Côte d’Ivoire: UN Helps Ease Former Fighters’ Return to Civilian Life

The United Nations is helping former combatants and members of self-defence forces to ease back into civilian life in Côte d’Ivoire, which has been divided since 2002 between the Government-held south and opposition-dominated north.The six-month initiative will offer vocational training and assistance for some 1,300 people and set up over 1,000 micro-credit projects, such as cattle farming and retailing activities.

Malaria vaccine for Africa

A malaria vaccine trial on children in Africa starts next month researchers have said. The medical trial will take place on about 16,000 children and has come about as the researchers try to create the world’s first malaria vaccine. Malaria kills more than one million children yearly in Africa.The vaccine trials are expected to take place in such countries as Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.Malaria is one of the diseases which is killing more people especially children in Africa and is caused by parasites and spread by mosquitoes.The British drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC is teaming with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which is an anti-malaria charity funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, clinics and research centres in Africa to develop a malaria vaccine, according to the NewsDay report.

Djibouti to go to war with Eritrea

Djibouti’s president has said his country will have to go to war with Eritrea unless the UN acts to resolve growing tension over a border dispute. Djibouti has accused Eritrea of invading its territory and its ambassador to the UN said Eritrea had been avoiding mediation. Eritrea has said it had no territorial ambitions.Both France and the US have troops in Djibouti. Its border with Eritrea is at a key strategic point on the Red Sea. But Eritrean ambassador Araya Desta said his country wanted “the cultivation of good neighbourly relations with Djibouti”.

Shortlist for Africa’s best player out

The Confederation of Africa Football has unveiled the shortlists for the Glo-CAF Awards 2008. CAF Director of Communications, Sulemana Habuba also announced innovations in the event with the aim of making it prestigious. The Media and Technical Committees nominated the shortlists for the two awards.The innovation Habuba said had led to the creation of the Glo-CAF Best Player on the Continent and the Glo-CAF Best Player across the World, according to cafonline.

Museveni: Africa can solve food crisis

Africa has sufficient agricultural potential to become a food basket for the whole world, President Museveni of Uganda said. He said the continent could solve the current food crisis if the relevant production interventions are undertaken during the launch of the P4P at the United Nations.Purchase 4 Progress (P4P) is an initiative of the World Food Programme (WFP) which aims at transforming the way WFP purchases food in developing countries by giving priority to small scale farmers to sell their surplus produce to WFP at competitive prices while giving the food to those who have little or no food at all.According to a press release from the state house in Uganda, the programme which will initially target 21 countries, Uganda inclusive, aims at helping farmers to earn reasonable income and predictable market for their produce. It will initially target 350,000 households over a period of 5 years.The WFP is supported by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard G. Buffet Foundation.President Museveni launched the programme jointly with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, Rwandese President Paul Kagame and the WFP Executive Director Mrs. Josette Sheeran.President Museveni said that 67% of the farmers in Sub-Sahara Africa have been practicing subsistence agriculture and not fully utilizing the region’s agricultural potential. He said that with the current food shortage in the world, it was time for African farmers to engage in commercialized agriculture and produce food beyond their subsistence needs. He, however, noted that interventions in terms of irrigation, the use of fertilizers and other forms of modern agricultural practices need to be emphasized to enable the region produce optimally.Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete welcomed the programme saying that it would help unlock the potential of farmers in rural Africa since they will be assured of the market for their produce. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda lauded WFP for its support to his country. He said that the organization has responded to the feeding needs of over 54,000 people in Rwanda. He also hailed their support through the School Feeding Programme and welcomed the Purchase 4 Progress Programme saying it was an appropriate intervention.Ms. Josette Sheeran, the Executive Director of WFP, said that in addition to purchasing their produce, WFP would facilitate farmers with modern farm inputs, equip them with modern agricultural skills to boost the quality and quantity of their output.Mr. Bill Gates and Mr. Howard Buffet said they were committed to helping farmers in the developing world to better their incomes because they constitute a large part of the poorest of the poor in the world. They said that they committed their organizations to supporting Purchase 4 Progress Programme because its objectives are in line with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

