(Report) Job scarcity causes gender disparities in Africa, World Bank report reveals

(HN, November 2, 2010) -- The US-based World Bank said in a study released on Tuesday in Maputo, Mozambique that gender disparities in African labour markets are caused by jobs scarcity and not discrimination while highlighting that investments in education and job creation are key to fostering gender equality.

The study analyses household survey data collected in the early 2000s in 18 countries across Africa, looking into gender dimensions in employment, unemployment, pay gap, as well as the role of educational attainment.

The survey shows that women’s participation rates in the labour market range from under 40 percent in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda, to 80 percent and above in Burkina Faso, Burundi, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.

For Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, women’s employment ratio over the survey period is 25 percent lower than for men, respectively at 53 percent and nearly 70 percent.

“We found little evidence to support the idea that labour market discrimination is a key explanation for gender gaps in underdeveloped economies, especially those whose job markets are small and can only supply formal employment for a minority of the population,” says World Bank Senior Economist Jorge Arbache, one of the book’s editors.

Arbache added that disparities are indeed greater in countries that have few job opportunities to begin with and, conversely, countries with the highest job rate for men are also those with the least gender disparities.

Another co-editor of the survey, Ewa Filipiak, project manager at Agence Française de Développement, said “ensuring women’s access to jobs is essential to the fight against poverty and reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)... because it has been shown that well-paid jobs empower them to redirect spending on essential needs, notably in favour of children’s health and education.”

Survey data shows that on average the male-to-female earnings ratio is as high as 2.8 among individuals with no education, and as low as 0.9 among those with post-secondary education.

The authors therefore recommend that policy-makers adopt targeted measures that facilitate women’s access to education, such as conditional cash transfer programmes, that encourage families to enrol girls in schools.

The 18 African countries surveyed are Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zambia.

Case studies were conducted in the Congo Republic, Ethiopia, Guinea, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania while cross-country studies were done in Benin, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Senegal and Uganda.

- African Press Agency /APA-Maputo (Mozambique)

Google Chief: New "Robust Networks" in Developing World Can Bridge Education Gaps (Updated Sept 22)

(HN, September 21, 2010) - The day is not far off where students in remote developing countries will be accessing text books through mobile phones.

That's according to Google chief Eric Schmidt, who said the rapid roll-out of robust networks and cheap handsets will make it easier for students in developing countries to access content. 

Schmidt said costs for smart phones and so-called feature phones are tumbling to below $150, making India the fastest-growing mobile phone market in the world. "Prices are going to fall very, very dramatically," said Schmidt, adding it could "empower citizens on an individual basis.

He said textbook content in the local language of students could be downloaded into phone - cutting the costs of printing and distributing hard copies.

Schmidt said that in natural disasters such as Haiti, his Google technology was deployed to provide low level imagery to help logisticians reach their targets.An ad for WIMAX in Maseru, Lesotho CREDIT: HUMNEWS

Worldwide, there are about 1-billion smartphones and about 4 billion feature phones.

Indeed, in southern Africa, large and medium-sized networks are rolling out high-speed, wireless WIMAX networks - though costs can be prohibitive to the average subscriber. Aid agencies on the continent are using SMS technology in some countries for sending out behaviour change messages, collecting data or warning people about oncoming disasters.

Former Canadian PM Martin Blasts Donor Nations for Cutting Africa Aid

(HN, September 21, 2010) --- A former Canadian Prime Minister has blasted major donor nations for not honouring pledging commitments made five years ago to boost progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

“One of the worst things you can do to a developing country is build up expectations and then not meet them.” Paul Martin told the Globe and Mail newspaper. “The effect on government budgets, on morale, on people who believe they are about to receive help, and then don’t, is in many ways worse than if it had never been promised.”

The MDGs were forged by world leaders 10 years ago to help lift the world’s poor out of misery by 2015. This week world leaders are in New York to review progress. Martin attended the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005 where leaders pledged to boost aid to meet the MDGs. At the time Canada pledged to double its annual aid contribution to Africa to $2.8 billion but the current government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper slashed the annual pledge to just $2.1 billion.

