http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspxUpdated everydayen-gbWed, 24 Feb 2010 15:54:03 GMTANTANANARIVO Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Tensions between street traders and the city authorities in Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo, are mounting as hundreds of recently unemployed textile industry workers compete with established informal traders; textile factories have been closing since the country was suspended from a preferential trade agreement with the US. ANTANANARIVO Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Tensions between street traders and the city authorities in Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo, are mounting as hundreds of recently unemployed textile industry workers compete with established informal traders; textile factories have been closing since the country was suspended from a preferential trade agreement with the US.

"Before, there were just a few stalls here - now there is someone selling something, every step you take," Naina Ravaoarinirina, a cosmetics vendor, told IRIN, hiding her goods from sight as a municipal patrol passed by. "But there is not enough room now for everyone in the official street market."

Factories operating under the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) - an agreement permitting some African states to export duty free goods to the US - employed about 50,000 people and provided work to a further 100,000 indirectly, according to the government. Madagascar was suspended from AGOA on 31 December 2009.

Preferential access to US markets is determined by democratic practices and good governance, among other things. Madagascar was deemed ineligible after Andry Rajoelina assumed power in March 2009 with the backing of the army, a move widely condemned as a coup.

"The March 2009 undemocratic transfer of power and the inability to establish a return to democracy have violated one of the vital criteria for Madagascar's continued eligibility for these trade preferences," said a statement released by the US State Department in December 2009.

The collapse of a multi-million dollar industry

Madagascar's textile industry accounts for about US$600 million annually; more than half its income is derived from exports to the US, according to industry observers. Contracts placed in 2009 have kept the factories running in one of the world's poorest countries.

"As lead times [expire] on orders placed before the agreement [came to an end], factories are laying off workers and we are facing an explosion in the numbers of unemployed," Jessie Andriamampianina, a director of the Antananarivo-based Association of Free Trade Businesses, told IRIN. "The impact of the loss of the AGOA agreement is very negative for Madagascar."

Robert Strauss, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Madagascar, told IRIN that a quarter of the jobs in the formal economy were dependent on AGOA, and the reintroduction of US import duties of up to 34 percent had made keeping factories open unprofitable.

The rapid decline of the textile industry was also having a knock-on effect in other countries in the region, including Mauritius, Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa, where many of the materials used in Madagascar's textile factories, such as zips, were produced, Strauss said.

Unemployed compete with informal traders

The flood of unemployed textile workers now operating as informal traders has forced the city's authorities to turn one of Antananarivo busiest thoroughfares into a pedestrian walkway and designate new areas for markets, but the demand for informal markets is outpacing supply.

"I used to be able to earn 20,000 ariary ($9.30) a day," said Soloniaina Rasoarimanana, who has been selling clothes from a pavement stall for 10 years. "Now, with the political crisis and more competition, I earn around 5,000 ariary ($2.30) a day."

Fabien Rakotonirina, a textile factory machinist who lost his job in December 2010, told IRIN: "Here on the street there is not enough profit. In the factory I earned 10,000 ariary ($4.65) a day, now I earn 6,000 ($2.80)."

The Minister of Economy and Industry, Richard Fienena, told IRIN: "There are projects for those who will be made redundant. There is a project for agribusiness, a project to create high-intensity labour forces for demolition work, a project for public works - all these options are waiting for when people are made redundant."

Andriamampianina dismissed this as "unrealistic". Few states recognize Rajoelina's government, including the Southern African Development Community, the regional body of which Madagascar and 13 other states are members.

Factory owners and workers have called on Rajoelina to reach an agreement with his political opponents so as to bring about a return to legitimate governance in Madagascar that would allow the AGOA suspension to be lifted, but many fear the textile industry may never recover from the effects of the coup-style change of government.

cc/go/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88224ANTANANARIVO Monday, February 15, 2010 (IRIN) - Madagascar's unresolved political crisis is causing havoc in its education system after steep cuts increased the island state's inability to meet schoolchildren's basic needs, bringing a spike in child labour.ANTANANARIVO Monday, February 15, 2010 (IRIN) - Madagascar's unresolved political crisis is causing havoc in its education system after steep cuts increased the island state's inability to meet schoolchildren's basic needs, bringing a spike in child labour.

A World Bank report published on 1 February, noted that Madagascar's leader, Andry Rajoelina - who ousted President Marc Ravalomanana from power in March 2009 with the backing of the army in a move widely condemned as a coup - slashed the budget allocation for public services by an estimated US$200 million in one of the world's poorest countries.

"The crisis, at both a political and economic level, is accelerating the erosion of essential services in the whole social sector, and the impact on children is severe," Bruno Maes, Madagascar representative for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) told IRIN.

"We are seeing a minimum 20 [percent to] 30 percent decrease in the education budget; as a result, funds and materials are not reaching schools. The second impact of the crisis is an increased vulnerability of already poor families, which means that more children are having to work," he said.

Many foreign donors, including the US, suspended aid after Rajoelina's "illegal" rise to power. The International Monetary Fund estimates that donor aid accounted for about 75 percent of the government's investment budget. The economic effects of the coup have been compounded by the global slow-down, and job losses have been keenly felt, especially in the tourism and textile sectors.

The number of students enrolled in private schools has plummeted, with only three or four pupils left out of a class of 12 in some instances, according to a study by the Union of Professional Graduate Social Workers (SPDTS). "The situation for children now is even harder than before the crisis," Norotiana Randimbiarison, president of SPDTS, told IRIN.

The study was based on a sample of 47,000 pupils in the capital, Antananarivo, and two of the country's other major cities, Ambositra and Fianarantsoa.

The survey found that more children were combining work with school studies than before March 2009, earning money in activities that ranged from making bricks and charcoal to washing laundry.

"Most children in public schools work before or after school to earn money to buy their books, and to give to their parents," Randimbiarison said. As a consequence, "Children arrive in school late, and are tired and are unable to concentrate."

Ando, 12, who declined to give her surname, told IRIN that before school she queued at the local water pump and then delivered five buckets of water to customers, earning 250 ariary ($0.11) daily, which she gave to her mother.

Her classmate, Michel, sold nuts after school. Each evening he returned home at about 8 p.m. and gave his earnings of about 1,000 ariary ($0.44) to his parents; his father is a labourer and his mother is unemployed.

"I never have time to do my homework and the teachers are always asking me why I am not prepared for the lessons," Michel told IRIN. "But I am scared to tell them why."

A promised 10 percent pay rise for teachers, to take effect in January 2010, has yet to materialize; educators are still getting between 130,000 ariary ($60) and 300,000 ariary ($138) a month.

"I personally have not yet received my pay rise," a public primary school teacher in Antananarivo told IRIN. "I am worried that we will not be paid in the coming months, and the [promised] pay rise does not cover the rising costs of basic foods like meat, sugar and flour."

The World Bank set up an $84 million "Education for All" programme that included funding for teachers' salaries, among other things, but the withholding of non-emergency donor assistance money has created confusion about the future of the initiative. With restrictions on funding to Madagascar still in place, $49 million allocated to the programme remains inaccessible.

"At this point the loss of donor funds could have an impact on the ability of the Ministry of Education to keep the system functioning ... threatening the future of nearly 40,000 teachers," Maes said. "At least two million children depend on these teachers to be able to go school."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88111JOHANNESBURG Friday, February 05, 2010 (IRIN) - Economic conditions in most southern African countries declined as a result of the global recession, pushing many more people towards greater food insecurity. According to a new food security update which focused on some southern African countries, food prices have risen and are still climbing in several countries.JOHANNESBURG Friday, February 05, 2010 (IRIN) - Economic conditions in most southern African countries declined as a result of the global recession, pushing many more people towards greater food insecurity. According to a new food security update which focused on some southern African countries, food prices have risen and are still climbing in several countries.

The price of most fertilizers doubled in 2008 and continued to rise through 2009, affecting the quantity of crops planted throughout the region. High input costs prompted many governments to either extend their input subsidy programme or consider implementing one.

Here is a snapshot of food security in the region, based on an update compiled by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP).


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Zimbabwe

Agriculture

Area planted increased since 2008, but most parts of the country have experienced dry spells since December 2009. About 57 percent of communal farmers received input support, but input schemes face critical shortages of ammonium nitrate, which has compromised crop quality.

Food availability

Farmers' stocks have been depleted. Food aid and purchases are now major sources of cereals. Basic foodstuffs easily available in markets. Tax-free import of food items extended to 31 July 2010.

Food access/Prices

Declining supplies driving up maize prices. Around 1.6 million people will be food insecure between January and March 2010, with about 1.9 million receiving food aid.

Nutrition/Health

At least 35 percent of children are severely malnourished. Measles outbreaks reported in 16 of 62 districts. A few cholera cases reported in 10 districts by 3 January 2010.

Comments

Economic recovery sluggish. Amount of foreign currency in circulation still limited. Provision of basic services still problematic.


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Lesotho

Agriculture

Rains were on time, but area planted by end of December 2009 dropped by 25 percent compared to previous season. Government subsidized seeds and fertilizer by between 30 and 50 percent.

Food availability

The only country in southern Africa where food production fell in 2009, perhaps because farmers could not afford inputs. Government will have to import cereals from South Africa.

Food access/Prices

Between 400,000 and 450,000 of Lesotho's 2.1 million people will need food aid before the next harvest in April 2010.

Nutrition/Health

Data from a food consumption survey by WFP, UNICEF and the National University of Lesotho yet to be analyzed.

Comments

Government income from the Southern African Customs Union, a major source of revenue, fell by 35 percent in 2009/10 and is expected to shrink further in 2010/11.


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Namibia

Agriculture

Rainfall has been erratic and insufficient. Few farmers have ploughed their fields.

Food availability

Rural households have no food stocks. Namibia will need to import between 150,000mt and 156,000mt of grain according to various estimates - almost its entire requirement of 159,000mt.

Food access/Prices

Most households have depleted their stocks and depend on markets and or government food aid.

Nutrition/Health

African swine fever was reported in the Ohangwena region of northern Namibia, affecting transportation of inputs to the neighbouring fertile Kavango region.

The report on the 2008 Demographic Health Survey is still being finalized; the 2010 survey is being planned.

Comments

Chronic food insecurity in the northern communal crop-producing areas was worsened by shocks such as droughts and floods in 2009. Namibia is a net cereal importer.


