Thousands Displaced by Clashes in West

Clashes between two communities in western Kenya’s Rift Valley Province have led to the displacement of thousands of people, the closure of several schools and calls for the government to beef up security.

Relations between the Tugen and the Pokot in what is now known as Baringo County have for decades been marked by tit-for-tat cattle raids and the occasional attendant fatality. Over the years, firearms have replaced more traditional weapons, especially among the Pokot.

An escalation - in intensity and frequency - of hostilities since January has, according to the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), left more than 7,500 Tugen people displaced from their homes, living either with other members of their community or in rudimentary shelters in the bush.

A dozen schools have been forced to close, affecting around 2,000 children, said KRCS.

Local media listed the worst-affected locations as Rondinin, Chepkewel, Kaborion, Tuluk, Kapturo, Chepkesin, Kamwetio, Boruiyo, Chemoe, Barketiew, Kagir, Kosile, Yatia, Loruk and Kalabata.

Five deaths and at least 16 serious injuries have been reported.

KRCS has warned of a risk of communicable diseases among the displaced, which could be exacerbated by inadequate sanitation as well as limited access to health care. The conflict has forced some health centre staff to flee their posts, meaning the only functioning health facility is up to 40km away.

The displaced are in need of health care, mobile toilets, food and other humanitarian aid, according to KRCS.
 
“The clashes are foreseen to continue if security measures are not addressed well,” KRCS warned in a statement.

KRCS assistant secretary-general for the Rift Valley, Patrick Nyongesa, told IRIN a dispute over the boundaries of administrative areas established under a 2010 devolutionary constitution had contributed to the escalation of hostilities. 

“The government must… look into the boundaries issues so that communities may not fight for land resources in the name of cattle rustling,” said Nyongesa, adding that in the absence of adequate government intervention the Tugen were likely to try to acquire firearms.

Even children among the Tugen community are determined to use force to protect their families and livestock, with many using bows and arrows to do so. “I will not wait for the Pokot to kill my family, I have to take charge and remain alert,” Brian, a 12-year-old boy, told IRIN. “Raiders stole our 11 cattle. Only three remained and I have to guard them,” he said, adding that he had dropped out of primary school because of the conflict.

Mary Chemos, who was displaced from the village of Setek after an attack by cattle raiders, told IRIN: “I am lucky to be alive, the attackers shot at my house but somehow, no bullets hit either me or my three children…
 
“I know the Pokot will come again if I restock my cattle. I am now poor and without peace. I wish I would get somewhere to live peacefully even without owning a single head of cattle.” 
 
Security

In a recent pastoralist peace meeting in Rift Valley’s capital of Nakuru, Internal Security Minister George Saitoti said additional security officers had been deployed to Baringo North. 
 
But residents insist the government is not doing enough. 
 
“We have been reporting to security agents but no action has been taken. Sometimes we have given the names of suspects,” said Richard Chepchomoe, a local leader.
 
Ten government security officers have been killed in the past year in cattle-rustling incidents, according to Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner Osman Warfa. 
 
“Our officers don’t want to be posted in cattle-rustling prone areas,” said Warfa. “Leaders must learn to preach peace rather than division… It is a shame that we are still talking about cattle-rustling in this century.” 
 
At least 82 people have been killed in cattle-rustling incidents across Kenya in the past year, with 47 injured and 24,000 heads of livestock stolen, according to Saitoti.

Ethnic clashes, fuelled by pre-election politics and planned development schemes have also been reported in the northcentral county of Isiolo.

Source: irinnews.org

Water & Poverty, an Issue of Life & Livelihoods

Water is essential for all socio-economic development and for maintaining healthy ecosystems. As population increases and development calls for increased allocations of groundwater and surface water for the domestic, agriculture and industrial sectors, the pressure on water resources intensifies, leading to tensions, conflicts among users, and excessive pressure on the environment. The increasing stress on freshwater resources brought about by ever rising demand and profligate use, as well as by growing pollution worldwide, is of serious concern.

What is water scarcity? Imbalances between availability and demand, the degradation of groundwater and surface water quality, intersectoral competition, interregional and international conflicts, all contributes to water scarcity. 

Scarcity often has its roots in water shortage, and it is in the arid and semiarid regions affected by droughts and wide climate variability, combined with population growth and economic development, that the problems of water scarcity are most acute. 

Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and, although there is no global water scarcity as such, an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water.  

By 2025, 1 800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions. The situation will be exacerbated as rapidly growing urban areas place heavy pressure on neighbouring water resources. 

Addressing water scarcity requires actions at local, national and river basin levels. It also calls for actions at global and international levels, leading to increased collaboration between nations on shared management of water resources (rivers, lakes and aquifers), it requires an intersectoral and multidisciplinary approach to managing water resources in order to maximize economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems. 

Integration across sectors is needed. This integration needs to take into account development, supply, use and demand, and to place the emphasis on people, their livelihood and the ecosystems that sustain them. On the demand side, enhancing water productivity (the volume of production per unit of water) in all sectors is paramount to successful programmes of water scarcity alleviation. Furthermore, protecting and restoring the ecosystems that naturally capture, filter, store and release water, such as rivers, wetlands, forests and soils, is crucial to increasing the availability of water of good quality. 

First and foremost, water scarcity is an issue of poverty. Unclean water and lack of sanitation are the destiny of poor people across the world.

Lack of hygiene affects poor children and families first, while the rest of the world's population benefits from direct access to the water they need for domestic use. One in five people in the developing world lacks access to sufficient clean water (a suggested minimum of 20 litres/day), while average water use in Europe and the United States of America ranges between 200 and 600 litres/day. In addition, the poor pay more. A recent report by the United Nations Development Programme shows that people in the slums of developing countries typically pay 5-10 times more per unit of water than do people with access to piped water (UNDP, 2006).

For poor people, water scarcity is not only about droughts or rivers running dry. Above all, it is about guaranteeing the fair and safe access they need to sustain their lives and secure their livelihoods. For the poor, scarcity is about how institutions function and how transparency and equity are guaranteed in decisions affecting their lives. It is about choices on infrastructure development and the way they are managed. In many places throughout the world, organizations struggle to distribute resources equitably.

