(photo: europarl.europa.eu)
By Nathalie Sheppe
The question of youth empowerment took center stage at the African Union’s 17th Annual Summit. Heads of States and African youths grappled with the threats posed by youth unemployment, low levels of education and inaccessible labor markets. These realities affect youths most directly but the wider sustainable development of African states languishes as well.
Today roughly two-thirds of the continent’s population is below 25. In failing to meet the needs of this pivotal group, African leaders fail to invest in the strength of their tomorrows. The deficit is all the more glaring as many of these states look to make the transition towards emerging market status. In order to take that step forward these states will need, amongst other things, strong human capital. By neglecting its primary source of human capital, its youths, Africa has made this transition all the more difficult. read more…
A Wind of Change – 50 Years After the Freedom Rides
May 14, 1961. The first group of Freedom Riders (conceived of by the Congress of Racial Equality) had their bus set afire outside of Anniston, Alabama, where a white mob had followed them from the city. (Bettman / CORBIS)
Last week Search screened the PBS documentary Freedom Riders, released earlier this year for the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Rides. The Rides took place from May to November 1961 and were a movement in which Black and White Americans tested racial prejudice in the Jim Crow South by traveling together on commercial buses. Although the US Supreme Court had banned segregation on interstate buses in 1946, the Southern states did not enforce this law. The Freedom Riders knew that they were risking a violent response, but were willing to put their lives on the line for justice and equality. The movement had an enormous impact on American society, demonstrating the power of non-violent action and the depth of America’s racism. It also showed Black Americans that there were fair-minded White people who were willing to risk their lives for equal rights. read more…
Patricia addressing an anxious crowd. (photo: Elise Webb)
By Elise Webb Shouts wafted uphill to where my Rwandan SFCG colleagues and I were chatting with a group of women waiting outside the office of the Sector Executive Secretary to be paid for their labor on a section of road. A rumor was running through the group like an electrical surge. The sector was going to forgo payment with the excuse that these women’s work was part of muganda, the national unpaid community works program. We descended from the hilltop to see if the commotion below was for the same reason.
People– young and old– were scrambling by a shed overflowing with beans. Elderly men in tattered blazers wrenched 8 kilo bags of the foodstuff out the narrow door into the sunlight for personal inspection. The sector had agreed to pay this group of people for their work. However, the horde claimed, the officials were only going to pay them in beans. Almost immediately a woman shouted, “They’re bad! These beans are all bad!” Suddenly, upon noticing my camera, the women began thrusting their dusty bean-filled hands at me, demanding I photograph the wreckage. read more…
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is the placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.
— Rumi, 13th century Persian Sufi mystic
Above, an elderly woman displaced from the town of Abyei stands on an airstrip in nearby Agok during an emergency food distribution by the World Food Program. Recent fighting in Abyei, an oil-rich area which straddles the north and the south, has displaced an estimated 112,800 people. (Tim McKulka/UN Photo)
Tomorrow, July 9th, South Sudan will officially become an independent nation and to ensure peace and stability in the world’s newest country, The UN Security Council has approved the deployment of a new peacekeeping force consisting of 7,000 peacekeeping troops and 900 international police in South Sudan. The new mission will support the new South Sudanese government in its political transition, establishing state authority, and other issues of governance.
Conflict continues, however, in the volatile border region of South Kordofan, where fighingt and bombings are still being reported.
President Omar Al-Bashir has officially thrown out the South Kordofan accord, signed in Addis Ababa between the Sudanese government’s National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). The deal would have facilitated a peaceful demobilization or integration into the SAF (Sudan Armed Forces) of SPLM fighters in South Kordofan, as well as made the SPLM a legitimate political party in the north. President Bashir said earlier this week that he would continue ordering SAF military operations in South Kordofan until the state is “cleansed” of rebels.
Time Magazine has an interesting article on lessons that South Sudan can take from Timor-Leste (where SFCG recently opened an office) to ensure sustainable peace and prosperity; one of which is not to underestimate the legacy of violence:
“In places where violence has ruled people’s lives for decades, abrupt peace can become a vacuum that sometimes fills back up — with more violence.”
Search will be actively working to strengthen civil society and good governance within the country, in the hopes that the its first steps will be peaceful ones.
Extra:
Foreign Policy has a beautiful photo essay of the new country on the eve its independence that is worth checking out.
Arming Traders with Information Along the Border
Congolese and Burundian traders address border officials at the forum. Our Director of Programs in Burundi, Floride Ahitungiye (standing) helps to guide the discussion.
Our Burundi office is working with COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) to transform sensitive conflicts on the DRC-Burundi border and to support dialogue among the parties involved. Conflict across and around border zones is notoriously difficult to address because governments and peacebuilding organizations so often work within borders. But conflict is not restricted by man-made lines on a map; borders are a site of trafficking, illicit drug trade, bribery and more.
Many of the petty traders who frequently cross the border for commerce are women who are often sexually and financially exploited by border officials. Border officials, many of whom are paid poorly, or not paid with any regularity sometimes set up additional ‘unofficial’ checkpoints to supplement their income.And without accurate information, traders do not always know how much they should be paying or to whom.
Border officials explain protocol, tariffs and more.
COMESA has embarked on a trading for peace project, with the aim of making trade within the region easier and more efficient, launching information desks on the borders of each country, one in Kavinvira in DRC and the other in Gatumba in Burundi. The desks are intended to provide accurate information to traders regarding their rights, information and resources on trade standards and tariffs. Search recently organized a forum with over 100 traders from Bujumbura (Burundi) and Uvira (DRC) and border representatives from both countries to instruct traders on how to use the new desks to fight corruption. The forum also provided a place for grievances and issues to be discussed.
Charges were a major problem for most the traders. The price of services seems to change on whim of the border official and what you pay one day is not necessarily what you can expect to pay the next. Often the charges are not explained to the traders, so they are unclear about what each service or receipt has bought them. The biggest issue, for both traders and officials was the lack of information, which is exactly what this forum and subsequent ones will aim to rectify.