Corruption: Africa’s movers and shakers

Corruption has significantly improved in Nigeria and Mauritius over the last year, according to the Transparency International`s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). The southern African country ranked 41 out of 180 countries with a score of 5.5 out of 10. Nigeria (2.7) jumped from 180 to 121.The CPI measures the perceived levels of public-sector corruption in a given country and is a composite index, drawing on different expert and business surveys. The 2008 CPI scores 180 countries (the same number as the 2007 CPI) on a scale from zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean).According to the report released on Tuesday in Berlin, Botswana leads the league table of top 10 least corrupt African countries at the 36th position with a score of 5.8. Mauritius closely followed then Cape Verde at 47th spot with a mark of 5.1. Africa’s fourth went to South Africa at the 54th slot with a score of 4.9, Seychelles gained 55th and bagged 4.8 and then Namibia landed at the 61st position after scoring 4.5.Others are Tunisia (62) with a score of 4.4, Ghana ranked 67 and scored 3.9, Swaziland (72) and attained 3.6 followed by Burkina Faso at 80th position after it obtained a mark of 3.5.However, Somalia (180), Sudan (173), Chad (173), Guinea (173) topped the top 10 corrupt countries on the continent scoring 1.6 each but Somalia which managed only 1.0. Equatorial Guinea (171) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (171) followed them with a score of 1.7 each. On top of them was ailing Zimbabwe, which is lying at the 166th position and scored 1.8. The remaining medals for the other three corrupt countries went to Gambia (158), Angola (158) and Guinea-Bissau (158) after all three scored 1.9 each.On the global scene, Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden share the highest score at 9.3, followed immediately by Singapore at 9.2. Bringing up the rear is Somalia at 1.0, slightly trailing Iraq and Myanmar at 1.3 and Haiti at 1.4, according to TI website. The global anti-corruption watchdog said while score changes in the Index are not rapid, statistically significant changes are evident in certain countries from the high to the low end of the CPI. Looking at source surveys included in both the 2007 and 2008 Index, significant declines can be seen in the scores of Bulgaria, Burundi, Maldives, Norway and the United Kingdom. Similarly, statistically significant improvements over the last year can be identified in Albania, Cyprus, Georgia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, South Korea, Tonga and Turkey.

Fast internet for Africa in 2010

Cheap and high-speed web access via satellite will be provided to millions of people in Africa and other emerging markets by 2010. Google and Europe’s biggest bank HSBC partnering with cable operator Liberty Global would provide the services. Three billion people are to benefit from the project.A group called O3b Networks – stands for the “other 3 billion” people who do not have access to the internet – are helping to roll out the project. Reuters reports say the project will provide high-speed backhaul for telecoms’ operators and Internet providers, which can then sell services to businesses and consumers.South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel hailed the project at a conference in Germany on Monday. “The information gap is very real and clearly whatever we can do to close it must be encouraged,” Manuel told a news conference in Berlin on the U.N.-backed Millennium development goals.”Any initiative that can leapfrog over traditional means of getting information to people must be encouraged. Information is power and it supports democracy and it supports decision-making.”O3b networks said in a statement the satellites would be constructed by Thales Alenia Space and should be operational by the end of 2010. The company’s founder, Greg Wyler, told Reuters coverage would reach from Spain to South Africa, include most of South America, large parts of Asia and all South Pacific Islands. The project intends to offer fibre performance over satellite to parts of the world where it is not commercially viable or practical to deploy a fibre network.Because its satellites orbit earth at lower altitudes than those used to beam TV signals to homes, they work better for Internet access where latency — the amount of time it takes for bits of information to travel from source to destination — is an issue, Wyler said.The project is expected to cost $650 million until the launch, he said. Initial equity of $65 million has been raised, but the final mix of debt and equity has not been set. In some parts of the world, the company will compete with fibre-optic cables currently under construction — for instance, over a dozen cables have been announced connecting Africa to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