Water for life, water for livelihood. While access to safe water and sanitation have been recognized as priority targets through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Johannesburg plan of action of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), there is increasing recognition that this is not enough. Millions of people rely in one way or another on water for their daily income or food production. Farmers, small rural enterprises, herders and fishing people - all need water to secure their livelihood. However, as the resources become scarce, an increasing number of them see their sources of income disappear. Silently, progressively, the number of water losers increases - at the tail end of the irrigation canal, downstream of a new dam, or as a result of excessive groundwater drawdown.

It is probably in rural areas that water scarcity affects people most. In large parts of the developing world, irrigation remains the backbone of rural economies. However, smallholder farmers make up the majority of the world's rural poor, and they often occupy marginal land and depend mainly on rainfall for production. They are highly sensitive to many changes - droughts, floods, but also shifts in market prices. However, rainwater is rarely integrated into water management strategies, which usually focus exclusively on surface water and groundwater. Countries need to integrate rainwater fully into their strategies to cope with water scarcity.

You can help us fight this problem!  Please click HERE

Source: fao.org

Meet Water Maniac Walter!

On October 17, 2011, we saw the launch of "Generation Awake. Your choices make a world of difference!" an EU campaign designed to encourage consumers to make resource efficiency habit. The campaign was unveiled in Poland by European Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik and Polish Environment Minister Andrzej Kraszewski. Its aim is to raise awareness about the need to use scarce natural resources wisely, and to encourage citizens to think about their impact on the planet when making purchasing decisions.

Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik said: "With our economy in difficulty and our resources dwindling, it's time to start rethinking some of our habits. Using resources more carefully not only helps protect the environment, but saves money and reduces business costs. It's about using less to do more. Everyone can do their bit. We just need to wake up!"

Generation awake

The key message is 'consume differently, and think before you choose'. By making the right choices we can all help preserve natural resources, save money, reduce our impact on the environment and make our future more sustainable.

The main tools are a viral clip, a dedicated website and a Facebook page where visitors are encouraged to join "Generation awake'' and accept challenges, like using only public transport for a month or reducing showering time to save water.

The Europe-wide campaign is being launched in Poland, which currently holds the rotating EU Council Presidency. The launch event in Warsaw features a stand where visitors will be given tips on sustainable cooking, fashion, and efficient energy use, and a public debate on "Your choices make a world of difference", featuring Janez Potočnik, Minister Kraszewski, and representatives of NGOs and the private sector.

Resource efficiency is about using resources sustainably – doing more with less and minimising impacts on the environment. It is about making the right choices to ensure a good quality of life, not just for now, but for generations to come.

Using natural resources more efficiently is the only way to achieve the health, wealth and well-being we all aspire to within the limitations of the planet. Becoming resource-efficient means changing our way of thinking and patterns of behaviour and taking account of how our choices affect natural resources. It's not about consuming less – it's about consuming differently.

Our future depends on how we use resources now. In our eagerness to improve our standard of living, we tend to consume without thinking about the consequences. We forget the impact of our behaviour on natural resources such as water, fertile soils, clean air and biodiversity. And this has a price: as these resources become more scarce, we put our future welfare at risk.

Businesses can use this opportunity to their advantage. Increasing efficiency can save costs. Sustainable products and new services open up new markets. Innovation can increase competitiveness and create new jobs.   Source:  generationawake.eu

Help TSF to provide clean safe water to adults and children in Ghana by clicking HERE

Healthcare in the Crossfire

As Mohammed Mohammedi lay trapped in the car with his co-worker, pinned down by heavy gunfire, they promised each other that whoever made it out alive would tell the other’s family. Now, 12 years after he was captured and beaten by militias in Somalia while carrying out a polio vaccination campaign, he realizes this was a “futile promise”. 

“If you ask someone at WHO [World Health Organization], ‘What is the extent of the problem?’ [of attacks on health facilities and workers],” said Rudi Coninx, with the Emergency Risk Management and Humanitarian Response team at WHO. “If they were honest they would say, ‘I don’t know,' as nobody collects these data in a systematic way."

Mohammedi said he was released after clans who knew the polio vaccination health staff paid the militias. If he or his co-worker had died, there was no international mechanism, then or now, to record that he had been hurt while doing his job as a health worker.

“One of the first victims of war is the healthcare system itself,” wrote Marco Baldan, the chief war surgeon at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in an August 2011 agency report, which noted that violence against healthcare is “one of the most crucial yet overlooked humanitarian issues of today".

Less than one year after launching this report, and a campaign to document and rein in violence against healthcare facilities and workers, the agency suspended its work in Pakistan after one of its programme managers was kidnapped and killed while travelling home in an ICRC vehicle. 

Mohammedi, a WHO polio operation and technical officer now working in Pakistan, told IRIN that regardless of the precautions, humanitarians always face danger. “An agreement with the war-lords, clan, [or] military leader is the best valid agreement, though even that is not a 100 percent guarantee of a person’s safety.”

Fighting often hampers access for health workers in two of the four countries where polio is still endemic - Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Despite international conventions in place to protect health facilities, workers and marked vehicles, as long as they maintain a “neutral function and treat all patients equally, irrespective of political, religious or ethnic affiliation”, the Geneva Convention carries little authority with militias, said Mohammedi.

“Free access is not and will never be possible if the agreements are made by people sitting around a table outside of conflict areas. The militias have a different way of thinking - the only agreement for a militia at war is to kill… For the militia, a prisoner of war is still the enemy.”

The Geneva Convention forms a major part of negotiating access for the medical humanitarian NGO, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), but it is difficult when “non-state actors” never agreed to it in the first place, said Michiel Hoffman, a Brussels-based operational advisor to MSF.

Somalia is the only country where MSF is forced to use private guards to protect its health facilities, which is not ideal, but necessary, Hoffman told IRIN. “It is hard to provide healthcare when there is a general disregard for everyone’s lives,” he said. “To have any weapons near a health structure makes them the target of conflict.”

Health facilities have become even more vulnerable as soldiers increasingly enter hospitals to “settle scores”, said Robin Coupland, an ICRC medical advisor, in a January 2012 WHO bulletin.

