Full Coverage: East Africa

28.04.2005 Will African governments have the capacity to regulate the use of GM crops in the face of US companies eager to penetrate new markets? The experience of Tanzania and nicotine-free GM tobacco is discouraging.

27.04.2005 As Robert Mugabe celebrates the 25th anniversary of independence in Zimbabwe, concerns are rising that endorsement of the recent election results by President Mbeki of South Africa may dampen donor support for the entire continent.

25.04.2005 Africa Malaria Day's major celebration will take place Monday in the capital of Zambia, where recent projects have provided millions of children with insecticide-treated bednets to protect against the disease. Impressive projects have raised the intensity of the fight against malaria across the continent, says Unicef, refuting an editorial from the Lancet medical journal that the World Health Organizations' campaign against malaria has been ineffective.

23.04.2005 Maternal and child mortality rates in Eritrea are improving but health service infrastructure remains poor and further progress is needed to meet the Millennium targets.

23.04.2005 Government officials from Eritrea have expressed the view that the current impasse on negotiations with Ethiopia cannot continue. Amongst the possible outcomes, the risk of war must be included.

21.04.2005 A suspected outbreak of dengue fever has hit the Somali capital of Mogadishu, medical workers say.

21.04.2005 The Kore farming and the Guji-Oromo herding communities that have inhabited Ethiopia's lush, arable grasslands for generations are being burned out of their homes so that a national park can be developed there to cater to foreign tourists. No compensation has been offered the evicted communities, who have nowhere else to settle and make a living in the country, which is mostly arid.

21.04.2005

© Centre for Development and Population Activities

CEDPA's President and CEO, Yolonda Richardson, shared her thoughts with the following digital postcards as she met with CEDPA staff, alumni and partners in Kenya and India. Here are three of her digital postcards: Twenty Years of Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women (Kenya), World Health Report 2005 – Make Every Mother and Child Count (India) and When Young Girls Dream (India).

19.04.2005 Eritrea is suffering a 5th consecutive year without adequate rainfall and its people are once again dependent on the World Food Programme for survival. About 50% of young children are underweight.

19.04.2005 Eritrea is suffering a 5th consecutive year without adequate rainfall and its people are once again dependent on the World Food Programme for survival. About 50% of young children are underweight.

19.04.2005 It was a big bash in Chipata Town in the Eastern province of Zambia as Organisation Development Community Management Trust (ODCMT) launched the Global Action Week against Poverty. Scores of children and adults who attended the event loudly and energetically chanted the slogan "Make trade Fair" whilst spotting white head bands, in solidarity with the Global Action Campaign against Poverty (G-CAP).

19.04.2005 Officials of Zimbabwe's ruling party, ZANU-PF, are allegedly denying access to government-supplied maize meal to suspected supporters of the main opposition party. Many rural Zimbabweans are dependent on government stocks this year after a particularly poor harvest due to erratic rains.

18.04.2005 Zimbabwe’s recent parliamentary election--considered a fraud by most western governments--has compromised the standing of other African leaders who are trying to convince the international community that Africa is moving towards better governance in return for debt relief, increased aid, and better terms of trade, say political analysts.

15.04.2005 The only remaining rebel group in Burundi said this week it would join the peace process ahead of elections scheduled for later this month. In the Congo, one militia group announced an end to its armed struggle while another sent the last of its conscripts to hand in their weapons. Meanwhile, Ivorians are waiting to see if their president will accept mediator Thabo Mbeki's ruling that the main opposition candidate should be allowed to stand in elections later this year.

14.04.2005 As European efforts to regulate imports of GM maize lie in tatters, the controversial Zambian decision to refuse food aid in 2002 for fear of GM contamination stands out as a shining example of standing up to powerful agri-business interests.

13.04.2005 The Organisational Development and Community Management Trust(ODCMT) have launched the global week of poverty in Zambia to trigger massive support for trade justice whilst gathering momentum to the run up of the World Trade Organisation Ministerial trade summit in Hong Kong.

13.04.2005 Scottish novelist Alexander McCall Smith is donating the royalties from his latest novel, The Girl Who Married a Lion,--a set of folk tales gathered mainly from the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe--to people living with AIDS in one of Zimbabwe's poorest regions. The book is expected to raise more than $193,000.

13.04.2005 THE Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has launched a newspaper, the Advocate, as an additional tool to advocate for media reforms, good governance and human rights in Zambia

13.04.2005 The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) have agreed that Zambia has taken the necessary steps to reach its completion point under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative. Zambia is the 17th country to reach its completion point under the enhanced framework of the HIPC Debt Initiative.

13.04.2005 In late September, MADRE's Executive Director, Vivian Stromberg, will tour with two Indigenous Maasai and Samburu women from Kenya. Lucy Mulenkei, director of the Indigenous Information Network (IIN), and Rebecca Lolosoli, founder of Umoja Uaso Women's Group, will speak alongside Ms. Stromberg about the struggles of African Indigenous women at the local, national, and international level. Specifically, they will talk about indigenous women and sustainable development, indigenous resistance to corporate globalization, human rights abuses-such as forced female genital mutilation-that indigenous women face within their communities, the struggle for recognition of indigenous Peoples' collective rights, and the development of effective community-based organizations to defend human rights.