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Mozambique

Agriculture

Irregular and poor distribution of rainfall and very high temperatures have affected crops, mainly in the south and central provinces.

Food availability

Food is available because of the good 2008/09 season, but food security could become critical in the southern and central provinces.

Food access/Prices

Maize prices have risen. At least 267,000 people will need food aid until the harvest in April 2010.

Nutrition/Health

Chronic malnutrition levels are high - 44 percent- according to the last survey in 2008.

Comments

The National directorate of water has forecast a high risk of flooding until March 2010 in the Zambezi River basin in the central region, and the Messalo River basin in the far north.


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Malawi

Agriculture

Long dry spells have affected crops in most districts. An attack of army worms has also affected maize, rice, millet and sorghum crops.

Food availability

The food security situation remains favourable in most parts of the country.

Food access/Prices

Most markets have recorded a slight increase in maize prices but generally it is affordable and accessible.

Nutrition/Health

The findings of a 2009 micronutrient survey have yet to be released.

Comments

Food is available in the Karonga district of northern Malawi, which experienced a series of earthquakes in December 2009


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Madagascar

Agriculture

Input prices have gone up by between five and 10 percent but subsidies have been suspended, which could adversely affect food production. The cyclone season began in December 2010 and the island will remain under threat until April 2010.

Food availability

Supplies of the staple cereal, rice, are adequate.

Food access/Prices

A good harvest in 2009 reduced the number of food insecure among poor and vulnerable households from 65 percent in 2008 to 40 percent in November 2009. Local rice prices are stable.

Nutrition/Health

The country has the highest levels of acute malnutrition (15 percent) and chronic malnutrition (53 percent) in southern Africa

Comments

More than 200,000 jobs were lost in 2009 as a result of the economic and political crisis. The USA has terminated its trade benefits because of the political situation and another 500,000 jobs could be lost. The UN Country Team has raised concerns over the approaching cyclone season, which usually affects some of the poorest regions of Madagascar.


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Zambia

Agriculture

Government increased the number of people receiving subsidized fertilizer by halving the amount given to each household.

Food availability

The country has surplus food and will not require imports.

Food access/Prices

Maize prices stable until the end of 2009, yet remain high compared to previous surplus years, probably because of high input costs. High prices are expected to affect low-income households.

Nutrition/Health

High food prices and recurrent floods have pushed up child malnutrition levels, according to the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection in Zambia.

Comments

Food has been pre-positioned for the current rainy season in the three most flood-prone districts.


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Swaziland

Agriculture

Government has announced a plan to subsidize inputs later in 2010.

Food availability

Annual maize harvest improved but the country still needs to import around 90,000mt to meet requirements.

Food access/prices

At least 256,000 people are facing food shortages.

Nutrition/Health

The last nutritional survey in 2008 found chronic malnutrition of around 40 percent. Maternal nutrition figures indicate a problem of over-nutrition rather than under-nutrition among women.

Comments

Trend analysis shows that increasing levels of stunting could result from both economic decline and continued high HIV prevalence rates.


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South Africa

Agriculture

Most of the country received good rainfall but some drought conditions related to El Nino experienced in central and western parts.

Food availability

The country is expected to produce a surplus.

Food access/prices

Food prices have come down slightly but remain high.

Nutrition/Health

Infant mortality is high - 49 out every 1,000 infants born every year die, largely because of HIV/AIDS.

Comments

Government is working with agriculture and health institutions to improve existing food security initiatives.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88014ANTANANARIVO Wednesday, February 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Madagascar's transitional government is allowing the export of illegally harvested precious hardwoods as a source of revenue to keep itself afloat. Conservationists say the cost is incalculable, and the huge Indian Ocean Island stands to lose its status as one of the world's biological hotspots. ANTANANARIVO Wednesday, February 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Madagascar's transitional government is allowing the export of illegally harvested precious hardwoods as a source of revenue to keep itself afloat. Conservationists say the cost is incalculable, and the huge Indian Ocean Island stands to lose its status as one of the world's biological hotspots.

Groups like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Conservation International (CI) say illegal logging in Madagascar exploded in the aftermath of a political crisis that replaced President Marc Ravalomanana with Andre Rajoelina, current leader of the Transitional Authority, in March 2009.

The international community condemned the coup-style change of leadership and shut off foreign aid. The island's civil service, including its nature conservation management system, all but collapsed. According to the International Monetary Fund, donor assistance accounted for about 50 percent of the Malagasy budget.

"It is clear that the government needs the money from the export of wood that we know has been cut illegally," Nanie Ratsifandrihamanana, director of conservation at the WWF in Madagascar, told IRIN.

In the absence of rangers to patrol protected areas, and with corruption rife at major ports, the export of precious hardwoods has gone unchecked for months. Armed criminal logging gangs effectively have free rein in Madagascar's national parks.

A government decree in September 2009 legalized the export of unprocessed rosewood, an endangered hardwood, which had previously been illegal. Prime Minister Colonel Camille Vital extended the decree on 31 December 2009.

His decision has been strongly condemned by conservationists. "It takes a very short-term view that does not take into account the long-term sustainability of their actions. The result is the loss of Madagascar's natural heritage," said Ratsifandrihamanana.

The government has denied profiting from the sale of already scarce rosewood and said the money from timber exports would be used to help protect Madagascar's natural environment in future.

Critics say it is unclear where the funds from timber exports are going. In a joint statement released in September 2009, WWF, CI and the Wildlife Conservation Society said the decree "allows for the potential embezzlement of funds in the name of environmental protection and constitutes a legal incentive for further corruption in the forestry sector."

James MacKinnon, technical director of CI in Madagascar, told IRIN that extending the decree had already allowed a further 200 containers of timber to leave Madagascar so far this year, which would encourage more trees to be felled in anticipation of similar government decisions in future.

"It is highly unlikely that the logging will stop while the message being sent from the highest level of government is that there will probably be another chance to export illegal wood in future," he said.

Future at stake

Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, lies in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of southern Africa and is renowned for its unique flora and fauna: it is home to five percent of the world's plant and animal species, 80 percent of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

With financial and technical support from foreign donors and conservation NGOs, Madagascar had made significant progress in the past decade, and the protection of wildlife enjoyed significant political backing.

In 2003 Ravalomanana committed to setting aside 10 percent of the island as a wildlife sanctuary, yet MacKinnon noted: "We know that most of this wood is coming from protected areas."

An investigation by EIA and Global Witness (GW), which monitors illegal exploitation and trade of natural resources, found that in the months following the coup, rosewood, palissander and ebony - all exotic tropical hardwoods - worth between US$88,000 and $460,000 was being harvested daily from national parks and protected areas.

Their report, published at the end of 2009, noted a "serious breakdown in the rule of law - if not the active collusion of law enforcement authorities with illegal timber traffickers."

WFF's Ratsifandrihamanana said local communities received scant benefit from the trade, while a small group – known as the "timber mafia" - controlled the industry, coercing local authorities and residents.

"What the local communities gain from the timber trade simply does not compare with what the people who export the wood are earning. In addition, local people are subjected to threats and intimidation from logging gangs," she said.

Malagasy men earn just a few dollars a day for the back-breaking work of locating and removing trees from the forest. According to GW, a day's wage for a wood-cutter is around $4, while one cubic metre of rosewood can fetch up to $5,000 on Asian markets.

The extraction of logs threatens more than just precious trees: loggers hunt endangered lemurs for food, while clearing pathways through the forest encourages the settlement of once-pristine habitats, opening them up to destructive practices like charcoal burning and slash-and-burn agriculture. The cumulative effect could ultimately put Madagascar's ecotourism industry, worth $390 million a year, at stake.

GW noted that the demand for rosewood furniture in China was a major driver of the illegal timber trade; smaller quantities of precious woods were shipped to Europe and the United States for use in high-end musical instruments.

Left with little recourse in Madagascar, conservationists believe that targeting overseas buyers may now be the only way to help fight illegal logging in the island. "International buyers should be careful," said MacKinnon. "Anything containing Malagasy rosewood should be considered illegal, even if you are just transporting it."

cc/tdm/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87978DAKAR Wednesday, January 27, 2010 (IRIN) - Health experts hope the release of data showing the success of rotavirus vaccine will help compel policymakers to ensure all children will be immunized. DAKAR Wednesday, January 27, 2010 (IRIN) - Health experts hope the release of data showing the success of rotavirus vaccine will help compel policymakers to ensure all children will be immunized.

Rotavirus – the top cause of severe and often fatal diarrhoea and dehydration in children – kills some 527,000 children a year globally, nearly half of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

“It is our hope that these data will catalyze action so that one day we can live in a world where no child dies from diarrhoea,” Kathy Neuzil, senior clinical advisor for vaccines at the international health non-profit PATH, said in a 27 January statement.

Published on 27 January in the New England Journal of Medicine, results from first-ever clinical trials in South Africa and Malawi show that a live, oral rotavirus vaccine significantly reduces the episodes of severe rotavirus gastroenteritis in African children during the first year of life.

The data “provide policymakers with the critical information they need to make decisions about rotavirus vaccine introduction,” George Armah, professor and rotavirus expert at Ghana’s Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, said.

The trial results led the World Health Organization in June 2009 to recommend global use of the vaccine.

The Africa trials focused on the vaccine’s performance in high mortality, low-income settings, according to a 27 January communiqué by PATH and GAVI Alliance.

Health experts point out that while rotavirus infection in treatable, it has devastating and deadly impact in rural and poor areas where people cannot access medical care. “Vaccines represent the best hope for preventing the severe consequences of rotavirus infection,” Nigel Culiffe of University of Liverpool said in statement.

The trials were coordinated and co-funded through a partnership between GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and the GAVI Alliance-funded Rotavirus Vaccine Trials Partnership – PATH, WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

np/ajhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87899JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, January 19, 2010 (IRIN) - The best search and rescue workers have stamina, a phenomenal sense of smell, and sharp hearing - they usually also have four legs. JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, January 19, 2010 (IRIN) - The best search and rescue workers have stamina, a phenomenal sense of smell, and sharp hearing - they usually also have four legs.

Highly trained dogs and their handlers can offer the best chance of survival to people buried in the rubble of an urban search and rescue (USR) site, where there are often no outward signs of life.