From a review of internal and public sources, ICRC documented 655 violent events affecting healthcare in 16 countries in conflict from 1 July 2008 to December 2010, of which 41 percent were reported only in internal agency reports.

Documenting the extent of the problem is the first step to start doing something about it, said Coninx.

The “compounded cost” of violence on healthcare, such as healthcare staff fleeing, inventory stock-outs and curtailed vaccination campaigns are also hard to measure, ICRC noted.

On 21 January 2012, WHO’s executive board passed a resolution committing the agency to collecting and distributing data on attacks on health workers, facilities, vehicles and patients in the next two years.

UN member states will vote on this proposal on 25 May 2012 at the ongoing World Health Assembly in Geneva. 

Source: irinnews.org

Want to Try Organic Gardening?

1. Improve your soil. Good soil promotes healthy plant growth. Leaf mould, composted bark and garden compost can be dug into the soil or spread across the surface, where weather and worms will work them in. Their bulk will improve the drainage of heavy soils and allow dry soil to hold onto moisture and nutrients.


2. Make your own compost. Prunings, peelings, tea bags, old flower heads and even bits of newspaper can be turned into nutrient-rich compost. Fill a compost bin with a good mixture of green and brown materials, not just lots of green stuff such as grass clippings, which will produce a smelly sludge. Go for the largest compost bin you can fit in your garden. If it's tiny, try a neat and compact worm bin.


3. Choose the right plants. Strong plants are less likely to succumb to diseases or pests, so always grow a plant that suits your site and soil. Choose naturally disease resistant varieties whenever you can, such as blight-resistant tomato 'Ferline' or carrot 'Resistafly' which is resistant to carrot fly.


4. Control weeds naturally. Prevent weeds by spreading a carpet of bark mulch, leaf mould or composted straw across soil. If weeds appear, pull them up or hoe before they set seed. Compost weed seedlings, but discard tough weeds with long roots in the dustbin as they could reproduce in the compost heap.


5. Control insects naturally. If you have pest problems you can use biological controls bought from mail-order suppliers. There are many available, including tiny parasitic wasps that can be used to control whitefly in greenhouses and a microscopic worm that kills vine weevil grubs.


6. Make wildlife work for you. Don't reach for a chemical spray when your plants come under attack. Instead make your garden a haven for animals, birds and insects and they'll do the work for you. Hedgehogs and toads will devour slugs and snails, while lacewings and ladybirds have a voracious appetite for greenfly. Install bug boxes and habitats for creatures to hibernate.


7. Control diseases naturally. Rotate your crops by changing the position of your vegetable crops each year to prevent the built up of diseases in the soil and don't let plants dry out - they'll become stressed and vulnerable to disease.


8. Try companion planting. Grow strongly scented plants alongside crops so they either confuse pests or attract them away from the vegetables. For instance, plant French marigolds near tomatoes to deter whitefly.


9. Patrol your garden. Prevent major problems by regularly inspecting plants. A few greenfly can be squished before they become an infestation and diseased parts of plants can be pruned out before they have a chance to spread.


10. Learn to live with imperfection. Organic gardeners want their plants to grow well, but learn to accept the odd nibbled leaf, and be prepared to sacrifice a few seedlings or fruits, and you'll learn to garden without fertilisers and pesticides.

Source:  bbc.co.uk/gardening/basics/
 

TraumaTravels Too

Georgette* is jumpy and on the verge of tears even before she starts recounting her long and harrowing story of loss and violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), her desperate flight to South Africa, and the struggles and setbacks she has endured since arriving in Johannesburg a year ago.

When rebel soldiers surrounded her village in South Kivu Province in eastern DRC, the men, including her husband, were rounded up and locked in a room that was then set alight. Georgette and the other women were taken to the rebel stronghold in the mountains, where they were raped and enslaved for a month before some of them escaped into the forest and ran for their lives.

With the help of a priest and some nuns, the women made it to Lubumbashi, a town near the Zambian border. Truck drivers took Georgette the rest of the way to South Africa, where she believed she would have the best chance of starting a new life.

She does not know what happened to her four children, who were being cared for by their grandmother in a neighbouring village when she was abducted. “I’m not well when I’m thinking of them,” she told IRIN. “I’m always crying.”

Psychosocial needs forgotten

Migration, especially when it is forced, is always stressful and very often traumatic. Reaching a place of relative safety does not mean the trauma of having survived rape, torture or the loss of loved ones is over. Studies have found that migrants are far more likely to suffer from chronic anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) than non-migrants.

Yet the psychosocial needs of migrants and refugees are usually overlooked as governments and NGOs focus on meeting their more obvious need for food, shelter and documentation.

Dr Manuel Carballo, director of the Geneva-based International Centre for Migration Health and Development (ICMHD), argues that neglecting migrants’ mental and emotional wellbeing is a serious oversight that can not only hamper their chances of surviving and thriving in a new country, but is also likely to make them more dependent on host governments for longer. 

Carballo’s organization works with local authorities to assess the psychosocial needs of refugees in their communities and trains staff to be more sensitive to those needs. “We need to professionalize the whole process of trauma counselling, because [refugees] can very quickly fall through the cracks and be forgotten, and you see this all the time,” he told IRIN.

Convincing governments and donors to fund such programmes was “a difficult one to sell” he admitted, especially in the current economic climate. “But there can only be so many people suffering in camps and shelters before it starts to become contagious to the larger society. Ultimately, there needs to be a sharing of collective pain.”

Setbacks to recovery

Georgette is able to share some of her pain during weekly counselling sessions at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation’s (CSVR) Trauma Clinic in Johannesburg.

The Clinic will treat about 150 torture survivors in 2012 through its Refugee Project, but funding is uncertain from one year to the next and the need is great, said Marivic Garcia, a senior trauma professional at CSVR. Besides dealing with past events, many of the refugees suffer new traumas in South Africa that can set back their recovery.

Although they are spared the indignity and psychological consequences of confinement in refugee camps, their existence in urban areas is often extremely precarious. Obtaining asylum seeker documents can be a major source of stress, while many struggle to find work and live in abject poverty. They are also targets for crime and xenophobia.

“Since I left Kinshasa, I never had peace of mind,” said Celeste*, a refugee who was driven from her flat in Cape Town in 2008 during a wave of attacks on foreigners that swept the country. “There’s no war here, but the way people talk to you and look at you, you don’t feel like a human being.”

