U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
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CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA
IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-Up 319
18 - 24 February 2006


CONTENTS:

KENYA: Drought could lead to humanitarian catastrophe - UN says
UGANDA: Vote counting underway in general elections
CAR: Donors pledge support for humanitarian crisis
CAR: Ministers propose date for Great Lakes summit
CONGO: ICRC resumes activities in Pool region
DRC: Congo gets new constitution, new flag
BURUNDI: Homes, schools for returnees inaugurated
TANZANIA: HIV/AIDS counselling centres set up in prisons


KENYA: Drought could lead to humanitarian catastrophe, warns UN envoy

The United Nations special humanitarian envoy for the Horn of Africa,
Kjell Magne Bondevik, warned on Thursday that many people in the
drought-hit region could die unless aid donors released funds quickly to
help those in urgent need of food and water.

Some 11 million people in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and
Tanzania are facing food shortages because of a drought that has ravaged
the region. Pre-famine conditions have been reported in some of the
affected areas.

"There is a real threat that many people could die as a consequence of
the drought if we do not have necessary help in place in time," Bondevik
said after touring Kenya's drought-ravaged district of Kajiado, where
the fields are littered with dead livestock.

Seventy percent of the district's 530,000 people were dependent on food
aid, which needed to be increased rapidly, Ernest Munyi, the district
commissioner, said.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51893]


UGANDA: Vote counting underway in general elections

Ballots were being counted across Uganda on Friday after the country's
first multiparty presidential and parliamentary elections in 26 years
ended peacefully, election officials said.

Observers predicted a tight race between the incumbent, President Yoweri
Museveni, who is seeking re-election after 20 years in power, and the
main opposition leader, Kizza Besigye.

Security was tight following the deployment of 12,000 police and army
personnel across the country and reports of minor disruptions were few.
Supporters of Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change party claimed
several irregularities had occurred, including cases of voters whose
names could not be found on the register.

However, the secretary to Uganda's Electoral Commission, Sam Rwakoojo,
said the exercise had gone well. "So far, so good," he said on Thursday,
adding that turnout had been high.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51892]


CAR: Donors pledge support for humanitarian crisis

A donor conference for the CAR has ended in the Cameroonian capital,
Yaounde, with funding assurances to the poverty-stricken nation.

"The meeting was successful, but did not go [on] much to address the
problems in the Central African Republic," Maurizio Giuliano, the public
information officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, said on Monday at the end of the conference. "This
is because decisions were to be made back in the capitals of the donor
countries."

Giuliano said some governments present assured that they would lobby for
funds to be allocated for the crisis. He said some nations enjoying a
high degree of development were among the countries making this promise,
but declined to name them. In past appeals for humanitarian support
major contributors included Denmark, the European Union, Finland,
Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United States
and the World Bank.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51831]


CAR: Ministers propose date for Great Lakes summit

Foreign ministers from 11 countries in Africa's Great Lakes region
proposed on Wednesday that a regional heads of state summit scheduled
for the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, be held in early September.

They made the proposal in Bangui, capital of the Central African
Republic, at the end of a three-day inter-ministerial meeting, where
they finalised preparations for the Nairobi summit.

The Bangui meeting was held under the chairmanship of Tanzanian Foreign
Minister Asha-Rose Migiro. She said during the meeting the ministers
reviewed protocols and programmes of action for the international
conference on the Great Lakes, which is organised by a joint secretariat
of the United Nations and the African Union.

The protocols and programmes of action focus on the conference's main
themes of security, stability and development. They will be tabled at
the Nairobi summit for adoption by the heads of state.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51880]


CONGO: ICRC resumes activities in Pool region

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) has resumed its
activities in the Pool region of the Republic of Congo following an
improvement in the security situation there in the past few weeks, the
agency announced on Thursday.

In a statement, it said it the changed situation had enabled it to
resume its medical aid and water programmes to civilian populations; as
well as its economic revival projects and awareness raising on
international humanitarian law.

ICRC suspended operations in the southern Pool region on 11 January
because of major security threats in the area. At the time, the ICRC
delegate in the country, Christophe Martin, deplored the frequent
looting of goods and death threats issued to ICRC agents. According to
sources, the overall insecurity in the Pool region is due to
uncontrolled former rebels known as the Ninjas.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51879]


DRC: Congo gets new constitution, new flag

President Joseph Kabila promulgated on Saturday the Democratic Republic
of Congo's new constitution and new flag, a move that further paves the
way for the beginning of the country's electoral process, expected to
end with presidential elections midyear.

"After the promulgation of the constitution, it is the National Assembly
and Senate's responsibility to adopt the electoral code and [for] the
Independent Electoral Commission to establish a calendar for the holding
of elections at all levels," Kabila said.

The promulgation of the constitution follows a referendum on 18 December
2005, during which 85 percent of voters favoured the draft constitution.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51796]


BURUNDI: Homes, schools for returnees inaugurated

President Pierre Nkurunziza has inaugurated 1,100 homes and two schools
financed by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in two previously war-torn
southern provinces of the country.

The schools are in Kirama and Iteba; and of the 1,100 houses 800 are in
Nyanza-Lac in Makamba Province, and 300 at Buyengero in the Bururi
Province," UNHCR Burundi said on Monday.

The buildings are for use by returning refugees and displaced persons
and are part of reconstruction efforts for communities living under
precarious conditions, the agency said. The agency has built 14 schools
under this programme. It said 30 more were being built in the 10
provinces hosting the largest number of returnees.

UNHCR said it was also providing building materials to at least 23,000
families to enable them to build homes on their own. Some 15,000 of
these families have completed building their homes while homes for the
remaining 8,000 families are just awaiting roofing.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51813]


TANZANIA: HIV/AIDS counselling centres set up in prisons

In a move aimed at stepping up the campaign against the spread of
HIV/AIDS in prisons, the Tanzanian government has started establishing
vocational counselling and testing centres to provide services to penal
institutions.

"We are now intensifying educational programmes through lectures and
video [shows] to wardens, prison officers and inmates," Nicas Banzi,
Tanzania's principal commissioner of prisons, said on Monday.

So far, he said, the prisons department had established 12 centres in
various parts of the country, which provide services to inmates, prison
workers and their families. He added that the centres were part of a
national programme to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic. He said the
government was supplying these centres with anti-retroviral drugs.

[Full story on:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51822]

[On the Net: TANZANIA: HIV/AIDS programmes need to reach rural folk, UN
official says: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51800]


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