The dog

Intelligence and a remarkable nose make dogs ideal for the job, according to Ann Christensen, Canine Committee Chair at the US-based National Association for Search and Rescue. Most dogs have better vision than humans, particularly in the dark, and more acute hearing. But it is their sense of smell - said to be a thousand times more sensitive than that of people - that really sets them apart.

Popular breeds are German Shepherds, Border Collies and Golden or Labrador retrievers, with trainers looking for a specific combination of talents. "There are only a few dogs can do this type of work, that have the right stuff. The average family pet can't do this, no matter what training you give them," Christensen told IRIN.

Disaster sites are usually extremely dangerous and stressful, so "a disaster dog has to be confident, courageous and agile"; it must be able to focus while sniffing through the wreckage and ignore all other scents and noises, no matter how tempting.

The training

"It takes a minimum of around 18 months to two and a half years to train a ... team [consisting of a dog and handler]. Normally, if you have a dog that has the ability, the drive, the focus to carry out the job, it actually takes longer to train the handler," said Chris Pritchard, Coordinator for USR Dog Teams at the International Search and Rescue Team of the United Kingdom Fire and Rescue Service.

Handlers are an integral part of the dog's training and by the end of it, if the chemistry is right, they are partnered for the duration of the dog's working life - about 10 years.

"When a handler certifies with a dog, they certify as a team and they work together. You develop a very strong bond with the dog because you spend a lot of time training with the dog, travelling with the dog, going on missions with the dog – you spend almost more time with your dog than you do with your family," said Christensen.

According to Wolfgang Zörner, president of the International Rescue Dog Organisation, the global umbrella body that ensures members comply with the standards set by the UN International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), international teams must pass a mission readiness test to qualify for deployment.

"Once you pass, the certification is valid for three years, but the test is very hard - it goes on continuously day and night for two days, and not more than 40 percent pass," he commented.

The Equipment

Canine-handler teams need to be completely self-sufficient for up to 10 days after deployment. That means they arrive on site with tents, food, medical and veterinary equipment or water. The dogs need at least one litre per day - more in hotter climates - to maintain workable levels of hydration. Appropriate kennelling is also important to keep the dogs secure on site.

Besides their leash and collar, equipment can range from lifting harnesses and cooling jackets to dog boots. "You want to protect the dog so that it can do its job - they are as important as the rescuers," said the UK's Pritchard.

The deployment

The first 24 hours after a disaster has struck is the "golden day", Pritchard commented. "The ability of the individuals that may be trapped to survive starts to decrease dramatically after that."

Zörner noted that "every disaster is different, but the main objective is to be on site as soon as possible. In every catastrophe there are always some miracles, and some people survive longer, but normally a person cannot stay alive without water for more than four days."

His last mission was the Padang earthquake in Indonesia. "When the call comes in we can be ready to deploy with the dogs within eight hours," he said. Typically, a call will come through the INSARAG Virtual On Site Operations Coordination Centre (OSOCC) – an online information exchange and coordination tool for disaster managers and international response organisations.

The canine-handler teams become part of a larger group of USR specialists. Once medical checks are passed, teams are briefed, equipment is checked and palletised for transportation, and the team heads off, either on civilian or military aircraft.

The search

On arrival the teams report to the OSOCC, usually set up by INSARAG in cooperation with the local emergency management authority. "The problem on the spot is always transportation. To get from the airport to the [OSOCC] and then to the sites," said Zörner.

Given the limited time and resources, initial reconnaissance to identify priority areas is essential. "It is important that they [OSOCC] already know where it is useful to search with dogs; that they have conducted an initial assessment," he noted.

The dogs are one part of the "technical search element", the others are highly sensitive acoustic equipment that can pick up minute sounds, and tiny cameras that can be manoeuvred through tiny cracks or holes drilled in concrete.

"It's a big game of hide and seek - that's the only reason the dogs go out and find. If the dog locates a scent source it will demonstrate that by either scratching, or through a focused bark, and will continuously bark at that point where the scent is most strong," said Pritchard.

"But that does not necessarily mean that the person is buried right under them - the scent can travel a considerable distance. We then work the dog at different angles to see if the scent is coming out somewhere else." A second dog is often brought in to verify a find.

The dogs are used in more than one phase of the rescue operation. "Once rubble is removed from an area and dogs can get closer, that may open a scent channel and allow the dogs to pick up on the scent of a person that is trapped. We recommit dogs to the building as we remove large pieces of rubble," Prichard said.

The rescue

"They recognize a human scent picture made up of many different scents - like the clothing that people wear ... the food that they ate, the polish of their shoes, sweat glands." It is generally understood that they also home in on skin rafts – scented skin cells that drop off human beings at a rate of 40,000 a minute.

Once a find is confirmed, the dogs are removed so that the victim can safely be taken out. Because searching is essentially a game, a find is always rewarded – usually with a toy – to ensure the dogs remain motivated.

Zörner said a dog worked for 20 minutes, because "If it works too long the dog loses interest and the work is no longer secure – he can give an indication even when it is not absolutely sure," and then rested for the same amount of time.

"We search only for live people - that is the priority." When the search is called off - usually 10 days after the disaster began - the dog-handler teams are sent home.

Then, as the humanitarian phase of the relief operation intensifies, another specialist sniffer dog - the cadaver dog - is brought in to search for the dead.

tdm/oa/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87790NAIROBI Tuesday, January 19, 2010 (IRIN) - More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalizing homosexual acts, and despite accounting for a significant percentage of new infections in many countries, men who have sex with men tend to be left out of the HIV response. NAIROBI Tuesday, January 19, 2010 (IRIN) - More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalizing homosexual acts, and despite accounting for a significant percentage of new infections in many countries, men who have sex with men tend to be left out of the HIV response.

"[They] are going underground; they are hiding themselves and continuing to fuel the epidemic," UNAIDS executive director Michél Sidibé told IRIN/PlusNews recently. "We need to make sure these vulnerable groups have the same rights everyone enjoys: access to information, care and prevention for them and their families."

IRIN/PlusNews has compiled a short list of human rights violations against gay Africans:

Malawi - On 28 December 2009, soon after a traditional engagement ceremony, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were arrested and charged with "unnatural offenses", which carries a maximum prison term of 14 years, and "indecent practices between males", which carries five years.

The men deny that they have had sexual relations, but the state prosecutor has applied for them to be sent to hospital to prove they have had sex, which rights activists and their lawyers say would violate their constitutional right to dignity. The trial has been postponed until 25 January 2010.

Uganda - In October 2009, David Bahati, parliamentary representative of the ruling party, tabled the Anti-homosexuality Bill (2009), a private member's Bill. It proposes, among other things, the death sentence for the crime of "aggravated homosexuality" when an HIV-positive person engages in homosexual sex with someone disabled or below the age of 18.

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and punishable by a maximum sentence of life in prison.

AIDS advocates and human rights groups have strongly criticized the Bill as violating the privacy of gay people, and after pressure from several international leaders, President Yoweri Museveni has distanced himself from it, reducing the likelihood that it will be passed in its current form.

Nevertheless, a local tabloid, The Red Pepper, routinely releases lists of alleged Ugandan homosexuals.

Tanzania - In May 2009, a local newspaper, Ijumaa, featured a photograph of two men in bed together with the headline, "Caught Live!" A report by several gay rights groups http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/ngos/LGBT_Tanzania96.pdf noted that the accompanying article included derogatory and discriminatory language about men who have sex with men.

An Ijumaa reporter, accompanied by three policemen, had followed the men from the street into a private hotel, where they had invaded their room and taken the photographs that later appeared in the newspaper.

According to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/article/takeaction/resourcecenter/993.html, more than 40 gay and lesbian activists in Tanzania were arrested on charges of debauchery in 2009.

Burundi - In April 2009, President Pierre Nkurunziza signed into law a bill criminalizing homosexuality for the first time in Burundi's history. Anyone found guilty of engaging in homosexual activity faces imprisonment for two to three years and a fine of up to US$80.

Paradoxically, other articles in the same legislation take steps to protect human rights, including abolition of the death penalty and the outlawing of torture, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Senegal - In December 2008, the Senegalese government arrested nine men involved in providing HIV prevention, care and treatment services to the country's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82453.

The men were later sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of "membership of a criminal organization and engaging in acts against the order of nature", but in April 2009 an appeals court overturned this verdict http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84064.

Arrests for homosexual activity are not uncommon in Senegal; in August 2008 two men were arrested at their home in Dakar and charged with "homosexual marriage" and acts against the order of nature. According to rights groups, a total of 30 men were arrested on charges of homosexuality in 2009.

Egypt - In May 2008, a court in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, convicted five HIV-positive men of "habitual practice of debauchery", a phrase that encompasses consensual sexual acts between men.

The convictions were part of a crackdown on people living with HIV/AIDS, during which 12 men suspected of being HIV-positive were arrested; while in custody, they were subjected to HIV tests and anal examinations to determine whether they had had sex with other men. Earlier in the crackdown, in January 2008, four HIV-positive men sentenced to one-year prison terms for debauchery.

Gambia - In May 2008, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh gave gay people 24 hours' notice to leave the country. He promised stricter laws on homosexuality than in Iran, and threatened to behead any gay people discovered in the country.

Jammeh's statements were thought to have been in response to a number of Senegalese gay men fleeing across the border into Gambia to escape persecution in their own country.

South Africa - In April 2008, Eudy Simelane, the openly gay star of South Africa's Banyana Banyana national female football squad, was found murdered in a park on the outskirts of Johannesburg. She had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed to death.

Rights groups said the attack was likely to have been an incident of "corrective rape", in which men rape lesbian women on the pretext of trying to "cure" them of their sexual orientation.

Since then there has been a spate of similar attacks http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85268 on lesbian women in the country, but few ever reach the courts. According to a 2009 report by the NGO, ActionAid, there have been 31 recorded murders of lesbian women since 1998, with just three cases reaching the courts, and only one conviction.

Cameroon - In January 2008, a Cameroonian court sentenced three men accused of homosexuality to six months' hard labour. Homosexual acts are punishable by up to five years in prison, and gay men are routinely imprisoned.

Although the penal code does not give the state the power to arraign someone unless the person was caught in flagrante delicto, rights groups say people suspected of being gay are often arrested in public restaurants and bars.

