In addition to an urban poverty category (www.id21.org/urban), research website ID21 has also recently launched rural development and natural resources categories, along with relevant email news alerts. If you are interested in subscribing to any of these three newsletters, you may do so by sending an email to lyris@lyris.ids.ac.uk with the message "subscribe id21UrbanNews Firstname Lastname" in the SUBJECT field and leave the BODY of the message blank. To subscribe to id21RuralNews and id21NRnews, substitute these for id21 UrbanNews in the instructions above.

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=30110 refers to China financing construction of the Bui hydro-electric project. This project will serve primarily as a vehicle for corrupt payments by China, undermining such efforts as exist in Ghana to improve governance, particularly in the extractive industries. In the past this project was touted to EU arms manufacturers as a means to cover the financing of weapons/fighter jet purchases. China is Congo's (Brazzaville) main supplier of arms - and its main supplier of white elephant construction projects. I urge you to look into the reality of what China is trying to do.

The Third Millennium Foundation is a private foundation located in New York City. The Foundation was founded in the year 2000 as an initiative for unlearning intolerance in the new millennium. Its work is focused on childhood education and human rights with emphasis on supporting social entrepreneurs among global youth. The foundation is particularly interested in supporting innovative organizations and young leaders that develop new approaches and methodologies that are based on collaboration and have strong potential for replication around the world.

215 people have broken up with Google and pledged to boycott the search engine on February 14th. Find out why by visiting the web page.

In 1973, the United States was part of a global trend to reform restrictive abortion laws that resulted in the unnecessary deaths and injuries of millions of women. After the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade secured the right to abortion, access to safe abortion care dramatically reduced maternal deaths and injuries. Despite this healthy trend, right-wing conservatives immediately began a crusade to undermine women's health and self-determination, promoting conservative ideology over public health interests and significantly limiting women's access to safe abortion services. While things are bad in the United States, they are much worse globally. Nearly one-quarter of all adult women in developing countries suffer illness or injury related to pregnancy and childbirth.

Rhodes University has offered Dr Ashwin Desai -- controversially barred from seeking employment at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) -- both a short-term lecturing post in sociology and a venue for his research project on transformation in South African sport. At the same time, the heat is intensifying on UKZN vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba over his role in barring Desai. In further letters to Makgoba this week, the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (Cafa) and the university's Combined Staff Association (Comsa) renewed their assaults on his reasons for his actions, reports the Mail and Guardian.

This article, published by the Institute of Development Studies, explores the way that women's sexuality is represented in the context of development programmes and AIDS prevention. It claims that, although much sex takes place in encounters where women are unable to control what they want, the tendency to represent women as victims can undermine the power that women have to exercise control over their lives and their sexuality. Treating women as victims also gives the impression that they only have unsafe sex because they lack power to negotiate with male partners, ignoring the possibility of women feeling and acting upon their own desires.

An NGO information and coordination mechanism (NGOIC) has been established to facilitate NGO information-sharing in the run up to the next (and final) session of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights. The dates of the Commission will be announced in the coming days on the website. All NGOs interested in joining the mechanism should contact ngoic2006@gmail.com (fax +41 22 3012000) before 13 February 2006.

Every two years the Crawford Fund, through the Crawford Fund Fellowship, offers an opportunity for further training of an agricultural scientist, below the age of 35, from a selected group of developing countries whose work has shown potential. The training will take place at an Australian institution and will emphasise the application of knowledge to increase agricultural production in the fellow's home country.

With 60 percent of the Earth's ecosystems in trouble right now, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, what will the future be like in 2050? Demand for water will increase enormously between 30 and 85 percent, especially in Africa and Asia, while an increasing number of extreme events, such as hurricanes and famine, will affect many millions, warns a Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) report that looks at future world development scenarios. Humankind is pushing up against natural thresholds and increasing the likelihood of abrupt changes -- especially when there are three billion more people in 2050.

The OU has launched an International Fellowship Programme to support academics or administrators working in higher education and open, online or distance education. The deadline for applications is 28 February 2006.

Of the 300 million chronically hungry children in the world, a third mostly girls - do not attend school. On empty stomachs, children are easily distracted and cannot concentrate properly. Hunger impedes a child's ability to learn and achieve. School feeding programmes offer nutritional food as well as a platform for addressing the poverty, war and disease that can affect a child's health and education.

Rather than asking what aid agencies should be doing, this article from the Overseas Development Institute asks the question: "Why are there many and different aid organisations and not just one?" The article argues that the main role of aid agencies is to mediate between donors' and recipients' interests, or preferences, and that there would be no need for mediation when donor and recipient interests were fully convergent. The article aims to provide a cross-institutional perspective to explain the relative advantages and disadvantages of each type of agency within a single explanatory model.

Third Millennium Foundation (TMF) is pleased to announce the opening of its application pool for its 2006 Scholars-in-Residence Program. The Scholars-in-Residence Program supports post doctoral fellows and young assistant professors from various academic disciplines to conduct research in the field of human rights and tolerance education. In its upcoming cycle 2006/07 TMF will focus its Scholar-in-Residence Program specifically on “unlearning intolerance” among children and/ or youth in formal and/ or informal educational settings that are critical to practitioners or policymakers’ work.

The Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law is pleased to announce a Call for Papers for the 2006 Human Rights Award. Candidates for the Award include those with a law degree who have demonstrated experience or interest in international human rights law. In order to participate in the competition, applicants must submit an unpublished legal article/paper written in English or Spanish solely by the candidate. The Academy will grant two Awards, one for the best article in English and the other for the best article in Spanish.

