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

Tel: +27 11 880 4633
Fax: +27 11 880 1421
e-mail: irin-sa@irin.org.za


SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-Up 347
20 - 26 October 2007


CONTENTS:

ZAMBIA-ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's sex workers look to their neighbour for
   business
SWAZILAND: Food or biofuel seems to be the question
ZIMBABWE: "The Mother of all farming seasons"
AFRICA: Farmers need a financial umbrella says World Bank
SOUTH AFRICA: Refugees being treated like "animals"
SOUTH AFRICA: Sugar Daddies find plenty of sweet teeth
AFRICA: Food to eat or to run your car?
SOUTH AFRICA: Skills training scheme under review
ZIMBABWE: No rest for the dead
MALAWI: Role of traditional birth attendants to change


ZAMBIA-ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe's sex workers look to their neighbour for 
business

An influx of Zimbabwean sex workers into the Zambian capital, Lusaka, is 
testing the government's patience with its neighbour.

Although there are no official figures for the number of Zimbabweans 
resident in Lusaka, unofficial estimates have put the figure at 10,000 
or more, and many are said to be engaged in activities the government 
frowns upon.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=75003


SWAZILAND: Food or biofuel seems to be the question

The government of Swaziland announced this week that it would be 
allocating thousands of hectares to a private company to cultivate 
cassava for biofuel. About 40 percent of the country's one million 
people are facing acute food and water shortages.

"The cassava ethanol project has restarted the debate on how the country 
should use its agriculture land," said Sipho Mthetfwa, an agriculture 
extension officer in Shiselweni Region in the south of the country.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74987


ZIMBABWE: "The Mother of all farming seasons"

President Robert Mugabe's government is launching an ambitious plan to 
revive Zimbabwe's agricultural production, which plummeted following the 
chaotic expropriation of white-owned farmland for redistribution to 
landless blacks seven years ago.

The government's fast-track land reform programme dispossessed about 
4,000 white commercial farmers of prime agricultural land, ostensibly to 
correct a history of skewed ownership. Critics allege the newly settled 
farmers were not given adequate state support, while senior members of 
the ruling ZANU-PF party and other government officials, including 
high-ranking army and police officers, took over the best estates.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74981


AFRICA: Farmers need a financial umbrella says World Bank

Helping small-scale farmers in Africa cope with risks such as natural 
disasters, extreme weather events and price fluctuations should be a 
priority, according to agricultural experts and the World Bank's annual 
report, released last week.

Exposure to these "uninsured risks ... has high efficiency and welfare 
costs for rural households" said the World Development Report 2008: 
Agriculture for Development, the bank's first analysis of agriculture 
since 1982. "Selling assets to survive shocks can have high long-term 
costs ... [distress sales of land and livestock] creates 
irreversibilities or slow recovery in the ownership of agricultural 
assets."

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74967


SOUTH AFRICA: Refugees being treated like "animals"

An unannounced visit by a South African parliamentary committee to Cape 
Town's refugee centre last week found foreign nationals being treated 
like "animals" by officials responsible for running the centre.

Although South Africa's Department of Home Affairs, whose duties include 
processing refugee applications, is routinely criticised for its 
treatment of foreign nationals, the aftermath of the parliamentarians' 
visit to the refugee centre has sparked a political furore, because Home 
Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula had shied away twice from 
meeting the parliamentary commmittee to explain the "deplorable state" 
of her department.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74964


SOUTH AFRICA: Sugar Daddies find plenty of sweet teeth

While sugar daddies are not a new phenomenon, their latest incarnation 
could be described as a symptom of the "new" post-1994 South Africa with 
its rampant consumerism and glittering shopping malls, located just a 
few kilometres from informal settlements where people still live in 
shacks.

Nowhere are these jarring inequalities more apparent than Johannesburg, 
South Africa's economic hub and the natural territory of "Black 
Diamonds", a term coined to describe members of the new black middle 
classes. Most of this group have long abandoned the townships for 
upmarket suburbs, but many still return on weekends to drink in shebeens 
and flirt with young women, who are easily impressed by their flashy 
cars and designer clothes.

Full report:
http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74910


AFRICA: Food to eat or to run your car?

As oil prices soar and biofuel production becomes more attractive, 
especially to poor countries, a debate is raging over its possible 
impact on food security.

Biofuel production to earn revenue should go "hand-in-hand" with efforts 
to make countries food secure said Andre Croppenstedt, an economist with 
the Agricultural Development Economics Division of the UN Food and 
Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74941


SOUTH AFRICA: Skills training scheme under review

A multimillion-dollar scheme designed to address South Africa's skills 
shortage and make inroads into the high unemployment rate is under 
review and is expected to be streamlined by 2010.

The Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) were established 
in 2000 as a result of the Skills Development Act, promulgated two years 
earlier, which divided the economy into 24 sectors, each with a SETA 
overseeing the development and quality control of relevant skills.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74933


ZIMBABWE: No rest for the dead

As Zimbabwe's economic crisis deepens, the daily struggle to make ends 
meet often takes priority over providing loved ones with a decent burial 
and morgues are being filled beyond capacity.

Mortuaries, plagued by power failures, failing refrigerators and lack of 
chemicals to operate properly, have to keep corpses for extended periods 
of time while relatives try to scrape together what they can to bid the 
deceased a final farewell. Many relatives never return and, after nine 
months, abandoned corpses are given pauper burials by the state.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74911


MALAWI: Role of traditional birth attendants to change

Malawi is planning to change the role of Traditional Birth Attendants 
(TBAs) in an attempt to reduce one of the world's highest rates of 
maternal and infant deaths.

A 2004 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey said the maternal and infant 
mortality rate was 984 out of every 100,000 live births, translating to 
6,000 maternal deaths each year.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74871


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