U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Southern Africa

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e-mail: irin-sa@irin.org.za


SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 148
22 - 26 September 2003


CONTENTS:

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Funding shortfall "incredibly serious"
ZIMBABWE: Journalists harassed as crackdown on Daily News continues
ANGOLA: Training helps ex-combatants reintegrate into civilian life
SWAZILAND: Rising concern over draft constitution as day of decree approaches
LESOTHO: UNDP training improves public service capacity
MALAWI: Steady stream of asylum seekers from Great Lakes
MOZAMBIQUE: New funding for anti-malaria research
BOTSWANA: Women living with HIV caring for each other
ZAMBIA: Continued assistance to small-scale farmers after bumper harvest



SOUTHERN AFRICA: Funding shortfall "incredibly serious"

The funding shortfall for World Food Programme (WFP) aid efforts in
Southern Africa is "incredibly serious", the organisation's executive
director has warned.

In a statement on Friday WFP said "millions of people in Southern Africa
will face massive food shortages as early as next month due to significant
funding shortfalls. The shortages will be most acute in Zimbabwe and
Mozambique, where food needs are greatest".

In July WFP appealed for US $308 million to fund the purchase of 540,000
mt of food aid, "enough to feed 6.5 million people until June of next year
in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Malawi".

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36843


ZIMBABWE: Journalists harassed as crackdown on Daily News continues

Police in Zimbabwe on Thursday released a list of 45 Daily News staffers
whom they instructed to report to Harare Central Police Station.

The list included past and present Daily News employees and journalists,
all of whom applied for accreditation, but whose applications were not
forwarded to the government-appointed Media and Information Commission
(MIC) because the publishers of the country's only independent daily
newspaper - Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) - were challenging the
constitutionality of the Access to Information and Protection and Privacy
Act (AIPPA).

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36823

NGOs sign agreement with govt to step up aid

An association of European NGOs involved in providing food aid to Zimbabwe
hopes a new agreement with the government will improve coordination of
humanitarian efforts.

The association, EuronAid, said in a statement that it had signed the
agreement with the government "in an effort to step up assistance for the
population of Zimbabwe during the actual shortage of staple food and basic
agricultural inputs".

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36816

Resettled farmers encounter fallout from economic meltdown

The prospects for agricultural revival in Zimbabwe in the new farming
season have been thrown into doubt, following reports that a parastatal
charged with implementing the tillage programme among resettled
subsistence farmers is facing serious problems, including the poor state
of mechanised and other farming implements and a chronic shortage of fuel.

District Development Fund (DDF) officials said more than half the tillage
fleet of tractors was in a state of disrepair due to the shortage of spare
parts, a situation which worsened early this year when Tanaka Power, a
Harare-based agricultural equipment and supplies company, withdrew its
services following DDF's failure to service its debt.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36785

Children hardest hit by crises - UNICEF

The rising the number of street children in Zimbabwe was an indication
that the ongoing humanitarian crisis, coupled with the current economic
decline, has had an extremely negative effect on the country's children.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Country Representative, Dr Festo Kavishe,
told IRIN on Tuesday that there had been "a very visible increase in
street kids" over the past year and a half.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36770

Feature - Higher education another casualty of economic crisis

Tertiary education in Zimbabwe was at one time ranked among the best in
Africa, but the achievements of the country’s education system are
threatened by growing dissatisfaction and underfunding.

Thousands of students who completed undergraduate studies at the
University of Zimbabwe (UZ), the country’s oldest institution for higher
learning, failed to graduate last month when lecturers complaining of poor
working conditions and low salaries resorted to industrial action.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36766


Health sector suffers from shortages

Zimbabwe's health care sector has been badly affected by chronic shortages
of essential medical supplies.

Last Thursday Bulawayo's major state hospitals announced that they were
suspending medical operations for all "non-life threatening" ailments
because of a critical shortage of essential drugs.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36742


ANGOLA: Training helps ex-combatants reintegrate into civilian life

On Thursday IRIN focused on efforts to reintegrate ex-combatants in
Angola's 27-year civil war.

Angola's former rebel soldiers and their families continue to return in
large numbers to their areas of origin - but lacking the necessary skills,
few of them have found work and thousands complain about the lack of food
security.

In an attempt to reduce unemployment among the ex-combatants, the Ministry
for Public Administration, Employment and Social Security (MAPESS) and the
World Food Programme (WFP) have set up education centres for basic
training in brick-making, agriculture, electrical wiring and carpentry.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36813

Concern over spontaneous returns

IRIN reported on Wednesday that hundreds of Angolan refugees, eager to
return to their home country now that peace prevails, have left a refugee
settlement in Zambia to begin the long journey home under their own steam.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Zambia
confirmed that Angolan refugees had left the Mayukwayukwa camp in the past
several days. UNHCR spokesman Kelvin Shimo told IRIN the refugees were
currently in the Lukulu district, near the Zambian border, en-route to
Angola.

"UNHCR and government have since sent a mission to the district to
investigate the matter and take the necessary action. We were told about
500 or so had left the Mayukwayukwa camp," he said.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36786

Fast-track immunisation launched

The week began with news that two United Nations agencies had launched a
fast-track programme to support the implementation of routine immunisation
across Angola.

The country's Ministry of Health, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the
World Health Organisation (WHO) hope to maintain routine immunisation of
75 percent of children under the age of one year in three-quarters of the
country by December 2003.

