TAN – The Afro News

Sub-Saharan Africa burden with HIV/AIDS

A World of Difference Part 2

By Winsome M. Hare The Afro News Port Coquitlam

Part 1 of this article talked about Sub-Saharan Africa’s burden with HIV/AIDS and the vulnerability of women and children to the outcome of the disease. Read the full story

Student From Ghana

Commentary/Ghana/Africa Education

By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong : The mass failure of Junior High School students at this year’s national examination, a worsening trend over the past couple of years, has sent educationists, parents, the mass media and Accra scrambling for answers. Is it the quality of teachers? Is it lack of educational material? Is it the environment? Read the full story

Cape Town South Africa

Feature/Africa Development

By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong :As Africa’s democracy gradually evolves, the arguments are whether Africa should concentrate on creating prosperity first and then grow its democracy later or build up its democracy first and then use it to develop its prosperity. Read the full story

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Special Feature/African Democracy

By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong : Either in Libya, Nigeria, Chad, Egypt or Tunisia, the African nation-state, from its birth, has been in some sort of undeviating inanimate democratic revolution. The reason is that the African state, as a political entity, is yet to have everlasting grip with the African nation, as a community, hence the almost constant schisms and the revolutions. Read the full story

Africa gets entwined in the international system

Commentary/Africa Development : More than ever as Africa gets entwined in the international system, the international community is becoming increasingly part of Africa’s development. Ever more, the international community includes the ever-growing Africans working in numerous international organizations and diasporan Africans across the world’s capitals whose transmission of billions of dollars annually to Africa have given them immense influence on their homelands. Read the full story

ZELA Executive Director Mutuso Dhliwayo at the launch Photo by Wallace Mawire

Zimbabwe has launched the Publish

What You Pay (PWYP) campaign local chapter as part of the global network of CSOs united in their call for extractive industry revenues

to form the basis for development and improve the lives of ordinary citizens in resource-rich countries.

The launch has been made by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) who have been advocating for reforms in Zimbabwe’s

extractive sector since 2009.

Mutuso Dhliwayo, Executive Director of ZELA says the reforms pertain to the need for improved transparency and accountability in revenue

generated from mineral production,granting of mineral claims,engagement with mining communities,environmental management at mining sites,corporate social responsibility including mining contracting and licensing.

“The need for reform arises from the fact that there is very limited transparency and accountability in the mining sector.There is pervasive secrecy and opaqueness which results in very limited public knowledge of the benefits being derived from mineral production,” says Dhliwayo.

lt is also reported that the absence of transparency and accountability is not a problem unique to Zimbabwe as it affects the whole of Africa.

“Despite billions of dollars of incoming revenues from oil,gas and mining extraction, Africa has remained steeped in poverty lending to

what has been termed the natural resources curse or resource paradox,” ZELA says.

ZELA adds that there is a high level of obscurity in the flow of mineral revenues in Zimbabwe.lt says that this is clearly illustrated in the diamond mining sector, particularly operations at Chiadzwa, in the Manicaland province.

The organization reports that there is confusion as to the whereabouts of over $300 million generated from mining operations in

the Chiadzwa diamond fields.The minister of finance is reported to be on record stating that diamond revenues have not been handled

transparently.

The minister in his 2011 national budget presentation highlighted cases of mining companies evading tax.

“The opaqueness extends beyond the mineral revenues.There is also very limited knowledge of diamond mining contracts as illustrated through the irregular licensing of Canadile (Pvt) Ltd to mine diamonds at Chiadzwa,” ZELA says.

lt adds that the licence was eventually cancelled after it emerged that the company had misrepresented its capacity to mine diamonds and in effect prejudiced government of millions of dollars.

As part of its campaign to promote reforms in Zimbabwe’s extractive sector, ZELA in collaboration with the Southern Africa Resources Watch

(SARW) and the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI) has organized awareness meetings on issues besetting the extractive sector in Zimbabwe.This

has been done under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

The PWYP campaign is a global network of over 600 member organizations in more than 30 countries that are united in their call for extractive sector revenues to form the basis for development and improve the lives of ordinary citizens in resource-rich countries.

PWYP undertakes public campaigns and policy advocacy to achieve disclosure of information about extractive industry revenues and contracts.

The next initiatives of the Zimbabwe PWYP campaign will include ZELA and other founding partners mobilizing membership to include a broad cross section of civil society organisations with an interest in the extractive sector, launching the chapter and generating publicity on the campaign and extractive sector issues,developing the founding documents which include memorandum of understanding,vision and key focus areas and also developing an advocacy or campaign strategy or work plan for the chapter.

