Samir Amin

More than 100 human rights advocates, dissidents and government officials will gather in Washington, DC February 17-19 for a groundbreaking summit to tackle global challenges to fundamental freedoms of expression and association.

Education systems in many of the world's poorest countries are now experiencing the aftershock of the global economic downturn. The 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, released on 19 January, argues that the crisis could create a lost generation of children whose life chances will have been irreparably damaged by a failure to protect their right to education.

Sandhya Boygah considers herself a victim of male-dominated politics. In 2007, she was asked by her party, the ruling Labour Party, to step aside and allow a man to stand for the elected post she sought.

Even though the global economy appeared to start growing again during the closing months of 2009, labour markets showed little sign of improving. The number of unemployed persons is estimated at 212 million in 2009, representing an increase of almost 34 million over the number of unemployed in 2007, with the bulk of this increase occurred in 2009.

This report sets out to provide a fresh analysis of current thinking and practice about the role of media in relation to governance outcomes. Specifically, the aim was to discover from first principles - and without attempting to prove any particular thesis - what current thinking about media and governance is among a number of high level thinkers and policy makers from the governance, media and development communities.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Congo-Brazzaville has said it is expecting more displaced people to pour in from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. The UNHCR said that more than 120,000 refugees are already crammed into camps in Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic.

Transparency International (TI), the global leader in the fight against corruption, will release Africa Education Watch: Good Governance Lessons for Primary Education, a new report on education in seven African countries on 23 February. Despite ten years of international efforts to provide universal basic education, the report shows that poor management and lack of training is compromising the delivery of quality basic education. The report documents a broad range of problems, from deficient or non-existent accounting systems to illegal fees.

Rwandan health authorities have embarked on a campaign to sensitize the country's prisoners - considered high risk for HIV – on how to protect themselves from contracting and transmitting the virus.

A new Zimbabwean short film on multiple concurrent sexual partnerships (MCPs) runs for just 24 minutes, but the producers are hoping that its message will last much longer. The film, "Big House, Small House" is the latest offering from the OneLove Campaign, which works to reduce HIV prevalence and MCPs in 10 southern African countries. The title refers to the colloquial expression "small house", used to denote long-term, illicit sexual relationships in Zimbabwe.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the Zimbabwean authorities' repeated harassment and intimidation of "The Zimbabwean", a privately-owned newspaper that is edited in Britain and printed in South Africa.

The bishops of the so-called 'Province of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa' has issued a strong statement raising concerns about the dire human rights consequences of Uganda's proposed new law, which will ban homosexuality, and even make it punishable with the death penalty. Read the full statement below.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has recommended that the Endorois tribe in Kenya be given back its land, after they were evicted from it to make way for a nature reserve in the 1970s.

With hundreds of thousands of girls and women believed to be at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Europe, rights groups have mounted a campaign to get EU leaders to stop what they see as a barbaric and dangerous procedure. FGM – an umbrella term for procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons – has been condemned by governments, rights groups and health organisations across the world.

The European Union formally decided on February 15 to lift restrictive measures against 6 individuals and 9 companies in Zimbabwe that were previously subject to travel bans and asset freezes, but continued the measures for another year on the majority of the 203 individuals and 40 companies on the list.

From The Huffington Post, this article by Internews President David Hoffman discusses the possibilities for increasing the spread of information and communication technology (ICT), "the I-Factor", in light of recent democratic movements. He criticises the effects of the "proselytizing of Western-style democracy by the former [United States (US)] president" in dealing with authoritarian regimes directly threatened by the rhetoric of democracy promotion.

Experts in mobile communications have urged Uganda’s operators to reduce the cost of mobile broadband to increase the penetration of mobile phone-based services among people. Cheap mobile broadband is also a major incentive for the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms.

The World Bank has pledged to speed up funding for South Sudan after acknowledging that the slow delivery of aid was hindering the region's development. Government officials and development groups have criticised the organisation for distributing only 188 million US dollars out of the 524 million US dollars given by Western donors

The European Union's decision to extend sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and senior members of the ruling ZANU-PF party was endorsed by a leading human rights organization.

The Kenya Prisons Service has won praise for its HIV programmes, including education, testing and the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to prisoners, but specialists say unless the issue of unprotected sex is addressed, HIV transmission will continue unchecked.