Ban Child Marriage in Malawi
Half of all girls are married before the age of 18 in Malawi, with some forced into marriage as early as nine or ten. Marriage at such an early age can hinder educational opportunities, contributing to the country's widespread poverty and illiteracy. Young girls are sometimes forced into marriage for a dowry, while others are married to escape poverty.
In the span of three years, nearly 30,000 girls dropped out of primary schools in Malawi because they got married, with another 4,000 students leaving secondary school for this reason. Another 14,000 girls dropped out of primary school during the same period due to pregnancy, with 6,000 quitting secondary school for the same. Many of them are unable to return to school afterward, as they are tasked with taking care of a child or household, or because they cannot afford it.
Education and corruption...
S3 pupils at Mackie Academy have been studying poverty in Africa and tasked to write a news article which would interest local readers.
The Modern Studies class at the Stonehaven school has been learning about current issues in that continent but also touching on broader ones such as education, health and human rights. Over the past few weeks we've brought you some of the best articles written by the S3 pupils, with these two the final ones in the current series.
Nathan Falconer wrote the following:
Malawian civil servants have been siphoning money from the government's funds and have been doing this via a loophole in the system which manages the money of the country.
A few days before this, a civil servant was found with over £300,000 in the boot of his car, more money has been found the boots of other cars.
The IMF had been withholding roughly £20 million from the country but has decided to give it to them after this scandal. So far roughly 70 people have been arrested in connection with siphoning off cash.
INSIGHT-Equatorial Guinea seeks to shake off "oil curse" image
MALABO, March 10 (Reuters) - On land cleared of tropical forest, gleaming new office towers, apartment blocks, homes and highways dazzle the eye in Equatorial Guinea, Sub-Saharan Africa's No. 3 energy producer where oil and gas revenues have fed a frenzy ofconstruction.
But cutting away the jungle is proving easier for President Teodoro Obiang Nguema than shedding his central African nation's dark image as a reclusive, repressive and graft-ridden poster child of the "resource curse".
Obiang, in power since 1979 and Africa's longest-serving head of state, is fronting a bid by Equatorial Guinea to break out of negative media coverage he says is one of its biggest obstacles to progress and international acceptance.
"The country is not being shown for what it is," Obiang, 72, complained in a rare recent interview with reporters just outside Malabo, capital of the small Gulf of Guinea state.
In an outreach campaign since the start of the year, Obiang has declared his country open for more business outside of oil and gas, widened its alliances by joining a global community of Portuguese-speaking states, and offered a political dialogue to domestic and exiled opponents.
The United Nations on Monday in Abuja ranked Nigeria among top five countries in the world with the largest number of people defecating in the open.
The UN, which in its recent report, revealed that 34 million Nigerians defecate in the public, however, expressed optimism that ending the unhealthy practice was possible.
The UNICEF Communication Specialist (Media and External Relations) in Nigeria, Mr. Geoffrey Njoku, in a statement on the World Toilet Day, said trends in the past five years allow for cautious optimism that significant progress would be made in decreasing the number of people globally who practise open defecation.
Quoting a joint UNICEF and World Health Organisation report of 2012, Njoku said, "It is estimated that 34 million Nigerians practise open defecation and Nigeria is amongst top five countries in the world with largest number of people defecating in the open."
According to him, in Nigeria, it is estimated that diarrhoea kills about 194,000 children under five every year while respiratory infections kill another 240,000.
"These are largely preventable with improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene," he stressed.
Globally, UNICEF is supporting 50 countries including Nigeria to implement community approaches to total sanitation such as Community-Led Total Sanitation aimed at empowering communities to identify their sanitation challenges and take necessary actions to end open defecation.
He said, "CLTS aims to make all communities free of open defecation by focusing on social and behaviour change and the use of affordable, appropriate technologies.
"The emphasis is on the sustainable use of sanitation facilities, rather than the construction of infrastructure, and the approach depends on the engagement of members of the community ranging from individuals, to schools, to traditional leaders. Communities use their own capacities to attain their objectives and take a central role in planning and implementing improved sanitation."