Celeste and her family decided to move to Johannesburg after the attacks, but the stress of starting over strained her marriage to breaking point. Nine months ago her husband walked out and never returned, and without his small income as a security guard she could not afford to pay the rent. She and her son ended up on the streets, while her daughter stayed with a neighbour.

Celeste and Georgette have both found temporary refuge at the Bienvenu Shelter in Johannesburg, which accommodates about 20 refugee women and 20 children, and provides food and crèche facilities for up to three months while newly arrived or needy refugee women get on their feet and look for work. Many of the women stay longer, admitted Adilia de Sousa, the Shelter’s director.

“They feel they’re drowning in a pool where no one reaches a hand to pull them out,” she said. “Quite a few can’t hold down a job with their mental health issues, but the bigger problem is employers not wanting to hire asylum seekers.”

Georgette initially stayed 10 months at the shelter before obtaining a small loan from Jesuit Refugee Services to start a business selling shoes in the city centre and moving into a rented room. But the high cost of rent forced her to share the room with several other people and one night one of her room-mates tried to rape her.

Her screams summoned neighbours and the man was arrested, but he was soon released and started harassing her, forcing her to return to the shelter and abandon her business. “I was feeling better until this happened. Now I feel it’s better to die, because I don’t feel safe to go out,” she said. “If the shelter wasn’t here, maybe I would have already died.”

Sources of support

Georgette is receiving treatment for PTSD at the Trauma Clinic but also draws strength from a prayer group run by fellow Congolese. For many traumatised refugees who never access the limited mental health services available from NGOs and the public health sector, churches and prayer groups may provide their only source of support.  

“When their identity is gone, a common thing is for people to turn to their religion,” said Garcia. “It helps them find meaning in what has happened to them. It often evolves from, ‘Why did God allow this?’ to ‘God wanted me to live for a reason’.”

Carballo of ICMHD believes that giving refugees more assistance to find work or start businesses would go a long way towards not only restoring their sense of purpose and self-esteem, but relieving the burden on host communities.

He cautioned however that recovery from trauma can be fragile. “The fact they’re smiling or working does not mean they’re fine. There’s a whole background just under the surface that’s very easily brought out again.”

Just watching news reports from the DRC is enough to trigger painful memories for Celeste. Prayer and counselling help, she said, “but there’s still pain”.

*Names have been changed 

Source:  irinnews.org

Brendan - Living Life Not Existing! - Part 2.

It’s been nearly 3 months since Brendan arrived in India.  The initial shock he experienced when he arrived in Delhi has now gone.

Brendan told me, “India is just totally crazy on so many levels. It’s hard to describe or show through pictures - you can only relate to it if you have been here. The trip has taken me through so many emotions it’s been like life itself:  I’ve experienced sadness and happiness; I’ve been tired and frustrated. One minute you hate certain aspects of India and then, a few hours later, you love it so much!!!  Where else in the world can you find cows and pigs sat on the railway platforms?”

So far, Brendan has travelled from Varanasi to Darjeeling, at the foot of the Himalayas.  To get there Brendan took a 16-hour sleeper train followed by a 3-hour jeep drive up the steep mountains.  Brendan recalled, “It was a pretty scary drive, there were sharp bends and huge drops with nothing to stop you toppling off the edge! However, it didn’t seem to slow the driver down”.

When Brendan’s party arrived in Darjeeling, it was very cold, which was a welcome break from the 45-degree heat, so they changed t-shirts for hoodies. The heat they had experienced in Varanasi made them appreciate the cooler temperatures in Darjeeling.  

Last year, Brendan took part in the John O’Groats to Lands End and London Marathon double.  He said, “I love the mind set I have developed since completing the marathon.  I’ve learned that you have to experience the bad to appreciate the good, so having it so hot has made me appreciate cooler temperatures.  I even appreciated the rain yesterday, which we had for the first time in months, because I knew it would make me appreciate the sun more.

Brendan told me that during his first visit to Africa, his primary emotion was guilt because of the poverty he experienced whilst there.  He said, “Appreciation is the key word of this trip, it’s very similar to the feeling I have when I am in Africa. It’s not like my first visit when I felt guilty.  This time round, being here has given me a great appreciation of life.  I have met so many incredible people here, in particular, at the guesthouse at Bandhavgarh, the lads there had travelled 40 km to look for work and had left their families behind.  They worked 15 hour days, they didn’t have days off, they cooked, cleaned and looked after the guesthouse.  They slept on the floor and had no belongings apart from a small bag packed with a few items”.

The people Brendan are referring to earn 3,000 rupees a month, (£36 a month), for working 15 hours a day everyday.  They still smile when serving food and are just happy that they have work.  One of the men told Brendan, “I have met so many foreigners here and I love gardening and looking after the plants". He was just 20 years old.

Brendan learned a lot from his conversation with this young man.  He told me,  “At first I was sad as he explained that he came here when he was 15. I watched how hard he worked and it made me sad - but during that one conversation I learnt so much about myself.  I learned that in the west we are so lucky to have such a privileged way of life.  The main reason is because we have choices and opportunities.  Most people struggle in the UK like I have in the past, but it’s through bad choices and then we moan when we don’t have any money.  People living in the Western world spend far too much on rubbish.  I am guilty of that myself!  We don’t appreciate how well off we are.  Seeing poverty daily makes me appreciate every small thing from water out of a tap, to being able to make the choice to go to work, study or see the world.  The struggle here is on a completely different scale, it’s so far removed from the world we live in that it’s hard for us to even relate to it.  It’s as though we live in a bubble, a consumerism bubble led by greed, celebrity and competition with each other. The desire to have the best of everything is so strong in the west that we forget about the important things in life”.

Having observed the incredible community spirit in so many villages, Brendan’s whole approach to life has changed.  He has been welcomed into villages with open arms, been given seats on trains, had full conversations with whole train carriages full of people, which usually starts off with them asking where he is from and then he is asked if he likes cricket and then sits and listens while his fellow passengers list the whole England team!  Stares always turn into conversation, which then leads to him feeling totally welcomed into their culture and lives.

