26 November 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: More South Africans are dying at an earlier age, particularly in areas with a high rate of HIV/AIDS infection. Average life expectancy fell from 62 years in 1990 to 50 years in 2007 and is projected to decline even further for women to 48 years by 2011. These are the findings of a survey conducted by the South African Institute of Race Relations that released its report last week. KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Mpumalanga, and the Free State, the three provinces with the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence, have the lowest life expectancies. The average person lives only 43 years in KZN, and 47 years in both Mpumalanga and the Free State. “The leading causes of death [are] Tuberculosis, influenza, and pneumonia, the infections that accompany HIV/AIDS,” Gugu Mji of KZN’s eThekwini Municipality told MediaGlobal. (Full disclosure: Gugu Mji is reporter’s mother.) Out of all of the countries considered, only Zimbabwe fared worse with an average life expectancy of 40.9 years as of 2005, according to the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund. HIV/AIDS, along with a declining birth rate, has also dropped the population growth rate by 43 percent between 2001 and 2008. These numbers suggest that the South African government’s roll out of antiretroviral treatment is not reaching all of those who need it most, particularly those in outlying rural areas. Efforts on the part of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to supplement ailing healthcare facilities are often underfunded. “There’s a need to strengthen government/NGO partnerships,” noted Gail Eddy, researcher at the South African Institute of Race Relations. Zanele Mji

Ban launches “Network of Men Leaders” to eliminate violence against women

26 November 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: This week United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon marked the tenth anniversary of the Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women with the launch of Network of Men Leaders. A day of ceremonies and discussions on the topic included male leaders from around the world as well as women’s organizations dealing with violence against women. Women’s groups are an essential component of the fight, and they maintain a leading role even with the move to include men as allies. Maria Rashid is the executive director of Rozan, an organization based in Pakistan that works on emotional health, gender, and violence. She participated in the launch of the Network of Men Leaders. “I welcome the Secretary-General’s initiative, and it is important that these leaders work alongside women and, more importantly, do so in a way that women’s perspectives remain center stage on the issue of gender-based violence,” she told MediaGlobal. “Thus the network’s engagement with feminist and women’s groups is essential.” Seventy percent of women globally experience violence perpetrated by men in their lifetime. At the launch Ban explained, “Violence against women and girls will not be eradicated until all of us—men and boys—refuse to tolerate it.” The Network of Men Leaders will be a part of the UNiTE to End Violence Against Women campaign that Ban launched last year. Ban announced new grants for programs dealing with gender-based violence, totaling US$10.5 million to be dispersed this year to 13 initiatives in 18 countries. This figure falls short of global needs. In 2009 alone grant requests totaled US$857 million. Ban has committed to increasing funding and aims to raise US$100 million per year through 2015. Allyn Gaestel

Africa Commission emphasizes need for private sector growth

24 November 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Last Friday, as part of Africa Industrialization Day, the United Nations hosted a panel discussion titled, “Industrialization Strategies and Policies: A Key to Economic Transformation of Africa.” Panelist Wilfried Luetkenhorst, managing director of United Nations Industrial Development Organization, told MediaGlobal, “There is no way that the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] will be achieved without economic growth and without the dynamism of a strong manufacturing sector that historically has shown to be a key driver of development, productivity increases, and technological learning.” Last year, the Danish government established the Africa Commission to help in the achievement of the MDGs. In a Monday press conference, Denmark’s current Minister for Development Cooperation, Ulla Tornaes, said that some ten million to 15 million jobs per year would need to be created in order to incorporate the increasing number of young Africans into the labor force. The Africa Commission’s main policy recommendations and initiatives focus on economic growth, employment, and youth. Toward this end, the Commission is working to set up a guarantee system in coordination with the African Development Bank to help close the gap between microfinance institutions and commercial banks. Tornaes noted that there is “huge potential in small and medium enterprises, but [there is a] need for financing.” Other points emphasized by the Commission include a need for greater emphasis on post-primary education and vocational training to help attract investment from the private sector; increased African competitiveness and greater inclusion of African countries in the World Economic Forum; an increase in African entrepreneurship; and access to sustainable energy. Nicola Winter