Nigeria - In August 2007, 18 men - all allegedly cross-dressers - were arrested in Bauchi State, a predominantly Muslim state in the north of the country; they were charged with sodomy, the charges were later changed to vagrancy or idleness. The men were eventually freed on bail, but in March 2009 the case was still pending.

kr/kn/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87793JOHANNESBURG Thursday, January 07, 2010 (IRIN) - A tropical cyclone will “probably” hit Madagascar on 14 January, but a shortfall in donor funding means the enormous Indian Ocean island may be more vulnerable than usual. JOHANNESBURG Thursday, January 07, 2010 (IRIN) - A tropical cyclone will “probably” hit Madagascar on 14 January, but a funding shortfall means the enormous Indian Ocean island maybe more vulnerable than usual.

According to Madagascar’s Meteorological office, “tropical cyclone Edzani is progressively intensifying in the Indian Ocean … 3,100 km off the coast … [and] will probably make landfall on 14 January 2010.”

Madagascar lies in the main path of storms crossing the western Indian Ocean and is battered by cyclones every year; five have struck it in the last two years, affecting over 463,000 people.

The UN Country Team raised concern over the approaching cyclone season in November 2009, when it appealed for US$6 million in urgent funding to pre-position emergency supplies in the most vulnerable regions of the country.

But “we didn’t get anything. There has been interest, but no money,” said Pierre Bry, Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Madagascar.

“Unfortunately it makes sense given the political situation," he told IRIN.

Political unrest that began in January 2009 ousted President Marc Ravalomanana and replaced him with his rival, Andy Rajoelina, who was supported by sections of the military. The resulting disengagement by international donors has had an impact on aid flows.

During the past year, humanitarian agencies have exhausted their emergency stocks in responding to drought in the south, and cyclones that hit the island in early 2009. According to a November 2009 UN Country Team statement, "losses of supplies related to the political crisis" have not been replaced.

Bry said the capital, Antananarivo, was particularly vulnerable to flooding during cyclone season. If a serious one hit the island "up to 20,000 people could be at risk," he noted.

Dia Styvanley Soa, spokeswoman for Madagascar’s disaster response agency, BNGRC, was more optimistic. “Madagascar will be ready,” she told IRIN.

“Instead of prepositioning food items in regions, this year, we will buy directly what will be needed in the affected regions,” Soa noted. It was not clear whether the government had the necessary funds to purchase the food, shelter and emergency items or whether they would be available locally.

According to John Uniack Davis, Country Director of the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), an international aid agency, "the probability of any specific storm system hitting Madagascar is relatively low, but the cumulative probability of a direct hit in January or February is relatively high."

"After last year’s relatively light season, the various emergency actors here fear that this year’s season could be worse. As Edzani approaches and the path becomes clearer, we will have a better sense of the probability of a direct hit on Madagascar’s coast," he added.

Cyclone season usually starts in December and runs through April, affecting some of the poorest regions of the country; around 70 percent of Madagascar's people live on less than a dollar a day.

tdm/oa http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87663DAKAR Tuesday, December 08, 2009 (IRIN) - African health experts are calling on governments to vaccinate all children against rotavirus, to end an “unacceptable” yet preventable situation in which the virus kills some 1,400 children in developing countries daily.DAKAR Tuesday, December 08, 2009 (IRIN) - African health experts are calling on governments to vaccinate children against rotavirus, to end an “unacceptable” yet preventable situation in which the virus kills some 1,400 children in developing countries daily.

The West African Rotavirus Advisory Board on 3 December held a meeting in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, as part of efforts to advance the vaccine’s use after the World Health Organization recommended its inclusion in national immunization programmes worldwide.

George Armah, professor and rotavirus expert at Ghana’s Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, told IRIN the evidence is clear and must be used to push policymakers to act. “Rotavirus is one of the major causes of diarrhoea deaths and hospital admissions. There are vaccines that are very effective and can radically reduce mortality and morbidity from rotavirus infection.”

Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrhoea and dehydration in children, with some 527,000 deaths of under-fives per year – 85 percent of them in Africa and Asia, according to WHO.

Following a recent rotavirus meeting in Kenya, a number of countries in southern and eastern Africa applied to the GAVI Alliance – the global public-private partnership to increase vaccine access – for assistance in introducing rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccine.

Call to action

The Dakar meeting – financed by GlaxoSmithKline, makers of one of two rotavirus vaccines – was in part a chance to present to West African countries a “call to action” from the Kenya meeting; the document says governments must immediately recognize the magnitude of the rotavirus problem and make vaccination against the virus a priority.

GAVI supports the introduction of vaccines in eligible countries, with a commitment that the country will gradually increase its contribution.

Armah said health officials are still learning about rotavirus. He said the key is making them understand the toll rotavirus takes and the importance of vaccination.

“It’s largely a question of ignorance. I’ve been to meetings where ministers have said, ‘We do not have a rotavirus problem in our country.’ But then we show them evidence and say, ‘Yes, there is a problem’.”

Health experts in West Africa say while rotavirus infection is treatable, for many people in rural areas who cannot easily access medical care, vaccination is the most effective way to avoid severe cases and deaths.

Caught early, rotavirus infection can generally be treated with oral rehydration solutions, according to a 3 December op-ed by Armah and Ousmane Ndiaye, paediatrics professor at the University of Dakar and head of paediatrics at Abass Ndao hospital.

“The main problem is that despite this simple treatment many children in West Africa continue to die of the illness. It is distressing for a mother to lose a child if a preventive measure like a vaccine is available.”

Armah and Ndiaye estimate that by 2025 the vaccine could prevent worldwide 100 million hospital stays and 2.5 million deaths.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87363NAIROBI Thursday, November 26, 2009 (IRIN) - From the first goat sales about five years ago, creative NGO fundraisers have expanded a range of animal and farm-related "gifts" for sale online to benefit developing countries. NAIROBI Thursday, November 26, 2009 (IRIN) -  From the first goat sales about five years ago [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4078527.stm], creative NGO fundraisers have expanded a range of animal and farm-related "gifts" for sale online to benefit developing countries.
 
The approach has its detractors and not all NGOs have joined the trend. IRC [www.theirc.org], which is promoting its gift catalogue this week, for example, offers no living creatures, sticking to school supplies and mosquito nets.
 
Important: Inclusion in the list below does not imply endorsement by IRIN, nor should exclusion be interpreted as significant. Buyer beware and always read the fine print. The NGOs may not literally spend the funds on the purchase of an individual animal.  
 
Nonetheless, as the Christmas fund-raising season picks up, IRIN has rounded up a few options just to give a whiff of the livestock-related fundraising available. If you have found more "funusual" (or outrageous) charity gift ideas, drop us a line at feedback and we'll make a list  [LINK].
 
Manure: (Oxfam Australia, from AUS$15) - [http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com.au/Product.php?productid=103] (promotional video here: http://www.oxfamamericaunwrapped.com/beep.html)
 
Sheep: (Save the Children, $30) [https://secure.savethechildren.org/01/web_cat_d_1_sheep]
 
Goat: (ADRA, $70) [https://secure2.convio.net/ccadra/site/SPageNavigator/giftcatalog10]
 
Pig: (World Vision Spain, EUR60) [http://worldvision.es/colaborar_regalos_pedido.php?action=add&id_regalo=4]
 
Alpaca: (Practical Action, £50) [http://www.practicalpresents.org/view_product.php?product_id=9]
 
Llama: (Project Concern, $100) [https://secure2.convio.net/pci/site/Ecommerce/692413658?VIEW_PRODUCT=true&product_id=1121&store_id=1141]
 
Cow: (Send a Cow, £125) [http://www.sendacowgifts.org.uk/mumstheword]
 
Camel: (£230, Muslim Hands) [http://www.muslimhands.org/en/gb/great_charity_gifts/select_gift/?gift=G1]
 
And finally:
 
Fermented cow's urine: (Farm Africa, £20) [http://www.farmafricapresents.org.uk/buy/item/9]
 
28 Farm Animals (2 sheep, 2 cows, 2 goats, 2 pigs and 20 chickens): ($2,000, World Vision) [http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?section=10375&item=92]
 
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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87197JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 25, 2009 (IRIN) - Two near misses by huge storms rolling in from the Indian Ocean have signalled an early start to Madagascar's cyclone season, prompting the humanitarian community to appeal for "urgent" preparedness funding. Meteorologists forecast that four to five intense cyclones could strike Madagascar during the 2009/10 season. JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 25, 2009 (IRIN) - Two near misses by huge storms rolling in from the Indian Ocean have signalled an early start to Madagascar's cyclone season, prompting the humanitarian community to appeal for "urgent" preparedness funding. Meteorologists forecast that four to five intense cyclones could strike Madagascar during the 2009/10 season.

The approaching Tropical Storm Bongani, hot on the heels of Cyclone Anja in mid-November, provided a wake-up call for aid agencies and the partly paralyzed national disaster management authority.

A UN Country Team statement on 25 November "raised concern over the approaching cyclone season that could seriously affect the lives of up to 600,000 people", and appealed for US$6 million "to be used for pre-positioning stocks in the most vulnerable regions of the country".

The concept of preparedness is not new to Madagascar. The island lies in the main path of storms crossing the Western Indian Ocean and is battered by cyclones every year; five have struck it in the last two years, affecting over 463,000 people.

Cyclone season usually starts in December and runs through April, hitting some of the poorest regions in the country - around 70 percent of Madagascar's people live on less than a dollar a day and coping mechanisms are quickly overwhelmed.

The focus had started shifting from a reactive approach - limited to response and recovery after an event - to a more comprehensive approach centred on preparedness.

"We can see the payoff of prepositioning stocks ahead of the cyclone season. This has made it possible to help victims immediately," IRIN quoted Colonel Jean Rakotomalala, then Executive Secretary of the disaster response agency, BNGRC, who stressed the importance of recent investments in disaster risk reduction in January 2009.

Political storms

Madagascar has also been reeling from a political storm of its own making, putting a halt to progress in disaster preparedness. The infighting that began in January 2009 ousted President Marc Ravalomanana and replaced him with his rival, Andy Rajoelina, but resulted in international donor disengagement that still holds the island hostage.

During the past year, humanitarian agencies have exhausted their stockpiles in responding to drought in the south, cyclones that hit the island in early 2009, and, according to the UN Country Team statement, as a result of "losses of supplies related to the political crisis".