Brendan told me with a grin, “I have never smiled so much or said hello so often as I have since I started this amazing adventure”.

With 3 months to go Brendan’s incredible trip continues, so check back next week to learn more about Brendan’s experiences.  Subscribe to our blog to make sure you don't miss any of our posts about Brendan.

Sierra Leone 'Blood Diamonds' Not Forever

The west African state of Sierra Leone has taken another symbolic step away from its wartime image as the home of the "blood diamond". An Israeli-owned company has started operating a big new stone-crushing plant at a modern diamond mine in the east of the country. 

It is the area where the rebel war in Sierra Leone began in 1991 and - not coincidentally 

- the place where most of the country's diamonds are found. 

The contrast between the modern new plant, based in the town of Koidu, and traditional hand-dug alluvial mining could not be more stark. 

The plant is part of a wave of foreign investments in mining, roads and buildings that have transformed the face of Sierra Leone in the past few years.

 

New start

 

The Mayor of Koidu, Sahr Musa Sessie-Gbenda, said: "Before the war this was a major trading centre because it's near the borders of Guinea and Liberia. 

"Then during the hostilities the economy took a nose dive. Now, people are trying to rebuild again."

Koidu is still a very poor place by international standards.

I didn't see a single properly tarmacked road in the town and most people here have to get by without running water or mains electricity. 

But the markets are buzzing with activity and bulldozers are beginning to dig storm drains along major routes and grade some of the tracks. 

The owner of the newly refurbished mine that trades under the name Koidu Holdings, is an Israeli billionaire, Beny Steinmetz. 

By chance he was in Koidu when I visited and although he said he never gave broadcast interviews, I managed to persuade him to say a few words. 

He did not say much - billionaires, I suppose, do not have to.

"This is the future," he said. "It means work for the people and income for the country".

Job Koademba Cocoa trader

 

Bloody past

 

When I visited Koidu in the late 1990s it was a moonscape of small pits dug by civilians but largely controlled by armed rebels who stood over them to "tax" any gemstones they found. 

The thirst for diamonds, called "blood diamonds" because many were used to buy rebel guns, was so intense back then that people were digging up the foundations of houses in search of gems. 

At the time, I did not understand why the footings of houses were so attractive to the diggers. But an engineer at the new mine explained the phenomenon to me on my return visit this year. 

"In the 1970s and 80s people built the foundations of their houses here using gravel waste from a long abandoned diamond mine," the engineer said."Over the years the demand for diamonds increased, so what was waste a long time ago could be exploited again, especially because the rebels had slave labour to do the work for them." "That's why, when you came here in the late 1990s," the engineer told me, "you saw people digging up their living rooms!" 

 

Some people still have have no choice but to pan for diamonds by hand.  Today there are still thousands of people living off traditional hand-dug mines in the Koidu area.Digging and panning for diamonds by hand is backbreaking work, but for many people it is the only work available.

 

Investment boom

 

The new plant that runs 24 hours a day only employs a small percentage of the people in the area who would like jobs there.

Sierra Leone's foreign investment boom, mainly in iron ore and diamond mines but also in roads and new homes, has created small islands of prosperity and the possibility of increased tax revenues for the state. 

But the majority of Sierra Leoneans are still extremely poor and it is still an open question how much of this new investment money will, in the development economists' phrase, "trickle down" to ordinary people.

The vast majority of Serra Leoneans make a living out of agriculture. A cocoa trader in Koidu, Job Koademba, said small scale investments in farms were essential if more people were to be brought out of poverty. 

"Lots of people have land," Mr Koademba said, "but having land without money to invest in it - to buy seeds and tools - is like having a car without any fuel in it. It's no use." 

Mr Koademba is undoubtedly right.But it is also true that in the past decade or so Koidu has changed beyond all recognition.Where there were rebels with guns, there are now police officers. Where there were hungry, displaced people, there are now lively market traders.A bad image or reputation sticks like glue - especially in Africa

So it is worth saying again. 

There are no more "blood diamonds" in Sierra Leone. 

Source: bbc.co.uk

Italy Quake Kills at Least Six and Damages Historic Buildings

A strong earthquake in northern Italy killed at least six people, injured dozens and damaged historic buildings including a famed mediaeval castle early on Sunday, waking terrified citizens and sending thousands running into the streets

.

The quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey recorded at magnitude 6.0, struck at 4:04 a.m. (0204 GMT) and was followed by a series of jolting aftershocks. At least two of them reached magnitude 5.1, sowing fresh panic, further damaging already weakened buildings and causing more structures to collapse.

"I am 83 and I have never felt anything like this," said Lina Gardenghi in the town of Bondeno, near Ferrara.

The epicentre of Italy's strongest quake in three years was near Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of the Po valley. The tremors were more deadly than any since 2009 - when the central city of L'Aquila was devastated - and were felt as far away as regions bordering France in the west and Slovenia to the east.

Among the dead was a woman of 106, killed in her bed by a falling roof beam at her house in the countryside.

The tremors seriously damaged many historic churches and other buildings, adding up to the greatest loss to Italy's artistic heritage since an earthquake in 1997 ravaged the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, where the ceiling collapsed.

On Sunday, the imposing 14th-century Estense Castle, symbol of the town of San Felice Sul Panaro and its most important building, was severely damaged.

The tops of several of its smaller towers collapsed and there were fears that the main tower, weakened by cracks, could tumble. Three of the town's churches were severely hit, damaging centuries-old frescoes and other works of art.

"We have practically lost all our artistic patrimony," said Alberto Silvestri, mayor of San Felice. "Churches and towers collapsed. The theatre is still standing but has cracks."

The quake left a gaping hole and gashes in the side of the Renaissance style town hall in Sant'Agostino, which officials said was in danger of total collapse. The town's streets were strewn with rubble and the stench of gas filled the town and raised fears of explosions.

Prime Minister Mario Monti cut short his trip to the United States and said the cabinet would declare a state of emergency, freeing up funds for quake relief.

NIGHT SHIFT DEATHS

Emergency service chief Franco Gabrielli said the death toll included five people killed directly by the quake and another who suffered a heart attack because of it. Officials said up to 3,000 people would not be able to return to their homes for the time being.

