The government of Angola has not done enough to combat pervasive corruption and mismanagement, Human Rights Watch has said in a report. Even though the oil-rich country's gross domestic product has increased by more than 400 percent in the last six years, Angolans are not seeing their lives improve accordingly, Human Rights Watch said.

As the indefinite strike called by Gabon's oil workers entered day two Thursday, the government has said it is willing to resume dialogue to end the strike. "The government solemnly reaffirms its preparedness to resume the dialogue," said a statement by Labour Minister Maxime Ngozo Issondou.

A year after the purchases of vast swathes of farm land in Africa first drew public attention, transactions remain as opaque as ever. Private companies are resisting a global code of conduct that would ensure transparency and local elites continue to benefit from deals that encourage corruption and increase food insecurity.

The head of a 19-state African trading bloc has denied the Gulf’s policy of snapping up cheap farmland across the continent is tantamount to a ‘neo-colonialist’ land grab. Sindiso Ngwenya, secretary general of Comesa, which counts Kenya, Egypt, Sudan and Madagascar among its members, said multimillion-dollar land deals aimed at securing the Gulf’s food supply provide crucial capital to overhaul poverty-stricken rural areas and build infrastructure.

On the International Day of Peasants’ Struggle, April 17, FIAN International together with many other civil society actors calls for an immediate stop of land grabbing. A new report published by FIAN International documents the findings of two research missions on land grabbing to Kenya and Mozambique, and concludes that land grabbing violates human rights.

New Field Foundation is expanding and deepening its grantmaking to support rural women and their organizations, families and communities in West Africa through its Rural Women Creating Change program. We are seeking a Program Consultant for the Mano River Union, who is familiar with the realities and potential of rural women in the border region of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone

Rich countries have threatened to cut vital aid to the developing nations if they do not back the deal agreed at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, it has emerged. The pressure on poor countries to support the US, EU and UK-brokered Copenhagen accord came as 190 countries resumed UN climate talks in Bonn in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion.

‘There is no doubt that South Africa will become the next frontier for "land invasions"', writes Grasian Mkodzongi, ‘the situation in the country is a ticking time bomb. It’s almost impossible to think that a system of extreme injustice and poverty reflected across the country could be sustained forever.’

Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s latest publication, ‘Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir’, is ‘a treasure-house of childhood memories’, writes Peter Wuteh Vakunta. ‘It is an informative and didactic memoir written with the intent of taking the reader down memory lane. The story of Ngugi’s travails through life, it lends credence to the wise saying that epic characters are often associated with humble beginnings.’

More than 110 nations, including top greenhouse gas emitters led by China and the United States, have backed the non-binding Copenhagen Accord for combating climate change, according to the first formal UN list. The list, including countries from Albania to Zambia, helps end weeks of uncertainty about support for the deal, agreed at an acrimonious summit in the Danish capital in December. The list was compiled by the United Nations Climate Change Secretaria

A few years ago, Chinese dam builders and financiers appeared on the global hydropower market with a bang. China Exim Bank and companies such as Sinohydro started to take on large, destructive projects in countries like Sudan and Burma, which had been shunned by the international community. Their emergence threatened to roll back progress regarding human rights and the environment which civil society had achieved over many years. But new evidence suggests that Chinese dam builders and financiers are trying to become good corporate citizens rather than rogue players on the global market, writes Peter Bossard.

Countries seeking food security and will allow investors to export all of their produce, the head of a private Nigerian agriculture consultancy firm said on Monday. Gulf Arab countries reliant on food imports have intensified efforts over the last year to buy land in developing nations ranging from Pakistan to the Sudan and Ethiopia.

Following the African Commission's ruling in favour of Endorois claims on ancestral land lost during the Kenyatta regime, L. Muthoni Wanyeki argues that this success represents an important precedent and 'lays the ground for the slow process of renegotiating our very country'.

Diarrhoea- inducing waterborne microbes often go undetected in parts of the world with the highest rate of under-five deaths from gastrointestinal infection. According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), lack of water safety regulations, inter-ministerial coordination and surveillance can paint a deceptively benign portrait of water quality.

As the world marks World Water Day, the Gana and Gwi Bushmen of Botswana are marking eight years without access to a regular supply of water in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

ith a democratic touch rare in a region better known for dictators, Ghana is asking its citizens what it should do with the windfall from oil production due to start later this year. In a questionnaire entitled “The Use and Management of Oil and Gas Revenues – A Survey of Public Choices” posted on the finance ministry website this week, Ghana says oil-producer nations face major questions.

Mauritian Prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, on Wednesday inaugurated an underwater fibre optics cable called Lower Indian Ocean Network (LION) in Terre-Rouge, 10 km north of the Mauritian capital, Port-Louis.

South Africa’s government has drafted a new land policy that proposes limits to land ownership by its own citizens and foreigners, its Rural Development and Land Reform Minister has said.

The latest in a series of brutal, forced evictions in Angola took place earlier this month when riot police swept through a provincial capital, Lubango, killing seven people, including four children between four and twelve years old.

Players in the water sector from Africa meet in Kampala this week for talks on how to meet the continent’s needs as the commodity comes under renewed pressure from climate change and rising demand.