PWYP calls for the disclosure of payments by extractive companies to the government of each country in which they operate,revenues earned

by governments from the oil,gas and mining sectors, licencing arrangements and extractive industry contracts and other information

critical to monitoring the deals made between extractive companies and governments.

Itai Zimunya, Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) Zimbabwe Programme Manager said at the launch the initiative is an economic justice necessity for thousands living in poverty.He added that this will help to eradicate the enclave mentality benefitting a few elites in the resource-rich nation.

Jerry Rawlings

Commentary/Ghana/Africa

By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong  : The so-called founder of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), ex-president Jerry Rawlings, is an unhappy man. By nature he is at home with dictatorship, loud noise and being at the center of the stage. Rawlings didn’t get all these at the national delegates’ congress of the NDC in Sunyani, Brong Ahafo on July 9 billed to elect a presidential candidate. Read the full story

Otumfuo Osei Tutu 11

Commentary/Ghana/Africa : Ghanaians appear to be under the clench of prophetic spell. It is as if Ghanaians are hooked on some prophetic drug and find it difficult to rehabilitate them. This has put Ghanaians are on some sort of permanent prophetic high. It has become a real development threat, making the prophetic genie hard to be put back in the bottle. Read the full story

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Zambia's President Rupiah Banda

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says African governments must do more to fight corruption and encourage cross-border commerce to better benefit from U.S. trade preferences.

Secretary Clinton says the Obama administration is committed to extending trade preferences under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. But renewing that duty-free access requires everyone involved to decide whether they are willing to do what’s necessary to make the most of those benefits.

“A business is only as successful as the environment in which it operates. A shipping company cannot thrive if it’s overwhelmed by government regulations and drowning in paperwork. Buyers and sellers can’t do business if they are harassed by corrupt officials. A strong economy requires a supportive business climate that empowers every entrepreneur,” explained Clinton.

Secretary Clinton says Africans face long-standing obstacles to diversifying AGOA exports that are still dominated by textile and oil products. “Trade officials are under pressure to protect their own home-grown industries. Government leaders of smaller countries are concerned that larger countries will gain too much influence. Business owners worry about losing out to competitors across the border. Now these are not problems unique to Africa, but they have a disproportionate impact on Africa,” she said.

She says it is ultimately up to Africa’s leaders to decide whether they have the political courage for greater economic integration. “It does mean you have to take on entrenched interests and respond to concerns about new competition, while making the case over and over again as to why the people in your country will benefit from expanded trade. I know this is difficult. Although I am out of politics now, I understand how hard it is to tell a longtime supporter something he doesn’t want to hear. But sometimes it’s the right and important thing to do,” said Clinton.

Secretary Clinton spoke at the close of a forum on the AGOA trade preferences that have been the cornerstone of U.S. investment in Africa for more than ten years.

Business and civil society leaders at the meeting called on the Obama administration to do more to encourage direct investment in Africa.

Chungu Mwila, director of private sector development for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, says, “I think there is a lot more that the U.S., being the strongest economy in the world, can do by assisting in capacity building of our industries, by ensuring that some of the American companies come and look around. After all, Africa is no longer such a risk[y] place.”

The Obama administration wants U.S. lawmakers to extend beyond next year a provision allowing AGOA-eligible nations to source raw textile materials from third countries.

Mwila says that extension, and the renewal of AGOA as a whole, will bring more business to a continent that it making itself more attractive to investors.

“We have very liberal economic regimes. Our macro-economic fundamentals are being put in place. For example, the inflation rates have come down. The exchange rates are stabilizing. And the economic growth rate is one of the highest globally, around five or six percent. You don’t even get that in the U.S,” said Mwila.

Secretary Clinton says the Obama administration’s approach to Africa is based on partnership not patronage, focusing not on handouts but on supporting economic growth that underlies long-term progress with the ultimate aim of helping developing countries chart their own future and end their need for aid altogether.

Scott Stearns  VOANews.com

Mina Tabei Discovering Altered Lives in Ghana ,Ordinary Miracles

By Mina Tabei The Afro News Vancouver : I will never forget the tear filled eyes of my two sponsored children when I looked back and waved goodbye. Emma and Emmanuella became my heart and soul in Ghana. In the summer of 2009, I decided to pack my bags and travel throughout the different regions of Ghana as a student and volunteer. Read the full story