http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspxUpdated everydayen-gbThu, 12 Nov 2009 15:14:00 GMTDUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.DUSHANBE Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Even as world food production grows, hunger is on the rise in many poor countries, according to the Global Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for November [http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak340e/ak340e00.htm], published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 12 November.

The report highlights a contradiction: world cereal production is at its second-highest level ever, yet food prices remain very high. It identifies 77 countries that are both low-income and food deficit.

In East Africa, cereal prices range from 68 percent to 177 percent over the 2007 numbers. In southern Africa, prices are 58-200 percent higher than in 2007, and in most of Asia prices are up 40-70 percent. Since most low-income food deficit countries are food importers, they lose far more from high prices than they gain from steady crop production.

Hunger, in most cases, is caused by lack of money rather than a shortage of food production, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). [http://www.wfp.org/hunger/causes] In 2008 the number of undernourished people in the world increased by 40 million, despite record harvests. [http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/8836/icode/]

The new FAO report suggests that 2009 is likely to see a similar increase in hunger.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87006MASERU Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Mokete Tsehlo, 26, a shepherd working in the Berea district in the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, told IRIN/PlusNews how his nomadic lifestyle contributed to his HIV-positive diagnosis. MASERU Thursday, November 12, 2009 (IRIN) - Mokete Tsehlo, 26, a shepherd working in the Berea district in the tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho, told IRIN/PlusNews how his nomadic lifestyle contributed to his HIV-positive diagnosis.

"My father let me go to a little school and I can write my name, but what I know most is sheep - how to keep them out of danger. Sheep can feed you and give you fleeces that can keep a person warm; you can sell them at the market. The more sheep you own the more prosperous a person is.

"Just because I am out here now with the sheep does not mean I am out here all the time. I have friends; we play football. But you have to keep the body out of danger, like I do the sheep. You have to avoid the wild dogs, like HIV, that kill you.

"I don't know how I got HIV. They said it was from sex ... Sometimes I go all over with the sheep. We don't just stay here; we must go where the grass is.

"I meet girls - I don't sleep with men's wives because that can get you killed - but I guess one girl I slept with slept with someone before me and I got HIV.

"I don't take [antiretroviral] drugs. I can take them but it is not easy finding a place to get them. I cannot go to the same place for drugs and get a check-up every week because I am moving around with the sheep. It was easy to get HIV, but in this country there are not that many places we know to get treatment.

"My parents know nothing about HIV, so I do not worry them about it. These are my father's sheep, and their descendants will be my sheep one day. I hope to live to have many hundreds of sheep."

jh/kn/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87009JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - A move by donor countries to provide aid agencies with cash, allowing them the flexibility to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country and save on transport and warehousing costs, is not addressing nutritional needs, according to a new report.JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (IRIN) - A move by donor countries to provide aid agencies with cash, allowing them the flexibility to source cheaper or more appropriate food in the region or beneficiary country and save on transport and warehousing costs, is also not addressing nutritional needs, according to a new report.

Food aid should include foodstuffs fortified with micronutrients and animal protein. "The emphasis is more on quantity rather than quality, and rarely does the food aid target the most vulnerable groups: children under five, pregnant women and lactating mothers," said Stéphane Doyon, of the international medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a co-author of the organization's report, Malnutrition: how much is being spent?

"Barely 1.7 percent of interventions reported as 'development food aid/food security' and 'emergency food aid' between 2004 and 2007 actually address nutrition needs," he said.

The MSF report was published ahead of a new UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, which points out that the level of child and maternal undernutrition "remains unacceptable" throughout the world; 90 percent of the developing world's chronically undernourished or stunted children live in Asia and Africa.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86993JOHANNESBURG Friday, November 06, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has been feeding people in Lesotho since 1965, yet the tiny mountain kingdom is still not much closer to achieving food self-sufficiency. Time to overhaul the approach, aid agencies say.JOHANNESBURG Friday, November 06, 2009 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has been feeding people in Lesotho since 1965, yet the tiny mountain kingdom is still not much closer to achieving food self-sufficiency. Time to overhaul the approach, aid agencies say.

WFP generally only ships and provides food in crisis situations like civil conflicts and natural disasters. Programmes sometimes linger on after the emergency has passed, when food aid used to help communities rebuild, but the goal is usually to move out.

"Something needs to change," said Bhim Udas, WFP Country Director in Lesotho, the only southern African country to harvest less in 2009 - around 86,000 metric tons (mt) of cereals - than in 2008; maize production, the country's staple, would be about 10 percent lower, the UN food aid agency projected.

The Lesotho Vulnerability Assessment Committee (LVAC) said between 400,000 and 450,000 people would be in need of food assistance before the next harvest in April 2010. "That's a quarter of the population," Udas told IRIN.

Part of a worrying trend

Annual per capita cereal production in Lesotho has been shrinking since the 1970s. According to WFP, domestic cereal production met about 80 percent of the national requirement in 1980, but this dropped to 50 percent in the 1990s, and by 2004 only 30 percent was being produced locally.

