I wish to express my support for you as elected mayor of the City of Harare. I strongly protest your suspension by the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing. The Minister claims that he is acting in the interests of the residents and that he has consulted us. I reject both assertions. The government refused to hold elections for the post of Mayor and it was our association, Combined Harare Residents Association that compelled the Government to hold the elections.

The Media Institute of Southern Africa released its annual publication, "So This Is Democracy? State of the media in Southern Africa" in commemoration of World Press Freedom Day on May 3. This is the ninth consecutive year in which MISA has issued this publication that records incidents of press freedom violations monitored by MISA in the previous year. The current edition therefore details press freedom violations in 2002.

The Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs has received over 2,000 corruption-related cases to date. Assistant Minister Njeru Githae said the Anti-Corruption Police Unit (ACPU) has been "overwhelmed" by the many cases and that there was an urgent need to revamp the unit.

The head of Ethiopia’s National Election Board has been arrested on charges of corruption and is expected to appear in court on Wednesday.

The U.S. and British led war in Iraq is now a significant chapter in world history. It adds to the conflict level in the Middle East. The short and long-term triggers to the war may be debatable; the consequences on health and development issues in Africa are not. Support for this view is widely shared in development circles. For example, James T. Morris, Executive Director, World Food Programme, said in an April 7 speech to the United Nations Security Council in New York: “Continuing funding shortfalls for food emergencies in the DPRK (Democratic Peoples’ Republic of the Congo) and Afghanistan and future demands in Iraq further darken the (humanitarian assistance) outlook for Africa”.

Africa is known for many good things; clearly defined and publicly reinforced geo-strategic interests are not among these. Many African countries are plagued with internal strife, famine, high external and internal debts, weak economies as well as poor human development indices. Many depend, perhaps too willingly, on foreign aid for basic survival. The World Bank estimates for example that African countries on average receive three dollars per capita from donors for every dollar of GDP expenditure on health and social development. With such levels of dependency, can most African countries stand up to the implications of the Bush doctrine, which implicitly demands that nation states choose sides in the conflict?

Americans like all humans can be friendly and supportive as well as singularly vindictive. Post 9/11, the present Bush administration is the face of American friendship or enmity that the world sees. For now, that face seems stone hard in the relentless pursuit of perceived enemies of the U.S. As a sampler, Nigeria’s military assistance pact with the US was reported suspended unilaterally by the Bush administration recently. The poor human rights records of Nigerian soldiers sent to quell internal civil unrests were the official American reason offered for the suspension. The timing however has raised the allegation that the suspension was provoked by Nigeria's stated support for a multi-lateral approach to the war against terrorism but not a unilateral American-led war against Iraq.

As the US understandably diverts more of its resources to war efforts and seeks to fund rising budget deficits at home, it is conceivable that development assistance funding cuts would be implemented against ‘unsupportive’ nations and multi-lateral development institutions.

So, at the risk of clairvoyance, here are some predictions for health and development in many African countries as war in the Middle East progresses and the Iraq post-war period unfolds:

1. Given the present high dependency of most Africa countries on bilateral and multi-lateral donor funding for population, nutrition and health (PNH) activities, many may well kiss these activities goodbye unless they willfully undertake a major paradigm shift and target more internal resources towards the promotion of their PNH activities. The alternative saving grace (assuming external dependency is considered inevitable) would be for the EU, Japan and other non-U.S donors to step in and fill inevitable funding shortfalls.

2. In the ensuing five or more years, African countries should expect more pressure to remove subsidies on social goods, devalue national currencies and promote more privatization of water, power, education and health. These standard structural adjustment policies recently repackaged as Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes (PRSP), have been shown to worsen rather than uplift health, education and development indices generally in Africa.

3. Given American anxiety about rising costs of the war and with massive reconstruction estimates running from $20 billion per year for the first several years to $600 billion over a decade, it is no surprise that the World Bank and the IMF have been conveniently charged with managing war and rebuilding funds. African countries should (regardless of their economic problems) expect to contribute willy-nilly in paying for the Iraq war and for post-war reconstruction.

4. Among the many specific consequences of adjustment policies, World Bank/IMF funds management duties and diversion of humanitarian assistance funds to rebuild Iraq, Africa should expect:
a) The prevalence of AIDS and AIDS-related diseases to increase as the poverty index worsens and the external funds which now drive prevention activities and access to anti-retroviral treatment declines.
b) Subsidy on socially-marketed condoms to be removed at source or its level reduced and free condom distribution to be constrained, resulting in condom scarcity and increase in open market pricing beyond the reach of the "common man". Prior gains in family planning and control of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS would suffer setbacks.
c) Further drop in immunization coverage with worsening infant and childhood mortality/morbidity as donor funding for free or subsidized distribution of childhood vaccines reduces.
d) Poverty-induced girl trafficking and prostitution to rise as poverty worsens locally and the externally-funded micro-credit and other women empowerment projects get less funding. Mainstreaming women into the development agenda of most African countries will likely suffer setbacks.
e) Worsening unemployment rate especially in the pool of non-governmental organisations in health, development and human rights activities as most of these organisations and their projects are largely dependent on external donor funding.
f) More aggravated drain in health manpower to developed nations with consequential reduction in the local manpower pool for services delivery.

The litany of adverse consequences is long, but some challenging policy-related questions beg to be asked. Must health and development in Africa be inevitably worse off in the ensuing years as a result of conflict in the Middle East? Is there a silver-lining for Africa in the conflict? Necessity is said to be the mother of invention and the war may well present African countries with a forced opportunity to reform their high dependency on donor funds from the North. Such funds, rather than supporting sector-wide reforms, drive health and development assistance programs project-by-project. These projects are not always coordinated with national health plans and policies. African countries would do well to seize the opportunity to re-examine and publicly redefine their respective national and geo-strategic interests, restructure their resource mobilization and allocation process and look more inwards for their health and development solutions.

