behalf, debt repudiation and reinvestment of the financial resources in the priorities identified by poor women. They also suggested that any new indebtedness projects be discussed nationally and with poor people. They would decide together with the government whether to agree to the projects after examining the borrowing conditions, the relevance of debt and the investment objectives. Indebtedness would only be acceptable if it was justified by the pressing need to provide the essential services which are increasingly subsidised by women's labour. Africa GCAP would also need to be more courageous and address overseas development assistance from the point of view of reparations for slavery and colonisation, and the recent stealing of medical experts including doctors and nurses by rich countries from poor African countries who need them most.

All these questions were eloquently articulated by women community leaders and young people with evidence and clear justification. They must be echoed by GCAP, which is missing a lot by ignoring them. GCAP will succeed or fail according to how much room and decision making power and leadership it gives to those who pay the most for and suffer the most from poverty and ill conceived policies. They have very little to lose and therefore must lead the voices to be heard on Africa Day in the fight against poverty.

* Yassine Fall is an economist and is President of AWOMI = African Women Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights

* Editors' comment: Given that the loose alliance of more than 70 organisations in some 20 countries has only recently formed, and that this is the first time that such an extensive pan-African alliance has come together, some patience is needed to ensure that the alliance works in the most effective way possible. The criticisms expressed here by the author are not necessarily those shared by Pambazuka News. But in the spirit of encouraging constructive discussion on how this unprecedented alliance can develop effective oppostion to those external forces that have, for so many years, determind social and economic policies in the region, we invite comments and reactions from readers. Please send to [email protected]

This morning I looked at my right front tyre and just like it, I felt rather deflated. Not wanting to chance the trip to work I decided to nip down to our friendly under the tree tyre and air entrepreneurs. They’ve been around for years and in times of need they’ve always come through for me. Unfortunately this morning the patch of free land that they occupy near Rhodesville Shopping Centre was empty. These guys have been chased away, just like so many others, in one of Mugabe’s latest acts of bizarre “misgovernance”. So I crossed the road to try my luck at the formal, supposedly respectable, garage only to be told that they had no air. So, go figure, the really useful informal entrepreneur who earns a few bucks pumping up car tyres by hand gets chased away by Mugabe’s police while the formal garage fails to provide basic services.

Then last Friday, just near my offices, riot police in all their posturing and swaggering arrogance swooped down on hapless vegetable sellers confiscating their vegetables and sending them away. They sell a variety of vegetables from a concrete structure that has a sign in front of it declaring that it is a certified “peoples market” by order of the Harare City Council. Let’s not forget that we are sinking under 70% unemployment, which means that the largest productive sector in Zimbabwe is actually the informal trading one. This sector, I believe, deserves the utmost respect and appreciation. In a country devastated by wildly incompetent elite politicians, informal traders have shown admirable resilience and ingenuity. If it weren’t so tragic it would be laughable to linger longer on these fat cat politicians shitting themselves because they might not be harnessing every single cent of foreign currency in the country.

The Mugabe regime can’t possibly get more stupid, can it?

Well, yes it can.

Anna, my domestic worker, tells me that the regime is thinking about evicting thousands of Zimbabweans living in high density areas (townships) unless they are actually living in a legal structure. Apparently the “boys kias” (wooden shacks) will be razed. The police have said that those occupying them should return to the rural areas because there is no space for them in the city. Never mind that back in the day Mugabe made all sorts of promises like Housing For All By The Year 2000.

And there’s more. Zimbabweans who are lucky enough to be in formal employment are finding it harder and harder to get to work each day because either there is no fuel, or because the police have impounded commuter buses. People wake up as early as 4am in a bid to walk to work, or they queue endlessly waiting for a taxi. Meanwhile the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has said that they will embark on a “Buy Zimbabwe” campaign in order to resuscitate local industry. But hey - hasn’t the Government just imported a fleet of Chinese “zhing zhong” buses. And isn’t the Government, at this very moment, seizing vendors’ vegetables, basket ware and flowers?

