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UN and Africa
Programme Number: 074
Week of: Sunday, 13th November, 2005
Recording Date: Thursday, 17th November 2005
Topical Issue(s):
— The Executive Deputy Chair of
NEPAD e-Africa Commission speaks about an initiative
to prepare young people in Africa to participate in
the information society and the knowledge economy
of this century.
— The leader of the Security Council mission
that went to Central Africa, Ambassador Jean-Marc
de La Sabliere of France says the visit provided an
opportunity to renew the Council's support for the
peace processes in the DR Congo and Burundi.
— Dr. Ripley Ballou who has been working on
the development of a malaria vaccine talks about prospects
for reducing the risks of the disease following a
trial of some 1,500 children.
Editor / Presenter: Ransford Cline-Thomas
Producer: Derrick Mbatha
Production Assistant: Beng Poblete-Enriquez
Studio Engineer: Zach Pruitt
Duration: 15’00”
PRESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.
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and hold under narr.)
PRESENTER:
Hello and welcome to UN and Africa, I'm Ransford Cline-Thomas.
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and hold under)
PRESENTER:
Thousands of delegates have gathered in Tunisia this
week to discuss the role of information and communication
technologies. At the opening of the World Summit,
UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, stressed the importance
of using information technology to benefit all classes
of people, a point he repeated to reporters later.
CLIP-1: UN SECRETARY-GENERAL
"We do believe that information technology is
a tool that can help us expand education and ensure
that young people everywhere have access to educational
material and even do long distance learning."
PRESENTER:
Well shortly you will hear about an initiative that
has been taken by Africa to do just that.
Also in this edition, a mission that went to Central
Africa reported to the Security Council earlier this
week. Its leader was Ambassador Jean Marc de la Sabbliere.
CLIP-2: JEAN-MARC DE LA SABLIERE
"The success of our common undertaking in Central
Africa has importance, which goes beyond the sub region,
well beyond. I think it's important for the whole
of Africa."
Also in UN and Africa today we will be telling you
about a promising vaccine against malaria that has
been presented at a conference on malaria taking place
in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
So stay tuned to UN and Africa.
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under until first sentence.)
PRESENTER:
A major gathering on information and communication
technologies began in the north African country of
Tunisia on Wednesday. Thousands of delegates from
around the world were there to
participate in the World Summit on the Information
Society. Addressing the opening session, United Nations
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan stressed the need to
expand access to information and communication technologies
to everyone. He reiterated this point later
when he spoke to reporters and addressed a concern
about holding the summit in a country that is accused
of limiting access to the Internet.
CUT 1: - KOFI ANNAN
"The objective of the summit was to open up and
expand Internet access and ensure that people everywhere
do have access and can use it to improve their conditions
and their lives. So it's a noble objective which we
are aiming for and we are going to try and achieve.
PRESENTER:
Mr. Annan noted that much has happened in bridging
the digital divide since the last meeting on this
issue two years ago.
CUT 2: KOFI ANNAN
"In that period many people have had access to
Internet. Many people have had access to mobile telephones.
Many people have access to distance learning. Many
doctors in Third World countries are using telemedicine
to treat their patients. So a lot has happened, perhaps
not fast enough."
PRESENTER:
The Secretary-General said that one main idea of the
World Summit on the Information Society is to help
speed up the implementation of the Millennium Development
goals which include the eradication of extreme poverty
and hunger and providing universal primary education.
CUT 3 KOFI ANNAN
"We do believe that information technology is
a tool that can help us accelerate the implementation
of the Millennium Development Goals. It is a tool
that can help us expand education and ensure that
young people everywhere have access to educational
material and even do long distance learning. It is
a tool that allows women from villages to be able
to sell their produce and handicrafts. And some I
can tell you right now are sitting in villages in
India and Africa but selling to shops in New York
and Europe because of this capacity. And we would
want to expand the access of this tool to almost every
society, and we would want the benefits to reach all
classes of society."
PRESENTER:
United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. Well
in the area of
Education, the New Partnership for the Development
of Africa has
initiated an e-school project to prepare young people
on the continent to
participate in the information society. At the World
Summit on the
Information Society, UN Radio's Donn Bobb caught up
with Dr. Henry
Chasia, the Executive Deputy Chair of NEPAD e-Africa
Commission
who spoke about the project.
