The Development Gateway Foundation is extending the deadline in its global competition to reward outstanding achievement in using information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve people’s lives in developing countries. The new deadline for this year’s $100,000 Development Gateway Award is March 15.

I am an independent filmmaker out of Vancouver Canada. I will be going to Rwanda this May with Canadian Baptist Ministers to film three five minute films raising awareness about AIDS/HIV, Mirco-Enterprise, and Church Leadership. Apart from the volunteer work I will be doing I have had a great desire laid upon my heart to go into a project of more depth. I have been working over the past few months on reading, learning and trying to develop a documentary about the children of Rwanda and reconciliation. My hope in this is to understand and to raise awareness of the struggles these children are forced to face and the amazing bravery to overcome it, so that their stories may not go unnoticed. I am currently in the process of trying to build a story and I am looking for more information with regards to the efforts going on today to bring reconciliation to these children. In addition to that I am looking for interviewees, reconciliation programs in Rwanda and personal stories. If you have any information that can assist me or if you could point me in the direction of who could it would be a big help. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my letter. Contact [email][email protected]

* EDITORIAL: Somaliland is moving towards elections in April, but a lack of international support could undermine the results in an already delicate region
* COMMENT and ANALYSIS: Without justice, the Millennium Development Goals, may be achieved, but they will not be sustained
* PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Baby Eyadema is unlikely to get away with snatching power in Togo
* CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: The UN establishes new rules for peacekeepers as arrests are made for child abuse in the DRC;
Human Rights Commissioner calls for urgent steps to halt atrocities in Darfur
* HUMAN RIGHTS: Amnesty wants Darfur crimes to be referred to the ICC
* WOMEN AND GENDER: Abuja meeting boosts ratification of women's rights protocol
* ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: March 31 should be a day of action for Zimbabwe, says activist group Zvakwana in their latest newsletter
* DEVELOPMENT: Should civil society engage with world governing institutions?
* CORRUPTION: Kenyan civil society issues a statement on the resignation of a top corruption fighter
* ENVIRONMENT: Find out why the Kyoto protocol may be bad news for developing countries

‘We used to think that women could not do the same things as men, due to religion. But now we no longer believe that. We are glad that women will stand for Parliament and [dramatic pause] we will vote for them’. - A member of the House of Aqils (local community leaders who administer justice) at a meeting with Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR) in December 2004.

The independent but internationally unrecognised state of Somaliland (North West Somalia) is due to hold parliamentary elections in March/ April 2005. This should be the most important phase of its democratisation process, marking the change from a clan-based and government-dominated polity with little effective parliamentary opposition. Such a polity has shown little intervention in social areas, and seemingly little commitment to overcoming gender and other non-clan inequalities. The regularisation of political representation in parliament could provide additional support in resolving conflict peacefully. Somalilanders see this as vital in avoiding a return to the instability that has plagued Somaliland and Somalia in the past. It could also mean that burgeoning Somaliland civil society will be able to campaign on and monitor government policies and spending. However recent decisions of MPs have made the progress of democratisation uncertain and the elections liable to delay. Uncertainty also continues in (South) Somalia despite the latest (and fifteenth) version of peace and a new government.

Somaliland, having decided unilaterally in 1991 to end its commitment to its union with Somalia, determined in the late 1990s to embark on a process of democratisation. For some Africanists this is seen as an interesting experiment which deserves greater study (and support) in its incorporation of democratic values within a well understood and traditionally-based social structure. A referendum in 1999, local elections in 2002 and a presidential election in 2003 all contributed to this process. There have been some setbacks, notably in the government’s incomplete and seeming reversible compliance with human rights standards, shown by the arrest of journalists and its perceived leaning on the judiciary. Authoritarian responses by the Hargeisa government to some of its critics such as the gaoling of journalists like Hassan Saeed, show lack of respect for human rights and the constitution. Illegal public safety committees are believed to exist. The recent gaoling for ‘treason’ of a 16 year old girl, Zamzam Ahmed Dualeh, on minimal evidence shows both the fragility of the democratisation process and the paranoia about security.

Somalilanders are though, rightly concerned about statements from the new Somalia President, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed suggesting that Somaliland be forcibly reincorporated into Somalia. When military leader of Puntland, the semi-autonomous territory to the east of Somaliland, tensions ran high between the two territories, especially Puntland’s occupation of Somaliland territory in Sool in October 2004.