The UNICEF Country Representative in Nigeria, Ibrahima Fall, said, "CLTS is simple and an effective way of improving access to sanitation while also paving the way for their improved health."
Meanwhile, a Non-Governmental Organisation, WaterAid Nigeria, on Monday in Abuja stated that Nigeria had been losing about N455bn annually due to poor sanitation and bad hygiene.
The organisation also said about 54 million Nigerian women and girls did not have safe and adequate sanitation while 17 million of them did not have a toilet at all.
The Country Representative of WAN, Mr. Michael Ojo, and Head of Governance, Tolani Busari, at a press briefing on the World Toilet Day, however, said the crisis could be solved.
South Sudan: new battleground for Ethiopia and Eritrea?
The conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, that can be traced back at least as far as their unresolved border war of May 1998 to June 2000, has taken many forms. In the past Somalia was the battleground in which this was played out. Is the civil war now underway between the forces of President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar the latest site of this deadly contest? There is no definitive answer to this question, but here is the evidence.
Liberia: Empower Women, Transform a Nation
Liberian women are peacemakers, known the world over for their role in ending the country's brutal civil conflict, which ended in 2003 and left the country in tatters. Nobel Laureates Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee have become the international face of Liberian women. But their fame, and the fact that Liberia is home to Africa's first democratically-elected woman President, should not obscure the fact that there are many constraints to women's full and equal participation in political and economic life.
Empowering women in agriculture
7 March 2014, Rome – Reducing gender inequality is fundamental to eliminating hunger and developing more sustainable food systems, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva told a gathering of international experts and country representatives at an International Women's Day gathering in Rome."This year we are celebrating Women's Day against the backdrop of the International Year of Family Farming," Graziano da Silva said. "Family farmers are the dominant force in global food production. And, at the same time, they are among the world's most vulnerable people.
UN to investigate violence against women in Britain for first time
The UN is sending a human rights expert to Britain for the first time to investigate violence against women, it was announced on Friday.
Rashida Manjoo will visit Britain from March 31 to April 15 to "to study the main manifestations of violence perpetrated in the family and in the community, such as domestic and sexual violence, sexual bullying and harassment, forced and early marriages, and female genital mutilation," the UN Human Rights Council said in a statement.
"Violence against women continues to be one of the most pervasive human rights violations globally, affecting every country in the world," said Manjoo, a law professor from South Africa who joined the Human Rights Council in 2009.
She will also look at violence perpetrated or condoned by state authorities, and will focus on the particular vulnerabilities caused by the increased influx of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees.
Police last year launched an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse at female immigrant detention centre Yarl's Wood.
"Importantly, I will visit shelters to obtain first-hand information from individual survivors of gender-based violence," Manjoo said.
Her visit comes as Britain begins its first ever prosecution for female genital mutilation, which was announced last week.
An Essex doctor is accused of carrying out an FGM operation at his hospital in November 2012, and a man from London is accused of intentionally encouraging the procedure. They are due in Westminster Magistrates' Court on April 15.
FGM has been illegal in Britain since 1985 but no one has ever been prosecuted.
A survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, published earlier this month, said the UK had the fifth highest rate of physical and sexual violence against women in the EU, with 44 percent of women suffering abuse since the age of 15. The highest was Denmark, with 52 percent.
Manjoo has a formal invitation by the British government, and will travel to London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff and Bristol. She will present her findings at the next session of the UN Human Rights Council in June.
She is due to hold a press conference on April 15 at the office of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees in London.
mnb/apo/ia/er/arp
Women must inherit property not poverty
When Govid Kelkar started working with women in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India with a population of 200 million, she noticed a disturbing trend. There were no men tilling the land.
The husbands, father and sons migrated to the city in search of formal employment in factories and the big shiny offices. The women were left behind to work day and night in the fields, tilling the land to provide food for the family and to sell. In many developing countries, women contribute 80 percent of agricultural labour and yet some analysts estimate they own just 3 percent of this land. When Kelkar, an expert at the land consultancy Landesa, talked with the Indian women, they told her that despite all their time and hard work in the rice fields, cotton fields and cattle ranches, they did not own the land and were not even allowed to inherit this property that they develop and maintain.
