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- Volume 24, Issue 4, 2010
Africa Renewal - Volume 24, Issue 4, 2010
Volume 24, Issue 4, 2010
The Africa Renewal magazine examines the many issues that confront the people of Africa, its leaders and its international partners: sustainable development goals, economic reform, debt, education, health, women's empowerment, conflict and civil strife, democratization, investment, trade, regional integration and many other topics. It tracks policy debates. It provides expert analysis and on-the-spot reporting to show how those policies affect people on the ground. And, it highlights the views of policy-makers, non-governmental leaders and others actively involved in efforts to transform Africa and improve its prospects in the world today. The magazine also reports on and examines the many different aspects of the United Nations’ involvement in Africa, especially within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
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A social media boom begins in Africa
Author: André-Michel EssoungouIn the mid-1990s, as the use of mobile phones started its rapid spread in much of the developed world, few thought of Africa as a potential market. Now, with more than 400 million subscribers, its market is larger than North America’s. Africa took the lead in the global shift from fixed to mobile telephones, notes a report by the UN International Telecommunications Union. Rarely has anyone adopted mobile phones faster and with greater innovation (see Africa Renewal, January 2008, April 2008).
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Anchor the MDGs to economic progress, Africans say
Author: Michael FleshmanFor 17 years Peter worked as a machine operator in a South African textile plant. It was not high-paying work, but it paid the bills and kept his family above the poverty line. When he lost his job because foreign imports were cheaper, he told University of KwaZulu-Natal researcher Claire Ichou, he was plunged into poverty — and despair. “Peter explains very painfully how he has lost his dignity,” she wrote in an academic paper. “He declares that his wife does not respect him. He tells us that his children are starving.” In Peter’s eyes, she continued, “a man without a job is not a man and there is nothing he can do. He has no status.”
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Wanted: Fresh ideas for combating African poverty
Author: Fantu CheruThe Millennium Development Goals are likely to remain important for the long-term task of eradicating poverty beyond 2015. But development policy is being challenged by a host of new and old issues brought into focus by the quadruple crises of the past three years: the food, climate, energy and financial crises. The favourable global economic and political conditions that existed when the MDGs were adopted in 2000 do not exist anymore. The crises and their aftermaths therefore require us to “think out of the box,” to ask different questions and seek new ways of social and political mobilization to tackle the structural problems that perpetuate global inequalities.
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Jobs and equity key to Africa’s poverty fight
Author: Yusuf BanguraAfrica has the highest poverty rate in the world. Even though some countries are on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty by 2015, most are likely to fall well short. Income inequality in Africa remains higher than in most other regions, while gender, ethnic and regional inequalities persist. Such injustices endure for a variety of reasons, argues a new report by the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Combating Poverty and Inequality. The report, which was launched just before the September MDG summit of the UN General Assembly, highlights problems that have not been adequately addressed by the MDG approach. These include poor or unstable economic growth — which has failed to generate productive employment — and the fragmentation and underfunding of social policies. Moreover, governments have been ineffective and their policies unresponsive to citizens’ needs, so the poor lack influence over public policies.
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Securing lasting peace in Africa
Author: Ernest HarschThanks to Africa’s own efforts and to enhanced international support, the continent is more peaceful today than it was a dozen years ago, says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In 1998, when the UN issued its first major report on the “causes of conflict” in Africa, there were 14 countries in the midst of war. Now there are four.
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Can ‘peace radio’ survive in peacetime?
Author: André-Michel EssoungouIn conflict zones, one radio station is worth five army battalions, a former chief of UN peacekeeping operations once said. Listeners and numerous expert studies confirm that “peace radios” — often established by UN peacekeeping missions — have been powerful weapons for peace. So far there have been seven UN stations in countries emerging from traumatic civil wars, from Sierra Leone to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They have provided balanced and reliable information, offered a voice to minorities and contributed to a sense of national belonging.
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Darfur: An experiment in African peacekeeping
Author: Michael FleshmanWhen people discuss hybrids they are usually talking about the improved seeds favoured by farmers or about cars that combine petrol engines with large batteries for better fuel economy. But in the war-ravaged Darfur region of western Sudan, the UN and the African Union (AU) are testing a different kind of hybrid. That experiment, the African Union–UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), is a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force deployed and commanded jointly by the UN and the AU, the pan-African political organization, to protect civilians and support a shaky peace process.
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Stakes high in vote on Sudan’s south
Author: Michael FleshmanWith Sudan moving towards a referendum to determine whether the south remains part of the country or secedes, the United Nations and the rest of the international community have launched a major diplomatic push to keep the troubled process on track. The referendum, together with a separate poll on the status of the disputed oil centre of Abyei, is scheduled for 9 January 2011.
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Africa needs a strategy for ‘emerging partners’
Authors: David Mehdi Hamam and Katrin ToomelThe global development landscape is changing rapidly with the growing role of China, Brazil and other “emerging” economies. In this new context, African countries have seen a significant increase in trade, foreign direct investment and official development assistance from the South. While China is the most significant partner, interactions are also increasing with India, Brazil, Malaysia, Turkey and several other countries, reducing Africa’s dependence on its traditional partners and opening new policy space for African governments.
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Africa watch
Author: United NationsTen African countries have been elected to serve on the Board of the newly-created Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, known as UN Women. The election, held in November by the UN Economic and Social Council for the 35 elected seats (out of a total of 41), saw the following African countries join the agency’s governing structure: Angola, Cape Verde, Congo Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Libya, Nigeria and Tanzania.
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