Julius K. Nyerere, 1922 1999
|
Private security companies are a growth industry in Africa, reflecting the failure of many African governments to ensure peace and security for their citizens, notes the Global Coalition for Africa (GCA) in its 1999/2000 annual report. The proliferation of light weapons and prolonged economic difficulties have spurred a sharp rise in violent crime, outstripping the ability of inefficient, corrupt and poorly trained public security forces to control the problem, notes the Washington-based group, which seeks to spur discussion on contentious or neglected African development issues.
As a result of the weakness of many African governments, militaries and police forces, private security agencies have emerged to fill the void, providing a wide spectrum of services: guarding installations, protecting convoys, supporting humanitarian assistance operations, intelligence, logistical support, military training and even combat. While in some instances they may play a positive, short-term role in avoiding further violence, they provide no long-term solution to Africa's security problems. Since only the rich and powerful can afford private security, the poor do not benefit, and a reliance on private forces may contribute to greater erosion of public policing. Moreover, those engaged in combat at the "low end of the market," including mercenaries, often aggravate the threats to peace and stability.
Unfortunately, Africa's development partners have paid little attention to bolstering the ability of public security forces to carry out their responsibilities, argues the GCA. In fact, aid agencies "have been more concerned with cutting military spending than improving the professionalism of the security forces." In the mid-1990s, there was an average of only 2 soldiers for every thousand people across the continent, down from a rate of 3.1 per thousand in 1979 and well below the developing country average of 3.5. African governments, with external assistance where necessary, must "dedicate themselves to building competent, well-managed and adequately supplied security forces," emphasizes the GCA.
Meanwhile, adds the report, national and international laws regulating private security forces need to be reviewed and strengthened. Currently, no international law covers private security companies. There are conventions against the use of mercenaries, but most private security forces and activities do not fall within the definition of the term.
On behalf of all African women food farmers, Ms. Nagbila Aisseta (left), from the village of Zincko in Burkina Faso, accepted the 1999 Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger, at a ceremony held in New York on 9 October. A few days later she returned home to begin a months-long relay, in which the prize statue will be passed, like a torch, from one group of women farmers to another, in Burkina Faso, Benin, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, Malawi and Nigeria.
Presented annually by the Hunger Project, an international non-governmental organization headquartered in New York, the prize honours efforts toward improving food security in Africa. In 1999 for the first time, it was awarded symbolically to all African women food farmers, to highlight their fundamental role. Although women produce about 80 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa's food, notes a Hunger Project study, they own only about 1 per cent of the land, receive less than 7 per cent of farm extension services and obtain less than 10 per cent of the credit given to small-scale farmers.
"For women food farmers to get what they need," Ugandan Vice-President Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe told the awards ceremony, "policies must change and budgets must increase. We, as African leaders, must take responsibility for making these changes. As an African woman leader, you can count on me to make every effort to unleash this great river of women's creativity."
At a time when many major pharmaceutical corporations have been reducing research on anti-malarial remedies because of the drugs' limited profitability, several have joined with the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank in a programme to reverse the trend, called the Medicines for Malaria Venture.
Each year, between 300 million and 500 million people become ill with malaria, and more than 1 million die, most of them children in Africa. Malaria's toll is greater than that of all other tropical parasitic diseases combined. The malady is becoming more difficult to combat because new strains arise that are resistant to older medicines, requiring new ones to be developed. However, since many of malaria's victims are in very poor countries, and therefore cannot afford costly medicines, commercial profit margins are low and private companies have little incentive to engage in expensive research.
Under the new programme, participating companies share the effort of developing new drugs with academic researchers. So far, Glaxo Wellcome of the UK is pairing up with Bristol University, SmithKline Beecham of the US with the University of California and Roche of Switzerland with the University of Nebraska. The project, which also is being supported by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and the Swiss and UK governments, among others, has a $30 mn annual budget and plans to develop a new anti-malaria drug every five years.
In Zambia, the number of teachers dying from AIDS is greater than the output from all of the country's teacher-training colleges combined, and the rate is expected to increase significantly, from 680 in 1996 to 2,000 by the year 2005, according to a study by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). In one of Kenya's eight provinces, between 20 and 30 teachers die each month, while the death toll among teachers in Namibia may reach a cumulative total of between 3,500 and 6,500 by the year 2010.
Presented at a conference of African education ministers held in South Africa in early December, the UNICEF study reports that the educational systems in much of Eastern and Southern Africa are experiencing increasing problems due to the absenteeism and loss of teachers, education officers, inspectors and planning and management personnel. Evidence suggests that the incidence of HIV infections sometimes is higher among teachers than the population in general, possibly since many are in
higher income groups than other people in rural areas and tend to engage in more risky sexual behaviour, says the study. Even where new teachers replace those who have died of AIDS, they tend to be less experienced and less well trained, eroding the overall quality of education.
Representatives from nine West African countries met in Dakar, Senegal, in early December to map out a campaign against the widespread practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Supported by the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the workshop drew participants from government ministries and civil society organizations from Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
They agreed to develop a plan of action for the sub-region, to begin in 2000, to reduce and eventually eliminate FGM, involving women's associations, health personnel, community leaders, the media, teachers and other sectors. They also plan to establish an Internet databank with information on FGM in Africa.
Three countries in Africa already have passed laws against FGM: Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire in 1996 and Senegal in 1999. But even in those countries the practice continues, workshop participants noted, pointing to the need for an effective and sustained public education campaign to explain that FGM is a form of violence against women and that it can seriously endanger their health.
Energy and economy ministers from nearly three dozen African countries gathered in Tucson, Arizona, on 14-16 December to discuss how the continent can more effectively utilize its vast energy resources and how the US public and private sectors can become better involved. Opened by US Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, the conference was one of several initiatives over the past two years designed to signal more active US interest in African affairs.
Although Africa's commercial production of energy has nearly doubled since 1970, the continent accounts for only 7 per cent of world energy production, according to figures cited at the conference. Of Africa's total production, about 63 per cent is accounted for by oil, 19 per cent by coal, 15 per cent by gas, 2.3 per cent by hydro-electricity, and 0.5 per cent by nuclear generation. Because of Africa's widespread poverty and low level of industrialization, its share of global energy consumption has risen from only 2 per cent to 3 per cent between 1970 and 1997.
Conference participants discussed ways to increase investment in the energy sector, facilitate public-private dialogue on project financing and application of appropriate technologies, including energy technologies for rural development. While acknowledging the need for Africa's energy production and consumption to rise, conference participants also emphasized the importance of doing so in efficient ways, so as to minimize greenhouse gas emissions.
