This report looks at the appropiatness of the International Monetary Fund in dealing with global economic recovery. In April 2009, G-20 leaders designated the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the central vehicle for global economic recovery and tripled the Fund’s lending capacity from US$250 billion to US$750 billion. Civil society and humanitarian organizations expressed deep concern due to the Fund’s checkered record in predicting and responding to crises.

New book uncovers private failures leading cities to take back control of water worldwide.

A Zimbabwean government-run newspaper has accused an expert attached to a parliamentary committee heading the country’s controversial constitution making of spying for South African President Jacob Zuma. The allegations followed a week of heated exchanges between Pretoria and Harare over the timing of Zimbabwe’s next elections. President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party last week accused South Africa of gross interference after its Foreign Affairs minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane insisted her government needed to see full reforms before elections are held.

Thousands of Rwandan refugees living in Uganda remain unwilling to return home, citing a fear of persecution, despite the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) invocation of a clause ending their refugee status. '[Since May 2009], no Rwandan refugee of any profile, either urban or rural, has expressed [a] willingness to return back home,' Manzi Mutuyimana, one of the refugees, told IRIN. 'Conditions which could make [a] safe return with dignity [do not exist] in Rwanda.' The refugees and asylum-seekers fled to Uganda between 1959 and 1998.

Khayelitsha NGO Equal Education has announced it will take basic education minister Angie Motshekga, finance minister Pravin Gordhan and the nine provincial MECs to court for their collective failures on school infrastructure. EE claims it’ll be the most far-reaching case about basic education in post-apartheid South Africa. In its 582-page founding affidavit, Equal Education, a movement made up of pupils, teachers and parents, says Motshekga has failed to exercise the powers section 5A of the SA Schools Act gives her to prescribe minima for school infrastructure.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith insists Australian soldiers and spies overseas always act within legal restraints, but he has refused to comment on the secret operations of Australian commandos in Africa. Fairfax Media revealed the previously classified operations of Special Air Service 4 Squadron, raised in secret in 2005 and deployed to at least three African nations for covert intelligence collection. The troops have operated out of uniform in Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

For over five years, thousands of displaced people have been living in camps in North Kivu. This report analyses the camps of Bihito, Kalinga, Kilimani, and Lushebere, located in Masisi, a territory especially affected by displacement. In order to gain a better understanding of durable solutions that are suitable for the IDPs living in the camps, this report investigates the causes behind their displacement, as well as their living conditions and their prospects for the future. Finally, it offers concrete suggestions to the actors involved, such as authorities in DRC, as well as international and Congolese organisations that provide assistance and protection to IDPs in the camps and support durable solutions to their displacement.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of women around the world die during childbirth because they lack access to the medical assistance they need. On International Women’s Day, 8 March, MSF released a report, 'Maternal Death: The Avoidable Crisis', that details the profound, life-saving impact quality emergency obstetric care can have for pregnant women who are trying to endure acute and chronic humanitarian crises. Download the report from the website.

This report identifies Norway’s loans to Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, and discusses the legitimacy of this debt. Norway has lent money to these countries through bilateral debt and through investments in government bonds. Should a new regime, when it has been established, inherit the debt from the previous regime?

The authors of the paper ‘Treading Troubled Waters’ speak of the critical situations faced by the water sector on the strength of a process that involved partnerships, network of academic institutions, peoples and non-government organizations, and local communities. This process undertaken through the Development Roundtable Series (DRTS) program initiated and anchored by Focus on the Global South-Philippines, involved consultations, roundtable discussion, research and case studies across the country. These activities have produced both anecdotal information and hard data from the field and existing documents.

A strike by health workers entered its 10th day on Sunday as private and referral hospitals struggled to cope. 'I am concerned about the anxiety, including psychological torture, Kenyans have gone through in the last few days due to the industrial action,' Health minister Anyang’ Nyong’o said in a notice. 'We are working around the clock to address the issues and reach an amicable solution,' read the statement, dated March 9.

Despite longstanding laws against gas flaring - the burning of natural gas during oil extraction - in Nigeria, and shifting deadlines to end the practice, the activity continues, with serious health consequences for people living nearby. In the Niger Delta, where most of the flaring takes places, residents living near gas flares complain of respiratory problems, skin rashes and eye irritations, as well as damage to agriculture due to acid rain.

In line with calls from the Global South for changes in the UN governance system, a survey report carried out in 2010 showed overwhelming support for changes in the mandates and functions of the UN agencies and for NGO and private sector representation in UN governance. The government respondents to the survey were also equally strongly in favour of both, and more so than the UN respondents. Download the report by clicking on the link provided. To participate in a 2012 survey report, please .

After a massive strike by trade union federation Cosatu on 7 March, Lukhona Mnguni writes for Umbilo that he would 'definitely be feeling uncomfortable politically' if he was President Jacob Zuma. He compares the strike to a similar one that took place in the lead-up to the ANC 2007 elective conference in Polokwane that toppled former president Thabo Mbeki and asks if there is a realignment of forces poised to dethrone Zuma come an ANC elective conference in Mangaung in December.

The country’s Ministry for Coordination of Environmental Affairs (MICOA), has canceled 146 investment projects in various economic activities because they failed to meet the requirements of the country’s environmental laws. The canceled proposals include the activities of some major Western firms. Permanent Secretary Samuel Xirinda told journalists that the 146 projects canceled because of environmental legislation strictures constituted a third of the 437 projects audited by the government in 2011.

The Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) will be officially launched 10 - 13 March 2012. The new group is expected to discuss how to step up its campaign for democracy in the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. Major protests are expected in April and May this year. TUCOSWA, which will have about 50,000 members, is an amalgamation of the existing Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) and Swaziland Federation of Labour (SFL). It is hoped that the new group will enable trade unionists in Swaziland to speak with a single voice.

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe has asked the public protector to look into claims of corruption levelled against his partner, Gugu Mtshali - but he would do well to remember that this isn't the first time she has been linked to dodgy business dealings. This weekend, the Sunday Times reported that Mtshali had solicited a R104-million bribe to get government support for a South African company that tried to secure a R2-billion sanctions-busting deal with Iran.

As police and illegal vendors in Zimbabwe’s capital clash over licenses, others urge the government to address the underlying problems of unemployment and poverty. A federal government plan aims to address both, as the city government and residents association discuss a solution on the ground.

On 9 March, the Committee on Word Food Security (CFS) completed the intergovernmental negotiations of the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Tenure of Land Fisheries and Forests in the context of national food security. The guidelines contain valuable points that will provide backing to organizations in their long struggle to ensure the care and use of resources and natural goods in order to produce more nourishing food, so helping to eliminate hunger from the world by addressing its root causes, says this press release from a coalition of civil society organisations.

The need for the adoption of a West African regional legal framework on Freedom of Expression (FOE) and Right to Information (RTI) received a significant endorsement on 5 March 2012, when Nigeria’s Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, urged his colleagues from ECOWAS member countries to work towards bequeathing such a legal framework for the regional group, ECOWAS.