Although not linked, the killings of three foreigners in October 2003 meant that personnel of international organisations have had to travel with armed guards from the Special Protection Unit (SPU). Despite the security precautions, on a visit in December 2004, the country seemed peaceful and people can travel round.

This democratisation process has therefore both internal and international dimensions with the strategy of increased democratisation bringing hoped-for de jure international recognition (it can be argued that there is some minimal de facto recognition). There is within this an often explicit comparison between the chaotic, internationally-funded (and located) and expensive process to the south in Somalia and the home-grown, traditionally-rooted process in Somaliland.

Three political parties – Kulmiye (‘Bringing Together’), UCID (‘Justice and Welfare’) and the governing UDUB (‘Democratic United Peoples Movement’) party will contest the elections. The first describes itself as ‘social democratic’, the second as ‘like the British Labour Party’ and the third as ‘conservative’, although all are parties in formation rather than cohesive political and ideological units. Indeed UCID told us that it characterised the other two as one party split in two. Kulmiye (whose office was packed out, unlike the other two) appears to have strong support from women and youth, and from the old liberation fighters in the Somali National Movement (SNM). It also has a strong base in the diaspora – with UDUB fending off questions on the governing party using the advantages of incumbency by stressing the greater amount of remittances going to its major rival. Neither of the opposition parties saw the National Electoral Commission (NEC), as biased, rather stressing the commissioners’ lack of experience and the problems they face. The parties expected a free election – i.e. in terms of the overall context, but were less convinced over the fairness (i.e. the conditions around the actual election). Both stressed the need for change, their commitment to human rights as well as security, ensuring sovereignty, the environment and overcoming economic decline especially unemployment.

Somalilanders say that as the international community is pushing for democratic norms and practice in Africa, it should support them not least in observing an expected reasonably free and fair election. Previous elections according to international observers (such indeed as our own institute) have proved peaceful, reasonably free and fair and enthusiastically welcomed.

However the delicacy of the situation for others does present problems for Hargeisa. In contrast to 2002, the EU and member states appear less keen to show their support – financial or moral - for these elections. This appears linked to their equally important funding of and desire to see success in the Mbagathi government- building process in (Southern) Somalia and worries that the new ‘government’ (still investigating where to relocate to in Somalia) will react negatively to funding for the Somaliland parliamentary elections. Additionally the Somaliland government is only willing/ able to provide 30% of the projected budgetary costs of the election due to a decline in revenues and increased military expenditure due to the Somaliland/ Puntland dispute. A scaled down election may be possible, although 6-7,000 people will still be needed to run any kind of election. The Danish government has agreed to provide a consultant to work with the National Electoral Commission (NEC), following British funding of a consultant to work on a draft electoral code.

As well as external constraints, there are also internal differences. There was an initial unwillingness, as there was in 2002 by political parties to accede to demands for women candidates to be placed towards the top of party lists - the closed party list system operates, due at least in part to widespread illiteracy. Whilst complete gender equity is unlikely, there was in the draft electoral law a formula, although seemingly under threat from traditionalists, that would enshrine the right of women to be candidates in the top 5 of the party lists without the constitution being breached. All three political parties claimed to us that they had shifted position on accepting (and publicly welcoming) women candidates since 2002. The women’s umbrella body, NAGAAD, is keen to keep plugging away on gender representation questions following up on their campaigning and lobbying in media, and meetings with government and parliament. There has been training of women candidates in the political parties.

Other civil society organisations have committed to helping in the electoral process as indeed have the Aqils (local community leaders who administer justice at dir (sub clan) level). Both wish to promote peaceful elections through civic/ voter education, encouraging communities to vote and help organise neutral help for the blind, illiterate etc in polling stations. One leading local NGO, the Academy for Peace and Development has committed its staff to election-related work until the election period finishes. It is involved in discussions with the Parliament and the political parties, including the parties signing up to a voluntary code of conduct. NAGAAD, having had experience in the last two elections, expects to coordinate local observer groups with COSONGO, the national NGO umbrella, and to run civic education programmes dividing up the country east and west as they did in 2002 and 2003.