The private sector in East Africa is making limited and uneven efforts to help its employees avoid contracting the virus that causes Aids, according to a new study by a Washington based think tank. About 32 per cent of companies surveyed in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda sponsor Aids-prevention activities aimed at their workers, says the study entitled, ‘Does the Private Sector Care About Aids?’

Supports social entrepreneurs who seek to leverage technology-based solutions in the interest of humanitarian, educational, and sustainable development goals. The Reuters Foundation and other programme partners will award approximately a dozen full-time fellowships, covering all Stanford University fees and expenses. Living stipends may be available for fellows accepted from developing world countries.

Rather than asking what aid agencies should be doing, this article asks the question: "Why are there many and different aid organisations and not just one?". The article argues that the main role of aid agencies is to mediate between donors' and recipients' interests, or preferences, and that there would be no need for mediation when donor and recipient interests were fully convergent. The article aims to provide a cross-institutional perspective to explain the relative advantages and disadvantages of each type of agency within a single explanatory model.

A code of practice for media organisations embracing the phenomenon of 'citizen journalism' has been launched by the British National Union of Journalists, according to a report on holdthefrontpage.co.uk. The Witness Contributors' Code of Practice outlines guidelines on issues such as accuracy and checking sources, along with payment to contributors, says an article on www.journalism.co.za

Julius Kapwepwe Mishambi, Programme Officer for the Uganda Debt Network, a civil society organization campaigning on debt relief issues, comments on the current trend of reduced donor funding for the Ugandan government’s budget support programme. In his analysis he criticises donor aid pointing out some of the negative effects of the donor dependency syndrome, and proposes that Africa needs to explore alternatives for independence from donor aid.

One would be mesmerised, looking at the aid cut trends for Uganda by some of the country’s long time funding partners. Countries and institutions that have been instrumental to Uganda’s budget support have recently reduced their funding by millions of US dollars. The estimates at the end of 2005 are as follows: Ireland and Norway– 4 million each, Sweden - 8 million, the World Bank - 15million and the United Kingdom - 35 million.

Since the late 1990s, the Government of Uganda and donors agreed to a budget support programme captured in Uganda’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper; the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP). Holding other factors constant, an aid cut means the programmes will be starved of resources. My major concern in this regard is the implication of this for the social sectors of health and education.

We ought to recall here that Uganda was one of the beneficiaries of debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. This programme was engineered by the Bretton Woods Institutions - the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and The World Bank. The initiative was a response to the embarrassment occasioned by the outcomes of the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) advocated by these twin cheat institutions for developing economies, particularly in Africa and Latin America. HIPC was also viewed as a response to the heat of the global call, under the Jubilee debt cancellation campaign, for the end to the killer debt burden borne by the developing economies of the world.

So, what was the original intention of aid support of the 1990s in Uganda, at least at face value? Was it aimed at beefing up Uganda’s savings of debt relief resources for anti-poverty efforts, as reflected in the national policy objectives of Primary Health Care (PHC) and Universal Primary Education (UPE) programmes and other sub-programmes in the war against poverty?

To my mother in rural Kumi district in Uganda, and those in the Zambezi region of Zambia and Ruvuma in Tanzania, the anti-poverty programmes have been of direct help, to a certain degree. Consequently, the no-flow of drugs to health centres due to the aid cut makes those categories of people the primary losers. Cutting this type of aid is criminal, defeats morality and such international goals as contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Ironically, the same masters of aid espouse these ideals, at least at face value.

On the contrary, I would argue that aid cuts could be justified for a different category - the expatriate donor community - the type characterized by huge salaries, residential mansions in prime locations in the recipient countries and first class air travellers. The meagre trickle down effects of these expatriate expenditures in our country’s economy cannot compensate for the losses occasioned by the resultant dependency syndrome created by the western world.

The talk of aid cuts is an opportunity for Africa. Africans ought to explore how Kenya has moved on for the past few years with neither aid nor loans from the World Bank. Government securities (bonds and treasury bills) contribute about 6% to the country’s national budget, with the rest accruing from the Kenya government’s own, generated revenues. The government has continued to fund its industrial growth. Africans should opt for frugality so that public expenditure is optimal. For example, Uganda’s expenditure could rhyme with PEAP priority areas, already elaborated upon and jointly updated periodically by the national and local governments, faith-based and civil society organizations, academia and research institutions, individual pressure and interest groups in Uganda, etc. Is it not possible to acquire an affordable yet comfortable car for a government official whose work is over 80% city based? Does a spokesperson for the government need a 4000cc vehicle to ably articulate government positions at a weekly press briefing? How about invoking government standing orders, which provide that government vehicles should only do government business, to reduce the cost of fleet maintenance? Indeed, does a president require 20 armoured cars for his/her security?

Surely, aid conditionality has been an obstacle to decision-making of African countries. The Structural Adjustment Programmes (especially privatisation and liberalization) attest to this. In Uganda for example, the lack of hydropower dams on various suitable sites along river Nile has been a domain of aid influence. As a result, companies in Uganda continue to spend huge sums of money on announcing the schedule for load shedding. These sums should instead be expended on inviting the public to witness the opening of new power sources and resources.

Aid was used to perpetuate the tyranny of the Bath Party led by Saddam Hussein in Iraq and kuku wazabanga Mobutu in former Zaire, for decades. It served to suffocate the interests and human rights of ordinary citizens. But the governance issues that donors have raised should not simply be wished away but squarely addressed. The issues are part and parcel of Africa’s socio-economic and political development aspirations.

* Julius Kapwepwe Mishambi is Programme Officer for the Uganda Debt Network

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org