In Bondeno, a Moroccan man working a night shift in a polystyrene factory died when he was hit by falling debris.

A 57-year-old Italian was killed when part of an ironworks in Sant' Agostino collapsed, and two men were killed in the same town when part of a ceramics factory collapsed.

"He wasn't supposed to be there," the mother of one of the victims said. "He changed shifts with a friend who wanted to go to the beach."

A series of strong aftershocks hit the area, two having a magnitude of 5.1. Mayors ordered residents to stay outdoors pending checks by structural engineers and began preparations to house those who could not return to their homes.

The quake was centred 22 miles (35 km) north-northwest of Bologna at a relatively shallow depth of 6.3 miles (10 km), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The last major earthquake to hit Italy was the 6.3 magnitude shock which killed nearly 300 people in L'Aquila in April 2009.

Source: yahoo.com

Mogadishu On The Up

It is Friday morning in Mogadishu and Lido beach presents a scene reminiscent of seaside towns around the world. At the top of the beach, women sit with their wares, selling water and ice-lollies from cool-boxes. The middle-beach is dominated by young men playing football using driftwood as goalposts. At the water's edge, boys and girls, the latter heedless of their long flowing garments, hurl themselves into the waves or bob on the surface like apples.

"We're on holiday", says Ibrahim, a Londoner in his twenties who was born in northern Somalia. Ibrahim is travelling in a group of 20, all from the UK. "We came here for the beaches", he said. On the road behind him, blue lettering advertises the Indian Ocean Star, a new beach-front restaurant and bar.

Bashir Osman has facilitated journalist visits for years and now plans to capitalize on the swelling ranks of visitors like Ibrahim who are choosing, for both business and personal reasons, to come to bullet-ridden Mogadishu. Osman has purchased 500-metres of beachfront land a few kilometres south of the international airport compound, where he hopes to open a restaurant and eventually a hotel. His infectious fondness for Mogadishu belies a strong philanthropic streak.

People are returning and reconstruction is under way. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 3,800 people returned to Mogadishu in March alone. From afar the city glints with shiny new tin roofs dotted among dust-covered ruins and camps. Private operators are offering electricity in the old town for US$30 a month. Fishermen are enjoying a healthy demand for shark-fins from Dubai and the Middle East, with a shark fetching as much as $500. Building materials lie in piles on street corners, where camel's milk and cappuccino vendors ply their wares.

International NGO and diplomatic missions are also coming back - according to a UN source, Britain has already identified the plot for its permanent diplomatic base on the airport compound - and property prices have spiked. According to Osman, a 100-square metre plot near K4 in the city centre sold recently for $2million.

"The key is security", said Abdullahi Godah Barre, minister for planning and international cooperation, of the city's renovation. While African Union troops have largely taken Mogadishu and continue to push beyond the city limits to secure outlying areas where Al-Shabab operatives remain obdurately in place, the Somali capital is still in counter-terrorism mode, and kidnap and ransom, improvised explosive devices, and suicide bombers remain an everyday threat.

Turkish investors

But there are investors willing to look past this. "We have a lot of interested parties, for example the Turkish government and Turkish business people", said Mohamed Ibrahim, deputy prime minister in Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG). In March, a delegation of Turkish investors met Somali officials to discuss opportunities. "These are the first willing investors on the Turkish side," Ibrahim said.

It is estimated that 25 percent (or even 50 percent according to some sources) of Somalia's GDP comes from remittances abroad. In what is known as the economy without a state, the World Bank says minimal interference in Somalia's private sector has allowed it to flourish.

Mogadishu's 30 road, which was until last summer held by Al-Shabab, is now one of the city's busiest highways. Workers at the nearby headquarters of Hormuud Telecom view the bombed-out ruins of the city through mirrored glass windows. The largest telecoms company in Somalia, Hormuud, reported sales of $40million in 2010 - staggering when the World Bank estimates that 73 percent of Somalia's population of nine million lives on less that $2 per day. The company also distributes emergency food aid.

Like many in government, civil society and the diaspora, Ibrahim wants Somalia to cease being dependent on the international community. Somalia is believed to have significant oil deposits and interest in these has been sparked by this year's announcement of drilling in semi-autonomous Puntland, northern Somalia. "The difficulty is this political situation. It is not the right time for international investors to come in," acknowledged Ibrahim on the exploitation of Somalia's oil. But he went on to add that Somalia welcomes discussions with any investors.

"The diaspora are coming back. We've been appealing to them for a long time", said Abdullahi Goodah Barre, Somalia's minister for planning and international cooperation.

Junaid Egale is a 30-year-old former Londoner who this year opened a UK-registered international business consultancy firm, MIJ, in Mogadishu, and whose political ambitions include running for president. "We are here now to service the Somali government projects and the international private sector firms i.e. NGOs, telecom and finance," he said.

However, Egale is sage about the risks. He cautions that until the transitional government's term has ended and a new mandate is under way, private investment from overseas is not viable. "On the other hand I do believe both private and foreign government investment is, and should be, an alternative fund towards the rebuilding of Somalia than aid from the donors via UNDP [UN Development Programme]", he said.

Corruption

The transitional government has received criticism this year for corruption and a lack of accountability. According to a February report by the International Crisis Group, there is "no reliable database covering all development funds" in Somalia, while as much as 85 percent of the central government's revenue is never recorded, according to an audit by the Prime Minister's Office in Mogadishu.

A 2011 report by the Center for American Progress, Twenty Years of Collapse and Counting, said that, according to a confidential audit of the TFG, "in 2009 and 2010 some 96 percent of direct bilateral assistance to the government had simply disappeared, presumably into the pockets of corrupt officials."

But TFG officials defend themselves against the allegation. Minister for Constitution Abdi Hosh said: "We don't qualify for bilateral aid." The ports generate $2million per year for the government. “That's peanuts when you see the wreckage in the city", he said. 

Brad Parks, co-director of the transparency initiative AidData, cautions in a blog that recent gains are both fragile and reversible, and that the TFG must accelerate domestic reform efforts if it is to have any hope of building a legitimate state. "In particular, there is a growing sense that the TFG needs to bring some transparency and discipline to its management of public finances", he said.