M-Net Face of Africa

Malawian girls are too short in height to feature in one of Africa`s top talent search shows according to media reports. The scouting session for the M-Net Face of Africa began on Wednesday but the contestants did not meet the specified minimum height of 1.72 metres and a maximum hip measurement of 96cm.The judges for the sessions said they were looking for an X factor which most of the contestants in Malawi did not have. “The X factor is something you cannot describe but we know it when we see it,” said judge Andiswa Manxiwa.By 12pm on Wednesday, about 50 girls had auditioned in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe but less than five had made it into the next round, a local newspaper Daily Times reported.After the sessions, 24 finalists will be selected to participate in a Model Boot camp which is to be held in Zanzibar, Tanzania where the top 10 will then be selected. The finalists will then head into this year’s glittering Face of Africa finale set to be screened live on DStv in over 40 countries across Africa. It will take place on November 29.Face of Africa is a pan-African talent search showcasing Africa’s beauty and style. The winner of the contest is expected to walk home with US$ 50,000 in cash. Apart from the cash, the winner is also expected to land herself a modeling contract with Oluchi’s O Model Africa Agency.Some of the countries participating include Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, Ghana and Malawi.

Mobile firm spends US$ 12bn in Africa

Zain, one of the top mobile firms in Africa is said to have invested about US$ 12 billion this month for its re-branding campaign in Africa. The firm is among the fastest growing on the continent. It also changed its name early this month from Celtel to Zain and also adapted new colours.

According to Zain’s chief executive officer, Saad Al Barrack, the firm’s investment in its African operations beats direct aid from United States, China and European Union respectively.According to a report from Malawi’s local daily of the Nation, the rebranding of Zain from Celtel is part of bringing together their African and Middle East operations under a single and unique identity.The chief executive officer further said that the mobile firm had injected in US$ 2.5 billion for networks and infrastructure development in its existing markets.

The report quoted Barrack who was in Kenya recently as saying Kenya was one of the countries where Zain has spent more money and that its operations were expected to consume about US$ 1 billion in the next five years.In the Southern African country of Malawi, the mobile firm will pump in US$ 91 million between this year and next year towards upgrading and other services.Zain according to a media report serves up to 50 million customers in 22 countries of Africa and Middle East.In Malawi Zain has faced competition from another mobile firm TNM. The two recently introduced cheaper cell phones.

Djibouti suspends increased port tariffs

A new tariff regime that was planned by the government of Djibouti and set to take effect beginning August 15 this year was withdrawn one day before it became operational.

Djibouti Port Authority Board under its Chairman Abdourahiman Boreh had decided on the 15 percent raise due to high oil prices on the global market and inflation which the country is experiencing but had to reverse the decision following instructions from the country’s President, Ismael Omar Guelleh, sources have said.

The withdrawal of the new regime is good news to Ethiopia as the increase would have cost the Ethiopian economy an additional 22.5 million dollars annually.According to DP World Djibouti, a management company in charge of the port’s operations since 2000, had designed a new regime of tariff rates for all services, a move which would mean an increase of 15 percent on container handling and stevedoring costs. It had also planned reduce the free storage period from 15days to eight days. The two issues would have heavily impacted on Ethiopia’s import and export businesses.The last time the port attempted to increase its tariff was in January 2001 when it wanted to increase tariffs by 30 percent but Ethiopia successfully protested at the proposal that would have cost it 170 million dollars.

Ethiopia and Djibouti signed a port utilization agreement in May 2004 which among other things stipulates that tariff changes are supposed to be discussed in advance. There is, however, a difference of opinion over what exactly prior notification means; while Djiboutians understand that they have to inform their Ethiopian counterparts two months in advance of the planned date of enforcement, Ethiopians take it as an opportunity to negotiate the amount and nature of any proposed tariff adjustment.

The port’s management company had attributed the tariff rise to the soaring cost of fuel, which has increased by 350pc, a headline inflation rate of 19.2pc in Djibouti and a need to fund new equipment. Ethiopia is the major user of the port as it is not only a gateway for its transit cargo, but also as a point of its destination. The volume of Ethiopia’s import and export cargo rose from 3.9 million tonnes in 2006/07 to 4.6 million tonnes in 2007/08. It is projected to grow by 20pc this year.