BNGRC spokeswoman Dia Styvanley Soa said, "Maybe because of the political crisis ... the budget allocated to BNGRC is not sufficient." Among aid agencies also, "The problem is lack of stock," Pierre Bry, Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Madagascar, told IRIN.

To be able to ensure an initial response in the event of a cyclone, aid agencies and the BNGRC require tarpaulins, medicines, water purification tablets and health, school and recreational kits, among other items. "We have small amounts. They [BNGRC] don't have much," Bry noted.

In the previous two cyclone seasons, "We were able to stockpile food and emergency items in the 22 regions. This year we are still waiting for money for this activity, and the problem is that many of our hangars were looted during this [political] crisis," said Soa.

Out of touch

Aid agencies have found it difficult to engage their Malagasy government counterparts because the international community could not fully recognise Rajoelina's self-appointed administration, the Higher Transitional Authority.

"Because of the crisis we had not been able to work together," OCHA's Bry said, adding that it was now important to bring together government and humanitarian community coordination systems.

There has been some re-engagement with the BNGRC in recent weeks, but various staff members in the organization had been replaced. "The quick rotation of [key] people does not help," Bry commented.

Soa noted that "partnership with the international community has been renewed recently - we've just finished a workshop focused on updating the national contingency plan with our partners, UN agencies, International NGOs."

Out of reach

Christopher Metcalf, the interim UN Resident Coordinator in Madagascar, commented: "The tragedy is that [cyclones are] an annual event, and it appears that each year the severity and impact is potentially greater."

Moreover, poor infrastructure means that once a cyclone hits it could take weeks to reach communities left isolated and at greater risk of hunger and disease. "Investments in disaster risk reduction programmes can save lives and help communities recover more quickly," he said.

Flexible, predictable funding mechanisms are critical to a country like Madagascar, which has to deal with recurring emergencies like cyclones and droughts. "It is urgent that resources be mobilized now. We urge the international community not to ignore the plight of the Malagasy people," Metcalf said.

BNGRC's Soa agreed: "Is BNGRC ready to respond? All I can tell you is that our capacity is very low. For sure, we will need the help of all our partners."

In the meantime, Madagascar has been doing what it can to prepare. Soa said an information and sensitization campaign was underway. "This year, we will try, for the first time, a new system of warning people: we will send out cyclone alerts via sms [text messages]."

tdm/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87193DUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.DUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November [http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak340e/ak340e00.htm], published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.

The report highlights a contradiction: world cereal production is at its second-highest level ever, yet food prices remain very high. It identifies 77 countries that are both low-income and food deficit.

In East Africa, cereal prices range from 68 percent to 177 percent over the 2007 numbers. In southern Africa, prices are 58-200 percent higher than in 2007, and in most of Asia prices are up 40-70 percent. Since most low-income food deficit countries are food importers, they lose far more from high prices than they gain from steady crop production.

Hunger, in most cases, is caused by lack of money rather than a shortage of food production, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). [http://www.wfp.org/hunger/causes] In 2008 the number of undernourished people in the world increased by 40 million, despite record harvests. [http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/8836/icode/]

The new FAO report suggests that 2009 is likely to see a similar increase in hunger.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87006JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - A move by donor countries to provide aid agencies with cash, allowing them the flexibility to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country and save on transport and warehousing costs, is not addressing nutritional needs, according to a new report.JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - A move by donor countries to provide aid agencies with cash, allowing them the flexibility to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country and save on transport and warehousing costs, is also not addressing nutritional needs, according to a new report.

Food aid should include foodstuffs fortified with micronutrients and animal protein. "The emphasis is more on quantity rather than quality, and rarely does the food aid target the most vulnerable groups: children under five, pregnant women and lactating mothers," said Stéphane Doyon, of the international medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a co-author of the organization's report, Malnutrition: how much is being spent?

"Barely 1.7 percent of interventions reported as 'development food aid/food security' and 'emergency food aid' between 2004 and 2007 actually address nutrition needs," he said.

The MSF report was published ahead of a new UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, which points out that the level of child and maternal undernutrition "remains unacceptable" throughout the world; 90 percent of the developing world's chronically undernourished or stunted children live in Asia and Africa.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86993NAIROBI Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Encouraging the use of traditional African herbal medicines could prevent some of the one million malarial deaths on the continent, according to specialists attending a conference www.mimalaria.org/pamc in Nairobi. Many poor communities, especially in rural settings, cannot afford modern malarial drugs and many people die due to inaccessibility of treatment.NAIROBI Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Encouraging the use of traditional African herbal medicines could prevent some of the one million malarial deaths on the continent, according to specialists attending a conference www.mimalaria.org/pamc in Nairobi. Many poor communities, especially in rural settings, cannot afford modern malarial drugs and many people die due to inaccessibility of treatment.

“Malaria kills many people in Africa, both children and adults, despite the availability of free treatment in certain African countries. While it is true many governments in Africa, with development partners, give free pediatric treatment for malaria, many still cannot access this facilities and resort to home treatment,” says Merlin Wilcox of the Research Initiative on Traditional Antimalarial Methods and the University of Oxford.

Some specialists at the ongoing 5th MIM Pan African Malaria Conference in Nairobi said medicines drawn from plants that abound in the continent could be utilized to save many people, especially those in poor settings, from malaria.

BN Prakash, a researcher with the Foundation for the Revitalization of Local Health Traditions, based in Bangalore, said Africa could draw on experiences in India where medicinal plants have been used with great success in the control of malaria-related deaths.

“Research in India has shown a 5-10 times reduction in malaria-related deaths among communities who use traditional medicinal plants like Guduchi [tinospore coeditdia], a local medicinal plant found in India,” said Prakash.

Preserving traditional knowledge

Another speaker, Gemma Burford of the Global Initiative for Traditional Systems of Health, said while there had been increased cases of loss of knowledge about traditional medicinal plants, student-led research could be used to preserve knowledge and create a database on these plants.

“When we carried out research involving school children in rural Tanzania about traditional Maasai medicines, we found out that 48 percent of these children already had knowledge about these plants. We used [this knowledge] to create a database for the purposes of preserving the knowledge and these plants too,” said Burford.

“It is important to note that many malarial drugs are still bought from commercial pharmaceutical shops and not many of them are that cheap. Costs also involve how easy or not it is to access these government facilities, especially in Africa where medical facilities are far-flung,” Burford said.

Educating the youth

Speakers at the conference called on African governments to introduce educational programmes that would teach the younger generations about the traditional methods of treating malaria and other diseases plaguing the continent.

“The biggest obstacle to use of traditional medicines is lack of interest from the youth and teaching them about these medicines would be the best way to let them appreciate their values. Evangelical churches and development agencies must also be persuaded to stop fighting traditional African medicine because modernity and tradition can be married to provide a formidable force against malaria,” added Burford.

Effectiveness and dangers

Doumbo Ogobara, director of the Mali Malaria Research and Training Centre, and a lecturer at the University of Bamako, said there should be more research to ensure the effectiveness of traditional medicinal plants in the treatment and management of malaria.

“More research must be directed towards finding out the effectiveness of these traditional medicinal plants and their safety and efficacy because initiatives on using them could be counter-productive if this is not done. More emphasis therefore must be laid on research for plant-based prophylactics for malaria,” said Ogobara.

Mahamadou Sissoko of the Centre called for caution in taking the traditional medicinal route, arguing that many malaria-related deaths have occurred even among communities that have relied heavily on traditional plants for treatment.

“People are dying even in places where there is still widespread use of traditional medicinal plants and unless the efficacy of a traditional plant on malarial treatment can be ascertained through vigorous research, we could have our backs against the wall. Many traditional healers will abuse this and give anything as medicine so long as it is a plant - we must urge caution,” said Sissoko.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86866JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 29, 2009 (IRIN) - An African international agreement has opened the door to a debate on the rights and protection of people displaced by natural disasters, with a nod to migration as a result of climate change. JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 29, 2009 (IRIN) - An African international agreement has opened the door to a debate on the rights and protection of people displaced by natural disasters, with a nod to migration as a result of climate change.

The Kampala Convention, a ground-breaking treaty adopted by the African Union (AU), promises to protect and assist millions of Africans displaced within their own countries. Significantly, the treaty recognized natural disasters as well as conflict and generalized violence as key factors in uprooting people.

Jean Ping, chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, told IRIN that "more and more people are likely to be displaced" as Africa experiences more frequent droughts and floods brought about by climate change.

He said the inclusion of displacement by natural disasters was informed by the global debate on the need to develop a framework for the rights of "climate refugees" - people uprooted from their homes and crossing international borders - because the changing climate threatened their survival.

The treaty also calls on governments to set up laws and find solutions to prevent displacement caused by natural disasters, with compensation for those who were displaced. Migration expert Etienne Piguet said with the Kampala Convention the AU had "once again" tried to push the envelope.

In 1969 the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, adopted by the then Organization of African Unity, had gone a step further than the 1951 UN Refugee Convention by using a definition of "refugee" that included not only people fleeing persecution but also those fleeing war or events seriously disturbing public order.

Piguet described the reference to people displaced by natural disasters as an "interesting attempt" to find "adequate answers to the new concern about migration linked to environmental degradation".

In 2008 climate-related natural disasters like droughts, hurricanes and floods forced 20 million people out of their homes, while 4.6 million people were internally displaced by conflicts, according to a recent joint study by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

The Representative of the UN Secretary-General (RSG) on the Human Rights of the Internally Displaced Persons in a submission to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change noted that people uprooted from their homes by natural disasters enjoyed protection under the existing human rights law and the guiding principles on internal displacement.

However, the Kampala Convention also calls on governments to "prevent or mitigate, prohibit and eliminate root causes" of displacement, and find "durable solutions" to them.

Moussa Idriss Ndele, President of the Pan-African Parliament, the legislative body of the AU, said the debate in Kampala on the rights of people displaced by natural disasters did not "quite evolve properly - we did not address the issue of climate change" because most people still believed conflict was the biggest trigger of displacement.

Can of worms

However, it was unclear which events could be linked to climate change. "More and more people are being displaced by floods, which are becoming more and more frequent and intense," said Rachel Shebesh, chair of the African Parliamentarian Initiative for Climate Risk Reduction.

