UN Radio

UN and Africa
Programme Number: 164
Week of: Sunday, 05 August 2007
Recording Date: Thursday, 09 August 2007
Topical Issue(s):

• Groups that have not signed the Darfur Peace Agreement met in Arusha, Tanzania, and agreed on a common platform for peace talks with the Sudanese government. UN Envoy Jan Eliasson tells UN Radio that there is now need to maintain the momentum to resolve the Darfur crisis.

• August 9 is marked as the International Day for the World’s Indigenous Peoples. In Kenya, indigenous Maasai women continue to face discrimination, even from their own societies, which do not recognize their right to inherit land.

• As part of the efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, African leaders held the Second Capacity Building Forum in Maputo from 1 to 3 August. UN Radio discusses the outcomes of the meeting with the Deputy Executive of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, Dr. Hesphina Rukato.

Producer/presenter: Derrick Mbatha
Editor: Diane Bailey
Production Assistant: Charles Appel
Studio Engineer: Zach Prewitt
Duration: 15’00”

RESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.

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PRESENTER:

Hello and welcome to UN and Africa. I’m Derrick Mbatha.

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PRESENTER:

In today’s programme, Darfur rebel groups agree on a common platform for negotiations with the government.
CLIP 1: Jan Eliasson
“The situation is fragile and there are pitfalls in the very, very difficult conflict of Darfur. So, we can’t take a deep breadth yet but let’s hope very much that this positive momentum is now being kept up.”

PRESENTER:

You will hear more on that in a moment. Also in this edition, the indigenous Maasai women of Kenya continue to face discrimination.
CLIP 2:
“In the Maasai culture a woman does not have any access to inheriting land, resources or anything.”

And later in the programme, African leaders hold their second capacity building forum in Maputo, Mozambique.

So stay tuned to UN and Africa.

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Darfur Leaders Agree on Common Platform for Talks with Government

PRESENTER:

Hopes have been raised again this week for and end to the suffering of the displaced people of Darfur after their representatives agreed on a common platform for negotiations with the Sudanese government. They did so at a meeting held in Arusha, Tanzania, co-chaired by the Special Envoys of the United Nations and the African Union, Jan Eliasson and Salim Ahmed Salim respectively. But one of the major players in the Darfur saga, the faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdul Wahid, boycotted the Arusha talks. Notwithstanding this, the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Darfur, Jan Eliasson, says the Arusha meeting and its outcome are very important. He spoke with me on the line from Khartoum following the talks which ended on Monday.

ELIASSON: First of all it was an important event to see members of the different groups who have been so seriously split and splintered for such a long time meet together and discuss the common platform facing the negotiations. They were working for fifteen, twenty hours and in the end produced a common platform and common agenda for the incoming talks. We have received their views both on power sharing, wealth sharing and security and indications on the venue and timing of the meeting.

MBATHA: How was the mood there at the talks?

ELIASSON: Well in the beginning I think there was some hesitation and some doubts. They were former friends who had parted company and they had lived in different parts of Darfur for some time. But now they successfully or hour by hour improved the atmosphere and in the end we had a reception and you could hardly identify any lines between them. So, I don’t say it was a complete embrace but it was very much a nearing of positions and attempts to really find common ground.

MBATHA: But one of the major participants the Sudan Liberation Movement was absent. How is this going to affect the implementation of whatever outcomes the participants there came up with?

ELIASSON: Well, the Sudanese Liberation Army, SLA, or SLM, is now divided in approximately four groups, and one group was not there, the one led by Abdul Wahid now living in Paris. I regret still that he did not participate where he, evidently, did not want to be in contact with competing leaders of his original party. But I hope very much that he makes a clear distinction between this meeting in Arusha with the movements and the upcoming negotiations. He has a strong voice in several of the camps and he has a responsibility in my view to play a role in forming the near future and the long term future for the people of Darfur. This is one of the most serious moments we have had in the recent year, in reaching a serious and credible process in the political arena. We had a very good step forward with the decision of the Security Council last week for the peacekeeping side, but we need to have a peace to keep.

