Non-governmental actors that are taking the lead role in e-education. One such organisation is Kificom, which trains teachers on implementing ICT for learning. Kificom also installs and maintains computers for schools and coordinates content acquisition. So far, 400 teachers have been trained, according to Mathews Kituu, Kificom's director.

Tanzania is one of a number of countries in the Southern African region that have sought to include ICTs in their national development plans. A Panos policy brief summarises a report of the achievements and weaknesses of this approach in Tanzania, and considers the next steps that are needed to meet the information and communication needs of the coming generation.

It sounds too good to be true: a biofuel crop that grows on semi-arid lands and degraded soils, replaces fossil fuels in developing countries and brings huge injections of cash to poor smallholders. That is what some are claiming for Jatropha curcas, the 'miracle' biofuel crop. But studies on the ground suggest a lot more research and development (R&D) is needed before farmers can come close to seeing any of the promised benefits.

A four-week service delivery protest in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, has spread to Philippi, with hundreds of residents barricading busy roads with burning tyres over the weekend. The protest was set to continue last night, according to Eric Notana, chairperson of the Philippi People's Forum.

A turbulent year for the world economy has resulted in pressure for nations, individuals and the international system. To aid research in this field, Routledge have compiled 65 free articles under eight themes:

- Causes of the Financial Crisis
- Financial Crisis Impact and Management
- Regional Focus on the Financial Crisis
- Learning from the Financial Crisis
- The Financial Crisis as a Crisis of Capitalism
- Opportunities Emerging from the Financial Crisis
- Globalisation
- Security and Defence in Hard Times

For Southern Sudan, the greatest challenge lies in getting off the aid bandwagon, and investing oil and other domestic revenues in building the infrastructure, institutions, and human resources needed to bring about peace and prosperity in this war-torn region, writes Rasna Warah in the Daily Nation.

The ABILIS Foundation provides grants ranging from €500 to €10,000 for projects initiated by organisations that are run by persons who have a disability. Organisations that are run by parents of children with disabilities can also apply.

Amidst persistent warnings that climate change will destroy Africa, the leaders of the world's second largest and second most populous continent have launched the 'Climate for Development in Africa Programme' and decided to set up an 'Africa Green Fund'. The two significant steps to defend the continent come in run-up to the landmark UN climate change conference from November 29 to December 10 in Cancun, Mexico, where the African Green Fund is expected to get underway.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has written to Cape Town Opera to ask them to postpone their planned trip to Israel. Tutu says: 'Just as we said during apartheid that it was inappropriate for international artists to perform in South Africa in a society founded on discriminatory laws and racial exclusivity, so it would be wrong for Cape Town Opera to perform in Israel.'

The jailed Eritrean-born journalist, Dawit Isaak, has won the Golden Pen of Freedom Award for 2011. Isaak, who has dual Eritrean-Swedish citizenship, was one of the founders of Eritrea's first independent newspapers, Setit. He was detained without charge in 2001 in Eritrea after his paper published letters demanding democratic reforms.

At least 20,000 Somalis displaced by fighting from the border town of Bulo Hawo are facing an uncertain future in camps in the Kenyan town of Mandera, locals told IRIN on 27 October. 'The entire town [Bulo Hawo] has almost been emptied by the fighting; most have fled to the interior, but at least 3,500 families [21,000 people] have crossed into Kenya,' said Ahmed Mohamed Yusuf, an elder.

Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) heavyweight Zwelinzima Vavi has denied suggestions that a civil society conference under way in Boksburg was testing waters for a new political party. 'Let us right from onset state that we are not an anti-ANC and anti-government coalition,' the Cosatu general secretary told delegates on Wednesday. 'We are not here to begin a process to form any political party, nor to advance the interest of any individual.'

Research on HIV/AIDS is on the rise in South Africa, a country with the largest number of HIV infections in the world, while Western research efforts have levelled out, a study has found. Only around two per cent of all research articles produced by the United States, the biggest producer of HIV/AIDS studies, are about HIV/AIDS, according to the study in Scientometrics. By contrast, 5.5 per cent of South Africa's research effort goes towards HIV/AIDS - mainly clinical medicine and social studies.

Over the past 30 years, discrimination has driven the AIDS epidemic - making marginalized groups more vulnerable to infection and making those living with HIV unable to access care. South Africa has a heroic history of overcoming apartheid, but xenophobic violence and discrimination continues to be a scourge on the country, undermining the health of migrant populations and impeding AIDS efforts.

Senior officials of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) have in the past two days sought to strike a business-as-usual note in the wake of the resignation on Thursday of Ronald Slye, one of the three foreign commissioners. In an interview with the Sunday Nation on Friday, Patricia Nyaundi, TJRC’s chief executive officer, used the analogy of a football team that has had one of its players leave the pitch due to an injury or by being shown the red card to describe what she felt Prof Slye’s departure meant.

Officials have called on residents of Masindi to take their children to school. This followed a survey that revealed that about 850 pupils of school going age in the remote village of Nyalyanika II are not accessing education. The area councilor, Ms Gladys Matwarwa, said residents had shunned the government’s universal primary and secondary education.

As the number of children known to have been poisoned by lead continues to mount, a UN team has recommended the government help communities clean up the informal gold-mining sector, rather than quash it altogether. Some 400 children have died of lead poisoning over the past six months, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), but many thousands more are suspected to have been poisoned. Official figures will be released only once the US Center for Disease Control has finished its two-month survey.

Carl Blidt, the current foreign minister of Sweden, admitted in 2001 that oil was part of the conflict in Sudan. But he has also been a member of the board of directors of Lundin Petroleum, points out this article on The Current Analyst website. 'Now, as a prominent politician in Sweden he seems to be interested in human rights and justice in Africa,' says the article.

With Zimbabwe’s diamond industry still shrouded in secrecy, the Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW) and three Zimbabweans have petitioned South Africa’s New Reclamation Group for access to information that will shed some much-needed light on its controversial mining operations - and prove whether any of its promises to local communities have been fulfilled. In particular, the petitioners are asking for information relating to whether communities that were forced to relocate were consulted and have been given compensation, whether the requisite schools and hospitals have been provided and whether environmental and safety standards are being complied with.

Nearly 300,000 health workers are fanning out across Africa this week to reach 72 million children as part of a United Nations-backed bid to drive polio out of the continent. Vaccinators will go door-to-door in 15 countries to deliver two drops of oral polio vaccine to every child under the age of five in areas considered to be at highest risk of polio, a highly infectious and sometimes fatal disease that spreads from person to person.