In the Globe interview, Martin doesn’t conceal his bitterness. “I set out a number and said its not subject to revision. When the Canadian numbers were revised down, that was reneging on our commitment. The ‘reclarifying’ of numbers, which Canada, Italy and France engaged in, is exactly the kind of thing that must not happen in the future.”

Many donor nations, including the United Kingdom, are blaming the ongoing world economic crisis for slashing aid budgets.

Earlier this year, the respected NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), harshly criticized major donor nations for cutting back funding on HIV AIDS prevention programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa. MSF said the situation has gotten so bad that so-called stock-outs in anti-retroviral medicines are occurring in some of the countries in which it operates.

Martin applauded the aid and other investments in the developing world made by the new economic powers such as Brazil and Korea. However certain recipient countries have not done enough to reach MDG targets, for example in education, Martin said.

One of the eight MDGs is to ensure that all boys and   girls get a complete primary school education. However, UNESCO counts 69 million children out of school - down from 103 million in 2000.

---- Reporting by HUMNEWS’ Michael Bociurkiw in Toronto

EXCLUSIVE: Study Finds Massive Failure of HIV AIDS prevention education in Africa

(HN, September 20, 2010) - As a major UN review of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) opens today, a new study has cast doubt on the effectiveness of millions of dollars of donor money pumped into HIV AIDS prevention education in Africa.

Moreover, the study, supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), calls for “a comprehensive review and evaluation of all aspects of the delivery of HIV AIDS prevention education programmes in African schools.”

In short, the landmark study of 60,000 Grade Six pupils and their teachers in over 2500 schools in 15 countries, finds that students within most of the countries have “a generally low level of knowledge about HIV AIDS.” Only 20-40 percent of pupils reached the minimal knowledge level and less than 10 percent reached the desirable level.A remote classroom in southern Africa CREDIT: HUMNEWS

The results are nothing short of damning and its authors of the study by the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) don’t hold back in their criticism.

“These research results should send major shockwaves through those governments, international agencies and development partners that have made substantial investments in HIV AIDS preventative education programmes for Africa.”

The authors point out that Grade Six pupils in Africa tend to be at a very vulnerable age and yet “their knowledge about HIV AIDS is clearly inadequate for the task of guiding their decisions about behaviours that will protect and promote health.

“This is not an acceptable outcome - given the extreme human suffering caused by HIV infection and the massive amount of effort that has been devoted to large-scale HIV AIDS prevention education programmes.”

Major donors for HIV AIDS prevention programmes in Africa include the Irish Government, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the UN and the Fast-track Initiative - which groups such donors as the World Bank, Australia, Canada, the US, UNICEF and the European Community.

Ironically, the study found that Grade Six teachers in Africa have very high knowledge levels about HIV AIDS. Said the study: “Almost all teachers in the SACMEQ countries reached the minimal knowledge level and around 80-90 percent of teachers in most SACMEQ countries reached the desirable knowledge level.”

The authors called for a comprehensive review of the delivery of HIV AIDS education programmes in Africa - and further research into explanations for the yawning knowledge gap.         

“For some reason the knowledge in the teachers’ heads isn’t being transferred to the students,” said a UN official in southern Africa, who cant be identified because he doesn’t have authority to speak.

In some African countries, teaching HIV and AIDS - especially with curriculum containing explicit HIV information - is a tricky proposition, because of conservative beliefs or opposition from the Catholic church. In Lesotho, for example, most schools are church-owned and some education materials need to be signed off by the bishops overseeing them.

Education experts in the region say reaching children as young as possible with credible, preventative education is critical if there is to be a hope of stemming the HIV epidemic in this generation. Children as young as 10 need to be targeted given that the age of sexual debut in many African countries is as low as 12.

