Operations at the Zambian Ministry of Finance were grounded this week when unionised workers staged a sit-in to demand payment of negotiated housing allowances by government. The Finance Minister, Ng'anda Maganda, declared the action illegal and said that workers had refused to be paid the revised housing allowances because they were still considering legal action.

More than 50 million people in the world have fled their homes because of conflict and disaster, but do not receive the help given to international refugess because they have not crossed into a foreign country. The United Nations said on Tuesday many internally displaced people (IDP) live in abject conditions, ignored by their governments and the international community. "This is a massive global humanitarian problem -- something on the scale of the HIV/AIDS crisis but getting much less attention," said U.N. official Dennis McNamara, new head of a unit set up to tackle the issue.

Zambia has the "potential" to meet five of its eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, according to a new UN progress report. The country can provide all its children with access to primary education; potentially halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria; reduce child mortality; and provide more of its population with safe drinking water and basic sanitation. However, the 2003 MDG annual report said Zambia was unlikely to meet three of its goals: halve hunger as well as poverty, and reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters.

In the last two months we have seen concerted attempts at reviving global trade talks which collapsed in Cancun, Mexico last year. This article from the SEATINI bulletin argues that the Doha round cannot be about anything other than development. At any rate, the Marrakesh Agreement which established the WTO speaks of a “need for positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries and especially the least developed countries among them secure a share in growth in international trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development.” The outcome of any negotiations cannot be considered legitimate if they trash the concerns of the poor countries.

Twenty countries, 13 of them in sub-Saharan Africa, have suffered development reversals since 1990, according to this year's Human Development Report, released last Thursday by the UN Development Programme (UNDP). In 46 countries, 20 of them in sub-Saharan Africa, average citizens are poorer today than they were a decade ago, according to the report. In 25 countries, of which 11 are in sub-Saharan Africa, more people go hungry than they did a decade ago.
* Human Development Report Link:
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/

Lesotho would pursue bribery cases against multinationals on one of the world's biggest dam projects despite the lack of foreign support, attorney-general Lebohang Fine Maema said on Monday. Maema said the tiny kingdom -hailed for its battle against corporate graft - had been largely fighting alone, despite pledges of financial support from developed countries.

A United Nations commission has landed in Cote d'Ivoire to investigate human rights abuses during the first four months of civil war that followed the September 2002 rebellion, a UN official said on Friday. Cote d'Ivoire has been split between a government-controlled south and a rebel-held north ever since the 2002 rebellion, but diplomats have confirmed that the team will be working on both sides of the ceasefire line. More than a year after the official end of fighting, the peace process is deadlocked and disarmament has yet to begin.

As part of a major restructuring of the national courts system, the government of Rwanda appointed 223 judges on Tuesday to courts at the district and provincial level, as well as to the newly created high court. The move follows the recent election of 18,540 officials to serve in mediation committees, known locally as Abunzi, which will handle disputes between members of the public before such cases are placed before national courts of law.

Nigeria's biggest fraud case has been dismissed after the judge said he had no jurisdiction to hear it. The case involved three Nigerians accused of stealing more than $242m from a bank in Brazil by allegedly persuading a senior bank official to send the money for what they claimed to be a new airport in exchange for a $10m commission. Abuja High Court judge Lawal Gumi decided on Monday that as the offences had not taken place in the Nigerian capital he had no jurisdiction to try the case.

Gambia's anti-corruption commission began its hearing on Monday, with ministers publicly detailing how they paid for their possessions, including even their wives' jewellery. The commission will sit for three months but no elected member of parliament will have to appear and neither will the president, leaving some Gambians to question the likely impact of the hearings. 24 hours after the Commission started, it was adjourned for celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of President Jammeh taking power in a military coup.

The Chairman of Uganda's Electoral Commission (EC), Badru Kiggundu, announced this week that the country still needs the army to conduct free and fair elections. Presenting the EC's policy for 2004/5 to Parliament, the Chairman declared that 'the police remain insufficient to curb electoral violence and malpractice.

