Weekly Round-Up - IRINSA-384: 18-Jul-08
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 384
14 - 18 July 2008
CONTENTS:
MADAGASCAR: Early Recovery to mitigate emergency response
MALAWI: Derivatives used to hedge against bad weather
GLOBAL: Could do better - tackling corruption in humanitarian
intervention
AFRICA: USA must improve aid balance - Refugees International
SOUTH AFRICA: Police storm refugee camp
ZIMBABWE: Talking about the talks about talks
MADAGASCAR: Plan to fight Rift Valley Fever needs funding
ZIMBABWE: Manna from heaven for a day
SWAZILAND: Humanitarian post offices
SOUTH AFRICA: WANTED - 4,000 doctors
MADAGASCAR: Early Recovery to mitigate emergency response
In Madagascar, where community resilience and livelihoods are
continuously eroded by cyclones, floods and drought, the gap between
emergency humanitarian action and development assistance can become too
wide to cross.
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79331
MALAWI: Derivatives used to hedge against bad weather
Malawi, riding high on recent cereal surpluses, is hedging its bets
against inclement weather disrupting its good fortune by using a
financial derivative to offset agricultural risk. Unlike insurance,
weather derivatives are financial contracts based on an underlying
weather index; in the case of Malawi the index will use a model that
estimates maize production based on rainfall data.
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79319
GLOBAL: Could do better - tackling corruption in humanitarian
intervention
Humanitarian agencies should work harder and more closely together to
minimise various forms of corruption that can affect the delivery of
emergency aid and harm the reputation of agencies involved, says a new
report. "The humanitarian community should step up efforts to address
corruption and reduce corruptions risks," according to Preventing
Corruption in Humanitarian Assistance, a report by Transparency
International, the Feinstein International Centre and Tufts University,
and the Humanitarian Policy Group at the UK's Overseas Development
Institute.
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79316
AFRICA: USA must improve aid balance - Refugees International
Imbalances between US spending on defence, diplomacy and development are
affecting the USA's ability to stabilise fragile and conflict-prone
African countries, the US-based non-governmental organisation, Refugees
International, concludes in a new report. "The headline is that at the
moment [US] policies are out of whack," said Refugees International
President Ken Bacon. "That is affecting our ability to act effectively
and coherently in Africa, and to carry out the war on terrorism in a
coherent, long-term and effective way."
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79308
SOUTH AFRICA: Police storm refugee camp
Police stormed a refugee camp on 17 July in southern Johannesburg to
release four security guards held hostage by foreign nationals displaced
by the recent xenophobic violence in South Africa. The tented "safety
camp" in Johannesburg's Glenanda suburb houses about 2,000 people from
16 African countries and was established in the wake of widespread
xenophobic attacks that killed more than 60 people, injured hundreds
more and displaced tens of thousands in May this year
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79302
ZIMBABWE: Talking about the talks about talks
Once the talks between the ZANU-PF party and the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) begin in earnest they are likely to mirror the
current civil society debates on a solution to Zimbabwe's debilitating
political and economic crises. A recent gathering of civil society
organisations in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, heard divided
opinions, with one camp backing a government of national unity (GNU),
while the other favoured a transitional authority as the best way to
re-establish the country's democratic credentials.
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79286
MADAGASCAR: Plan to fight Rift Valley Fever needs funding
Rift Valley Fever (RVF) has claimed the lives of at least 20 people and
killed thousands of animals since the beginning of 2008, and UN agencies
warn that worse is to come unless immediate action is taken. "A large
part of population is potentially at risk ... the disease is still not
under control," Marco Falcone, emergency coordinator of the UN Food and
Agricultural Organisation (FAO), told IRIN.
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79264
ZIMBABWE: Manna from heaven for a day
"It was like the Biblical manna from heaven," a villager in Murombedzi,
a rural district about 110km northwest of the Zimbabwean capital,
Harare, recounted to IRIN after a truck with basic commodities at
knock-down prices arrived at the almost abandoned shopping centre.
"Imagine, I managed to buy two litres of cooking oil for Z$1.5 billion
[US$0.02 at an exchange rate of Z$65 billion to US$1], a bar of soap for
Z$1 billion [US$0.01) and two kg of sugar for Z$800 million [US$0.008],
when I would need at least Z$600 billion [US$9.25] to purchase the same
items in a shop or the black [parallel] market," said Tariro Musanhi,
32.
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79260
SWAZILAND: Humanitarian post offices
The traditional core business of the post office - sending letters,
selling stamps - seems a bit of an anachronism in the era of electronic
mail and cellphones, but new uses are being found for an institution
with branches in some of the remotest parts of Swaziland. Post offices
have long been important in facilitating financial transactions, from
paying public utility bills to sending and receiving money orders. A
pilot programme has taken that one step further - testing the postal
service's ability to assist in dispensing humanitarian relief.
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79250
SOUTH AFRICA: WANTED - 4,000 doctors
With more South African doctors now working abroad than in the country's
ailing public health sector, the government needs to start aggressively
recruiting health workers from other countries, according to a
non-profit recruitment organisation. Dr Clarence Mini, of Africa Health
Placements, which specialises in placing public-health professionals,
told a national tuberculosis conference in the port city of Durban
earlier this month that more than 4,000 doctor's posts were currently
unfilled in South Africa's state hospitals, while 3,000 South
African-qualified doctors are working in the United Kingdom and 2,000 in
the United States.
Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79243
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Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
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Center for International web: www.cidi.org
. Disaster Information listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
. guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
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Southern Africa www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/safrica