Family Planning drive in Uganda gathers momentum

24 November 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: A three-day conference held in Kampala, Uganda initiated family planning strategies to improve the lives of Africans in an effort to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. According to the Population Reference Bureau, women in Uganda give birth to an average of seven children, which contributes to one of the highest population growth rates in the world. Many families cannot afford the costs of services and food with the high number of children per household, whereas having fewer children is associated with better maternal health, better family nutrition, and manageable education targets. “The one region of the world where family planning use lags behind the rest of the regions is the sub-Saharan Africa,” Amy Tsui, a Johns Hopkins professor and director of the Gates Institute of Population and Reproductive Health, told MediaGlobal. Often the poorest households experience the highest level of unwanted fertility. According to Tsui, 41 percent of women in Uganda report delaying or limiting childbearing but are not using contraception. About 20 percent of women in Uganda use contraception. The presentations at the conference held in Kampala focused primarily on community-based strategies to deliver contraception and avoid the constraints of clinic-based services. “Contraceptives are procured worldwide and then distributed through a supply chain that enables them to arrive at clinics as well as to community distributors who often reach the poorest of the poor directly at the household level,” said Tsui. The best practices cited for limiting the number of child births were linking family planning services to post-partum, post-abortion, and HIV/AIDS care, and involving men in the family planning. Currently, there are programs aimed at improving the knowledge and understanding of how contraceptives work using interpersonal counseling and mass media strategies. A new US$12 million family planning drive was launched at the conference and is being funded by the United States. Sydney Oh

UN agencies encourage delegates at Copenhagen to address energy poverty

23 November 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Ninety-seven percent of the populations of Burundi, Liberia, and Chad have no access to electricity, according to a report released by the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organization, with 51 least developed and sub-Saharan African countries ranking amongst those with less than 50 percent access to electricity. Olav Krjoven, Assistant Secretary-General and Director of Bureau for Development Policy at the United Nations Development Programme, told MediaGlobal, “Three billion people—almost half of humanity—rely on solid fuels, which means traditional biomass, wood, dung, and coal, because they don’t have access to modern energy services.” Krjoven encouraged expanded energy access and a low-carbon route to development to be considered during the upcoming climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. “While we talk and discuss and negotiate, [the energy poor] carry heavy loads of water and food on their backs because they don’t have transport, they cook over wood fires that damage their health, and are without electricity,” he said. Universal energy access would increase global emissions by 0.9 percent. The implementation and use of renewable energies such as hydropower, wind farms, and solar panels could help poor countries to develop energy in a clean, sustainable, and low-carbon manner, helping to offset the potential increase in emissions. Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency said that expanding energy access would allow the approximately 1.5 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia without electricity to more easily contribute to the global debate on climate change. Mary Slosson

WFP-Iraqi initiative targets poorest families to boost primary school enrollment

23 November 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Last Monday, the World Food Programme (WFP) in collaboration with the Iraqi Ministry of Education launched a three-month pilot initiative that will provide 172,000 primary school students with a free daily snack. Noting the positive relationship between school feeding and regular attendance, the program hopes to incentivize improved primary school enrollment in Iraq. The WFP’s Robin Lodge told MediaGlobal, “It is not simply a matter of drawing children into school, but also of keeping them there and helping them concentrate on their lessons, rather than think about the next meal. [Though] they may be coming to school for a variety of reasons, the main reasons for children staying out of school is poverty and families needing for them to carry out chores at home.” The snack provided will be an 80-gram date bar, fortified with various micronutrients, which will serve as “extra nutritional support for poor families,” according to the WFP press release. Though currently imported from Egypt, there are high hopes that production of the bars will soon be done domestically in an effort to build Iraq’s private sector capacity, local agriculture, employment, and overall economy. A number of private companies have already expressed interest in manufacturing these bars but Lodge pointed out that it is now too early to see any solid agreements. Lodge explained that there is positive support from the Ministry of Education too, which funded the US$1.6 million program, and great interest in rebuilding Iraq’s “safety-net” programs. He also said that although security is always a concern, the selected governorates (provinces) were chosen strictly because of their food vulnerability. Iraq’s primary school completion rate is at only 66 percent, according to the WFP, which hopes to scale up the initiative next year to cover 960,000 vulnerable children in 14 of Iraq’s 18 governorates. Henoch Derbew