In the SACMEQ study, students in Mauritius, Lesotho and Zimbabwe scored the lowest and those in Malawi, Swaziland and Tanzania scored the highest. Yet even in Tanzania, the highest scoring, only 24 percent reached the desirable level.

SACMEQ studies are customarily seen as authoritative because the international, non-profit consortium groups the Ministries of Education in 15 countries in southern and eastern Africa. SACMEQ researchers used a recognized testing tool to probe students’ and teachers’ knowledge. The test has “a high level or reliability...and is suitable for placing pupils and their teachers on a common scale of knowledge about HIV-AIDS.”

According to UNAIDS, there are more than 20 million people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, and around 10 percent of these people are below 15 years of age.

A UNESCO official who co-authored the study did not respond to email inquiries.

--- Reporting by HUMNEWS staff

(REPORT) Child Mortality Rate Drops by a Third Since 1990

Fewer children are dying before they reach their fifth birthdays, with the total number of under-five deaths falling by one third in the past two decades, according to fresh estimates by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Between 1990 and 2009, the number of children below the age of five who died annually fell from 12.4 million to 8.1 million. The global under-five mortality rate dipped from 89 deaths per 1,000 live births to 60 during that period. “The good news is that these estimates suggest that 12,000 fewer children are dying each day around the world compared to 1990,” UNICEF said in a press release accompanying the data, issued ahead of next week’s UN-hosted world leaders’ summit in New York on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, the agency stressed, “the tragedy of preventable child deaths continues.” Some 22,000 children under the age of five continue to die every day, with 70 per cent of these deaths occurring within their first year of life. Under-five mortality increasingly becoming concentrated in a few countries, with half of all deaths of children below five occurring in just five countries in 2009: India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Pakistan and China. Sub-Saharan Africa – where one in eight children do not live to see their fifth birthday – continues to be home to the highest rates of child mortality. That is nearly 20 times the average for developed regions. UNICEF cautioned that although the pace of decline of child mortality has picked up in the past decade, it is still not enough to meet the MDG target of a two-thirds decline between 1990 and 2015. The new figures were published in this year’s Levels & Trends in Child Mortality, issued by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, bringing together several UN entities, The estimates are developed with oversight and advice from independent experts from academic institutions. Earlier this week, a new report by UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank found that the number of women dying due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth has decreased by 34 per cent from an estimated 546,000 in 1990 to 358,000 in 2008. While the progress is notable, the annual rate of decline is less than half of what is needed to achieve the MDG target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by 75 per cent between 1990 and 2015, the publication stressed.

- UN News, UNICEF

HUMNEWS HEADLINES - September 15, 2010 (Africa and the Middle East)

The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea, & lies along the south side of the Gulf of Aden. The region contains the countries of Eritrea, Djibouti, Djibouti, Ethiopia, & Somalia. As such, it covers approximately 2,000,000 km² & is inhabited by about 100.2 million people (Ethiopia: 75mn, Somalia: 10mn, Eritrea: 4.5mn, Djibouti: 0.7 million). Regional studies on the Horn of Africa are carried out, among others, in the fields of Ethiopian Studies as well as Somali Studies. (VIA WIKIPEDIA) REGION – Africa and Middle East

Hung up on the Horn of Africa

BP and off-shore drilling in the Mediterranean

World Bank report highlights Middle East economic challenges

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE among the most generous donors around the globe

ALGERIA

Petroceltic hopes to tap a new markets as loss hits $5m

Algeria to host North African security meeting

Algeria Power Report 2010 – Between 2010 & 2019, report forecasts an increase in Algerian electricity generation of 57.3%

Algeria convicts anti-corruption activist of corruption

ANGOLA

British ambassador praises role played by Angola in Africa

Social reintegration of disabled persons easier

Angola and Kenya to analyze cooperation in media

BENIN

Benin, Oba wants Swedish help on sex trade

Police give reasons for violent crimes in Edo

Internet and e-commerce industry in Benin

Guitarist Lionel Loueke combines African, jazz, classical sounds (entertainment)  

BOTSWANA

Cosatu’s radical new plan for the economy  

Residents against Botswana joining United States of Africa

Botswana installs full body scanners

Botswana, SA move up Fifa rankings (sports)

ISAF welcomes Botswana as a new member national authority (sports)

BURKINA FASO

Iran urges enhanced ties with Africa

CAMEROON

Cameroon begins search for seized vessels

First CamairCo flight to Paris scheduled on March 28, 2011 (travel)  

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

New network launches in Republic of the Congo

The ICC is a phantom court  

GABON

Fifa rankings: Gabon overtakes Nigeria (sports)

GAMBIA

Pres. Jammeh tours affected communities – brings hope to disaster victims

VP launches support for disaster victims

GHANA

Ghana to set up International Trade Commission

Ghana breaks in Top20 in Fifa rankings (sports)

Michael Essien leads Ghana Quintet in champs league action (sports)  

Derrick Adjei, A damaging liability to Ghana  

Chris Gardner arrives in Ghana next month

LESOTHO

Report says hunger costing poor countries billions

New customs deal to lighten burden on SA  

LIBERIA

African Aura Mining granted Liberia iron ore development rights

Cellcom gives US$500,000 to Liberian Football Association

Country still faces security challenges  

Monrovia, Liberia, Now Delta’s 7^th African destination (travel)

LIBYA

Growing row in Italy over alleged Libyan attack on fishing boat

Libya paying fees for assault suspect

Libyan Shoah survivors to get reparations

MALAWI

Malawi President expects remarkable growth in Iran-Africa ties

Ex-President Muluzi denies Malawi corruption charges

Malawi democracy ‘on the right track’  

MAURITANIA

35 Islamists pardoned show their repentance

QATAR

Qatar index up after delayed opening

Qatari official and Darfur mediator discuss peace process

Qatari oil rises as refiners seek more distillate rich grades  

SIERRA LEONE

Politics with a new dimension in Sierra Leone: President Koroma brings the government to the people of the U.S.

African minerals constructs schools for Tonkolili kids

SOMALIA

Ethiopia troops arrive in Somaliland to hunt down ONLF rebels

SUDAN

Sudanese FM hails Iran’s remarkable progress in different fields

Child refugees at risk from sexual abuse

YEMEN

Three coincident explosions rock south Yemen, separatists blamed

Terrorist death squads publish their hit lists  

Yemen to attend 34^th session of Arab Central Banks Governors Council

HUMNEWS - Photo's of the week - August 8, 2010

 Pakistan Floods: An estimated 13 million Pakistanis affected by the worst floods in the country’s history are bracing from more misery as heavy rains further bloat rivers and streams. Many aid agencies have already begun to respond to the situation. Approximately 1600 people have died. (SOURCE: Irish Times)

Mongolian neo-Nazis: Anti-Chinese sentiment fuels rise of ultra-nationalism -  Alarm sounds over rise of extreme groups such as Tsagaan Khass who respect Hitler and reject foreign influence. (SOURCE: The Guardian)

 

Russia fires: The capital city of the Russian Federation is covered in thick smog, based on reports from Moscow. The problem is reportedly causing several businesses and schools to close down due to health risks. Moscow has a population of some 10 million people, about the same as the entire population of Hungary. A thick blanket of smog was allegedly caused by uncontrollable ongoing peat fires burning just outside the capital. The problem is also disrupting air traffic at major airports. Television coverage showed how commuters and residents wear masks and ambulances and paramedics are reportedly also on alert as summer temperatures reached 40C. At the same some 700 wildfires are raging in various parts of the country due to the severe drought. (SOURCE: The Budapest Report)

  Kashmir flash floods: At least 115 people confirmed dead and about 412 injured in flash floods near Leh on Thursday night news has also come in that 25 Army jawans in the area are missing after their posts and houses were washed away, Army sources said. (SOURCE: Indian Express/ PHOTO: Video Grab - PTI/Doordarshan)

Jamaica Dengue fever: Health Minister Rudyard Spencer told journalists at a press briefing at Jamaica House in Kingston this week that of the 77 cases, seven have been confirmed as of the more severe form of the illness -- the dengue haemorragic fever. Spencer, however, said no cases of dengue shock syndrome have been reported so far nor any related deaths. The health ministry, said Spencer, is on high alert in light of the growing number of cases of dengue fever and dengue haemorragic fever in the country and region. Consequently, he said, all parishes have intensified their fogging and oiling activities. Fogging is being carried out in approximately 800 communities across the island. (SOURCE: The Jamaica Observer)  

Kyrgyzstan protests: The authorities in Kyrgyzstan's southern city of Osh have prevented a mass protest against the deployment of an international police force in the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports. Sonunbek Junusbaev, one of the activists who planned the protest, told RFE/RL that the Osh commandant ordered the removal of a yurt -- the traditional Kyrgyz nomadic dwelling -- from in front of a local theater on August 4. The protest organizers had set up the yurt earlier this week as a symbol of their protest. The 52 unarmed international police are expected to arrive in Osh and Jalal-Abad in early September to accompany police on patrols, engage in training and advising local police, and to monitor the human rights situation. The OSCE and the Kyrgyz government decided to send the police mission in an effort to restore order after clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz killed at least 356 people and uprooted hundreds of thousands more in June. International human rights groups have reported that Kyrgyz police and other security forces are arbitrarily detaining ethnic Uzbeks and also beating them.The OSCE police are to stay in the southern regions for four months (SOURCE: Radio Free Europe)

  Aura Borealis: NASA announced the discovery of a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) on August 1, 2010. The CME resulted from a class C3 solar flare and was aimed towards Earth. The coronal mass ejection should reach Earth on the night of August 3/4, 2010. The CME will cause a higher than normal possibility of aurora, also called northern lights, activity on the evening of August 3 and the morning of August 4. During a CME the Sun releases high energy charged particles, protons and electrons. When these particles, particularly the electrons, interact with atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere they cause northern and southern lights, which are more properly called the aurora borealis and the aurora australis. Earth's magnetic field causes the auroral displays to be more easily visible near the north and south magnetic poles, but in extreme cases aurora can be visible at lower latitudes. (SOURCE: Examiner.com)

Africa broadband: The East African Submarine System (EASSy) undersea cable, which now has an upgraded 3,84-Tb/s design capacity, has entered commercial operation, ahead of schedule and about 10% below its budgeted $300-million in capital expenditure.Dr Angus Hay, the chief technology officer of Neotel – one of the consortium of investors in the cable – on Thursday announced that the undersea cable had started commercial operations on July 30.The launch of the EASSy cable follows a year after the 1,28-Tb/s Seacom cable, which also runs along Africa’s East Coast, went live on July 23, 2009.The EASSy cable, which has a 25-year life, connects South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan with multiple other submarine cable networks from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas. (SOURCE: Engineering news)

Cluster bomb ban: Effective Aug.1, an international treaty bans the cluster bomb, one of the world’s worst hazards for millions of farmers. To date, 108 countries have signed and 38 have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the production, use, stockpiling or transfer of cluster bombs. No country suffers the hazards of cluster bombs more than Laos. Per capita, it’s the most heavily bombed country on earth. Up to 30 percent of all bombs dropped on Laos did not detonate. They remain in the soil today, deadly as ever. (SOURCE: The Faster Times)

 

Salvador Dali moves to Andorra: The Salvador Dali sculpture, the ‘Nobility of Time’ has been placed in Andorra’s capital city, in the Piazza Rotonda Andorra la Vella. It was donated to the Andorran government by Enric Sabater, who was Dali’s agent, collaborator and confident between 1968 and 1982. The stunning five meter high sculpture has been placed in the city’s most prestigious and historic square, in the towns oldest quarter which dates from the twelfth century. The bronze sculpture is one of the melted watch series of sculptures which was created by Dali to symbolise the passage of time. The soft melting watch is draped around a tree trunk; atop the watch face is a crown, symbolising time’s master over humanity. Beniamino Levi, President of the Stratton Foundation and curator of over eighty Dali exhibitions worldwide, has expressed his approval of the donation and is delighted that the sculpture is now the main artistic attraction in Andorra la Vella. “It is going to be one of the major attractions of the capital and of the country”, pointed out the town’s parish minister Antoni Armengol, who described the donation as akin to ‘a Christmas present in the summer’. Andorra’s minister of Education Culture and Youth, Susanna Vela agrees that the sculpture is certainly , ‘a great point of attraction’. The sculpture ‘ Nobility of Time’ has also been displayed in other European locations such as London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and most recently Courcheval, France.  (SOURCE: artdaily.org)

 

For Investment-Friendly Africa Regional Integrations Need to be Accelerated

(HN, June 28, 2010) -- Cape Town, South Africa -- Speeding up regional integration is one of the key ways to increase Africa's attractiveness as a place to do business.

This was the common refrain among speakers at the Fortune Global Forum today. So too was the need to address the deep knowledge gap among outsiders. 

Emblematic of the legacy of colonialism on the continent is the fragmented railway system - a key component for robust trade - where Africa maintains several different railway gauges. "How do you harmonize something like that?" said Iqbal Sharma, the Deputy Director General and CEO of South Africa's Trade and Investment Department.

He added: "Regional integration in Africa is something fairly new for us and it is a complex process."

While there is no lack of regional economic group memberships for a country like South Africa - these range from the African Economic Community to NEPAD to the South African Development Community - more tangible integration needs to happen for a more favourable investment environment to occur.

Especially important is investment in infrastructure, which Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons addressed by saying, “Infrastructure spending needs to move much higher on the respective agendas of African countries. If countries want to attract investment they need to invest in themselves."

Echoing the comments yesterday by former President Bill Clinton about Africa becoming a wireless continent, one investment executive said Africa is very much on the radar screen of "non-bank banks" – companies such as Nokia for instance, which seeks to empower consumers through innovations such as mobile banking - which in turn could generate more micro-financing.

Overall, the sentiment at the global forum of business leaders has moved from unfamiliarity of Africa to a feeling that western business is missing out on exciting – and potentially lucrative - opportunities on the continent.

Said renowned African woman – a Mozambican, wife of Nelson Mandela, widow of the late Mozambican president Samora Michel and women and child rights advocate Graça Machel: "This continent is changing. There is really a movement which is coming. But it needs to be strengthened and become less fragmented."

--- Reporting by HUMNEWS’ Michael Bociurkiw, at the Fortune/TIME/CNN Global Forum in Cape Town, South Africa

UN Urges "Green Revolution" for Africa

(HN, May 19, 2010) In the northern Nigerian state of Kano, it's not difficult to spot the extreme wastage and inefficiencies that plague small farmers. Power outages, lack of water, gouging by middlemen and poor harvesting and distribution methods are among the challenges the average farmer faces.

The scenario is repeated across the African continent, compounding the poverty spiral that keeps millions poor and hungry.Many African farmers suffer from poor post-harvest practices

A UN report released today warns that "ineffective farming techniques and wasteful post-harvest practices" have left sub-Saharan Africa as the region most likely to miss the Millennium Development Goals on poverty and hunger.

Produced by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the report say per capita food production in the least developed countries (LDCs) has declined continuously over the past 40 years – dropping by one-fifth between the early 1970s and the mid-2000s.

The report argues that nothing less than a "Green Revolution" for Africa is required, built on technology and innovation aimed at the needs and capabilities of millions of smallholder farmers and at coping with the continent’s varying climate conditions. The continent's smallholder farmers can benefit from new technologies such as low-cost drip irrigation and plastic water tanks to store runoff, as opposed to modern irrigation systems which can increase crop yields but are designed more for larger farms.

The report cites a successful policy of “smart subsidies” to ease access to fertilizers which has led to “staggering” increases in maize production in Malawi, as well as alternative technologies in the areas of pesticides, tilling and post-harvest technologies.

Smallholders make up the bulk of Africa’s farmers, many of whom live at or below the poverty line.

Separately, UNCTAD reported this week that unemployment levels in Africa is "unacceptably high." In 2008, unemployment rates registered at 10.1 percent, and is likely to remain in the "double digits" for 2009. Most of the unemployment is among the young and women, said Magdi Farahat, the Geneva Representative of the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

Staff, UN, files

Digital Divide in Africa Set to Ease This Year With New Undersea Connections

(HN, April 19, 2010) Farida Aziz, a Pakistani aid worker based in Nigeria’s remote northern states, tries to keep in touch with friends and family back home via Skype and Facebook chat. But conversations are often kept short, due to the slow and fickle nature of her Internet connection.

Such stories are commonly heard across West Africa as people in the Sub-Sahara wait for the day to have fixed and wireless Internet connections at faster than dial-up speeds.

The continent has a long way to go - in terms of Internet penetration and broadband access - before it catches up with the rest of the world. A 2009 study by Internet World Stats found that Africa has an Internet penetration rate of only 6.7 percent, compared with the world average of 24.7 per cent. No African country figures on the list of top 49 countries with the highest Internet penetration rate, and nine have penetration rates lower than one percent.

And for the few that do have access, bandwidth costs for Africans are 50 times or higher than in developed countries. The lack of reliable power supplies - in countries like Nigeria - limits the time the average person can spend online - even with broadband access.

“Developing broadband in Africa will reduce our dependence on foreign owned satellite systems,” said Ernest Ndukwe, Executive Chairman of Nigeria’s Communications Commission. “This will help in removing the need to pay exorbitant satellite transit fees.”

But according to a World Bank official change is just around the corner, with massive undersea cables being laid that will connect this side of Africa with the huge broadband backbones that have the potential to catapult many African countries firmly into the digital age. Spurred in part by the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa this summer, various submarine cables are due to go live in 2010, some of them funded by pan-African telecommunications consortiums.

In July 2009, the Seacom submarine fibre optic cable for East Africa went live. Privately-funded and three-quarters African-owned, and is the first to provide broadband to countries in east Africa, which previously relied entirely on expensive, slower, satellite connections.

And by the end of this year, Nigeria’s Main-One Cable System will run 7000 kilometres from Portugal to Nigeria with landings along the route to various West African countries - delivering 1.92Tbps of bandwidth, equivalent to 10 times the available capacity of the existing fibre optics cable serving the West coast of Africa. It will offer about 200 times the satellite capacity currently available across sub- Saharan Africa. Further phases will double the length of the cable, bordering West Africa all the way to South Africa.

Aside from a more robust telecoms infrastructure, regulatory reform in several West African countries are opening the doors to competition - and in turn - driving down costs for consumers. In Nigeria alone, at least a half dozen mobile phone companies compete for customers, especially in the pre-paid mobile phone and wireless data sectors. The availability of better content - especially in local languages and dialects - are expected to drive up demand for value added services.

All this is not to say that the entire population of the continent is benefitting from the increased broadband.  At a conference last year in Russia called “Addressing the Digital Divide for Science in Africa,” experts agreed that vast proportions of people, including academics, have yet to benefit from expanding adoption of information and technologies and access to the Internet in Africa.

“Africa is confronted by problems of Internet penetration,” said the conference paper. “Africa is not only about 16 years behind the rest of the world, but is falling further behind each year. This rising Digital Divide between Africa and industrialized countries means that the potential of African universities to play a key role in national development is largely not being realized.

To address the problems, groups of concerned scientists have come together in a group called eGY-Africa to advocate for better access and equipment for African institutions. Ironically the Internet was first created to link academic institutions yet the science community in Africa feels it is stuck behind a digital firewall - with some using dial-up speeds as slow as 56kbps.

“Any kind of map of Internet performance shows that scientists in Africa, in general, are not able to partner in such virtual teams and activities due to a lack of ICT infrastructure,” the conference paper said. It adds that in many African communities, “cyber cafes have better Internet connectivity than the neighbouring university.”

Experts say that while more fibre is being laid, other developments - such as Low Earth Orbiting Satellites and WIMAX - will help lessen the digital divide on the continent. More African countries are now directly linked to each other rather than through costly and slow intercontinental connections via Europe and North America.

---Reporting by Michael Bociurkiw in Las Vegas 

Chronic Power Shortages Plunges Sub-Saharan Africa Into Darkness During Earth Hour

KADUNA, NIGERIA (HN March 28) While millions of people around the world observed Earth Hour by switching off lights, residents of many cities and towns in sub-Saharan Africa sat in darkness for several hours Saturday due to a longstanding and persistent power shortage.

In the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, for example, at least four outages struck on the day Earth Hour was observed - Saturday, March 27. The lucky homes and business owners have generators, which send plumes of dark diesel smoke into the dusty air. One local restaurant owner could only laugh when he was told that he had involuntarily participated in the global sustainability movement that has become known as Earth Hour, when his establishment was plunged into darkness near the stroke of 8:30pm.

Earth Hour is a climate change initiative of the  World Wildlife Fund, one of the worlds’ largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, with almost 5 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries.

Ironically, Nigeria is sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest energy producer - yet the country of more than 150 million people wont be able to generate enough electricity until much later in the decade, according to analysts. This is despite the efforts of the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to pump $16 billion into the country's energy sector.

The rolling blackouts in Nigeria are attributed to an acute shortage of petrol at the thermal generation stations across the country, which have idled at least six stations.  The available electricity volume on the national grid dropped from 3, 710 megawatts (MW) in December 2009 to 2, 543 MW in mid-March. The Ministry of Power puts available electricity generation capacity in the country at over 5000 MW per hour. People here hope that the new acting President, Goodluck Jonathan will be able to rise above political squabbles and restore a reliable energy supply.

Nigeria is the continent’s most populous nation and third largest economy - after South Africa and Kenya - but power shortages, rampant corruption, a brain drain and red tape, threaten to slow economic growth.

To be sure, Nigeria is not the only African country to be afflicted by power shortages. In South Africa - host to this year’s FIFA World Cup finals - lack of power has forced gold mines to shut down. One African writer has suggested that power shortages could negatively impact on the World Cup - darkening stadiums and interrupting broadcasts.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2007 alone, nearly two-thirds of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa experienced an acute energy crisis with frequent and extended electricity outages. While conflict and drought can be blamed, the main reason is that demand has simply outstripped supply. Many power generation facilities rely on traditional fuels, which are in short supply, especially in non-producing African nations.

In the impoverished northern regions of Nigeria, many vendors could be seen along the main north-south highway Saturday selling firewood.

The IMF says that due to the slower-than-expected process of electrification, only about a quarter of the region’s population has access to power. In Angola, only about 15 percent of people have access. However, new, massive hydro-electric projects - such as a $7-billion, 400MW joint Angola-Namibia dam on the Kunene River - will eventually help to alleviate the crippling energy shortage on the continent. The region has a population of over 800-million - 80 percent of which live on less than a dollar-a-day - yet its installed generation capacity is no more than that of Spain.

Many analysts say the power crisis could hold the continent back in achieving ket Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

“Electrical energy is not only crucial to commerce and industry, but also holds the key to poverty alleviation,” writes Peter Kagwanja of African Insight. “Energy being critical to the provision of clean water, sanitation, health services, irrigation, telecommunication, industrial development and development of infrastructure, its absence means poverty and therefore, it should be central to transforming the rhetoric of "African Renaissance" into a socio-economic reality.”

Michael Bociurkiw reporting