Africa's economy isn’t growing fast enough to meet targets to reduce poverty in the world’s poorest continent, the United Nations said. Per-capita income will probably expand 2.7 per cent in 2011 and 2.8 per cent in 2012, lower than the 3 per cent 'minimum rate of growth to make a substantial dent in poverty', the UN said in a statement released in Johannesburg. Rising commodity prices, better harvests and investments in rail and energy projects will help lift growth to 5 per cent in 2011 and 5.1 per cent in 2012, from 4.7 per cent last year, the UN said.

In June 2010, Amnesty International found that pregnant women and girls at Hopley settlement, in Harare, are at risk of ill-health and even death due to inadequate access to essential health services. Both their own lives and the lives of their newborn babies are put at risk because of the government’s failure to provide adequate levels of maternal and newborn care. Though there have been some recent investments to rehabilitate the health delivery services in other communities in Harare after many years of neglect, the situation at Hopley has remained precarious.

The Arab Commission for Human Rights, SHERPA and Transparence International France (TI France) has filed a complaint with the French public prosecutor (Procureur de la République) against several members of Ben Ali and Trabelsi families. The objective is the opening of a judiciary inquiry into the assets they own in France, which could have come from the embezzlement of public funds. Corruption inside Ben Ali’s regime has been revealed with the recent revelation by Wikileaks of a diplomatic cable from the US embassy in Tunis.

Thousands of children who have fled violence in Ivory Coast are at risk of sexual exploitation or recruitment by armed forces, aid workers warned on Tuesday. They are particularly concerned about children who have become separated from their parents during the turmoil following the country’s disputed presidential elections in November. About 30,000 people, more than 75 per cent of whom are women and children, have crossed the border into neighbouring Liberia while another 18,000 are internally displaced in Ivory Coast.

Egypt is at a stage in its demographic transition with a marked 'youth bulge', a period in which the proportion of youth in the population increases significantly compared to other age groups. Owing to the dearth of data on youth, the Population Council has recently conducted a comprehensive situation analysis of adolescents and youth in Egypt: 'The Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE)'. The report updates knowledge on issues of health, education, employment, family formation, and civic participation.

'We are Young African women activists and feminists from various countries who gathered in Accra, Ghana on 20-23 November 2010 for the Regional Consultation and Training on Gender, Economic and Environmental Justice convened by Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and Third World Network-Africa. Recognising the challenges and uncertainties that the Africa region is facing in the context of systemic global crises, we affirm the central role of women in the resolution of these crises and the crucial need to address the gaps and fragmentation in the institutional and policy responses from governments and global governance institutions.'

Gabon’s late president Omar Bongo allegedly pocketed millions in embezzled funds from central African states, channelling some of it to French political parties in support of Nicolas Sarkozy, according to a US embassy cable published by El País.

A significant decline in agriculture, still considered by many to be the economy’s backbone, has seen the emergence of information communication technologies (ICT) and telecommunications as the new pillars of the economy. 'We have been getting requests to increase allocations to the agricultural sector. The ICT sector, including the numerous outsourcing ventures which employ mostly the youth, appears more attractive,' Joseph Kinyua, treasury permanent secretary told Financial Journal.

Politically motivated sexual violence against women in Zimbabwe takes many forms. These include extreme violence, gang rape and insertion of objects (bottles and sticks) into the women's genitalia. This report from the Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) and Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) is the first coming out of Zimbabwe focusing particularly on politically motivated rape; the aim of the study was to provide a valid and reliable description of cases of politically motivated rape. Since this was a clinical rather than an epidemiological study, there was no attempt to determine either the prevalence of political rape or to establish how representative the sample was.

FEMNET will be unveiling the first issue of The African Women’s Journal on 20 January 2011 in Nairobi, Kenya. The first of its kind in the region, The African Women’s Journal will provide well researched and analytical articles on women, gender and development issues in Africa. The theme for this first issue of the Journal is 'The African Women’s Decade (2010-2020): A Call for Action, Action and More Action'.

