Malaria takes the lives of 700,000 African children annually and costs the region $3-12 bn each year in lost revenue, says a joint study of the UN's World Health Organization (WHO), the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Harvard University. It was presented to 20 African heads of state at a conference launching a "Roll Back Malaria" campaign in Abuja, Nigeria, on 25 April.
The campaign aims to ensure that everyone at risk of the disease has access to insecticide-treated mosquito netting by 2005. At present, just 2 per cent of African children are protected by the nets. Wider use of such screens, researchers say, could cut the infection rate by half. "Roll Back Malaria aims to help African families create a mosquito-free zone in the home," said campaign manager Dr. Awash Teklehaimanot. The programme is also working to improve access to diagnosis and treatment and to develop better mechanisms for the detection of epidemics. The WHO report put the cost of treating malaria at just $1-8 per person per year.
WHO Executive Director Dr. David Navarro called for an increase in spending on malaria from the current $130 mn annually to $1 bn, primarily in Africa. "Malaria is taking costly bites out of Africa," he said in Abuja. "It is feasting on the health and development of African children and draining the life out of African economies."
In an important breakthrough for efforts to include women in peacemaking and nation-building, a panel of experts on gender issues from South Africa, Uganda, Eritrea and Guatemala briefed the parties to the Burundi peace talks on 23 June. The briefing, organized by the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), was conducted at the request of the Burundi peace facilitation team, headed by former South African President Nelson Mandela. The panelists drew upon their experience in resolving conflicts in their home countries to emphasize the important role women can play in fashioning durable peace. In 1999 UNIFEM supported a successful effort by seven Burundian women to win permanent observer status at the ongoing negotiations, which have been held in Arusha, Tanzania, since 1998.
Ms. Ruth Perry, a member of Mr. Mandela's facilitation team and Liberia's transitional head of state in 1995-97, noted that initially the Burundian negotiators had "categorically refused to include women in the negotiations. This breakthrough must be given immediate support to develop a wider process of engaging women throughout Burundi on issues relating to their security, their inclusion and their human rights."
Despite the pervasive negative external image of Africa, the region has enormous potential, based on its extensive human and natural resources, concluded a conference of African intellectuals held in Dakar, Senegal, on 22 June. That potential simply needs to be "developed with commitment and exploited to the benefit of the people," declared the meeting, organized by the Independent Commission for Africa, a pan-African network headed by Mr. Albert Tévoédjrè, a former deputy director-general of the International Labour Organization and until last year Benin's minister of planning. "The shortcomings and crises that one finds in parts of the continent should not be considered representative of the continent as a whole," said the declaration, which will be presented to the July summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity and the September Millennium Assembly of the UN.
Specifically, the group emphasizes that Africa must give priority to education, health and access to new information technologies, including through creating an African Technology Institute. It also proposes a Julius Nyerere Leadership Prize, named after the late Tanzanian leader and awarded to exceptional Africans who demonstrate "positive, non-corrupt leadership."
The absence of opportunities at home and growing demand for skills abroad has turned the African "brain drain" into a flood. That was the message delivered to African finance ministers in Lusaka on 26 June at a regional meeting sponsored by The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). Foundation General Secretary Soumana Sako estimated that Africa loses 20,000 professionals annually to jobs overseas, draining the continent of technical and managerial skills and increasing governments' dependence on costly non-African "experts" for the design and implementation of development programmes.
The Lusaka workshop was the second major meeting this year on ways to stem the loss of African intellectual capacity. In February, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) held a three-day conference in Addis Ababa to devise ways to keep African professionals at home. According to ECA, some 27,000 African intellectuals emigrated to developed countries between 1960 and 1975. Between 1985 and 1990 the number jumped to 60,000, and has averaged 20,000 annually ever since. Both the Addis Ababa and Lusaka meetings called on African governments to improve conditions for indigenous professionals and better harness their skills for development.
APPOINTMENTS
Mr. Abdoulie Janneh (Gambia) is the new Director of the UN Development Programme's Regional Bureau for Africa. He served earlier as UNDP Resident Representative in Ghana and Niger. |
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed Mr. Cheikh Tidiane Sy
(Senegal), left, as his Representative in the Central African Republic and
head of the UN Peace Building Support Office in Central Africa (BONUCA),
which was established in February to succeed the UN Mission in the Central
African Republic (MINURCA). At the time of his new appointment, Mr. Sy was
the Secretary-General's Representative in Burundi. 
Mr. Jean Arnault (France) is now the
Secretary-General's Representative and Head of the UN Office in Burundi
(UNOB). He was formerly the Secretary-General's Special Representative and
Head of the UN Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA).