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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Fax: +27 11 880 1421
e-mail: irin-sa@irin.org.za


SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-Up 213
8 - 14 January 2005


CONTENTS:

SOUTHERN AFRICA: SADC to focus on food security in 2005
COMOROS-MAURITIUS-MADAGASCAR: Small island nations need trade
LESOTHO: New trade regime threatens economy
MOZAMBIQUE: RENAMO to await court ruling on alleged poll irregularities
SOUTH AFRICA: Africa's peacekeeper
ZIMBABWE: Malnutrition and related diseases expected to rise
ANGOLA: Cautious optimism for 2005
BOTSWANA: Cattle owners still recovering from FMD outbreaks


SOUTHERN AFRICA: SADC to focus on food security in 2005

The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) will this year focus on 
improving regional food security through increased production and the 
establishment of a regional reserve facility to deal with emergencies.

In his 2004 year-end speech spelling out the priorities of the bloc in 
2005, SADC secretary-general Prega Ramsamy said the region should 
intensify food production. Despite a drop in the cereal deficit from 2.96 
million tonnes in the 2003/04 marketing season to the current 1.96 million 
mt, many countries still faced huge shortages and food crises of varying 
proportions.

The SADC Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources directorate would spend 
2005 implementing the organisation's Dar es Salaam Declaration on 
Agriculture and Food Security, adopted by heads of state at a meeting in 
the Tanzanian capital in May 2004.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45045


More than food aid needed for recovery - Yearender

The world's attention was grabbed by the calamity of the Asian tsunami at 
the end of the year, but millions of people in Southern Africa have 
entered 2005 unsure of whether they will find enough food to eat. The 
regional humanitarian crisis that began in 2002, and threatened 15 million 
people at its peak, has persisted in four countries: Lesotho, Malawi, 
Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

The response to a World Food Programme (WFP) appeal for US $404 million 
over a three-year period has not been encouraging. "To date, WFP has 
received only 2.5 percent (about US $10 million)," the agency noted.

"The traditional lean season - from January to March - will be 
particularly tough, as we will have to cut rations even further unless we 
receive immediate cash donations," said Mike Sackett, WFP regional 
director for southern Africa. "WFP will run out of food for Lesotho by the 
end of January, and other countries in the region in the following weeks. 
By the beginning of March we won't have any cereals left."

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45028


Succession issue key as three leaders bow out - Yearender

Three long-serving Southern African leaders bade farewell to high office 
in 2004 and handed power to their chosen successors after largely free and 
fair elections, a development welcomed by analysts in the region.

Polls in Malawi, Namibia and Mozambique saw the ruling parties celebrating 
victories for the candidates in line to succeed veteran leaders Bakili 
Muluzi, Sam Nujoma and Joaquim Chissano. The wins were, with the exception 
of Malawi, substantial enough to cement "consensus one-party states", with 
parliamentary opposition weakened, and more prominent roles for civil 
society as a focus for dissent, analysts told IRIN.

The retirement of the three leaders, celebrated as a sign of political 
maturity, was not a foregone conclusion. Muluzi was the focus of much 
criticism when his party, the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF), 
attempted to change Malawi's constitution to allow him to run for office a 
third time. The constitutional amendment was narrowly defeated in 
parliament.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45038


SADC offers assistance to small islands

SADC has extended a helping hand to Indian Ocean island countries 
struggling to cope with the constant threat of natural disasters.

SADC executive secretary Prega Ramsamy on Wednesday told delegates 
attending a week-long international summit in Mauritius that the 
organisation was prepared to assist in the development of disaster 
management systems, including a regional early warning alert.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45036


MAURITIUS-COMOROS-MADAGASCAR: Small island nations need trade

Climate change and rising sea levels were the greatest challenges facing 
Small Island Developing Countries (SIDS), in some cases threatening their 
very existence, delegates attending an international conference in 
Mauritius agreed on Friday.

Some 40 island nations met this week to assess an action plan, launched in 
Barbados in 1994, to help the world's smallest countries deal with 
challenges such as trade imbalances, natural calamities and climate 
change.

Speaking to journalists on Friday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said 
SIDS would prefer to "trade themselves out of poverty instead of living on 
handouts".

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45068


Small island economies seek special treatment

Small island countries will remain economically marginalised unless urgent 
steps are taken to improve market access for their products, delegates 
attending a UN Conference in Mauritius heard on Tuesday.

Senior government representatives from several Small Island Developing 
States (SIDS) highlighted that over the past decade trade liberalisation 
had severely battered their fragile economies.

Participants appealed for "special" treatment for their exports, which 
would compensate for the high economic costs resulting from their 
remoteness and smallness.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45014


Call for action over survival of small islands

On Monday, civil society groups attending the conference in Mauritius 
called for greater action from the international community to address the 
special needs of Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Advocacy groups raised concern over the lack of progress in the 
implementation of the Barbados Programme of Action (BPoA), agreed at the 
first such conference a decade ago.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44998


LESOTHO: New trade regime threatens economy

About 7,000 clothing and textile workers face a bleak year after three 
factories in Lesotho failed to reopen after the festive season. The impact 
of the closures on the tiny mountain kingdom, one of the least developed 
countries in the world, will be significant.