The RSG said there was a need to clarify or even develop a legal framework to help people who moved inside or outside the country because environmental degradation and slow-onset disasters - like desertification, salination of soil and groundwater - made areas uninhabitable, and if displaced persons could not return to their homes they should be considered forcibly displaced.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected more frequent and intense floods and droughts in Africa during the next few decades, and the debate is not only set to continue, but to intensify.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86805KAMPALA Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is a comprehensive document that will, if ratified, fill a void in international humanitarian law, say experts. KAMPALA Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is a comprehensive document that will, if ratified, fill a void in international humanitarian law, say experts.

Whereas the rights of people who flee across national boundaries are protected under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and a similar instrument introduced 18 years later by the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union), there has been no international legislation catering specifically for people displaced within their own country (IDPs).

IDPs vastly outnumber refugees in Africa. In just 10 of the 18 countries in east and central Africa, there are more than 10 million IDPs, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), with Sudan (four million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (2.12 million) and Somalia (1.55 million) heading the list.

In the same region, there are refugees in 16 countries, totalling just less than two million, according to OCHA.

This latest instrument, also known as the Kampala Convention because it was signed in the Ugandan capital, "obliges governments to recognize that IDPs have specific vulnerabilities and must be supported", said Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.

"It covers all causes of displacement, is forceful in terms of responsibility and goes beyond addressing the roles of states to those of others like the AU and non-state actors."

Signed by 17 African states at the end of summit on 23 October, the convention defines IDPs broadly, irrespective of who is displacing them.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the convention provides a solid framework for enhancing the protection and assistance of IDPs in Africa. The ICRC is the custodian of international humanitarian law.

"The crucial challenge now is the same one facing international humanitarian law in general – ensuring that once the convention is signed and ratified by as many states as possible, it is actually implemented and respected," ICRC president Jakob Kellenberger said.

"States must now take concrete steps to implement the convention into their own national legislation and regulation systems, and develop plans of action to address issues of displacement.

"The convention goes further than international humanitarian law treaties in some aspects, for example, in the rules it contains on safe and voluntary return, and on access to compensation or other forms of reparation," Kellenberger added.

Next steps

To become a binding document, the convention has to be ratified by 15 of the AU's 53 member states.

"No international treaty is perfect, and the AU IDP Convention does have a few weaknesses. Concerns over the lack of effective enforcement mechanisms and insufficient guarantees for equality and non-discrimination have been raised," the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement noted in a statement.

"There is some question regarding the extent to which non-state actors and armed groups called upon by the convention to protect IDPs can be bound by its provisions. Nevertheless, the convention, which has benefited from the input of international experts, is considered to be generally consistent with international standards such as the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement."

AU officials in Kampala were cautiously upbeat, urging member states to remain engaged. "It is the responsibility of member states that the convention becomes a binding instrument," Jean Ping, AU Commission President, said. "At this point, it is an achievement, but not an end in itself."

Zambian president Rupiah Banda also chose his words carefully. "We have given legal force to the task ahead and Zambia is ready to sign," he said. "Those who are displaced should not be forgotten."

An observer who requested anonymity said progress would require member states to demonstrate greater political will to implement the convention and address concerns about sovereignty and enforcement.

"It is a question of a progressive [AU] Commission versus [conservative] member states," he told IRIN in Kampala. "For example, the inclusion of armed groups in the draft was interpreted by some member states as lending legitimacy to such groups."

The convention emphasizes the sovereignty of member states but spells out the obligations and responsibilities of armed groups. Among others, it prohibits armed groups from carrying our arbitrary displacement, recruiting children and impeding humanitarian assistance.

"Overall, though, the convention has a good chance of getting the necessary signatures rather quickly," the observer added. "In April, SADC’s [Southern African Development Community] 11 members committed to speedy signature."

Political will

Civil society leaders, attending a parallel event, insisted political will and demonstrated commitment were key to progress. The fact that only five presidents came to Kampala, they said, called for an urgent strategy to bring on board more states.

Present were Banda, Ugandan President and host, Yoweri Museveni, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Somalia's Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Mohamed Abdelaziz of Saharawi, along with high-level UN, INGO and AU delegations.

"It is one thing to have a good convention and another to implement it," Dismas Nkunda of the New York-based International Refugee Rights Initiative told IRIN.

In 2007, the AU adopted the African Charter on democracy, elections and governance, but it has so far been ratified by only two member states.

The basic question of impunity also needed to be addressed. Until African countries learn to respect the law, participants said, the continent would "remain at rock bottom" in its attempts to address the problems of the displaced.

AU officials seemed conscious of these sentiments. "We have come a long way, but a plan of action is now envisaged," Jolly Joiner, AU commissioner for political affairs, told IRIN. "Once member states are on board, we will take this convention forward."

Antonio Guterres, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and representative of the UN Secretary-General at the summit, said solving the question of displacement in Africa required political solutions.

"There is no humanitarian solution to conflict," he explained. "The solution is always political."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86762NAIROBI Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Replacing manual data with electronic health records would significantly improve the quality of care and enable African HIV treatment programmes to be scaled up more efficiently, say the authors of a new article on the subject. NAIROBI Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Replacing manual data with electronic health records would significantly improve the quality of care and enable African HIV treatment programmes to be scaled up more efficiently, say the authors of a new article on the subject.

"Talkin' About a Revolution", published in the latest edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, looked at the Academic Model for Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), a programme that uses electronic health records in care and treatment services for around 100,000 HIV-positive patients at sites across western Kenya.

"Scaling up treatment programmes requires timely data on the type, quantity and quality of care being provided," the authors said. "Health care is an information business; managing patient care requires managing patients' data at many levels ... health care systems the size of AMPATH (or larger) cannot effectively be managed without ... [electronic] data."

More efficient care

The health data system can help programme managers avoid medical errors and stock-outs of key medicines, while enabling clinicians to monitor and care for their patients more effectively.

"Electronic records help us store data efficiently, retrieve it when we need it, and monitor and evaluate the progress of our programmes much more easily than if we were using manual systems," said Erica Kigothe, AMPATH's programme manager in charge of data management.

"When a patient comes to a clinic for a visit, instead of poring over large files, the clinician has one summary sheet that contains all the vital patient information and should he or she need more information, they can always go back to the patient's computerized file," she told IRIN/PlusNews.

A previous study comparing an AMPATH clinic before and after the adoption of electronic health records found that patient visits were 22 percent shorter, provider time per patient was reduced by 58 percent, and patients spent 38 percent less time waiting.

Kigothe noted that assessing disease trends was also easier with electronic records, as was collating data for the purposes of research and new directions in programme development.

Electronic health systems have been successfully used in the care and treatment of HIV in Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda, but few African countries have adopted the systems on a large scale.

"Programme implementers in low-income countries sometimes see clinicians' recording of patient data and the management of those data as secondary to providing good care, or even a distraction," the article's authors commented.

Not all smooth sailing

The programme has not been without its difficulties. "In one of our sites in Busia [town on the Kenya-Uganda border] they have very frequent power outages, so they have had to find ways to work around it, inputting data when power is on, even if that is at night," Kigothe said.

Finding people with computer skills is not always easy in the developing world, particularly in rural areas, and "like any equipment, computers break down from time to time and require repair or replacement, which can cause some problems" and incur additional expenses, she said. "In addition, the data collectors are human, and therefore prone to the occasional error."

Electronic systems are not cheap; they require considerable investment in computers, training data collectors and hiring information technology experts. However, according to the study, AMPATH's total cost of care is under US$100 per patient per year, making the system financially feasible even in resource-poor settings.

"You're going to have to spend quite a lot of money to set up the system," Kigothe said. "But looking at the big picture, it saves so much in the long run - for example, each of our data collectors manages 2,000 patients' information, something that would be impossible using manual data collection."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86768MIDRAND Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Disaster risk reduction as a tool for climate change adaptation is a "technical mouthful" said Rachel Shebesh, chair of the African Parliamentarian Initiative for Climate Risk Reduction. MIDRAND Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Disaster risk reduction as a tool for climate change adaptation is a "technical mouthful" said Rachel Shebesh, chair of the African Parliamentarian Initiative for Climate Risk Reduction.

Members of the Pan-African Parliament thought so too. The legislative body of the African Union met in Midrand, halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa, for a parliamentary debate on climate change in Africa.

Shebesh, the new champion of disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Africa for the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR) has been given the job of making the subject accessible.

Why?

The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, said DRR was "the first line of defence" against climate risks. Many countries did not have a plan that covered what to do to adapt to the impact of climate change, but drawing up a disaster risk reduction plan was a starting point.

DRR deals with the short-term changes in climate variables, such as temperature; adaptation to climate change is about long-term changes to climate. It is now widely acknowledged that reducing vulnerability to climatic variables could improve resilience to the increased hazards associated with climate change.

What does it mean?

Wahlström acknowledged that trying to explain to countries what this meant, and how to take DRR into account, could sometimes be problematic. Essentially, it is about "disaster-proofing" any plan or programme.

"You take into account the current and future disaster risks. If you are building a bridge in an area, you study the soil, ask the people who live in the area about what they know about the conditions in the area: do they build in the area? What precautions do they take? The easiest thing to do is draw up a check list."

Wahlström said she had come across several cities and towns in developing countries who had already been doing this, and "we are now busy putting all this information together for our next report."

She also said she would not be surprised if "disaster-proofing" became a pre-requisite for sourcing money for any climate change adaptation project, "but I would rather countries took up the initiative on their own." India, she said has made it mandatory for projects costing a certain amount to be disaster-proof so as to qualify for funds.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86774KAMPALA Monday, October 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Seventeen countries signed the African Union convention on internally displaced persons (IDPs) after years of preparation culminated in a week of meetings in the Ugandan capital but a lot more hard work remains before it becomes effective, according to observers.KAMPALA Monday, October 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Seventeen countries signed the African Union convention on internally displaced persons (IDPs) after years of preparation culminated in a week of meetings in the Ugandan capital but a lot more hard work remains before it becomes effective, according to observers.

"The most important step now is implementation," Julia Dolly Joiner, AU commissioner for political affairs, said. "We need to move from intentions to actions."

For the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement,  it is crucial that implementation is carried out "in a timely fashion and in a manner that makes a real difference to the lives of persons affected by internal displacement in the region, including host communities.
 
