We are civil society organizations from throughout the world that have contributed to the Human Rights Council and its work since its establishment. We have observed with increasing concern developments in the Council, including at the current 11th Session, that are undermining the work of the Council’s Special Procedures. This session has seen extraordinary personal attacks by some States on the integrity of mandate holders and specific threats to their independence.

Joseph Hanlon

The financial crisis has underscored Africa’s vulnerability, notwithstanding a decade of solid progress, the APP said at the launch of its annual report today. The key conclusion of the report is that Africa needs to drive its own development agenda as the basis for partnership and shared responsibility for progress. “The global economic crisis can serve as a wake-up call for both African leaders and their international partners,” the Panel said.

Political groups and civil society from Southern Africa issue a call for open and credible talks between the monarch and representatives of the Swazi people

AFRODAD, a pan-African regional organization providing research-based lobby and advocacy in issues of Debt, Development Aid and Economic Governance is seeking to recruit a Team of competent people to fill the positions of Executive Director, Policy Advisor on Debt, Policy Advisor on Fair and Transparent Arbitration Mechanisms on Debt; Policy Advisor on Economic Governance and Development Aid. The Team will be based at the AFRODAD Secretariat in Harare, Zimbabwe. Application deadline is 28th June 2009.

South African shackdwellers movement calls for the electricity supply and upgrading of informal settlements, as well as a moratorium on new developments, in the wake of a

Pambazuka readers respond to Sokari Ekine and Firoze Manji’s commentary on settlement. Although some see the settlement as a step in the right direction, other ask questions about the part played by the federal government of Nigeria in the executions. There is recognition all round though, that the struggle for justice for the people of the Niger Delta continues.

The Centre for Citizens’ Participation in the African Union organised, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Fifth Citizens’ Continental Conference on the 13th African Union (AU) summit themed ‘Investing in Agriculture for Economic Growth and Food Security’. The civil society organisations convened drew up recommendations on issues including agriculture, land management and food security and peace and security on the continent. Meanwhile, the Director General of the Food and Agricultural Organisation, Jacques Diouf called the growing trend of leasing or selling huge and fertile African land to foreign investors for large-scale agricultural projects and biofuel production a form of ‘neo-colonialism’. Indeed as the African Union prepares for its summit in Lybia under the theme ‘Investing in Agriculture for Economic Growth and Food Security’, analysts observe that the export oriented African agriculture of cash crops such as cocoa, cotton and fresh fruits for the international market ‘caters for the foreign consumers more than for the local communities’, which forces Africa states to import subsistence crops like rice, millet, manioc and maize especially from China and the European Union.

Members of the United Nations Security Council delegation recently concluded a visit to Africa aiming to enhance collaboration with the AU to promote peace and security on the continent. Meanwhile, heads of State and government of the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa called on the International Criminal Court to suspend its arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. Further, Richard Cornwell, of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, suggests that ‘many of Africa’s states have complex legal codes, but no real rule of law’. Meanwhile, as the Pan African Parliament (PAP), the future legislative body of the AU, held elections, it is suggested that PAP ‘has neither any tangible impact’ on the lives of Africans ‘nor a public profile to speak of’.

Dambisa Moyo argues in her book ‘Dead Aid’ that ‘no country on Earth has ever achieved long-term growth and reduced poverty in a meaningful way by relying on aid’ and that the strategy of aid that has no ‘evidence of working anywhere on Earth’ could not work in Africa. Finally, Asare Otchere-Darkothe of the Danquah Institute examines the reasons ‘why Ghana is now the subject of strategic U.S. energy and military interests which, as far as the Obama administration is concerned, has raised the stakes considerably in Ghana–United States relations’.

This Oilwatch International paper on divide and rule strategy in climate politics outlines many of the tactics used by the more powerful governments and corporates within the UNFCCC process that have led to its apparent inability to do meet its stated objectives and solve Climate Chaos.

calls on the US government to fundamentally shift US policy towards Zimbabwe to promote the expansion of democratic space, good governance, economic recovery and truth, justice and reconciliation.

This statement from The Center for Elections and Governance in Zambia, on the occasion of the Day of the African Child (16 June), calls for heads of state, members of parliament, elected councilors and public workers to be more accountable and responsive to needs of children.

African health and human rights activists have called on leaders attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting on Africa to “not use the same pie and split it between more people”, but to make the pie bigger. Representing a coalition of African HIV and tuberculosis activists, Paula Akugizibwe of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa spelt out their list of demands which includes a challenge to the region’s leaders to guarantee the right to health, ensure that it is financed as a priority, and mobilise the additional resources needed to secure universal access to TB/HIV prevention, treatment and care.

Over 2008 large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have increased. This report discusses key trends and drivers in land acquisitions, the contractual arrangements underpinning them and the way these are negotiated. It also analyses the early impacts on land access for rural people in recipient countries with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

This policy brief, published by the International Institute for Economic Development (IIED) outlines how and why information and communication technology (ICT) projects do, or do not, work for development. Rapid growth of ICTs in rural Africa and emerging economies such as Brazil and China is closing the gap in ICTs between North and South. Governments pushing ICT infrastructure projects such as mobile mast networks have successfully reduced access costs for many in the developing world.

The financial crisis could force more girls into work as financially squeezed families withdraw their daughters from school to seek jobs, warns the International Labour Organization in a report released on 12 June, World Day Against Child Labour. “The root cause of child labour is poverty”, report author, Patrick Quinn told IRIN. "There is a strong likelihood that girls will be sent into work as families cannot afford school fees and need their children to help support them.”

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has dismissed a bid by Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ex-militia chief Germain Katanga for his war crimes trial to be thrown out. Judge Bruno Cotte dismissed an argument by Katanga that the case was inadmissible on the basis that legal proceedings had been brought against him before courts in his home country.

Kenya’s ICT Board is in the throes of setting up what it has dubbed Pasha Centres as part of its preparations for the opening of the Seacom cable at the end of next month. Pasha Centres are designed to deliver voice and Internet services out into un-serviced rural areas. Unlike many other African Universal Service initiatives that are delivered by existing companies or donors, these will be set up by local entrepreneurs who will not necessarily have previous experience of ICT.

In the course of his May 28 speech to the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development, to be chaired by France over the next year, Kouchner went so far as to pledge support for experimentation with a financial transactions tax, a proposal that was quickly dismissed by French Foreign Minister Christine Lagarde. But it is still true that the momentum for new forms of funding, for health, education, and climate change, continues to build, a recognition that financing for such global public goods should not depend on the political fortunes of official aid budgets.

The lives of Maasai men and women in rural Kenya’s community will never be the same now that they have access to maarifa – knowledge in the Kiswahili language. Launched in April by APC member Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN), the new Community Knowledge Centre commonly referred to as Maarifa centre lies in the heart of Massai country and is the newest of four containerised community knowledge centres in the region.

The percentage of people living with HIV in South Africa has barely changed in the last six years, but new data has revealed that between 2002 and 2008 there were many changes in HIV knowledge, risk behaviour and testing habits.