Equality for Women and Sustainable Development Go Hand in Hand
By Elizabeth Matthews, Michael Painter, and David Wilkie
Half of the world's farmers are women, but women only own about one percent of the world's land. Similarly, women make up nearly 50 percent of the global fisheries workforce, but in most countries have little to no say in how fisheries are managed. These statistics are indicative of a more general trend: women's interests and roles are seldom seriously considered in the design and implementation of rural development and conservation initiatives. The common biased view is that that men are farmers or fishers and women only care about children and health care. But how can we eradicate poverty, or improve environmental governance, if we ignore what Sheryl WuDunn and Nick Kristoff have so eloquently called "Half the Sky?" Ensuring equality for women in pursuing economic opportunity and political participation is essential to sustainable development.
If we are serious about addressing the food and income security of the world's rural poor, our efforts need to begin with women. Women's History Month, this March, presents us with a timely opportunity to take stock of continuing challenges to gender equality in the context of conservation.
Last fall, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released its Environment and Gender Index, which draws on data from 72 countries. The index found that we do not collect gender-specific data (short-hand for what women contribute) in a host of critical areas of our economies, including: agriculture, forestry, water, energy, marine resources, and infrastructure.
Because the folks who track these things are typically men, the failure to recognize the contribution of women may not be surprising. Yet most women and men would agree that this is, or should be, a source of concern. How can you even evaluate the impact of a severe gender bias when you don't have the data?
The lack of data is particularly challenging because gender equality is national policy in the U.S., in many other countries, and in the international environment and development communities. Yet by and large we fail to understand how family economies and wellbeing are organized according to gender. Our ignorance limits, and in some cases undermines, the effectiveness of our investments.
The role of women is nuanced and not captured by narrowly defined measures. For instance, even in societies where hunting and fishing are largely seen by themselves as "what men do," in many places women are deeply involved in preparing food for the men before a hunting or fishing trip, are responsible for sharing the catch among relatives and community members, often sell the catch at the market, and prepare and cook the game or fish for family meals.
In other places, where poverty is widespread and resources are scarce, women collect fish and invertebrates from shallow waters to bring home to their families as a crucial source of nutrition for their children.
A growing body of evidence confirms that we are better resource managers when men and women make decisions together. A study of 132 forest management groups in South Asia found that those with a high proportion of women achieved greater improvements in forest condition than did men-only groups.
Moreover, management studies by Credit Suisse and others show that firms with mixed-gender management tend to have better financial performance and be more effective in resolving conflict, than those with gender-imbalanced management (that is, too many men, or too few women).
These findings are confirmed in the group dynamics of many of the grassroots organizations and natural resource managers that WCS supports in our conservation landscapes.
In Bolivia, strengthening political authority of indigenous women by helping them have a voice in group decision-making influences how successful are efforts promote sustainable land-use, better efficiency and transparency in financial management, and negotiations to address the social and environmental impacts of infrastructure projects.
Men and women have historically played equally important roles in household economies, but too often the contribution of women has been overlooked (sometimes purposefully). While men and women do different things to make a living, to raise children, and to secure family futures, those actions work best when both genders are supportive of and accountable to one another.
As we celebrate the achievements of women across the globe this month, we must also acknowledge that gender equality still has far to go if we are to address successfully the land and resource management challenges facing our world today. Until the roles, interests, needs, and desires of men and women are equally valued and equally influence policies and practices, we will be attempting to save the planet with only half the sky.
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Elizabeth Matthews is Assistant Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Marine Program.Michael Painter directs the WCS Conservation and Quality of Human Life Program. David Wilkie directs the WCS Conservation Support program.