* What do you see as some of the impacts of the invasion of Iraq on Africa? Send your comments to

* References
1. Morris, J.T. Iraq - Africa: Double standards? World Food Programme 2003; 7 April http://www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/how_run/ED/speeches/030407.pdf Accessed April 11, 2003
2. Better Health in Africa. World Bank. Washington DC;
1999.
3. Oloruntola, T. Military reform in troubled waters.
Daily Independent, Lagos. 2003; 28 March http://odili.net/news/source/2003/mar/28/303.html Accessed March 30, 2003
4. Colgan, A. Hazardous to Health: The World Bank and IMF in Africa. Africa Action 2002; 18 April http://www.africaaction.org/action/sap0204.htm Accessed April 11, 2003
5. Dunphy, H. Finance Leaders Back U.N. Postwar Plan.
Associated Press 2003; 12 April http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=530&ncid=530&e=3&u=/ap/20030412/ ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_iraq_aid Accessed April 13, 2003
6. Thom, A. Rich countries deplete Africa's medical resources. Health-e News, South Africa 2003; 10 April http://heapol.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/16/1/74.pdf Accessed April 2, 2003

* ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This paper has benefited from valuable critiques from some public health scholars. To them, immense gratitude. Please share freely. Comments welcome.

* Akintola Odutola, Centre for Health Policy & Strategic Studies (CHPSS)
Lagos, Nigeria Tel. +234-1-470 1255 Fax. +234-1-2635285 Email: [email]chpss_abo@yahoo.com Websites: http://www.datelinehealth-africa.net

The Government is making arrangements to repatriate Sh160 billion stashed in the secret foreign accounts of 10 Kenyans. Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Kiraitu Murungi said most of this money was stolen from public coffers. Kiraitu noted that this money is more than what the country collects annually in taxes.

Central African Republic (CAR) leader Francois Bozize announced last Friday that he would step down as president after a transition period of between 18 and 30 months.

The United Nations has said it is concerned over the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) throughout Somalia. In a open letter last week to Somali leaders attending the peace talks in Kenya, Maxwell Gaylard, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, expressed "increasing concern about the often appalling conditions in which internally displaced persons in Somalia live".

I am a senior reporter covering health issues. I hope the newsletter will help me by widening my understanding of health issues. I also look forward to contributing to the newsletter.

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Intermediate Technology Development Group, Zimbabwe

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Kibera Community Youth Programme, Kenya

The Journal of Peacebuilding and Development is a new tri-annual publication for the sharing of critical thinking and constructive action at the intersections of conflict, development and peace. Aiming to develop theory-practice and North-South dialogue, JPD's authors and editorial staff represent global scholarship, practice and activism.

A journalist and four members of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) were arraigned at a Port Harcout, Rivers State, Magistrate court for participating in a protest march against the result of the April 12 Federal Legislature elections, which the party claimed were marred by irregularities.

A new stock exchange, designed to open up Cameroon to the modern world, is finally open after long delays. The only problem for Central Africa's first stock exchange is that no companies are yet quoted, so no-one can actually trade any shares. For several years Transparency International - an organisation that monitors corruption - rated Cameroon as one of the world's worst offenders. Many commentators here recognise that as a potential stumbling block for the new mechanism.

Africa's defenders feel exasperated at the way words like 'chronic poverty' and 'disease' have become so strongly associated with the continent. They will find little comfort in this year's "African Development Indicators (ADI) 2003" published this month by the World Bank. And to make matters worse, staff at the Bank say in a discussion paper that "Africa will fall far short" of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) aimed at halving poverty by 2015.

The North is in crises. It is experiencing a crises of profitability and this compels the institutions of the North to pry open the markets of the developing countries in order to seek better returns on investments. The crisis of profitability which is affecting the developed countries will have serious repercussions for Africa's development. There have been sustained efforts to force Africa to liberalise on basic services (health, housing, education, water) and also its financial markets. Africa's marginalisation, under development and decreasing participation in international trade are regularly blamed on Africans' inability to foster development. This is despite African countries having the most integrated and open economies after having followed the prescriptions of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. The results of these economic experiments have been spectacular failures with disastrous consequences for the poor.

The prospects of sustaining democratic government in a poor society are far lower than in a relatively wealthy one, so why does poverty appear to undermine democracy? This paper from the Centre for Social Science Research uses surveys of ordinary African's views toward democracy, economics and civil society in attempting to develop measures of poverty and well-being and the possible consequences both in terms of day-to-day survival and political attitudes and behaviour.

Mozambique's main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, is once again threatening to sabotage the debate by the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, of a bill designed to introduce new measures in the fight against corruption.

Apartheid debts, in the narrow sense of the word, are those debts which the newly elected democratic government inherited from the former apartheid regime. Many of these are domestic debts, of which nearly 40% are based on the fact that the apartheid state restructured the public pension fund in its final days in power from a pay-as-you-go system to a capital interest scheme. Foreign debts owed by the public sector amounted at the end of 1993 to US$ 15 billion. Adding the debts of the banking sector, including the Reserve Bank, and of the private sector, the total foreign apartheid debt amounted to US$ 25 billion. Read this briefing from Action for Southern Africa (Actsa) by clicking on the link provided.

Transparency International, a non- governmental organisation devoted to the promotion of government transparency and accountability, has joined Zambia's anti- corruption crusade. Alfred Chanda, president of Transparency International Zambia (TIZ), has presented the organisation's recommendations on local government reforms to Zambia's Ministry of Local Government and Housing.