Somalia receives very little bilateral, i.e. direct donor to recipient government, aid. "Sadly the TFG has failed to demonstrate that it can manage funds responsibly," said James Smith, Horn of Africa Project Manager for the Rift Valley Institute. 

Much of the bilateral aid that the TFG does receive is from non-traditional donors in the Arab world, such as Qatar and United Arab Emirates. Of the $350 million pledged for Somalia by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation last year, less than half was channelled multilaterally, something which the broader humanitarian system has found difficult to manage. 

"If the TFG inspired confidence in its ability to conduct development programmes I imagine it would have received significantly more financial support. If it can just ensure a stable environment, Mogadishu will rebuild itself," said Smith.

Source: irinnews.org

Aiming to Leave Least Developed Country List

The government of Laos has taken the unique step of stating its ambition to graduate from the UN list of Least Developed Countries (LDC) by 2020.

LDCs represent the poorest and weakest segment of the international community, according to the United Nations, and include more than 880 million people (about 12 percent of the world population), but with less than 2 percent of global GDP and about 1 percent of the trade.

Philippe Hein, a member of the UN Committee for Development Policy (CDP), who reviews the LDC group, says this is unprecedented. “Our experience is that all of those countries so far who have been identified as potential candidates for LDC graduation have resisted this,” he told IRIN.

The main concerns for countries exiting LDC status are a potential reduction in overseas development assistance (ODA) and preferential trade treatment, Hein said. In 2010 Laos received US$413.79 million in ODA, the Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported.

One-quarter of the $15 billion budget for the government’s 2011-2015 development plan is to be funded by donors and development partners.

Adjustment process

To help countries adjust, the UN General Assembly introduced a three-year transition period in 2004.

Minh Pham, UN Resident Coordinator and Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Laos, said the fact that the country has both volunteered itself for graduation and set a fixed date highlights its ambitions to become a middle-income country.

But doing so will prove a challenge, say experts. The World Bank notes that 27.6 percent of the country’s 6.5 million inhabitants live below the poverty line.

UN criteria for moving beyond LDC status include a per capita income threshold; a human assets index measured by health and education indicators; and a strong economy that can withstand shocks, such as natural disasters. A country must meet two of the three criteria to be eligible for graduation. 

Only three countries - Botswana, Cape Verde and Maldives - have achieved this since the list was established in 1971.

Learning from their experiences could prove vital. At a UN meeting to discuss the transition process in New York on 26 March 2012, the Maldives expressed their concerns that they had failed to maintain levels of developmental assistance and access to concessionary finance.

A statement by Jeffrey Salim Waheed, Maldives First Secretary to the UN, said this had “led to massive shortfalls and the formation of risky economic policies, some of which have proven to be harmful to the nation’s economic stability.”

However, Pham believes Laos could avoid such a situation. “We are confident that, given the build up of foreign direct investment in the country over the years, particularly in hydropower energy, the revenues generated in this investment will more than make up for any phasing out of development assistance.”

Hein said the implications of graduation must be looked at on an individual country basis. “Cape Verde is an interesting case - some donors left but ODA has now increased.”

Net ODA disbursements for Cape Verde went up from $195.6 million in 2009 to $336.76 million in 2010, according to OECD , which Hein attributes partly to the country’s reputation for aid effectiveness and good governance.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates that at its current rate of progress, Laos could potentially meet all three criteria by 2015. It would then need to repeat this at the next review, three years later, to be eligible for graduation.

The Fourth UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries in Istanbul, in May 2011, adopted a programme of action that aims to graduate half of the 48 LDCs by 2020. At prevailing levels of development this will be a distinct challenge.

“Nobody wants to stay an LDC, but when the time comes to graduate they say, ‘We are going to lose something.’ They are worried. The attitude here in Laos is quite different - the way it’s going, the others have to learn from Laos,” said Hein.

Laos is planning the first steps in developing a strategy for LDC graduation at a two-day conference with over 150 participants, government officials, and experts in Vientiane, the capital, on 16 and 17 May. 

Source: irinnews.org

Where is The Money to Help Poisoned Children?

Aid organizations and rights groups are putting more pressure on the Nigerian government to release a promised US$5.4 million in aid for lead-poisoned children, but government officials keep ducking the issue.

Last week Nigerian and international specialists, aid workers, scientists, ministers from Zamfara State in northwestern Nigeria and local cultural leaders gathered at an international conference in the capital, Abuja, to map out a collective plan to clean up poisoned sites, test and treat affected residents - mostly children - and put in place safer mining practices.

Over 400 children have died and an estimated 10 times that number have been contaminated by acute lead poisoning in the state of Zamfara since 2010, when international health NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) learned of what its Nigeria head, Ivan Gayton, referred to as “one of the worst, if not the worst, lead-poisoning crisis ever.”

In November 2011 the federal government committed US$5.4 million to help the poisoned children, but none of this money has been released, and the delay has not been explained, said MSF.

“Without delay, the $850 million naira from the ecological fund must be released in order to begin the environmental remediation [cleaning] and the safer mining programme in Zamfara State,” Gayton said at the close of the conference.

Thousands of children in Zamfara go untreated while their villages await remediation, excluding them from chelation [removing lead from the body] while they are continuously re-poisoned.

Lead poisoning is caused by artisanal mining practices in the gold-rich but otherwise largely impoverished Zamfara region, when independent miners use crude hand tools to extract gold from crushed ore in their villages.

The toxic dust contaminates soil, water, food and homes. Children under five years of age are especially vulnerable to poisoning, as their bodies weigh much less and absorb far greater amounts of lead from the environment than adults. Lead-contaminated dust is also more likely to be ingested by children as they crawl on the ground and put dusty hands in their mouths, while their vital organs and cognitive abilities are still forming.

Zamfara’s lead crisis came to a head in 2010, when skyrocketing international gold prices (1 ounce of gold is valued at approximately $1,600) prompted scores of residents to turn to artisanal mining.

“The state government is doing all it can with its limited resources,” said Mouktar Lugga, Environment Commissioner for Zamfara State. The state has been working with US-based environmental engineering firm Terragraphics to clean seven of the affected villages, while Geneva-based MSF has treated over 2,500 children under five.

Yet no federal minister of mining, the environment, or health attended the conference, and no concrete action by the federal government was announced.