Why African firms create so few jobs
AFRICAN businesses are reluctant employers. A given firm in Sub-Saharan Africa typically has 24% fewer people on its books than equivalent firms elsewhere, according to a recent paper from the Centre for Global Development (CGD), a think-tank based in Washington, DC. Given the links between employment and development, economists want to figure out the reasons for the shortfall.
The study calculates the missing jobs by crunching information on 41,000 formal businesses globally from a World Bank survey. The data capture only a sliver of what actually happens in Africa: nine in ten workers have an informal job. Shunned by the formal sector, workers turn to below-the-radar employment—toiling on family farms or otherwise beyond the government's reach. But a big informal sector makes it harder for Africa to reduce poverty, even when economic growth is strong. Increases in income on the production side of the economy translate weakly into higher wages for workers. Indeed the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction is weaker in Africa than any other developing region
More:
Africa's resources key to unlocking its wealth
Africa, it seems, is on the rise. The size of the economies of most countries on the continent is growing and economists are predicting that by 2050, Africa's economy will reach $13-trillion.
African countries have to take advantage of these positive developments and communicate the enormous potential that lies within the continent to the world, said Andre Groenewald, director of diplomatic training at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.
Groenewald was speaking at a seminar organised by Brand South Africa and the Department of Trade and Industry at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research on Thursday, 27 March. The seminar, attended by African diplomats based in South Africa, focused on, among other issues, Africa's competitiveness and how strong nation brands contribute to improving the continent's image.
Groenewald said considering the size of the continent "there is room for growth and room for markets in Africa".
Africans abandon AIDS resolution at UN after hijacked by "sexual progressives" from US and Europe
NEW YORK, March 27, 2014 (C-FAM.org) - "This is unacceptable," said Zimbabwe's delegate.
Her voice broke from frustration and regret. A resolution on HIV/AIDS, championed by the poorest African countries most affected by the deadly disease, was changed after negotiations had finished. The Netherlands demanded protections for children be removed, subtly giving a nod to sexualizing children and putting people at greater risk of HIV/AIDS.
African delegates had tailored the resolution to address HIV/AIDS as a public health tragedy. The U.S., European and a few Latin countries view the disease as a platform to de-stigmatize sex in any form.
Negotiations had stretched over two weeks at UN headquarters. It was past midnight last Friday when the final resolution on HIV and AIDS among women and girls, sponsored by Malawi, was presented to the chair of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
In a surprise move, the Dutch delegate intervened to amend the resolution on behalf of the US and other countries in Europe and Latin America. They could not accept a mention of "delay of sexual debut" in a paragraph on helping women and girls protect themselves from HIV. Among the other defenses against HIV left in were condoms, gender equality, and gender sensitivity.
The draft had narrowly avoided being stripped of references to abstinence and fidelity. A confidential source told the Friday Fax that at the start of negotiations behind closed doors the U.S., European Union, and some Latin American countries insisted these be removed or there would be no resolution at all. A reference to reducing the number of sexual partners was removed later.
Netherlands' amendments passed by a small margin.
One after another, African countries– including the primary sponsor Malawi – withdrew their support and abstained in the vote in protest.
A disheartened delegate from sub-Saharan Africa, where the AIDS epidemic has hit hardest, was especially dejected. As delegates who hijacked the resolution walked by, she said, "It's all about sex, sex, sex, for them."
In Africa, women uniquely bear the brunt of the HIV epidemic, in part because male-to-female transmission is much more likely than female-to-male. In the countries that asked for the removal of language on abstinence, fidelity, delayed sexual debut, and fewer sexual partners, HIV is mostly concentrated among recreational drug users, prostitutes, and men who have sex with men.
The African countries' approach of fidelity and abstinence is based on their own experience fighting HIV/AIDS. A recent review reported that early sexual debut and multiple partners – particularly concurrent partners – are major risk factors for African women, not only for HIV but other sexually transmitted infections.
Early sexual debut and multiple sexual partners are associated with poverty. A pilot program in Malawi showed young women receiving cash transfers to attend school had lower HIV incidence because of delayed sexual activity, younger and fewer partners, and less likelihood of falling into prostitution. They were also more likely to continue their education and avoid child marriage. Other research shows partner reduction and fidelity led to HIV reduction in Kenya.