The opposition parties and sections of the populace allege that parliamentarians, especially those allied to UDUB, have more commitment to their own stay in power than to the democratisation process. The recent electoral law passed in early February 2005 by parliament calling unrealistically for a census and full registration process does little to overcome that perception. Many Somalilanders also expect UDUB to lose to Kulmiye. President Riyale has though told parliament to pass the electoral code as a matter of urgency, and informed at least one would-be foreign donor of the commitment of the government to the electoral process.

The implication is that without substantial funding there will be a cut-price election where the free and fair nature of the election will be under threat or at least demand a great deal of consensus. Given the circumstances of the 2003 presidential election where Kulmiye lost by a small margin, claiming that it had in fact won but was prepared for the sake of the nation to accept the result, such consensus is unlikely to be forthcoming. This is especially the case if due to the electoral law, the process has to be delayed. At the time of writing we still await the reaction of the NEC and indeed the President to the practically impossible conditions set by Parliament if elections are to go ahead within less than two months.

A general worry therefore is that if there is not an election the one stable part of ‘greater Somalia’ will relapse from the democratic path, thereby rendering useless the internal and international goodwill, investment and work that has been undertaken so far. The less the technical conditions are perfect, the more the NEC and others have to rely on mutual goodwill and argued for consensus. These will be the first direct parliamentary elections in greater Somalia for 35 years. Somaliland still has a long path to go towards democratisation (which is a process rather than an event after all); the parliamentary elections and a new parliament (and possibly government) open up great opportunities for civil society. It can be empowered to seek greater government accountability, and a constructive but critical engagement with government on key issues in society, economy and polity – not least human rights, development, issues like HIV/AIDS, and greater commitment to gender equality and opportunity.

Whilst Somaliland vaunts its home-grown approach, it is also desperately aware of its need for international assistance which up till now has been forthcoming. The situation is now complicated not just by the new electoral law, but by its usual funders being engaged with the process in (southern) Somalia and the sensitivities of those it is engaging with down there. However, outside donors can make a lot of difference with small amounts of money. Indeed Somalilanders told us that they do not want assistance beyond their capacity to control and monitor such outside resources. They do stress, however, that the international community has wanted Somaliland to take the ‘good governance’ path and there is need for support from those suggesting that path.

The worry is that without support the cash-strapped government will not be able to run an election that can be shown to be free and fair and therefore that instability will result from this. Given the internal and external commitment to stability in Somaliland and the general climate amongst donors (inside and outside of the NEPAD and Commission for Africa processes) to push for ‘good governance’ and democracy in the continent, this would be an opportunity squandered. The fragility of this region cannot be overstressed – something that Somaliland parliamentarians also need to reflect upon.

* Steve Kibble is Africa/ Yemen Advocacy Officer at CIIR. Adan Abokor is the Country Representative of International Cooperation for Development, the name by which CIIR’s skillshare programme is known in certain countries.

* Please send comments to

The problems facing Africa won't be solved without the involvement of African workers and their trade unions, the UK's Trade Union Congress (TUC) said as it released its submission to the Government's Commission for Africa. In the submission - 'Social Partnership for Africa', the TUC argued that without trade unions 'civil society will never function properly, and the role of the African peoples will remain that of the passive observer or object of social progress'. Using examples drawn from the African trade union movement (which numbers some 12.3 million union members in 56 national trade unions), the TUC criticised the Commission for paying 'too little attention to the role that social partnership, social dialogue and decent work can play'.

"The upcoming election has already been spoiled because of the unfair electoral conditions. But that does not mean to say that we shouldn’t be actively engaged in working for a better Zimbabwe. You are not going to help matters if you just sit at home on Election Day 31st March. It is high time that we remember that individuals can, and do make a difference especially when they unite under banners of love, peace and justice. Hundreds of Zimbabweans have written to Zvakwana over the last months saying that this general election should not take place. There is no point in voting because the ruling party just steals your vote. But if we all stay at home and silently accept defeat then we will be allowing the regime to walk all over us. There is so much you can do to protest this flawed election and to make your voice heard." Read the latest Zvakwana Newsletter online and find out what role to play in the elections in Zimbabwe.

Zambia's top court may throw the country into a constitutional crisis over who should be head of state if it finds the election which voted President Levy Mwanawasa into office was illegitimate, analysts said. The Supreme Court is due on Wednesday to deliver its judgement on a petition brought by opposition parties which claims the 2001 elections were rigged. "There might be a constitutional crisis in the event the court decides to nullify the 2001 election results because there is no provision in the law as to who should be the interim president," said Alfred Chanda, a prominent Lusaka constitutional lawyer.

“There is an inseparable link between the protection of individual and collective human rights and democracy. The field of battle in which democracy and human rights are tested is the administration of criminal justice, which encompasses all processes and practices by which a state affects, curtails, or removes basic rights.” - Cherif Bassiouni

The focus of donor agencies or development partners today is on the Millenium Development Goals – goals which make no mention of the fundamental right to justice. A right which perhaps more than any other is repeated again and again in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and canvassed in close legal language and at extraordinarily length in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which most countries in Africa have ratified.

A right which surprised all development experts with the emphasis placed on it in the ‘Voices of the Poor’ series published by the World Bank in 2000 and which led to a number of western donor agencies moving ‘Justice’ up the development agenda and
leaving the World Bank wondering if their policy of developing the commercial courts and computerizing the courts was really hitting the spot.

As millions pour into grants and assorted loans to satisfy the demands of the legal establishment to ‘modernise’ the police continue to extort confessions, the backlog of cases in the courts grows apace, the prison numbers continue to expand and the ordinary person feels more and more powerless and resorts to taking justice into his/her own hands.

In 1998, Justice Joao Carlos Trindade, a judge of the Supreme Court of Mozambique, estimated that ‘justice’ was only accessible to 10% of the country’s population. He embarked on a two year research programme up and down the country, sitting in villages and towns, to enquire into the state of the administration of justice in the country. The South African Law Commission has also undertaken a similar study.

Both sought local solutions to local problems and their research posed searching questions about the relevance of the European justice models they inherited many years ago, a model that is expensive to maintain and applies proceedings that are both complex and unfathomable to the ordinary person for the simple reason that they are usually conducted in an alien language.

In the Congo, there was no judge or august institution to take the lead. The initiative arose from NGOs and faith-based organizations to develop mediation mechanisms for resolving disputes in the absence of any formal justice structure to adjudicate on a matter. The offices of the Catholic Commission on Justice and Peace in Bukavu and an NGO, Heritiers de la Justice, both have filing cabinets full of single page documents detailing the nature of the disputes they have resolved and the agreements reached in each, signed by the disputants to resolve it and move on with their lives.

In Jigawa State, Nigeria, initial scepticism of the Shar’ia court as an institution turned to admiration on observing the simple and fair manner in which the Sheikh dealt with a divorce matter. At the end of the 15 minute hearing, the man and woman were divorced and, heartily relieved, could return to their village, their honour intact and able to find new partners and start again.

Romanticised twiddle twaddle? Perhaps, but the point to be made here is that ‘justice’ as a development goal is not easy to quantify. As someone once said when asked how to define a ‘minority’: ‘you know one when you see one’. Justice is intuitive. You know it – you may not be able to articulate it or pass it down to cause and effect and specific intent, or even ‘outputs’ (numbers of judges trained, police equipped etc). It is multi-layered and encompasses the whole range of the human condition. Is the poor man who steals so that his family can eat more or less culpable than the corrupt functionary? The issues are complex.

The starting point for Justice Trindade, the South Africa Law Commission, the Congolese NGOs and faith-based groups and Nigerian Sheikh was: are we meeting the needs of the people we serve? Less the well off and the special interest groups who can afford the costs of the formal system – but ordinary men and women and their children in the villages?

This was also the starting point of an extraordinary meeting that took place in Lilongwe, Malawi last November to look at legal aid in the criminal justice process. The group of 120 or so people who came together could all be characterized as practitioners, whether they thought and wrote on the subject, investigated, mediated, represented, prosecuted or adjudicated - they all had long experience of the criminal justice system in their 21 respective countries from the continent.

They produced a declaration at the end that answered the keynote speaker’s challenge to concretise, give substance, shape and direction, prioritise and strategize. Above all the focus was on execution, implementation and innovation. There was practical, testing anew of what was accepted, settled and comfortable, and a questioning of whether sacred cows are sustainable. The conference explored new ways of making legal aid truly effective and expanding its nature and scope.