For as long as I can remember, Africa Unity Square in the center of Harare, has been home to several flower and curio sellers. They are an integral part of our landscape, but no more! The few tourists that visit the five star Meikles Hotel which faces Africa Unity Square will just have to buy their Zimbabwean momentos elsewhere. In case you’ve forgotten, this is Africa Mr Mugabe. It isn’t Oslo and it isn’t Beijing. Vendors are a part of our culture.

I could go on and on about the various shortages, as so many others have done lately, but I won’t. Instead I think it’s interesting to reflect on the biggest shortage of all: leadership. This shortage exists in civil society, in the plethora of NGOs in Zimbabwe and in the political opposition – the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). No one is coming forward to provide leadership, direction and vision. And most importantly action. Instead, everyone just shrugs his or her shoulders or one tiny step better, issues eloquent press statements condemning the regime’s brutality.

And a fat lot of good that’s going to do.

The day of the African child was identified by the African Union in remembrance of the massacre of innocent children in South Africa in 1976 by the Apartheid regime. Each year a theme is chosen to mark the day and this year’s theme is: African Orphans are collective responsibility. Between 50% and 60 % of 850 million African are children and youth, and n the day of the African Child many civil society organisations member or not of Gcap will hold activities ranging from direct services to children to advocacy work and media events to put under the spot light issues affecting African children. We would like to take on the opportunity to link up theses activities with the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and to support the national campaigns on the Millennium Development Goals. We have worked as a team “Day of the African child group” on a menu of activities to propose to the national coalitions to enrich or to modify what they have already planned.

We seek to appoint dynamic researchers and research leaders into the Employment and Economic Policy Research Programme. We offer challenging opportunities to participate or lead in the design and delivery of cutting-edge projects in policy-oriented research related to Employment, Labour Market Analysis, Industrial Analysis, Technology Policy and Macro-economics.

The Day of the African Child Continental team has had several tele-conferences and has been preparing for the upcoming 1st White Band Day - Day Of African Child on June 16th. Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, was first chosen as an excellent location to host this continental activity but with the elections and the ban on public mobilization a shift was necessary. After deliberations, the team moved the activity to Soweto, South Africa where the day originates. This link contains further details about plans for the first White Band Day and a press release about June 16.

Housing protests in Gugulethu and Khayelitsha set Cape Town ablaze on Monday as residents burned tires in Landsdowne Road, Khayelitsha as well as Gugulethu. In Gugs, the whole of NY1, the township thoroughfare, was blockaded every 100 metres with piles of burning tires. Residents were expressing anger at the lack of service delivery in terms of houses as well as water and electricity for informal settlements.

"The Coalition for Justice and Peace in Somaliland (CJPS) condemns, without reservations, recent attempts to use - and misuse - history, to serve narrow political interests. Whether it is the intention or not, the predictable result will be to create conflict, suspicion and animosity among the clans and people of Somaliland, to the detriment of all concerned. The issue has come to the fore because of clashes between the Chair and Vice-Chair of the parliament, disagreements that have become increasingly bitter and vocal."

Peter Mandelson, Europe's trade commissioner, is seeking to persuade Tony Blair to revise Britain's pro-poor country stance on trade liberalization, a centerpiece of the government's development agenda for 2005, leaked documents from Brussels said, reports The Guardian (UK). A letter from Peter Carl, the European Commission's top trade official, said Mandelson - still a close confidant of the prime minister - was being used to reverse what Brussels condemned as "a major and unwelcome shift" in the UK's approach.

Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Education and Sports, on Tuesday expressed dissatisfaction about Ghana's position on the 2004 corruption index list despite Government's efforts to build a resilient economy. The Minister said Ghana's ranking of 65th in the 2004 corruption list provided by Transparency International, a worldwide anti-corruption organisation, was not good enough.