MBATHA: You have referred to the Security Council resolution authorizing the deployment of the hybrid force in Darfur. How has that affected your efforts there?

ELIASSON: It has a positive impact. The peacekeeping progress and progress in the political field are mutually reinforcing. So we welcome very much the sign of solidarity and strength from the international community in taking seriously the situation in Darfur. The representatives of the movement were very happy and satisfied with the move of the Security Council. It also gives us instruments to monitor a ceasefire that, I would hope already as part of the beginning of negotiations. And it will also make sure that we could have a safe return of the people in the camps to their villages.

MBATHA: What do you expect to happen next?

ELIASSON: I will meet with the representatives from the camps, civil society, tribal and traditional leaders and present the peace plan for political progress and for peace in Darfur to the people of Darfur. We got assurances also from everybody in the meeting in Arusha that they would convey that this is a serious effort and that they fully support the African Union and UN efforts. The situation is fragile and there are pitfalls in the very, very difficult conflict of Darfur. So, we can’t take a deep breadth yet but let’s hope very much that this positive momentum is now being kept up.

PRESENTER:

That was Jan Eliasson, the United Nations Special Envoy for Darfur.

STING UN AFRICA THEME MUSIC

Indigenous Maasai Women of Kenya Continue to Face Discrimination

PRESENTER:

August 9 is observed as the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, to focus attention on the plight of indigenous peoples around the world. In Kenya, the indigenous Maasai people continue to face many challenges, particularly because they are pastoralists and don’t have enough access to land. UN Radio’s Diane Bailey reports.

NARRATOR:
To promote the rights of the world’s Indigenous Peoples, the General Assembly has been working on a draft United Nations Declaration on their rights. The Declaration was adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council in its first historic session in Geneva last year. For the indigenous Maasai people of Kenya and other African countries, this declaration is an important instrument. But Fatuma Ibrahim, who serves in the Kenyan National Commission of Human Rights, does not see a readiness by African countries, including her own to sign the declaration.
CUT 1: Fatuma Ibrahim
Kenya is one of the countries that have declined to sign the UN Declaration on Human Rights of Indigenous People. Definitely that is a limiting factor for the indigenous people of Kenya and in Africa, because African countries have not really taken the lead in terms of supporting the UN Declaration on Indigenous People’s rights so that people benefit, so that people can negotiate for their rights.

NARRATOR:
While the indigenous people of Kenya face difficulties related mainly to land rights, Maasai women face double discrimination. Ms. Ibrahim says the conservative nature of indigenous communities often helps to perpetuate discrimination against women. She says one area in which their rights are trampled upon is in inheritance of land.
CUT 2: Fatuma Ibrahim

Indigenous women have been discriminated against in inheritance. When particularly the husband dies or their family member dies, they are denied sometimes to inherit from the property of the families. Some times they are excluded from decision making positions.

NARRATOR:

Another Kenyan Maasai activist, Catherine Mututua agrees.

CUT 3: Catherine Mututua

In the Maasai culture a woman does not have any access to inheriting land, resources or anything. They say if a man or a girl, or woman doesn’t have a son, they cannot inherit any resources in the community.

NARRATOR:

According to Fatuma Ibrahim, the Kenyan Maasai women are also ignored by the government which prefers to negotiate with men on issues affecting the lives of the Maasai people. And that’s not all.
CUT 4: Fatuma Ibrahim
Even when you look at government appointments, the indigenous communities are the least appointed. But when you look at the few who are appointed, they are all men. There are no women at all. There are qualified women among the indigenous community but they have never been appointed. If you look at even the number of permanent secretaries in the country, number of ambassadors appointed, you hardly see indigenous women in there because they only give opportunities to men who are accessible.

NARRATOR:

Helen Nkoyo attributes this neglect of Kenyan Maasai women to a stereotype which projects Maasai women as incapable of performing certain functions in society. She says this stereotype does not reflect reality of life in Kenya.