“By not participating in the conference, the federal government sent a message that the political commitment to resolve this really isn’t there,” said Jane Cohen, an environmental health researcher with Human Rights Watch. “It’s not just about a symbolic message, it’s about whether or not the resources are there to now take action and, unfortunately, they’re just not.”

Professor Abdulsalami Nasidi, Project Director of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, spoke on behalf of the government during the conference’s closing remarks, and stressed that Nigeria’s high-level officials are engaged with the needs of Zamfara. “The federal government is regarding this problem not only as an emergency, but a chemical warfare declared on Nigerian children,” he said.

On behalf of the ministers, he pledged to follow up on the issue, which Cohen says is a legal responsibility. “The government is obligated under international law to protect the rights of these people, and they’re really failing in this duty,” she said.
 
Fending for themselves
 
The village of Bagega is widely considered to be the largest and most contaminated region in Zamfara, with some 1,500 poisoned children requiring treatment. Minimal remediation has begun, but the scale of the village’s toxicity demands more resources than are currently available.
 
After a visit there, Cohen said that messaging about safety practices from NGOs and the state government are beginning to have an impact on local residents. She encountered one family who had cleansed their own home of lead by replacing contaminated soil and mud with clean materials, without external resources or expertise. “They’ve given up on their government,” Cohen told IRIN.
 
However, if the remediation is not thorough, families remain at risk. “A lot of the bricks in people’s homes in Bagega were made of contaminated mud,” she said. “Even though that family took out six inches of soil and replaced it with clean soil, their walls are still dangerous."
 
Despite the standstill in releasing federal funds, delegates to the multidisciplinary conference announced an action plan for Zamfara, including creating a state-level rapid response team, a plan to include local communities in policy development, and a push for safer artisanal mining technologies.
 
But this must not excuse the government from fulfilling its responsibility, Gayton said. "This 850 million naira would be an amazing first step to addressing the problems in Zamfara state."

Source: irinnews.org

Treat The Mother - Save The Baby

The past decade has seen great advances in child survival, but while toddlers and small children are benefiting, the death rate for new-born babies remains stubbornly high. Now a new report suggests that paying more attention to their mothers’ health, and focusing on certain damaging but treatable diseases, could be one key to tackling neonatal mortality.

The traditional childhood killers - measles, pneumonia and diarrhoea - are all down; even where malaria is still rife, treated bednets are saving children’s lives. But as deaths from other causes drop, mortality in the first month of life looms ever larger.

Statistics published recently by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore show that, worldwide, around 40 percent of children who die below the age of five die in the first month of life, and that rises to 50 percent or more in regions like Europe and South East Asia where other causes of childhood death have been reduced.

Many of these babies were born too soon, or born too small; others were born with infections contracted from their mothers. In all these cases it is the mother’s health during pregnancy which is the key to the babies’ survival, and now the American Medical Association has published a study of the incidence in pregnant women of health problems which are known to affect their unborn babies, and which can all be treated.

The researchers looked at 171 studies from Sub-Saharan Africa over a 20-year period, which showed whether women attending ante-natal clinics were infected with malaria, or with a range of sexually transmitted and reproductive tract infections - syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia and bacterial and parasitic infections of the vagina. If left untreated, these can lead to miscarriages, stillbirths, premature births and low birth-weight babies.

Malaria affects placenta

Matthew Chico, a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who led the team, stresses the far-reaching effects of these problems. In malaria, for instance, the placenta does not function properly. “What you end up with,” he told IRIN, “is a low birth-weight baby, and low birth weight is the single most common factor in neonatal mortality. And it leads to lifelong consequences. Low birth-weight babies underperform at school and end up earning less, and curiously they even end up with more cardiovascular problems later in life. 

“There are multiple consequences. Girls are at greater risk, for instance, of having low birth-weight babies themselves and so it continues into the next generation. We have to break the cycle.”

Chico and his colleagues divided the continent into two regions - East and Southern Africa, and West and Central Africa, because of the way the higher incidence of HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa might affect the results. They also excluded South Africa, because malaria was a major part of the study, and malaria there has been reduced to the point where it is no longer an issue.

What they found was alarming. The incidence of syphilis and gonorrhoea was relatively low, under 5 percent, and the most recent figures show them on the decline. But in East and Southern Africa more than half the women attending antenatal clinics tested positive for bacterial vaginal infection and more than a quarter had the parasitic infection, trichomonas.

These figures were a little lower in West and Central Africa, but those areas had a higher rate of malaria infection, around 40 percent, although this had reduced a little in more recent studies, an indication perhaps that the promotion of bednets for pregnant women has had an effect.

The averages conceal considerable variations from place to place, with one set of figures from Blantyre, Malawi, showing more than 85 percent of women had a bacterial vaginal infection and another, from Ngali in Cameroon, reporting that almost 95 percent of women there were infected with malaria.

So what can be done? Effective treatment could make a major dent in neonatal mortality. “It’s been established that universal coverage with preventive treatment for malaria would reduce neonatal mortality by a third,” says Chico. “So add to that an STI [sexually transmitted infection] and RTI [reproductive tract infection] component and the reduction could certainly be more than that.”

The good news

The good news is that all these conditions are treatable. It is just a question of finding the best way to reach these women, many of whom will have no symptoms and be unaware they are infected. The current treatment regime is to give all pregnant women preventive treatment for malaria using Fansidar (sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine). But growing resistance to the drug means this is less effective than it used to be.

One possibility is to do a blood test for malaria at each antenatal visit, and only give treatment if the test is positive. “The screen and treat approach minimizes drug use,” Chico told IRIN, “and that would minimize drug resistance. But the test doesn’t show if the placenta is infected, which is what affects the unborn baby, and this approach doesn’t give protection against sexually transmitted infections.

“Or else you could use a preventive combination therapy with an antimalarial plus azithromycin, which is primarily an antibiotic and will act against the other infections, but also has some antimalarial properties. Many doctors don’t like to give a pregnant a woman any drug unless they are sure she needs it, but in this case the alternative is much more grave.

“What we need now are studies to compare the alternative treatments in similar populations. Only then will we know what path to follow.”
  

Source: irinnews.org