The main thrust of the declaration was that the definition of legal aid must be broadened to include legal advice and assistance as well as education; that this form of legal aid should be available at every stage of the criminal justice process: in the police station at interview, the court at first appearance and on first production in prison; and that it should be open to a range of other actors to provide, ie not only the lawyers, but also law students, NGOs, CBOs and faith based groups.

This may not sound revolutionary. But it will mean a great deal to the two million South Africans who will pass through a police station each year without the most basic legal advice or assistance. You might also consider whether this is happening on a routine basis in your country and cast a closer look at what is starting to happen in Malawi.

In 2000, four NGOs started the Paralegal Advisory Service in a remarkable partnership initially with prisons extending to the courts and police in 2003. Today, 37 paralegals offer appropriate legal advice and assistance on the front-line of the criminal justice system, ie in police stations, courts and prisons.

Over five years, they have grown and developed and have helped over 30,000 prisoners to represent themselves in bail applications, pleas in mitigation and conducting their own defence. They have facilitated the release of more than 2,000 prisoners who were unlawfully or unnecessarily detained. They have helped reduce the pre-trial prison population from an average of 50% to a stable mean of 22% today.

Who are they? They are ordinary people who have completed secondary education with ages varying from 20-40. Just under half of them are women. They complete a series of practically oriented training courses over 12 months and it costs around $400 per month or under GBP250 to field each paralegal.

Lawyers do not see them as a threat simply because they do not seek to compete with them but to complement their work. In Malawi with only 300 lawyers for 11 million people, there just are not enough lawyers to go round.

They aim at a working ratio of one paralegal to 100 prisoners each day. The information they provide is accurate and the service they offer is both free and appropriate to the legal needs of the person at the beginning of the criminal justice process, ie interview by police, bail, case follow up of overstayers, first appearance at court etc. They do not encroach on the specialist’s patch by holding themselves out to advise in individual cases or represent people in court. The criminal justice agencies have grown to admire their discretion and professionalism (they work to a strict code of conduct in prisons and police stations) and they have carved out a respected and valued niche for themselves – surely the fundamental test of ‘sustainability’.

Currently, outside Malawi, the programme is operating in Benin (as the Projet d’Assistance Judiciaire aux Detenus – PAJUDE) and in Kenya (the Kenya Prisons Paralegal Project – KPPP). Interest has been expressed in starting a similar scheme in Niger, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh and Cook County, Illinois, USA. Like the community service scheme that originated in Zimbabwe in 1994 and is now operating in 13 countries up and down Africa and attracting interest from countries outside the continent, the Paralegal Advisory Service, made in Malawi, offers a flexible model that can be adapted to any other country with similar problems.

Between 18-25 April this year, the XIth UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice will take place in Bangkok, Thailand. This five-yearly gathering of government ministers, senior criminal justice actors and NGOs provides an important forum for keeping policy makers’ eye on the ball and not allowing them to be distracted by the ‘war’ on narcotics and terrorism. It can serve to sidestep political agendas of the day and focus on the state of our criminal justice around the world, the quality of that justice and peoples’ access to it. It is a reasonable hope that the government of Malawi will table the Lilongwe Declaration for adoption by Congress and so raise the voice of the millions of poor people passing through our police stations and prisons each year without advice or assistance.

A former Chief Justice of Nigeria wrote: “The rule of law is not a western idea, nor is it linked up with any economic or social system…As soon as you accept that man is governed by law and not by whims of men, it is the rule of law.” (Adetokunbo A Ademola). And without the rule of law, the MDGs may be attained but they cannot be sustained.

Further information is available from Clifford Msiska, National Co-ordinator, Paralegal Advisory Service, Malawi [email][email protected]; a film (13 minutes, Path to Justice, 2004, directed by Pierre Kogan is available from PRI (Lilongwe) [email][email protected]; materials on starting up the PAS are also available. The Lilongwe Declaration and conference papers are available from www.penalreform.org The report will be published in English and French in June 2005.