"We have made sound progress in boosting immunisation across Angola.
Routine immunisation boosts efficiency and saves lives and money. As such,
this announcement underlines the common commitment of government, WHO and
UNICEF to rebuild and benefit millions of Angolan children, and quickly,"
WHO Angola Representative Dr Paolo Balladelli said in a statement.

Angola has one of the highest child mortality rates, with one child in
four dying before they reach the age of five years, the statement noted.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36744

SWAZILAND: Rising concern over draft constitution as day of decree
approaches

Mounting grassroots concern over the imposition of King Mswati's
constitution became increasingly evident this week as women's groups
launched education campaigns, and was borne out in submissions by ordinary
Swazis to the palace-appointed Constitutional Drafting Committee (CDC).

"The prerogatives conferred on the King effectively place him above the
constitution, and this puts in doubt the supremacy of the constitution,
especially with regard to protection of the rights and freedoms of
citizens," stated the Swaziland branch of Women in Law in Southern Africa.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36850

Polls show rising desire for less royal rule

Polling results from the weekend's parliamentary primary elections
released on Tuesday showed that Swazi voters want change, and retired
several cabinet ministers appointed by King Mswati III as well as most
incumbent members of parliament.

"It is harder today to say that all Swazis march to the beat of the palace
drum. They have shown that they are fed up with the status quo," Titus
Magongo, a supporter of former prime minister but now pro-democracy
activist Obed Dlamini, told IRIN.

Dlamini, president of the banned political party, Ngwane National
Liberatory Congress (NNLC), was one of three prominent progressives who
advanced into the line-up for next month's general elections. Also elected
as run-off candidates from their districts were NNLC chairman Jimmy
Hlophe, and NNLC member Boniface Mamba.

"Technically, these candidates are lawbreakers because it is illegal to
belong to a political opposition party, which are banned by royal decree.
The voters know this, but they are sending a message," one political
observer noted.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36771

AIDS "indaba" highlights conflicting views

A three-day "AIDS Indaba", or traditional Swazi meeting, concluded at the
weekend with the enlistment of church leaders in the national campaign to
combat the disease by tapping into their influence, IRIN reported on
Monday.

"It is good that the church leaders are getting involved, and we support
the training of pastors in AIDS awareness," said Derrick Von Wissel,
director of the government's National Emergency Response Committee on
HIV/AIDS.

About 500 religious leaders from mainstream Christian denominations and
evangelical Christian groups met in the capital, Mbabane, to debate ways
of promoting morality as a counter to the rising HIV rate, now officially
at 38,6 percent of the adult population.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36743

LESOTHO: UNDP training improves public service capacity

Senior staff in Lesotho's ministry of local government have benefited from
a training programme designed to highlight individual responsibility in
the workplace, IRIN reported this week.

The programme, supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in
Lesotho, "examined principles of personal vision, trust, communication,
and the importance of appreciating how different individuals view the same
challenges differently", UNDP said in statement on Tuesday.

The local government ministry is responsible for decentralisation,
including organising local elections in March 2004, and land management,
urban housing and development, which are an integral part of the
government's poverty reduction strategy.

"The training was important in that we, as public service professionals,
were forced to look at our individual responsibility and performance in
delivering to the people of this country," director of decentralisation
Mpopo Tsoele said.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36772

MALAWI: Steady stream of asylum seekers from Great Lakes

Malawi is still experiencing a constant stream of people seeking refuge
from the strife-torn Great Lakes region, Disaster Relief and Preparedness
Commissioner Lucius Chikuni told IRIN.

However, he said the country was well prepared for the steady stream of
people seeking asylum in Malawi.

"Between 1994 and 1997 we had 5,000 refugees, and it has just been a
steady increase over the years - and the main reason for that is the fact
that the strife in the Great lakes region has not subsided," Chikuni said.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36822

MOZAMBIQUE: New funding for anti-malaria research

The recent US $168 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation is expected to bolster the fight against malaria in Africa.

It is estimated that more than one million people die annually from the
disease, mainly because of drug resistance. The funds are expected to
accelerate research into new malaria prevention strategies for children,
new drugs to fight drug-resistant malaria, and malaria vaccines.

The announcement was made after Bill and Melinda Gates met with Mozambican
Prime Minister Pascaol Mocumbi and Deputy Health Minister Aida Libombo.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36745

BOTSWANA: Women living with HIV caring for each other

HIV-positive women in Botswana have created an innovative support network
through which newly diagnosed women receive individual care and
companionship from other women living with the virus.

Traditional care programmes often focused on treatment and counselling
services, without taking into account something as simple as support in
the form of friendship, delegates attending the 13th International
Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) heard on Monday.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36750

ZAMBIA: Continued assistance to small-scale farmers after bumper harvest

Following the success of this year's maize harvest, Zambia has announced
that it will continue its assistance programme in the 2003/04 farming
season by supplying 60,000 mt of subsidised fertiliser and 3,000 mt of
subsidised maize seeds to 150,000 small-scale farmers.

"The good harvest [of 2002/03] showed that the programme initiated by
government to help farmers has worked very well, and for the first time we
are actually exporting maize seeds," said Elizabeth Phiri, permanent
secretary in charge of cooperatives and marketing in the ministry of
agriculture and cooperatives.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36849


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003


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