Deputy general-secretary of the Lesotho Clothing and Allied Workers Union, 
B. Shaw Lebakae, told IRIN that the end of quotas for cheap imports to the 
United States from Asian countries would cause more foreign factory 
owners, originally from Asia, to reconsider the location of their 
businesses.

Although Lesotho still enjoys duty-free access to the US market under the 
Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), goods manufactured in countries 
like Lesotho will probably be more expensive for US importers than goods 
from countries like China, which are able to achieve superior economies of 
scale, Labakae added.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45051


MOZAMBIQUE: RENAMO to await court ruling on alleged poll irregularities

Mozambique's main opposition party, RENAMO, will reserve action on its 
allegations of vote rigging until the country's supreme law-making body 
makes a ruling on the conduct of the December 2004 parliamentary and 
presidential elections.

"The Constitutional Council is expected to make a ruling either on Friday 
or Monday", Eduardo Namburete, manager of RENAMO's election campaign, told 
IRIN on Wednesday.

The former rebel movement's national council announced after meeting this 
week that although it rejected the election results, it would only call 
for fresh elections in the areas where "irregularities" had been reported, 
according to Namubrete. Last month the party had called for a re-run of 
the entire electoral process.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45022


SOUTH AFRICA: Africa's peacekeeper - Yearender

South Africa emerged as Africa's main troubleshooter in 2004. Whether in 
the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Cote 
d'Ivoire or even Sudan, South African president Thabo Mbeki's intervention 
- though not always successful - was sought by the African Union (AU).

South Africa's role as mediator in the continent's trouble spots was proof 
of its commitment to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) 
and its standing in the global community, argued political analyst Prof 
John Stremlau of the Johannesburg-based Witwatersrand University.

"The peace initiatives taken up by South Africa are important to validate 
Mbeki's pledges to the G8 that Africa can solve its problems, and 
establish peace and security in the wider NEPAD framework," he commented.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45011


ZIMBABWE: Malnutrition and related diseases expected to rise

IRIN reported on Monday that malnutrition and related diseases are 
expected to rise in Zimbabwe, peaking in the January to March 2005 period, 
according to a new report by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network 
(FEWS NET).

While staple cereals are increasingly unavailable in rural areas, maize 
prices on the parallel market continue to climb, limiting the ability of 
households to buy enough food to satisfy their needs, said both FEWS NET 
and the World Food Programme (WFP) in separate surveys.

Food security is declining in most districts, particularly those in the 
traditionally dry Masvingo and Matebeleland provinces in the south of the 
country, according to WFP.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44986


Resettled farmers need assistance

Most of Zimbabwe's newly resettled farmers have had a slow start to the 
main planting season, and experts warn that this might jeopardise the 
country's food supply this year.

New farmers, particularly those who were given the A1 communal model farms 
during the fast-track land redistribution programme that commenced in 
2000, cited a lack of draught power as the main obstacle to planting.

At an A1 farm about 40 kilometres north of the small town of Mvuma in 
Midlands province, more than half the settlers said they had been forced 
to adopt zero tillage, known locally as "chibhakera", a simple technique 
of planting seed into the soil with little or no prior land preparation.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=44996


Street children trying to survive in "Sunshine city"

On Wednesday IRIN focussed on the plight of street children in Harare, 
some of whom have entered the sex trade in order to survive.

Their plight is the result of Zimbabwe's long-standing economic crisis. 
The country's unemployment rate stands at 80 percent. The UN Economic 
Commission for Africa said in a report last year that Zimbabwe recorded a 
Gross Domestic Product growth rate of -5.5.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45035


ANGOLA: Cautious optimism for 2005

Ask any humanitarian worker, government official or Angola-watcher about 
priorities and key events to look out for in 2005 and there will be as 
many answers as there are respondents.

As the country slowly rebuilds after 27 years of civil war, the list of 
issues to be tackled is immense, and further complicated by the fact that 
Angola is in a pre-election year, preparing for its first ballot in more 
than a decade.

But the common theme as the country moves into its third year of peace is 
that both the government and humanitarian organisations working in the 
country will, by and large, switch their activities away from immediate 
aid to longer-term development strategies.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45077


BOTSWANA: Cattle owners still recovering from FMD outbreaks

Botswana's cattle owners are still trying to come to terms with two 
successive outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) that resulted in the 
destruction of thousands of cattle to contain the virus.

The cattle industry once ranked alongside diamond mining as a top income 
earner, but the FMD outbreaks in 2002/03 froze beef exports to the 
European Union (EU) and emerging markets.

The real victims are the 3,000 people who depend on livestock herding in 
northeastern Botswana, near the Zimbabwe border. Trevor Molapisi is one of 
them.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45070


IRIN-SA
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Fax: +27 11 784-6759
Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

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