CHASIA: The project will bring ICT equipment into
the schools. It will seek to train the teachers so
that they can not only teach the children ICT skills
but also to use ICT in preparing the lessons and in
delivering those lessons; to also focus on the managers
of the schools, the principal, the bursar, the sports
master to use ICT in doing their work and it will
also focus on health and the first thing we will do
with health is that we'll impart some information
to the young people which will make them health literate.
First thing is to look at nutrition, to look at physical
fitness, to look at hygiene and to look at epidemics
such as HIV/AIDS so that the children know how to
live a healthy life.
BOBB: How does this initiative tie in with the Millennium
Development Goals?
CHASIA: Oh, directly because if you know, many of
the Millennium Development Goals deal with health,
they deal with education. The project also involves
using technology, ICT, which also falls into one of
the MDGs and particularly it has looked at partnerships
with the private sector and so it does fall in with
all of those MDGs.
BOBB; How long has this initiative been going on
and how successful has it been so far?
CHASIA: Well, it was launched publicly in mid-2003
and it was launched at the World Economic Forum, Africa
Summit in Durban and the success we've had I think
has been mostly with creating the partnerships because
it's a considerable number of companies involved today
- more than 50 companies are involved now. And indeed,
they are the ones who have put up the money to do
the demo. The demo involves 20 countries, six schools
in each country, that's 120 schools. And we have already
launched four of them. We know that another 20 are
under construction within the first initiating country.
And so we expect this to go on for another one year
and which will have all these 120 schools with ICT
equipment and with teachers trained content coming
in.
BOBB: How does this tie in with the new partnership
for Africa's development aim of putting the development
of the continent in the hands of Africans?
CHASIA: This is directly involved with this particular
wish to have the Africans get the skills so that they
can control their future. It's targeting young people.
Young people are what Africa is today. 60% of Africans
are below the age 18 and if we assume that they're
in schools, it means that we are tackling what will
now be the new generation of Africans.
PRESENTER:
That was Dr. Henry Chasia, the Executive Deputy Chair
of NEPAD e-
Africa Commission talking to UN Radio's Donn Bobb
in Tunis.
STING/JINGLE: UN AND AFRICA THEME
PRESENTER:
Earlier this week, the Security Council was briefed
by its members
on their trip to five African countries. Aiming to
spotlight the potential
for peace in Central Africa, the team visited the
Democratic Republic of
the Congo, Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda, which have
all had conflicts.
The Council members also visited Tanzania, which has
acted as
mediator and hosted refugees. UN Radio's Bissera Kostova
reports.
NARR: The Security Council delegation's leader, Ambassador
Jean-Marc de La Sablière of France, said the
visit was an opportunity to renew the Council's support
for the peace and reconciliation process in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (the DRC) and in Burundi.
Cut 1: In the DRC, everything that we encountered
indicates that the transition is gathering speed.
Everyone spoke of the desire of the Congolese to vote.
And according to the Independent Electoral Commission,
some 20 million have registered to vote.
NARR: The electoral timetable is a tight one, said
Ambassador de La Sabliere, envisioning a referendum
on the constitution and Presidential elections, to
be completed within 8 months. But while progress has
been commendable, there have already been some delays.
There is also concern that the elections be open to
everyone. But the main problem in the DRC remains
the actions of armed groups in the east of the country.
Moving on to Burundi, Ambassador de La Sabliere said
the delegation met with a young government, fresh
from the elections and intent on carrying out reforms.
The discussions there focused on the disengagement
of the UN peacekeeping force in the country.
Cut 2: Its support was decisive in achieving the
transition in Burundi. This was stated by the head
of state and all the officials, with whom we met.
But now that the transition has been completed, of
course, the question arises quite naturally about
disengaging the mission, withdrawing at least its
military presence.
NARR: There was agreement that this would be accomplished
gradually. The talks also covered the setting up of
a Truth Commission and a Special Chamber within the
Burundi court system for crimes committed during the
past ethnic conflicts. The Security Council mission
also noted that Burundi still has to complete disarmament
and that the rebel political holdout - the National
Liberation Forces (FNL) should rejoin the peace and
reconstruction process.