The adoption of the resolution was met with loud cheers from the "sexual rights" advocates in the gallery and jeers at African delegates and the Holy See who defended fidelity and abstinence.
One delegate could not hide her emotion as she voiced her dismay. "As a country that is one of the hard-hit areas in the HIV epidemic, Zimbabwe regrets this day."
Foreign investors often blamed for Africa land grabs conducted by local ruling elites
WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Policymakers and media organisations are ignoring the fact that African middle classes and local ruling elites are the biggest drivers of the transfer of land ownership on the continent over the last few years, rather than foreign investors, experts said.
The focus on large-scale overseas investors is distracting from the real story that mid-sized farmers are behind agricultural growth in Africa, and this has policy implications which are not being addressed.
"The foreign land grab is one issue but it pales in comparison to domestic investment in land," said Thomas Jayne, a professor at Michigan State University. "There has not been much documentation of this trend until recently, but this incontrovertible data is coming in from the countries," he said.
USAID studies conducted in Ghana, Zambia and Kenya showed that big farms are changing the landscape of land ownership in Africa. But they disproved the notion, often reported in news media, that foreign-owned large corporations are grabbing most of the productive lands in most African countries.
Experts at the World Bank conference on Land and Poverty, where the studies were discussed this week, said the majority of land guidelines fail to recognise the impact of mid-sized farms, and so governments may not be addressing the impact that farmers within this category have on land use.
Africa, gay rights and how culture shifts
In a previous post, "Africa: The link between gay rights, chieftaincy and patronage", I made a sociological analysis of gay legislation status in sub-Saharan Africa, and encouraged more research into the issue. The responses I got were interesting. The commentators' views broadened my perspectives and more explanations from me are in order.
I realised that the cultural dimensions as expressed in most Africans' reactions towards gayism are contestable. Before I go further, I will mention that I am not an activist. My views, therefore, neither condemn nor promote any party in relation to the ongoing debate. On a personal note, I simply do not understand why sexual preferences or private sexual activities of an individual should be debatable or sanctioned in the first place. Therefore, in as much as, I am also contributing to this debate, my intentions are purely to work out explanations as to why either actors or people are responding the way they do towards gay rights. Unlike activists' writings that have flooded the media recently, my writing only meant to invoke media debate on human behaviour represented in laws and practices that the gayism discourse is definitely part of.
Oxfam Report Says Global Food System Inadequate in Face of Climate Change
Oxfam, a collaboration between 17 organizations that have banded together to work at solving the issues of worldwide poverty and injustice, recently performed an analysis on "how well the world's food system is prepared for the impacts of climate change." Oxfam's analysis states that the global food system is "woefully unprepared" to deal with the challenges presented by climate change but emphasizes that "there is still time to fix the problem." Available on Oxfam's website since Tuesday, the 20-page paper titled Hot and hungry — how to stop climate change derailing the fight against hunger, made its assessments by looking at "ten key factors that influence a country's ability to feed its people in a warming world." Oxfam outlines, in each of these ten food and climate policy and practice areas, "what is happening and what is needed to protect our food systems." The report calls the difference a gap, and each area is given a score from one to 10 based on how large or small Oxfam has determined the gap to be.
NEW CHRISTIAN AID REPORT SHOWS HUMAN COST OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Christian Aid today publishes a new report showing the devastating effects of climate change, with communities worldwide, particularly in worst hit poorer countries, being forced to change their way of life.
While record-breaking floods in the UK received massive media coverage, along with broad acceptance that climate change was to blame, the voices of those suffering even greater impacts have largely gone unheard.
Using personal stories from seven different countries; Bangladesh, Brazil, Kenya, Malawi, El Salvador, Bolivia and the Philippines, the report Taken by Storm: responding to the impacts of climate change, reveals the stark reality of life as a result of extreme weather events such as drought and flooding.
The report is intended to put a human face to the latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which on Monday will publish its latest report on the impacts of climate change.
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