* Adam Stapleton is a former criminal lawyer and adviser to Penal Reform International.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki shuffled his cabinet on Monday, just days after western donors had urged his government to act on reports of corruption and bad governance. In a statement announcing that two permanent secretaries had been dropped, the president said the changes were aimed at improving government service delivery, accountability and efficiency, and called for greater transparency and speedy implementation of social programmes.

At least 40 members of Somalia's interim government left the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday for various regions of Somalia to explain the new government's policies to the public, an official in prime minister Ali Mohammed Gedi's office said. The delegations, made up of five teams of ministers and members of parliament, were due to visit regions in southern and central Somalia.

A controversial national conference to discuss political reform in Nigeria will start next Monday, despite fierce criticism, the president has said. The National Political Conference could lead to constitutional changes, but parliament refuses to fund the project. The conference is being boycotted by the opposition, which says it has too few powers. Civic and human rights groups have long demanded the chance to debate relations between Nigeria's many ethnic groups.

The first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) aims to significantly bring down the levels of poverty in developing and transitional countries, over the next decade. But progress towards meeting this target has been slow and if it continues at a similar rate, we shall underachieve by 60 per cent. It is possible to turn this around but, only if donors and developing countries intensify efforts in combating rural poverty, says an article from ID21 Development Reporting Service.

Amnesty International has written to the chairman of the African Union, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, urging him to support a Security Council referral of the situation in Sudan to the International Criminal Court (ICC). This is becoming more urgent as the Sudanese government continues to downplay the human rights violations and war crimes committed during the recent conflicts. Earlier this week while addressing the Security Council Ali Osman Taha, the First Vice President of Sudan, rejected the prospect of any tribunal outside Sudan, while Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) leader John Garang allegedly said that issues of human rights violations and war crimes should take a back seat to peace and aid efforts in the region.

"We, the undersigned civil society and private sector associations and organisations would like to express our anger and outrage at the implications of the resignation of John Githongo from the position of Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics under the Office of the President. As the founder of the Kenyan chapter of Transparency International (TI), Githongo brought to the government ethical credibility and legitimacy whose financial benefits can only be said to be indisputable. Thus his resignation, despite already being framed by the government as being the result of 'professional opportunism' sounds the death knell on this government's purported anti-corruption effort."

Allegations of misappropriation in high places have been a constant theme of Sierra Leone's troubled political history. While the government puts the main blame for the country's long civil conflict on greed for diamonds and foreign interference, its Anti-Corruption Commission points to other causes within Sierra Leonean society. As Sierra Leone puts the conflict behind it, the issue of corruption continues to rankle.

With its focus on employment practices, business and skills development in Africa, this issue of Interim Developments examines Corporate Social Responsibility projects in Africa, internship opportunities for young Africans in the Diaspora, South Africa's international branding campaigns and highlights some of the work of Interims for Development in building the skills and capacity of Africa's professional base.

Zambia is set to reach the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt-relief completion point, according to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) statement. The country has an external debt of US $6.5 billion, of which $3.8 billion will be written off once the HIPC completion point is achieved. An IMF staff mission to Zambia commented that "IMF and World Bank staff have reviewed progress made in meeting the steps required for reaching the completion point under the HIPC initiative. Information received indicates that all triggers relating to poverty reduction and social sectors have been met".

Waranya Moni doesn't work for a UN agency, does (s)he? We could do with more African solutions to African issues. Maybe President Obasanjo would learn something on how to curb the supposed imminent civil strife in Nigeria if he was to intervene in Darfur? Rather than noting a lack of political will amongst African political leaders, we should be encouraging the political will, otherwise we'll end up being part of the problem Waranya.

The U.N. agency for refugees has received only a fraction of the funds it needs to help millions of people to return home after the end of Sudan's north-south civil war. Wendy Chamberlin, deputy U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said there was a danger donor countries would not deliver promised funds because the world was focused on helping countries hit by the Asian tsunami crisis.

Sceptics fear that the UK-led move to increase aid to Africa and forgive their debts will only make more money available to corrupt elites. Western governments are increasingly linking aid to good governance, and in particular to efforts to tackle corruption. So, is corruption in Africa getting worse, or just getting more attention? William Kalema, Chairman of the Board of the Uganda Investment Authority, and one of the Commissioners for Africa named by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, is not sure if corruption is worse than five or 10 years ago but says it is certainly more widespread than 20 or 30 years ago.