President Thabo Mbeki has confirmed that Nepad's African Review Mechanism will not review the political governance of African countries, as this was the task of African Union watchdog institutions such as the Commission for People's and Human Rights. Mbeki said that the peer review mechanism arose in the context of Nepad and would have to review "matters that have to do with the economy", including financial management and budget policy. "There was never ever any suggestion that we have a Nepad Peer Review process that would conduct the work of the commission on human rights... ," he told reporters.

Have just heard about it and am keen to follow-up. Keep up the good work.

The World Bank has budgeted about $230 million for Nigeria for project financing in the new fiscal year, which started July 1 2002 and ends June 30 2003. World Bank Country Director Dr. Mark D. Tomlinson said that basic education would gulp a total of $100 million, while Lagos State Transport Project and eradication of polio have been apportioned $100 million and $30 million respectively.

When the cassava mosaic disease hit the western Kenyan region in 1995 it wiped out one of the most important food crops in Jane Achieng's family. Africa's most friendly crop was on its way out. Like many other households in Kenya's Bondo district, whose food security relied on cassava, Achieng had to look elsewhere for survival. "It was a blow to us", she now says. Getting the Cassava back to farms in Western Kenya and restoring food security in the region is the new challenge facing extension officers in the region - more so when the mosaic resistant varieties are few.

As Master of Ceremonies at the launch of the National Movement Against Corruption (NAMAC), the most embarrassing moment came when I had to ask President Mwanawasa to sign the integrity pledge. A few minutes earlier, I had received a note from among the organisers reminding me about the pledge. Time came when I took up the floor. With much hesitation, I asked the audience to raise their hands if they were of the idea the President committed himself on paper about corruption.

The private sector is joining the Department of Social Development to tackle poverty in South Africa, which, despite eight years of democracy, remains one of the world's most unequal societies. The public-private sector initiative includes action against HIV/AIDS and aims to spur progress towards halving severe poverty by 2015 and other Millennium Development Goals targets.

Madagascar's new government was optimistic that it would rejoin the African Union (AU) after talks between President Marc Ravalomanana and southern African leaders in Pretoria, South Africa. Ravalomanana met with the AU troika on Tuesday to review the progress made by the government of Madagascar following the recent political crisis.

This report, part of a broader research project on Poverty Knowledge and Policy Processes, concerns the poverty reduction policy process in Kampala, Uganda. The report concludes that civil society (CS) actors, and especially non-governmental organisation (NGO) poverty advocates, are at a critical juncture in Uganda today. To enhance their impact on policy, they can either remain relatively passive participants in processes into which government invites them, or can opt to exercise greater agency, act more autonomously and forge their own processes.

Members of homeless people's federations, from various Asian and African nations, met in Windhoek to work out strategies aimed at improving their relationship with town councils and the central governments in their countries.

The World Bank's World Development Report 2004 will investigate how countries can accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by making services work for poor people. Until November 10, the WDR team is inviting comments on the report outline from organisations and individuals around the world interested in providing contributions to the report from their own research or programmatic work.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank forced policies onto the Government of Malawi that were responsible for turning a food shortage into a famine, concludes a report released this week by the World Development Movement (WDM). Entitled ‘Structural Damage: The Causes and Consequences of Malawi’s Food Crisis’, the report also reveals evidence that the IMF, World Bank and EU were heavily involved in the disastrous decision to sell-off Malawi’s grain reserves at the height of the famine, something they have repeatedly denied.

A Canadian construction company, Acres International, has been fined £1.6m by a court in the southern African state of Lesotho for paying bribes in connection with the country's multi-billion pound dam project.

Zimbabwe is currently facing an enormous governance, economic and social crisis that is seriously threatening to destroy much of what Zimbabweans have achieved since our national independence 22years ago. There is a serious concern shared among development actors that sustainable development can not be achieved under these conditions. The environment within which NGOs/Civil Society groups are operating is becoming increasingly restrictive.

Transparency International Zimbabwe (TI-Z) say that the youth are not adequately 'captured' in the national policy making framework. Gender mainstreaming has been taken into account in recent times, but there is not a corresponding acceptance that policies should also be sensitive to the needs of the youth as a disadvantaged group.

Police paid two boys Sh300 to implicate a suspect with the murder of Kilome MP Tony Ndilinge, one of the boys has confessed.

Three major legal agencies are building a dossier of allegations of corruption in the department of home affairs over its handling of refugees.

The Namibian government wants to sell off parts of State-owned enterprises before they drain the treasury even further, but the unions don't want to hear of it.

Two former ministers have been arrested in connection with the disappearance of 2-billion kwacha in government money. An investigative tribunal last year found Peter Machungwa, then home affairs minister, and his counterpart in the works and supply ministry, Godden Mandandi, guilty of illegally diverting the money allocated to the parliament.

Malawi has sacked the head of an anti-corruption team which was investigating allegations of government corruption on the grounds he was not familiar enough with the law, officials said on Wednesday.

Opposition leaders in Zimbabwe say their supporters are being harassed by backers of the ruling party ahead of a local election in Matabeleland province in the southwestern part of the country. Opposition spokesman Paul Nyathi said 11 members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were arrested on Sunday in the Insiza district of Matabeleland and are now in police custody.