"The first step forward should involve a process of national dialogue and civic education aimed at securing the Convention's ratification and implementation by the State parties," according to a statement by the project, which monitors displacement issues worldwide to promote best practice among governments and other actors.

Fifteen countries must ratify the convention before it enters into effect.

Organizers of the 19-23 October meetings  insisted that the fact that only 17 signed did not represent a lack of political will and commitment on the part of the African states.

"We debated together and we agreed but when it comes to signing, the person has to have been given the authority by his government to sign," one AU official told IRIN. "Only 17 had such authorization."

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who chaired the summit, praised it as "a very important milestone [that] has gone beyond conflicts to address issues of development.

"We have at least agreed in words, we now have to put our words [into] action," he told a news conference. "The solace for the women in Darfur may not be very immediate, but the fact is that people have come together to discuss the matter."

Partnerships urged

Joiner called for international support. "Africa cannot do it alone; that is why we are calling for partnerships," she told IRIN. "We are optimistic that countries will be faithful to their commitments under the convention.”

The AU will now try to get more signatures, and lobby 15 countries to ratify the convention so it can become a binding document. Observers, however, say much more work needs to be done to generate political will, given that most presidents stayed away from the summit.

The convention addresses the root causes of displacement in Africa, where at least 11 million people are displaced by conflict and climate change-related natural disasters, among other reasons.

According to the Brookings-Bern Project, three of the world's top five countries with the largest populations of conflict-induced IDPs are in Africa.

These include Sudan, with an estimated 4.9 million IDPs, the Democratic Republic of Congo, with at least one million, and Somalia, where the UN estimates 1.5 million are displaced. Hundreds of thousands more are displaced in Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Overall, citizens in at least 20 African states are experiencing internal displacement.

The convention aims to promote regional and national measures to prevent, mitigate, prohibit and eliminate the root causes of internal displacement as well as provide durable solutions.

"People who flee persecution or conflict and cross into another country are categorized as refugees and, as such, benefit from a long-standing and well-oiled international legal protection system, including the 1951 Refugee Convention," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said.

"Until now [IDPs] have been more or less excluded from the system of international legal protection, even though they are often displaced in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same reasons, as refugees. At least in Africa, that should no longer be the case."

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The IDP convention obliges states to:

- Prohibit and prevent arbitrary population displacements, respect the principles of humanity and human dignity, as well as aspects of international humanitarian law concerning the protection of IDPs;

- Ensure assistance to IDPs, incorporate obligations under the convention into domestic law and designate a body to coordinate IDP protection and assistance;

- Devise early warning systems on potential displacement and establish disaster risk reduction strategies, protect communities and respect individual rights on protection against arbitrary displacement;

- Respect the mandates of the AU and UN, and the roles of international humanitarian organizations; and

- Take necessary action to effectively organize humanitarian relief and guarantee security; respect, protect and not attack humanitarian personnel or resources, and ensure armed groups conform with their obligations.

It prohibits armed groups from:

- Carrying out arbitrary displacement, hampering the provision of protection and assistance to IDPs and restricting the movement of IDPs;

- Forcibly recruiting, kidnapping or engaging in sexual slavery and trafficking; or

- Attacking humanitarian personnel or resources.


It obliges the AU:

- To intervene in respect of grave circumstances such as war crimes and crimes against humanity;

- To respect the right of members to request such an intervention and support efforts to support IDPs; and

- Strengthen capacity and coordinate the mobilization of resources for protection and assistance to IDPs.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86746KAMPALA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - With increasing natural disasters, including floods, storms and droughts, hitting the continent, more people in Africa are likely to be displaced, creating a challenge for governments, the UN warns.KAMPALA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - With increasing natural disasters, including floods, storms and droughts, hitting the continent, more people in Africa are likely to be displaced, creating a challenge for governments, the UN warns.

Displacement caused by natural disasters, said John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, promised to be one of the greatest challenges African countries would face.

“As many countries… know from recent painful experiences, climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme hazard events, particularly floods, storms and droughts,” Holmes told an African Union (AU) summit in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on 22 October.

In 2008, Africa reported 104 natural disasters, of which 99 percent were climate-related, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Over the past 20 years, the population of Africans affected by natural disasters doubled from nine million in 1989 to 16.7 million in 2008. Of all the disasters on the continent, 75 percent were a result of drought.

“By 2020, rain-fed agriculture is expected to have reduced by half because of shifting rainfall patterns, scattering millions of people across the continent in search [of] new livelihoods,” Holmes said.

The meeting is discussing a draft convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons and a declaration on refugees, returnees and the internally displaced.

The convention is the first such global document that aims to comprehensively address the problems of Africa’s 12 million IDPs.

Transitional justice

Before the meeting, civil society leaders called for concrete action on the convention, when adopted. Chris Dolan of the Uganda Refugee Law Project urged delegates to look beyond existing models of protection and assistance to IDP, refugee and returnee populations and draw from creative transitional justice practices around Africa.

“One step towards this would be to ensure that the plan of action that is put in place to implement the decisions adopted at the summit makes links between the African Union’s draft… and the policy on post-conflict reconstruction and development,” he added.

“Another will be to link… to ongoing transitional justice processes on the continent.”

At least 15 countries need to ratify the proposed convention for it to come into force, and diplomats at the summit are confident the signatures will be raised soon. Preparatory work, they added, had shown broad support across the continent.

“It is the responsibility of member states that the convention becomes a binding instrument,” Jean Ping, AU Commission chairman, told the meeting. “It is an achievement, but not an end in itself. It is a beginning.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86716JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - The availability of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and legislation prohibiting discrimination have helped turn HIV/AIDS into just another chronic disease, but an HIV-positive status can still be an obstacle to getting a loan or buying insurance.JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - The availability of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and legislation prohibiting discrimination have helped turn HIV/AIDS into just another chronic disease, but an HIV-positive status can still be an obstacle to getting a loan or buying insurance.

Most life insurance companies in southern Africa still require applicants to take an HIV test and deny cover to those who test positive. Without life insurance as security, financial institutions are reluctant to lend money to buy a house or start a business.

"The denial of life cover inflicts on other rights," said Amon Ngavetene, coordinator of the AIDS Unit at the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), a non-profit legal advice organization in Namibia.

The LAC has called on the Namibian government to pass legislation prohibiting insurers from discriminating against people living with HIV, but so far to no effect.

Ngavetene noted that HIV-positive individuals were discriminated against even after their deaths. Those who contract HIV after taking out life cover and fail to notify the insurance company run the risk of having their policies invalidated if their death certificate shows they died of an AIDS-related illness.

"A person could be paying for 15 years, and then when they die their family can't get a penny," Ngavetene told IRIN/PlusNews. "It's unconstitutional but very difficult to challenge because it becomes an issue of the terms of the contract."

Insurance companies in Botswana also require applicants to take HIV tests, but Linny Keorapetse, an assistant legal officer at the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA), said at least one company, Metropolitan Life, would cover HIV-positive people, although at a much higher cost.

Those who test negative are required to re-test every five years, but a positive result at a later stage means the policy is automatically converted from life insurance into pure savings.

Botswana's constitution does not provide for socio-economic rights that could form the basis for a court case, said Keorapetse. "The only thing we can do is to make noise about it; we can say it's discriminatory because it's the only medical test [insurance companies] ask for, yet there are riskier conditions."

Botswana has the second highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, with nearly one in four adults living with the virus, but it also has one of the most extensive ARV programmes in the region, with free treatment reaching about 90 percent of people who need it. "Nowadays, people living with HIV who take treatment can live another 20 years," Keorapetse pointed out.

A different approach

Instead of discriminating against people living with HIV, Ross Beerman, managing director and co-founder of AllLife, a South African company, decided to take advantage of this gap in the market to specialize in providing HIV-positive people with life cover.

"We have a very different operating model," he told IRIN/PlusNews. "In a standard model, you price policies based on historical behaviour ... we price on forward-looking behaviour: if you're HIV positive, we don't really care how you behaved in the past, we care about you staying healthy in the future."

Policyholders must commit to going for regular blood tests and starting ARV treatment when their CD4 count [a measure of immune system strength] drops below 200. Once on ARVs, AllLife closely monitors a client's adherence via links with healthcare providers, and regular cellphone text message reminders and warnings if appointments are missed.

Premiums are between two and five times higher than normal life insurance policies (an average monthly payment of about US$40 buys $40,000 worth of life cover), but can be used to secure home loans and start businesses.

In addition, being a policyholder appears to have a positive health effect. "Just by virtue of being our clients they're going for regular monitoring," said Beerman. "They actually get approximately 15 percent healthier after six months; the realization they can have an impact on their longevity means they start behaving in more healthy ways."

In contrast, HIV-positive people in Botswana are steered towards funeral policies or advised to join burial societies. "Currently, there's no company that offers life insurance specifically for people living with HIV," said Keorapetse.

AllLife relies on fairly sophisticated administrative and IT systems to function efficiently, which would be difficult to replicate in less developed countries in the region where, for example, blood test results are not captured electronically.

Nevertheless, Beerman said, people living with HIV have the right to participate in the mainstream economy "in a normal way".

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86698KAMPALA Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Civil society and government officials are gathered in the Ugandan capital of Kampala to discuss the Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Africa and a declaration on refugees, returnees and IDPs.KAMPALA Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Civil society and government officials are gathered in the Ugandan capital of Kampala to discuss the Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Africa [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86585] and a declaration on refugees, returnees and IDPs.

“It is a good convention, but the next steps are even more important,” said Dismas Nkunda of the New York-based International Refugee Rights Initiative. “The key test to the continent’s commitment to it will be the implementation.”

Countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, said Traore Wodjo of the Ivorian civil society coalition, needed to quickly implement the convention because political developments there could raise tensions, leading to renewed displacement.

“Some of those who were displaced during the 2003 conflict are yet to recover,” he added. “Forced displacement again, without protection, would completely disrupt their lives.”

The leaders at the summit, including presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed of Somalia, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Ruppiah Banda of Zambia, realize just how important is the challenge of displacement in Africa.

“Displacement is a scourge that is blighting the African landscape – and some of us are talking from experience,” said Zainab Bangura, former activist and now Sierra Leone’s foreign minister. “One day you are a minister, the next you are on a boat running for your life – with nothing on your back.”

