With Namibia reaching 21 years of independence on 21 March, Henning Melber argues that the country’s government has failed to provide socio-economic opportunities for its wider population.

Peter Kenworthy highlights the work of a Swaziland organisation that campaigns for the rights of ex-miners.

As Southern Africa prepares itself for another year of economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations with the European Union, trade analysts say any deal should be about more than just liberalised trade. A December 2010 deadline that the SADC-EPA configuration set itself has come and gone. With EPA negotiations set to continue in Lesotho in March, African negotiators take the long view. 'It is no longer necessary to negotiate an interim EPA,' Namibian trade minister Hage Geingob told IPS. 'Instead we will move straight ahead with negotiations for a final EPA but this includes agreeing on contentious clauses such as the "Singapore issues". While the parties would like to reach an agreement this year, I don’t think that target will be met.'

The United Nations agency tasked with promoting industrial development has published the first in a series of books focusing on 'green' economic growth, which entails a low-carbon, resource-efficient approach to sustainable development, while combating climate change and conserving biodiversity.
The volumes are intended to give practical expression to the concept of sustainable development adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activists from around the world held rallies on Tuesday, 1 March, in London, Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg, and elsewhere, in tandem with a worldwide social media campaign to demand that the World Bank finally put an end to fossil fuel lending. Dressed as prisoners chained to lumps of coal, activists demanded that the Bank halt its highly controversial fossil fuel financing that led to last year’s $3.75 billion loan to one of the world’s largest coal plants, in South Africa.

At least 18 members of opposition political groups are still under detention by the government, weeks after the presidential elections. According to the opposition, several supporters were still under detention while others are missing. Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC) chairman Ken Lyukyamuzi said the government is especially harassing supporters of the Democratic Party and Forum for Democratic Change and other parties in the IPC in different parts of the country.

Chatham House's Africa Programme hosted an expert discussion in February 2011 with a representative for Alassane Ouattara to discuss the post-election crisis, its impacts and prospects for a resolution. The paper available through the link provided is a summary of the event. 'As the political stand-off between incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and elected President Alassane Ouattara remains unresolved, ordinary Ivoirians have suffered the consequences, and impacts of the impasse are increasingly being felt in the region and internationally,' says Chatham House's website.

Yohannes Woldemariam draws a comparison between Egypt and the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia. Watch out for the army generals and the role of the US, Woldemariam cautions.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) masquerades as a boost for Africa's development, but the reality is that it's nothing less that a new scramble for Africa, writes Jason Hickel.

Is Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni beating the same fateful path as Ben Ali, Mubarak and Gaddafi? J. Oloka-Onyango analyses Museveni’s latest election victory.

The government has outlined plans to stop direct development aid to 16 countries and freeze the level of assistance given to India. In a statement, a representative told the House of Commons: 'We have decided to focus British aid more tightly on countries where Britain is well-placed to have a significant long-term impact on poverty.'

‘Dar es Salaam is abuzz. It’s giving birth to a novel artistic landscape,’ says Chambi Chachage. ‘Well, at least new in scope.’

Kampala's Citizens' Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU) calls for a fair and just settlement to Uganda's post-election tension.

Richard Pithouse

Karine Appy et Arthur Manet

Giuseppe Caruso

Stéphanie Dubois de Prisqu

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has taken a thinly veiled swipe at President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family, saying the youth must protect the ANC from being used by 'families' to enrich themselves. Speaking at the launch of the ANC's municipal elections manifesto, at the Royal Bafokeng stadium, in Rustenburg, Malema drew huge applause when he said democracy was not for people who exploited the resources of the country to enrich themselves in the name of freedom.

The government’s generous tax exemption regime could be robbing the region’s second biggest economy of millions of dollars, a new survey has revealed. The findings by Hivos/Twaweza East Africa corroborate recent comments by several donor partners on Tanzania’s unwarranted tax exemptions. The report says that while the Tanzanian parliament carefully scrutinizes the government’s budget, tax exemptions, on the other hand, do not receive the same attention, thus making them hidden expenditures.

The government is losing millions of shillings in accommodation bills for newly appointed ministers and their deputies. The problem is compounded by the former ministers’ continued stay in the ministers’ residences. It is not yet clear why former ministers and their deputies continue to cling to government houses when they had five years to organise their own accommodation.

The Arab revolt fever could be spreading across the southern African region with Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe and Swaziland reportedly on the edge over a possible mass protests. And the leaders of those countries are not taking chances. They have openly warned against any kind of revolt.

An exiled Eritrean opposition force has called for Egypt and Libya-type mass protests to end the rule of the east African nation’s government, which is led by president Isaias Afeworki. The Eritrean leader has been in power since 1991, following 30 years of armed struggle that led to the country’s independence.

Police have arrested and tortured another dissident critic of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's regime as the government escalated a clampdown against a perceived plot to stage mass demonstrations against the leader, lawyers said late on Monday (01 March). Job Sikhala, the leader of a small offshoot of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was arrested on Friday in connection with an alleged plan to stage demonstrations like those in Egypt.