CUT 5: Helen Nkoyo
But when you look at the few, for example Fatuma Ibrahim in the Kenyan National Commission of Human Rights, she’s been one person many of us have admired because of her energy, her strength, her competence to fight for indigenous people’s rights.

NARRATOR
The Maasai women of Kenya are not just folding their arms and doing nothing about their situation, as we hear from Catherine Mututua.

CUT 6: Catherine Mututua
We are trying to create awareness because the only people who can bring changes are these women once they know what their rights are like. So we can start talking to them that they talk slowly in their families or talk together as a voice, a group. So that’s why we have the Maasai Women’s Group so that they talk sometimes as a voice in their own local levels and national level and even to the international levels.

NARRATOR:

Ms. Mututua says that Maasai women who have obtained formal education should go back to their communities to help organize and advocate for their rights of their rights. Reporting for UN Radio, I am Diane Bailey.

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African Leaders Hold Second Capacity Building Forum in Maputo

PRESENTER:
The clock continues to tick to 2015, the target date for meeting eight Millennium Development Goals, (MDGs) among them, eradicating extreme poverty, providing primary education for every child, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, and fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. And of course, these goals cannot be met without strong economies capable of providing the required resources. And sound economies cannot be built without the capacity to do so. As part of their efforts to improve the situation on the continent African leaders have what they call the African Peer Review Mechanism, (APRM),by which they monitor what is going on in individual countries. With that in mind, African leaders held their second capacity building forum in the Mozambican capital of Maputo which ended last Friday. UN Radio’s Abdushakur Aboud discussed the outcome of the forum with Dr. Hesphina Rukato, the Deputy Executive of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, NEPAD.

RUKATO: The main resolutions are around what strategies Africa needs to develop and implement around capacity for it to be able to achieve the MDGs. There’ve been discussions around capacity for growth and capacity in the governance area but I think the most important thing really has been the whole agenda also around the training and retention of skills that have been developed and the whole issue of Africans owning the development agenda and taking responsibility for which then they can partner with our international development partners.

ABOUD: And apart from that there was the subject of the Diaspora, a lot of young talented Africans are leaving Africa to Europe. Is there is any resolution how to include them in the development process?

RUKATO: I think there’s been agreement that there are Africans that leave their countries by choice but also there are also people that leave their countries because they have no choice either for governance, political or social economic problems in their own countries and that is where the leadership is being called upon to be more responsible in terms of governance and to develop and implement strategies towards retaining those skills that have already been developed.

ABOUD: And how has it been discussed to see that this meeting was not just another meeting of leaders meeting and discussing and nothing is really achieved?

RUKATO: There’s been agreement that there’s going to be follow-up action coordinated probably by the African institutions that are taking a lead in this capacity development agenda, to ensure like you say that it doesn’t just become one of those talk shops.

ABOUD And how is NEPAD fitting in all this capacity building, what role is it playing?

RUKATO: NEPAD is currently working on a capacity development strategic framework whereby we’re working with countries that have gone through the APRM process to ensure that they develop the necessary capacities for them to implement their programmes of action coming out of the APRM review process, and for countries that have not yet acceded to the APRM we are working with them around their national development strategies to ensure that targeted capacity is developed to implement those programmes.

ABOUD: The United Nations has been playing also a role in capacity building, what was the role of the United Nations?

RUKATO: We work with UNDP, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and other related UN agencies to ensure that whatever capacity development initiatives that take place on the continent from now on they’re well-coordinated and to ensure that there’s no duplication or overlap and to also ensure that we effectively use the resources that we have.

ABOUD: And what really are the main challenges you think to reach those millennium goals in capacity building?

RUKATO: I think the main challenges revolve around the changing of the mindset of Africans themselves so that they can take ownership of what is essentially their own agenda and that when they call upon partners to assist them it is because they are implementing their own vision.

PRESENTER:
That was Dr. Hesphina Rukato, the Deputy Executive of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, NEPAD.
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PRESENTER:
And that’s all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our Production Assistant was Charles Appel and our sound engineer was Zach Pruwitt. I am Derrick Mbatha saying bye bye.

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