April 2012
12 posts
3 tags
African democracy: A glass half-full | The... →
In 1990 Freedom House recorded just three African countries with multiparty political systems, universal suffrage, regular fraud-free elections and secret ballots. “Progress comes in waves,” says Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at Chatham House, a London-based think-tank. Mali aside, the rest of West Africa has enjoyed a democratic boom. Sierra Leone and Liberia, both violent...
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African countries want investment now, not aid... →
He said aid has helped with governance, quoting a report released on Monday by the global campaigners ONE, which said that by 2015, UK aid alone will have helped 44.9-million more people to vote in freer and fairer elections.
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Interview: 'RFK In The Land Of Apartheid' : NPR... →
Kennedy’s trip to South Africa is the subject of a new documentary, RFK In the Land of Apartheid, co-directed by South African filmmaker Larry Shore. Shore and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the late senator’s eldest daughter, tell NPR’s Michele Norris about the boldness of trip.
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New sources of aid: Charity begins abroad | The... →
The big unresolved question for the new donors, argues Duncan Green, head of research at Oxfam, an NGO, is how far they adopt the policies and institutions of Western donors or how far they go their own way, blurring boundaries between aid and investment. There have been one or two nods towards Western ideas recently. The BRICs are giving more through multilateral channels, moving away from...
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Five myths about Africa - CSMonitor.com 2011-08-06... →
I remain convinced that much coverage of Africa remains needlessly tilted toward the negative.
Nobody I know here denies the problems of this continent, but too few outsiders hear about the positive strides being made and the people who are making them. Think of all the images one gets of Africa – starving babies, child soldiers, incessant conflict, unapologetic greed.
If you never look for...
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ForeignAssistance.gov →
State, USAID, and MCC manage about 1% of the U.S. Government’s federal budget for foreign assistance activities.
Top 10 Things You Should Know
The Dashboard The goal of the Foreign Assistance Dashboard is to make all U.S. Government foreign assistance investments available in an accessible and easy-to-understand format. The Dashboard is still in the early stages of development. Future versions...
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John Kufuor helps transform Ghana into a model for... →
Kufuor found agriculture to be a catalyst for these solutions. Agriculture is critical to Ghana’s economy, as some 60 percent of the country’s population depends directly on rural agriculture. Kufuor’s administration worked to harness an agriculture transformation to strengthen the nation’s economy.
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Michel D. Kazatchkine: Makings AIDS History... →
10 years ago many were skeptical that treatment could or should be provided in the developing world and had a long list of arguments against providing treatment. They said that making treatment available would be too expensive; that patients would not be able to adhere to treatment leading to drug resistance; that the necessary infrastructure was lacking and could not be built. In short: it...
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Universal Basic Education - NYTimes.com 2011-08-02... →
In underdeveloped countries, every additional year of schooling reduces an adolescent boy’s risk of becoming involved in conflict by 20 percent. According to one study, a country that enrolls more than 87 percent of its children in school decreases its risk of conflict by nearly 75 percent.
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WatchBehind The Rainbow Trailer
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The African Summer - By Calestous Juma | Foreign... →
Sub-Saharan Africa’s democratic march started at a time when the continent’s economic prospects looked gloomy. The twin oil crises of the 1970s had played a key role in worsening macroeconomic balances in various countries. At the same time, demand for democratic reform began, when it became evident in many countries that post-independence promises of prosperity weren’t...
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Uganda Lacks Resources to Prevent Maternal Deaths... →
As Africa’s population swells, so will demand for emergency obstetric care. The United Nations recently estimated that Uganda’s population will almost triple to 94 million by 2050, with tens of millions more babies to be delivered.