Finally, Ambassador de La Sabliere said the international
community's attention to the Central African region
is prompted by its view that its countries must achieve
lasting peace, without which they cannot have development.
This is important not only for its long-suffering
peoples, but also for other countries in the sub-region
and beyond.
Cut 3: The success of our common undertaking in Central
Africa has importance, which goes beyond the subregion,
well beyond. I think it's important for the whole
of Africa, and this in itself justifies the Council
going to the region every year, and it's done so for
six years I believe now.
NARR: Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere of France,
briefing the Security Council on the recent mission
he headed to five central African countries. Reporting
for UN Radio, I'm Bissera Kostova.
STING/JINGLE: UN AND AFRICA THEME
PRESENTER:
The likelihood of a malaria vaccine in the next 5
years is looking good. At a conference on malaria
taking place in Yaoundé, Cameroon, experts
presented further results of a trial of some 1500
children given the vaccine in 2003. Well the latest
analyses show that the vaccine reduced the risk of
clinical malaria by more than 30% and the more deadly
form of malaria by 58%. On the line to Yaoundé,
Diane Bailey spoke to Dr. Ripley Ballou who has been
working on the development of a malaria vaccine.
BALLOU: Last fall reported in The Lancet results of
a Phase B, conducted in Mozambique in children aged
one to four, where we showed for the first time that
a malaria vaccine could protect children against malaria
which is the form of malaria from which children die.
Achieving that very important observation was really
critical. What we have reported on was a follow-up
of these children for an additional 12 months since
the last report which shows that the vaccine efficacy
was maintained now over a period And that's very good
news. This vaccine reduces the risk for a child to
develop either clinical malaria or severe malaria
and the vaccine efficacy that we report shows that
the risk for clinical malaria is reduced by about
35% over that 18-month period and by nearly 50% for
severe malaria. People ask us, it's not 100%, what
does that mean. The important thing to recognize is
that severe malaria is a common disease in Africa,
somewhere between 1,000 and 4,000 children per day
die of malaria every day and they die from severe
complicated malaria, So we think a vaccine that can
reduce the risk of severe malaria by 50 per cent over
their highest period of risk when they're under the
age of two could have a huge impact on the burden
of malaria.
BAILEY: How would more trials be conducted based
on what you've learned in the Mozambique trial?
BALLOU: What we have shown so far is that in one
transmission setting, in a region in southern Mozambique,
we can protect young children from ages of one and
four from clinical malaria. What we need to be able
to do is to replicate those findings in other regions
of sub-Saharan Africa. The second task that we have
to undertake is to show that the vaccine also works
in very youngest children because the delivery of
any vaccine in sub-Saharan Africa. it's best done
through the EPI programme, the Expanded Programme
on Immunization, which delivers vaccines in the first
year of life. So we need to be able to now be able
to conduct studies in these very young children.
BAILEY: Now this is very good news and how soon do
you think this vaccine would be available to more
people?
BALLOU: There are still 4 to 5 years of clinical
trials remaining to be accomplished and with the funding
we received from the Gates Foundation.
BAILEY: Once you have done all of that how available
would it be to your average person in Africa who doesn't
have much access to medical care?
BALLOU: It obviously does no one any good to develop
a malaria vaccine that sits on the shelves. So we
have worked very closely with our partners at the
Malaria Vaccine Initiative to be sure that when this
vaccine is registered and in theory available that
it is actually made available to those that need it.
As you know, most paediatric vaccines in sub-Saharan
Africa are actually purchased by donor agencies like
UNICEF in the various countries for delivery.
PRESENTER:
That was Dr. Ripley Ballou who has been working on
the development of a malaria vaccine speaking with
UN Radio's Diane Bailey on the line to Yaoundé,
Cameroon.
And that's all for this edition of UN and Africa.
Thank you so much for listening to the programme.
From me, Ransford Cline-Thomas, Producer Derrick
Mbatha, Production Assistant Florence Poblete Enriquez
and engineer Zach Pruit, bye for now.
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