The Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA) in Africa, hosted by the Economic Governance Programme of Idasa, is currently seeking three new Executive Committee members to guide the work of the ANSA-Africa Network.

The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) has launched the second edition of a grassroots training manual on public debt. The booklet was unveiled in Harare at a reflective meeting held for ZIMCODD members, on debt sustainability measures for Zimbabwe. The launch coincided with the tenth anniversary of the social and economic justice coalition, which was established in year 2000.

With at least 67,000 refugees in southwest Uganda, the government and aid workers are still battling inadequate resources in what a UN official described as a "silent emergency". "We can hardly meet international standards of indicators such as water, health and food," Nemia Temporal, deputy representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Uganda, told IRIN on 8 March. "For instance, we are delivering 15 litres [of water] per person per day instead of the standard 20l."

Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action, the pioneering, highly regarded South African gay and lesbian archives, invites African writers to submit stories on a queer African theme for publishing in a ground-breaking anthology. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action intends the anthology to query stereotypes, show that there are many ways of being queer in Africa, and encourage queer artistic expression and appreciation. Literary merit and an insightful response to the complexities of African queerness will guide the selection.

The concept of commodity fetishism helps explain where today's climate policies have gone wrong. In classic fetishistic fashion, "cost-saving" institutional practices have helped entrench many dangerous equivalences across society: equivalences among molecules, places, technologies and times; equivalences between offsets and emissions reductions, between biotic and fossil carbon, between hypothetical and real reductions, between fines and fees, between uncertainty and probability and so on. This illustrated powerpoint presentation diagnoses 12 examples of climate fetishism currently shaping the thoughts and behaviour of research institutions, UN climate negotiators, national governments, large corporations, physical scientists, traders and others.

A coalition of 140 international organizations has sent a letter to Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to demand that he immediately halt plans to build Belo Monte Dam on the Amazon's Xingu River due to its immense social and environmental impacts, and instead consider alternatives.

Fourteen Egyptian human rights groups have expressed their full support of the statement issued by the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights which condemned the Egyptian security forces for killing up to 60 migrants on the Egyptian side of the borders with Israeli since mid 2007.

Mawuli Dake

Momar Dieng

Many are saying food is becoming the new oil. In the past two years there has been a remarkable increase in purchases of large-scale farmland by foreigners throughout Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.

"Anyone concerned about the future of the planet," writes Professor Ted Benton of the University of Essex, "should read this book. The contributors give powerful evidence and argument to show that the carbon trading regimes favoured by the world's elites will not work -- and are, indeed, set to make things worse. But the message is not negative. There are alternatives, both effective and desirable."

Inadequate healthcare is just one of many challenges facing the 16,200 refugees in this sprawling camp in western Uganda, which is served by a single doctor. Among those waiting in one of the camp’s two health centres when IRIN visited was Mirian, 30, whose child was shivering with fever, most likely caused by malaria.

Informal traders in central Mitchells Plain have clashed with police over permits. Chaos erupted in the town centre yesterday morning when nearly 100 traders reacted angrily to the arrival of metro police who said they had been instructed by city officials to remove any structures which blocked the walkways.Many traders were unsure why they were being moved, and started swearing at police as they tried desperately to hold on to their goods and belongings.

UNESCO and the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) are organizing a roundtable discussion during which the book Freedom of Information (FOI) and Women’s Rights in Africa will be launched. The meeting will take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 16 March 2010 to explore the links between enhanced information flows, women’s empowerment and gender equality, and to promote stronger involvement by women organizations in advancing freedom of information in Africa.

Pambazuka Press is planning to publish a Pan-African activists' diary for 2011. The diary will be a handbook of key information about Pan-African history, quotations from thinkers and activists (women and men) in Africa and the diaspora, pictures of critical events in our past, information about key events during 2011, and lots more.

EVENTS

If you would like us to include events – meetings, conferences, festivals, actions, courses, publications etc - that your organisation is planning to hold in 2011, please send details to panafdiary [at] pambazuka [dot] org.

QUOTATIONS

If you would like to suggest quotations for publication in the diary, please send them to panafdiary [at] pambazuka [dot]org. Make sure you include the source of each quote so that those who want to read more will know where to find it.

SUGGESTIONS

If you have suggestions about information you would like to see in the diary, please send them to panafdiary[at] pambazuka [dot] org.

Help make this diary the essential handbook for all activists in Africa and the diaspora. Make sure you get your recommendations in to us by 14 April 2010. Don’t be left out – let us know what events you are planning for 2011.

We can’t guarantee that we will include everything you suggest, but we’ll do our best!

The 2011 Pan-African Diary: the essential tool for freedom and justice!

When times are tough it’s easier to pick on people than to fix the economy, says solomonsydelle.

The on-line dialogue Documenting Violations: Choosing the Right Approach, organised by New Tactics, took place from 27 January to 2 February 2010. The dialogue featured practitioners that have developed database systems to document human rights violations, organisations on the ground documenting violations, and those that are training practitioners on how to choose the right approach and system for their documentation. We looked at options for ways to collect, store and share your human rights data safely and effectively.

Mbariza Ntore” (Kirundi for “inform us so that we can vote”) is a media support project of the Dutch NGO, La Benevolencija, set up with a total of 18 different media houses (radio, print press, TV, Internet and news agency) in Burundi. The project enhances the capacity of citizens to better understand the conditions in which they are being invited to fulfill their political rights.

Each year between 50 000 to 100 000 women worldwide are affected by obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal. The development of obstetric fistula is directly linked to one of the major causes of maternal mortality: obstructed labour.

Voices of Dissent. Activists Engagements in the Creation of Alternative, Autonomous, Radical and Independent Media.
Interface is a new journal produced twice yearly by activists and academics around the world in response to the development and increased visibility of social movements in the last few years – and the immense amount of knowledge generated in this process. This knowledge is created across the globe, and in many contexts and a variety of ways, and it constitutes an incredibly valuable resource for the further development of social movements. Interface responds to this need, as a tool to help our movements learn from each other’s struggles, by developing analyses and knowledge that allow lessons to be learned from specific movement processes and experiences and translated into a form useful for other movements.

The Africa Initiative of Syracuse University, recognizes the need for the debate on Africa-China relations to transcend the emerging Sino-phobic scholarship and analyses that conceptualize Africa-China relations only through the limited lens of exploitation, new imperialism and anti-democracy. Towards this end, the Africa Initiative will host a select group of distinguished scholars to assess and deliberate on the nature and future of Sino-African relations and cooperation. This special symposium will be held from 8th-10th April 2010 in the main campus of Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.