Haiti on Tuesday briefly detained former dictator Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier, back from exile in France, and charged him with corruption, theft and abuses of power allegedly committed during his 15-year rule. While a noisy crowd of his supporters protested outside the prosecutor's office, Duvalier, 59, was questioned over accusations that he stole public funds and committed human rights abuses after taking over as president in 1971.

Following his address to the 99th ANC anniversary celebrations, The Right2Know campaign has written to President Jacob Zuma pointing out that he has 'failed to address a number of disturbing political developments that threaten the free flow of information in South Africa.'The Protection of Information Bill – the Secrecy Bill – currently before Parliament would cast a shroud of secrecy over the workings of the state. This Bill would impose harsh penalties, up to 25 years in prison, on whistleblowers, activists and journalists who expose information in the public interest. We welcome your reassurances that the ANC will continue to promote and fight for media freedom, yet this Bill would be disastrous for media freedom in South Africa.'

'GALZ applauds the National Aids Council for taking steps to carry out an assessment of HIV prevalence and risk behaviours among the prison populations in Zimbabwe. We believe that men, women and children in these settings are vulnerable hence it is important to ensure that the health of those who constitute this population is protected, as they are a part of the broader community.'

The American Political Science Association (APSA) and the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) University of Nairobi, are pleased to announce a call for applications from individuals who would like to participate in a workshop on 'Representation Reconsidered: Ethnic Politics and Africa’s Governance Institutions in Comparative Perspective' from 23 July to 6 August 2011. The Workshop will be held at the Institute of Development Studies in Nairobi, Kenya. The organizers, with a grant secured from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will cover all the costs of participation (travel, lodging, meals, daily stipend, and materials) for up to 23 qualified applicants (20 African, 3 U.S.). The working language of the workshop is English.

Wikileaks cables have revealed a disturbing development in the African uranium mining industry: abysmal safety and security standards in the mines, nuclear research centres, and border customs are enabling international companies to exploit the mines and smuggle dangerous radioactive material across continents. The Wikileaks cables reveal that U.S. diplomats posted in a number of African countries – the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Niger, and Burundi, among others – have had direct knowledge of the poor safety and security standards in these countries’ uranium and nuclear facilities.

Soldiers from 42 lnfantry Battalion in Gutu on Friday 14 January 2011 allegedly banned vendors from selling Masvingo province's weekly independent newspaper, The Mirror, after it published a story alleging that army personnel had beaten up people at Mupandawana growth point on Christmas Eve.

The five states making up the East African Community (EAC) are in a hurry to prepare for their common currency, which according to plans is to be introduced already next year. Experts now see how they can fast-track the process. Experts from the five EAC states on 17 January embarked on a four-day meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, that sets the stage for negotiations for the East African Monetary Union.

A new set of research studies – available now on the International Land Coalition (ILC) website – explores the growing wave of large-scale international and domestic land acquisitions and the factors that are driving demand for investments in land. The studies examine how changes in demand for food, energy and natural resources, along with liberalisation of trade regimes, are making the competition for land increasingly global and unequal.

The autonomous region of Puntland in Somalia has announced that it will break with the federal government based in the embattled capital, Mogadishu. After a special meeting of Abdirahman Mohammed Farole's presidential cabinet, the government issued a statement saying that the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) 'does not represent Puntland in international forums' and that the United Nations Political Office for Somalia should 'reconsider its position and support for the TFG at the expense of other Somali stakeholders'.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has issued a statement opposing prosecution demands for lengthy prison sentences for the editor and deputy editor of the independent weekly Umurabyo. State Prosecutor Agustin Nkusi requested a 33-year prison sentence for Editor Agnès Uwimana and 12 years for her deputy, Saidati Mukakibibi, at a High Court hearing in the capital, Kigali. The two, arrested in July 2010, face charges of incitement to violence, genocide denial, and insulting the head of state in connection with several opinion pieces published in mid-2010, according to news reports.