Africa
Tuesday marked the launch of Trust Africa, a new foundation based in Dakar, Senegal that will focus on conflict resolution, trade, and increasing democracy in Africa. Trust Africa has been operating for the past five years as part of the Ford Foundation, but will now be run independently from Dakar with an all-African board of directors. In the speech below, given to mark the launch of the foundation, John Githongo discusses democracy and governance on the African continent
9 June 2006 - John Githongo
Gender
Institutional structures and protocols aren’t necessarily exciting on the surface, but they are often the architecture essential for change. The speed with which the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa was ratified broke all records for the ratification of continental human rights instruments in Africa. By 25th November 2005, the Protocol came into force having received the required 15 ratifications.
24 May 2006 - Irungu Houghton
Southern Africa
On the heels of a study from the ILO on child labour increases in sub-Saharan Africa, this report highlights the work being done in countries in Southern Africa to complete their National Action Programmes to eliminate child labour within the next year.
11 May 2006 - Lindsay Dentlinger
Gender
In the context of the highly publicized Zuma trial for rape, this article looks at the most troublesome facts and statistics behind the wave of sexual violence against women and children. South Africa is a country that is at peace yet has an incidence of rape that rivals the worst conflict zones.
2 May 2006 - Carolyn Dempster
Algeria
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In Algeria, the good news is that citizens no longer live in fear of being butchered by Islamist militants at makeshift roadblocks, or of being "disappeared" by hooded policemen who break down their front doors. The national treasury, heavily indebted when the violence was raging a decade ago, is now awash with petrodollars.
23 April 2006 - Eric Goldstein
Algeria
The Algerian state is repressing open discussion and questioning of the terrible violence of the 1990s, reports Eric Goldstein of Human Rights Watch.
23 April 2006 - Eric Goldstein
Uganda
Two million civilians have been driven from their homes by 20 years of armed conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government in Northern Uganda.
24 March 2006 - Pambazuka News
Book review
This new book by Caroline Elkins, published by Henry Holt and Company 2005) is an astonishing and damning expose of the brutality of late-empire British colonialism in Kenya. Documented and described in detail, the physical violence and murder committed are heavy reading. Erskine spent a decade researching for this book, handicapped by the absence of most of the documentation of their `war on the Kikuyu'. It was destroyed by the British before handing over government in 1963.
6 February 2006 - Africafiles
Rwanda/Darfur
What lessons did the international community learn from the Genocide in Rwanda ten years ago, especially in relation to the crisis in Darfur? Gerald Caplan, an expert on the Rwandan genocide, charts the response of the international community in Rwanda and then discusses what the response has been in Darfur.
17 January 2006 - Gerald Caplan
Ecology
The introduction of GM crops has increased the biotech industry's control over the seed supply. Key facts about Monsanto's undesirable influence over agriculture and food policies in many countries.
13 January 2006 - Friends of the earth international
Great Lakes
Some armed conflicts in the Great Lakes region continued to simmer throughout 2005, but overall there was less violence than in previous years, which encouraged many displaced people to return home.
9 January 2006 - IRIN
Sudan
Although hopeful developments marked the beginning of 2005 for Sudan, they gave way to increasing scepticism by the middle of the year, and as violence in Darfur escalated and Ugandan rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) continued to wreak havoc in the south, the good-faith implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) started to look increasingly shaky.
9 January 2006 - IRIN
Sudan
The creation of a government of national unity was meant to unite war-torn Sudan following the January signing of the southern peace agreement, but analysts have cautioned that recent political developments could jeopardise national unity.
27 December 2005 - Derk Segaar
It is estimated that there are 143 million children in the developing world, and that one in every 13 children have suffered the death of at least one parent. "The State of the World's Children 2006" includes concrete actions that can be taken by civil society and others. But will we do so?
19 December 2005 - UNICEF Media
Liberia
It may not be a first, but it's at least a welcome rarity. An African president, Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf promises that no rapist will go unpunished. And there's new legislation making rape illegal, another first for Liberia. Maybe having a woman leader will make a difference.
13 December 2005 - IRIN