The UK High Commissioner to Kenya, Edward Clay, has launched a scathing attack on President Kibaki's government's record on tackling corruption. In a speech cleared by the UK's Foreign Office he said that corrupt ministers were 'eating like gluttons' and 'vomiting on the shoes' of donors. Mr Clay also said that since the President took office in December 2002, corruption had cost Kenya some $188m.

Growing economic decay in sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of people living in poverty rose from 42 percent to 47 percent between 1981 and 2001, is the biggest development challenge the world faces, the U.N. Industrial Development Organization said today in a report. Fostering macroeconomic management and good governance and increasing agricultural output will be key to improving the lot of sub-Saharan Africans, the report said. Creating institutional and social capabilities and diversifying their economies will also be important, it added.

In September 2004, the States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child will receive a letter from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on behalf of the Secretary General of the United Nations requesting nominations for members of the Committee. Each State Party has the right to nominate one person from its country. Nominations are due to be submitted by States Parties to the Office of the High Commissioner before the end of November. Although NGOs cannot nominate candidates, they can play a role in lobbying their State Party to nominate a good candidate who meets the criteria.

South Africa's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs has disclosed that SADC is to assist Zimbabwe in creating a climate for free and fair elections, ahead of its polls in March next year. The comments came whilst the minister was holding talks with the South African Council of Churches on the Zimbabwean issue.

Our governments must exhibit their commitment to the full promotion and protection of the rights of our women by ratifying this all important protocol and going the full hog by amending or passing the relevant domestic legislation to give effect to the Protocol. We are tired of empty rhetoric and sloganeering and want to see some concrete action now.

Sign the petition on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa at:

I would like to express my view on the Comment and Analysis column (Pambazuka News 165). The idea of facilitating the ECOSOCC process is great. More so that the AU has recognised the need for putting in place mechanisms that evoke peoples’ participation. This is best done through involvement of Civil Society Organisation (CSO) structures to engage with the AU. History has shown that Africa has been driven from a top-down approach in processes of decision-making. Experience shows that little consultation, or adequate information, reaches out to the people on whom decisions are made by their leaders. So this time around the involvement of the CSOs, as watchdogs, would go a long way in promoting development in a true democratic fashion.

However, the effectiveness of this engagement can only be realised if CSO’s are aware about this engagement and the parameters guiding the need for their involvement. The responsibility of creating this awareness still lies at the door of the AU to instruct its membership (member countries) to publicise this information and take steps to meet CSOs to demystify the ECOSOCC process.

Civil Society need to be oriented and information widely made available not only to the elite, but also made accessible to communities in their major country languages so that people's participation can be genuine and driven from a well informed position from the grassroots to CSOs and the table at the AU summit. Only then can the AU structure be more effective in a participatory process. Then the people of Africa can begin to determine their destiny. Member countries should make resources available for CSO orientation and empowerment to assume this critical role in the leadership of our continent. The AU secretariat should put a timeframe to this. As of now it should be immediate as CSOs are still groping in the dark on their role in this important democratic governance issue.

The largest of Swaziland's banned opposition groups has embarked on a two-pronged campaign to bring democratic reform to the country. The People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) is pressuring other Southern African Development Community (SADC) nations to take a stand against repression in the tiny kingdom, and have joined other pro-democracy groups in a lawsuit challenging King Mswati's proposed constitution.

The SACOD Forum 2004 will take place from 10-14 November 2004 at the Houw Hoek Inn in Cape Town. This is a call for entries for completed films and videos, of any length, produced after 1st January 2003, that reflects and pursues development issues. The SACOD Forum is a meeting place where filmmakers, distributors, and related organisations, gather to screen and debate selected film and video productions. The objective of the Forum is to enable directors and producers in the Southern Africa region to make more effective programmes on social issues.

Liberia needs donors to help it find more than US$12 million so it can conduct elections in October 2005 and return to democracy after a long and bitter civil war, the head of the National Elections Commission said on Friday. The number of Liberians entitled to vote is also still not known. Estimates of the country's current population vary between 2.5 and 3 million and over 300,000 are still living in neighbouring countries where they sought refuge during the troubles.