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 West Africa

Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 446
20 - 26 September 2008


CONTENTS:

CHAD: ICG proposes inclusive path to peace
NIGERIA: Government unprepared for returnee influx
SENEGAL: Malnutrition at crisis level in northeast
NIGER: Fighting hunger one tree at a time
LIBERIA: FGM continues in rural secrecy
GUINEA: Reputation for corruption worsens
GLOBAL: What happens to aid money?
WEST AFRICA: Mixed report card in 2008 corruption index
AFRICA: Cervical cancer vaults to WHO priority list
MAURITANIA: Terrorist attack hits already-fragile economy
NIGERIA: Cholera outbreak kills 97 in north


CHAD: ICG proposes inclusive path to peace

Unless the Chad government includes rebels in reconciliation talks, the
country will continue to face security threats and political crises,
says the International Crisis Group (ICG) in its 25 September report. A
permanent ceasefire has eluded the violence-wracked country even after
numerous rounds of government-rebel peace negotiations since conflict
surged again in December 2005. The report calls for better distribution
of oil money, radical government reform and revived talks between Chad
and Sudan to end their support of each other's rebel groups. ICG
describes the August 2007 EU-brokered peace deal as flawed, in that it
tried to build democracy through elections without helping to create the
necessary conditions for successful elections. "The Chadian crisis goes
way beyond what [the] August 13 [agreement] can achieve," the ICG's
deputy director for Africa, Daniela Kroslak told IRIN. "We have to look
at.decentralising the state authority, and security sector and judicial
reforms - all of which are components without which democracy cannot
thrive."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80616


NIGERIA: Government unprepared for returnee influx

The Nigerian government has announced it is unprepared for the tens of
thousands of returnees who have fled the southern Bakassi province over
the past month, and is calling on the UN to help it handle the
unexpected return. Up to 76,000 returnees have registered at 12 sites in
Akwa Ibom and Cross River states, according to Victor Antai, council
chairman of Mbo, one of the sites in Akwa Ibom. "We never envisaged such
a flow of returnees," Florence Ita-Giwa, head of the presidential task
force on the resettlement and rehabilitation of Nigerian returnees, told
IRIN. "It is because the situation in Bakassi [now under Cameroonian
control] after the [14 August] handover has not been conducive, so they
had to flee back to Nigeria. We had thought many of them would have
stayed for at least a few more years."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80582


SENEGAL: Malnutrition at crisis level in northeast

Poor rains and rising rice prices have contributed to increasing
malnutrition to alarming levels in at least three regions of Senegal.
Following a rapid assessment in July 2008 by the UN and the Ministry of
Health, the government has confirmed a malnutrition crisis in three of
the five surveyed regions, with the most critical being Matam, where 17
percent of the children surveyed under five years old are malnourished.
Researchers surveyed Matam, Gossas, Guinguineo, Sedhiou and Goudomp, and
concluded Matam, Guinguineo and Goudomp require immediate food
assistance, while the other two regions require continued monitoring.
Youssouf Gaye, the head of the Food, Nutrition and Children division at
the Ministry of Health, told IRIN Matam's numbers are the most alarming
of the five regions. Of the 670 children surveyed, 117 are malnourished.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80595


NIGER: Fighting hunger one tree at a time

For 17 years, the Sweden-based non-profit Eden Foundation has been
working with hundreds of farmers in one of Niger's most arid zones to
disprove the reigning logic that the desert is a tough place to nurture
plant- and human- life through its research and free seed distribution.
Coordinator Josef Garvi told IRIN nature has abundant answers to Niger's
perennial food insecurity problems, but "people are not looking close
enough. They look for quick answers, handouts from international aid
agencies, big expensive hard-to-maintain irrigation projects, or
programmes that help politicians look good, but do little to help
farmers." On a budget of about US$100,000 a year, the 13-person
Zinder-based team in eastern Niger, about 900 km east of the capital
Niamey, travels a few times a week to its testing station more than 100
kilometres away to check on plots of plants, divided by varieties, and
years planted. They have been monitoring these trees in a
two-decade-long desert planting experiment.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80601


LIBERIA: FGM continues in rural secrecy

Thousands of young girls annually prepare for their initiation into a
women's secret association, Sande Society, which operates mostly in
Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. As part of their initiation, young
women take a vow of secrecy after weeks of training in the forest,
promising not to not tell uninitiated girls or men what happens to them,
to assume new names, and to have their clitorises cut off - known as
female genital mutilation (FGM) - according to women in the secret
society. About half of Liberia's some 16 ethnic groups, including the
Bassa, Mende, Gola and Kissi, observe the rules of this
historically-secret, centuries-old society. One Mende member from
Tubmanburg, Western Liberia, who asked not to be named, told IRIN
removing a girl's clitoris helps her become a "prolific child bearer."