Uganda’s Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi, while praising his country’s policies on refugees, said: “The inability to effectively protect, assist and find timely solutions to the problems that created these displacement situations is posing a major threat to Africa’s development."

The convention, the first such global document, aims to comprehensively address the problems of Africa’s 12 million IDPs. It contains provisions on obligations of state parties relating to internal displacement and protection and assistance.

It also contains provisions on obligations relating to armed groups, the African Union, as well as obligations on sustainable returns, local integration or relocation and compensation.

“The concern is that there are already millions of laws that should protect IDPs, but they are not always observed,” Nkunda said. “So we need to ensure that this convention is respected by setting some kind of benchmarks against which we will evaluate its implementation.”

Civil society and AU role

The civil society meeting will make recommendations to the summit, which should strengthen the convention’s implementation processes, Nkunda said, and is keen to work with the AU to ensure it succeeds.

AU officials are upbeat that the summit, whose side events include an exhibition by actors in the humanitarian field, will fully explore the root causes of forced displacement in Africa and ways to prevent it.

“We are here to reflect on the specific challenges facing IDPs and to adopt an instrument that would bridge existing policy and legal gaps,” said Julia Joiner, AU political affairs commissioner.

Delegates include the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, and the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes. There is also a big NGO and government presence.

Before the summit, Holmes flew to the northern Ugandan district of Pader where most returnees are resettling in their villages. He visited IDP camps, host communities and met aid workers and local leaders.

“As emergency relief needs reduce, development efforts need to be stepped up,” he said of the Ugandan situation, where about 500,000 out of more than two million IDPs are still in camps.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86700NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Forty years after the rights of Africa’s refugees were enshrined in a landmark convention, the continent’s leaders are due to make legal history again by adopting a new instrument to assist people displaced within the borders of their own country.NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Forty years after African leaders adopted the 1969 Refugee Convention under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity, now the African Union, the continent's leaders are due to endorse a convention on internally displaced people.

The African Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is the main agenda for the heads of state summit on refugees, returnees and IDPs in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, from 19-23 October.

"It will be the first legally binding international instrument on IDPs with a continental scope, and UNHCR [UN Refugee Agency] hopes that it will translate into better lives for African IDPs," the agency's spokesman Andrej Mahecic told reporters in Geneva on 8 September.

Advocacy groups, including IDP Action, Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights, and Refugees International, have hailed the convention. However, they noted, the initial draft contained elements that were vague or inconsistent with other international human rights standards.

"There are too many IDPs in Africa and their situation is too precarious for the situation to be allowed to drift any longer," says Jeremy Smith of the advocacy group, IDP Action. "The AU needs to move quickly to adopt its IDPs Convention and then invest sufficient resources and political will to see it effectively implemented."

The AU, in a statement, said it demonstrated Africa's leadership in addressing forced population displacement. Observers, however, say action on issues affecting African IDPs has generally been slow.

Over the years, the AU has developed various initiatives, including deployment of peace support operations, appointment of special envoys and special representatives, and mobilizing international support for post-conflict reconstruction.

In some cases, regional blocks have intervened to prevent, de-escalate and resolve conflicts - including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire; the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in southern Africa; and the InterGovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Sudan's north-south conflict.

In addition, various instruments exist that offer protection to the displaced, such as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

"Africa has shown the most progress in transforming the [UN] Guiding Principles into binding international instruments," Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the human rights of IDPs, said in a report to the General Assembly.

Half of all IDPs in Africa

Africa hosts at least 11 million of the world's estimated 25 million IDPs. The causes of displacement vary, according to the AU, but are largely homegrown and exacerbated by extreme poverty, underdevelopment and lack of opportunities.

"Since the 1990s, African conflicts have witnessed massive brutality against the civilian population," notes Bahame Tom Nyanduga, member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, and Special Rapporteur on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and IDPs in Africa.

Calling on African states to accept responsibility for addressing human rights abuses faced by IDPs, he notes that armed combatants in Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, northern Uganda, Darfur and eastern DRC violated the Geneva Conventions' protocol on civilian protection with impunity.

Climate change factors

Climate change has also increased the frequency and intensity of natural hazards in Africa, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

A study by the two organizations found that natural disasters displaced 284,000 people in Mozambique in 2007, 150,000 in Benin, 72,805 in Ethiopia and 59,000 in Algeria.

However, forced displacement across the continent is mostly attributable to the acts or omissions of the state, such as human rights violations, political and socio-economic marginalization, conflicts over natural resources and governance challenges, according to the AU.

Unable to flee to another country in search of safety, IDPs seek refuge from violence within their own borders, sheltering in makeshift camps, shanty towns or scattered in local communities.

"The number and plight of IDPs in Africa is a scandal," according to IDP Action's Smith. "The African Union has talked the talk - drafting an IDP Convention which lays out the protections IDPs should be accorded - but does not walk the walk."

No global agency

The situation is complicated by the fact that globally there is no agency with a specific mandate to protect and assist IDPs - unlike refugees, who fall under UNHCR.

IDPs in armed conflict have rights as civilians under international humanitarian law. They are also protected - although not expressly referred to therein - by various bodies of law, including, most notably, national law, human rights law and, if they are in a state affected by armed conflict.

"While they are displaced, IDPs are entitled to the same protection from the effects of hostilities and the same relief as the rest of the civilian population," notes the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

However, while they make up almost two-thirds of global populations seeking safety from armed conflict and violence, they have fewer rights than refugees.

Sudan, for example, has the world's largest IDP population, with an estimated 4.5 million people affected, including 2.7 million in Darfur - of whom 317,000 were displaced this year.

"Since they are living within their own countries, IDPs remain under the legal jurisdiction of their national authorities, which may well be involved in the violence that they are fleeing," the medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières, notes.

Binding hopes

The Kampala summit was recommended by AU ministers meeting in Burkina Faso in May and the AU Executive Council meeting in The Gambia in July 2006.

In 2007, NGOs meeting in Brazzaville urged the AU to "adopt legally binding instruments for the protection of the rights of migrants... the protection of and assistance to [IDPs] in Africa, based on the [UN] Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement".

The current draft is heavily informed by these principles, whose contents are mainly derived from existing international legal rules and standards. It is, however, a non-binding, soft law.

According to IDP Action, it "offers the hope of African states being held to binding standards by which they are to prevent displacement, respond to the immediate needs of those displaced and create the conditions for sustainable return and resettlement".

Approved by African ministers in November 2008, the convention will become legally binding once endorsed at the Kampala summit.

"The theme of the special summit," notes Tarsis Kabwegyere, Ugandan Minister for Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Refugees, "...fits in well, given the displacement trends on the continent, which have continued without a stop since the days of independence".

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86585NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Africa hosts at least 11 million of the world's 25 million conflict-affected IDPs. Millions more are displaced annually by natural disasters. NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - - Africa hosts at least 11 million of the world's 25 million conflict-affected IDPs- Millions more are displaced annually by natural disasters-

- Sudan has an estimated 4- 5 million IDPs, thanks to the recent civil war in the south, and violence in Darfur and the east-

- At the peak of Uganda's northern conflict, at least 1- 8 million people were displaced- Most have returned home-

- Displacement does not only result from conflict, but also from natural disasters such as floods and drought-

- The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement restate and compile existing international human rights and humanitarian law and attempt to clarify grey areas and gaps in the various instruments pertinent to IDPs-

- Refugees, after crossing an international boundary, normally receive food, shelter, and a place of safety, and are protected by international laws and conventions-

- IDPs have little protection or help, and remain under the jurisdiction of their government- No specific legal instruments relating to them exist-

- The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has no specific mandate to cover IDP needs, but because many of them face similar problems to refugees, it sometimes oversees their protection and shelter-

- Female IDPs face greater risks because of potentially increased sexual and domestic violence-

- Killings and brutal sexual assaults against women, girls and men massively increased in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after the start of military operations in January-

- Children face increased risk of abduction and recruitment by rebels or government forces, enslavement and sexual exploitation, and miss out on education-

Sources: IDMC, AlertNet, NGOs, UN agencies-

eo/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86587NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Most IDPs in Africa have been forced out of their homes by conflict, either between government forces and armed opponents or between communities.NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Most IDPs in Africa have been forced out of their homes by conflict, either between government forces and armed opponents or between communities.

Here are some numbers:

SUDAN:

The country has the largest number of IDPs in Africa with an estimated 4.5 million at the start of the yearAt least 250,000 have been forced to flee their homes by inter-communal violence in Southern Sudan since JanuaryMost IDPs are from the war-ravaged western region of Darfur but there are concerns that with increasing violence, more southerners could become IDPs

SOMALIA:

An estimated 1.3 million displaced mainly by violence, including 700,000 who have fled the capital, Mogadishu, since FebruaryThe IDP camps lack basic facilities, such as schools, healthcare, water and sanitation, leading to widespread acute malnutrition and diarrhoeaWomen and girls are extremely vulnerable

DR CONGO:

Since the start of military operations against militia in the east in January, nearly 900,000 people have fled their homes and live in desperate conditions with host families, in forest areas, or in squalid displacement campsThis brought the total of those displaced across North and South Kivu and Orientale Province to at least two million, as at JulyAccess is a major problem for aid agencies

UGANDA:

The northern conflict between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army displaced at least 1.8 million people from their homesMost have returned home in the past two or three yearsAbout 494,300 still displaced (in camps plus transit sites), down from 710,000 in February

KENYA:

Government ordered all IDP camps to close in early OctoberMost IDPs were victims of post-election violence in 2008, which forced an estimated 600,000 people out of their homesInter-ethnic tensions over pasture have also displaced families in the north, while flooding has affected some communities in the west

COTE D'IVOIRE:

The conflict that erupted in 2002 forced an estimated 120,000 people out of their homes in the west, of whom about 45,000 are still in "transition situations" awaiting their return to their communities

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC:

A ceasefire agreement between the government and the armed opposition in 2008 allowed many IDPs to return homeHowever, an estimated 100,000 had still not returned by the end of last yearMost of these live in makeshift homes in the bush, quite close to their villages

CHAD:

At least 168,000 people were displaced as at April, living in 38 sites, mainly in the eastMost of these fled fighting between the Chadian army and armed opposition groups, inter-ethnic violence and the spillover effects of the Darfur conflict in neighbouring Sudan

Sources: IDMC, Congo Advocacy Coalition, UN agencies

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