Another member, 42-year-old Jebbeh Sonneh, explained to IRIN, "Those who
perform such [FGM] acts are typically elderly women in the community
designated for the task, or traditional birth attendants."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80571


GUINEA: Reputation for corruption worsens

Guinea fell five spots in the 2008 ranking of perceptions of corruption
released by the watchdog non-profit Transparency International (TI).
Officials say Guinea's deteriorating reputation for corruption can
threaten city services, choke economic growth and increase drug
trafficking. Guinea's TI representative, Mamadou Taran Diallo, told IRIN
Guinea is paralysed in its efforts to wipe out corruption. "Guinea's
rank at 173, tied with Chad and Sudan, out of 180 countries is a clear
and persistent sign our country is stuck at the bottom." Guinea ranked
last year 168 out of 179 countries, which was a slight improvement over
2006 when Guinea was perceived to be the fourth most corrupt country in
the world. "We need to move past talking about fighting to corruption to
actually doing something." said Diallo.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80575


GLOBAL: What happens to aid money?

Tired of navigating the often-secretive donor funding world, a group of
international non-profits have launched the Publish What You Fund (PWYF)
campaign to encourage donors to reveal timely and accessible information
about how they are spending their money. The group launched the campaign
on 1 September at the Accra aid effectiveness forum, and include freedom
of information organisations Access Info and Tiri, and NGOs such as
Data/ONE, the UK Aid Network and Actionaid.

Donors are encouraged to adopt PWYF's donor transparency principles,
which commits them, among other things, to sharing timely information
about their giving. Even though more than 50 donor-tracking systems
exist, Sarah Cook, DFID's head of aid effectiveness and accountability
says most are not user-friendly. "Information is either not available or
only available in many different complex formats. It is hard for
[people] who are supposed to be benefiting from aid to know how the
money is being spent."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80545


WEST AFRICA: Mixed report card in 2008 corruption index

Nine West African countries shot up while nine others sank lower in the
2008 Transparency International (TI) ranking of perceptions of
corruption in 180 countries. Of the 180 countries surveyed, eight West
African countries placed in the bottom 20: Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire,
Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, and
finally, Guinea placing sixth from last.

Cape Verde, the only West African country to have graduated to the UN
status of middle-income country, ranked 47. In a public statement,
Chairman Huguette Labelle of the TI corruption watchdog group called
corruption in poor countries an ongoing humanitarian disaster. "In the
poorest countries, corruption levels can mean the difference between
life and death when money for hospitals or clean water is at play."

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80552


AFRICA: Cervical cancer vaults to WHO priority list

With cervical cancer cases rising across Sub-Saharan Africa, and 80
percent of women diagnosed too late to stop the cancer's deadly spread,
the World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending screening and
vaccination programmes throughout the region. "WHO is going to strongly
advocate with donors and decision-makers to list cervical cancer as a
public health priority.because with a vaccine we can save lives by
preventing cervical cancer." said Jean Gabriel Wango, head of family
health at WHO in Ouagadougou. The vaccine will help fight the Human
Papilloma Virus (HPV), which if left untreated, can develop into
cervical cancer. "There is little investment in this disease and many of
our women are unaware of it.so they die in silence," said Sita Kabore,
president of Kimi, an association that runs cervical cancer screening
campaigns in Burkina Faso.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80529


MAURITANIA: Terrorist attack hits already-fragile economy

Alleged terrorist attacks on 14 September in Tourine in the northeast
killed 11 soldiers and their civilian guide, confirmed Mauritania's
newly-installed defence ministry on 20 September. Analysts say the
economy can ill-afford this additional blow in the face of donor
sanction threats. The European Union (EU), US government and World Bank
have suspended, or threaten to cut, more than US$500 million in
non-humanitarian aid in condemnation of the 6 August military takeover
and continued detention of President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi.
Economist Isselmou Ould Mohamed with the World Bank-funded non-profit
Association for the Exchange of Economic Information told IRIN the
attacks add to mounting pressure faced by Mauritania's aid-dependent
economy. "Mauritania needs international dollars for its roads,
hospitals, and public works." Based on World Bank 2007 figures, 67
percent of Mauritania's public spending is financed by international
donors.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80530


NIGERIA: Cholera outbreak kills 97 in north

Local government officials say cholera outbreaks across Katsina,
Zamfara, Bauchi and Kano states in northern Nigeria have killed 97
people in the past two weeks, making it the worst outbreak in the north
for several years, according to an official from National Primary
Healthcare Agency (NPHA) in Abuja.

More than 60 people have died in Zamfara state in the past two weeks,
according to Tukur Sani Jangebe, Zamfara's state commissioner for
religious affairs. "It is quite alarming and it is quite unusual for
northern Nigeria. If up to 100 people have died from cholera in just two
weeks, you can only imagine how many more are affected by the disease,"
an official from the government-run NPHA who requested anonymity, told
IRIN. National government officials have not yet publicly stated if the
outbreaks across the separate states are related, or provided figures on
the number of affected people. Jangebe said the death toll may be higher
as reports of new infections are still coming in.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80531


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