The worst drought in 30 years hit in 2006 and 2007, sparking a further drop in production; by 2008 maize prices had risen more than 35 percent. "This year [2009] production was even less [than in 2007], even though there was no crop failure or drought," Udas noted. WFP's food flow mix has changed dramatically since 1988, reflecting the drop in food security.

Over the years, "programme" assistance - food aid usually supplied on a government-to-government basis - practically disappeared, and "project" aid - in support of specific poverty-reduction and disaster-prevention activities - declined steadily, while "emergency" food aid - for victims of natural or man-made disasters - started climbing.

Continued food and agricultural support, coupled with falling production, have led some to believe that aid might actually be at the root of the problem. A common complaint, often with specific reference to WFP assistance programmes, has been that food handouts create disincentives to produce.

If only it were that simple, Udas said, pointing out that lowered local production was not a matter of choice. Lesotho had a shortage of arable land, and a lack of agricultural inputs and poor farming practices meant the quality of already scarce farmland was deteriorating too.

Increasingly erratic weather patterns and the impact of HIV/AIDS on farming families – the 23.2 percent prevalence rate is one of the highest worldwide - all but crippled the country's agricultural production capacity.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has been supporting agriculture in Lesotho since 1983. "A convergence of several issues [is] causing the decline," said Farayi Zimudzi, the FAO Acting Representative and Emergency Rehabilitation Coordinator in Lesotho.

"In rural areas families manage to produce, on average, three to four months' worth of food supply – that's in a good season. The rest is aid, or is bought [with money made] through [basic] employment opportunities," she told IRIN.

Location, population and too little land

Lesotho is barren, mountainous and dwarfed by South Africa, which completely surrounds it; most of its two million people live in rural areas, where 85 percent eke out a living from agriculture. "It's the type of topography, and pressure from population growth," Zimudzi said.

Less than 10 percent of the country's total area of 3 million hectares is arable - which equates to less than a single hectare of suitable farmland per rural family - but soil erosion and urban encroachment have brought down the quality and quantity of land available for growing food at an alarming rate.

Government estimates put the loss of soil to erosion at 40 million tons annually - equivalent to more than 2 percent of the country's topsoil. Years of poor farming practices have added to the problem. "People extract the nutrients but don't put them back through adequate fertilizing so they start from a lower fertility point every year," Zimudzi commented.

The country receives adequate rain on aggregate, but its mountainous topography means runoff is exceptionally high and water had little chance to seep into the soil. Rainfall distribution - usually a large amount over short periods, with long intervals – was also problematic, "because the window of opportunity to plant is very narrow".

WFP's Udas said the soaring prices of essential inputs added to farmer despair. "Because of the high prices of fuel, fertilizers and seeds, farmers could not buy inputs in time ... so they decided not to plough; most of the arable land was left fallow." FAO estimated that since 2007 the price of maize seed has gone up by 60 percent, and fertilizer by a whopping 170 percent.

A heavy dependence on South Africa - Lesotho imports over 60 percent of its food requirements, livestock and almost everything else from their only neighbour - has often been blamed for stifling the local economy, with farmers unable to compete with huge commercial farms across the border. "There is no way to ignore the overhanging presence of the ... country next door. They do it bigger, better and cheaper," Zimudzi said.

Importing food has also become much harder: prices in South Africa have rocketed in recent years, while spending power in Lesotho has plummeted. Retrenchments in South Africa's mining sector, where many Basotho men worked as migrant labourers, and an ailing textile industry - the cornerstone of Lesotho's tiny industrial base – delivered another blow to food security.

Not for lack of ideas

Zimudzi called for a shift in strategy. "Lesotho will have to look for a competitive advantage," she said. Focusing on niche crops like seed potatoes was one option, because "due to the altitude and climate there is an absence of disease."

Udas suggested growing high-value crops like beans, apples, grapes and peaches, "that would benefit from the specific climatic conditions - they don't have to produce everything they need, as long as they have other resources so they can pay [for what they need]."

Zimudzi noted that harnessing Lesotho's water resources would be key, but "irrigation schemes require heavy investment, [so] crops need to provide adequate return."

The Lesotho Highlands water scheme, which supplies much of South Africa's industrial hub, is located high in the mountains and bringing water to where it was needed for irrigation would not only be extremely difficult but also financially unviable.

Farmers were already exploring alternatives by planting crops like sorghum, which are more resistant to changing weather patterns, instead of maize. But whatever the crop, "there has to be a fundamental and revolutionary change in the way that agriculture is practiced," Zimudzi said.

Improved farming practices like crop rotation, and the more novel concept of conservation agriculture - which minimizes soil disturbance, applies more precise timing for planting, and utilizes crop residue to retain moisture and enrich the soil - would need to be widely promoted.

The promise of agriculture

Boosting agriculture and food production are major components of Lesotho's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, but despite the introduction of the Lesotho Food Security Policy in 2005, "agriculture has not received much support," FAO's Zimudzi commented.

WFP's Udas agreed: "They have the policy and an excellent plan, but now it needs to be implemented; if that is done then most of the problems would be solved - but that would require the right budget allocation."

Therein lies the problem. In 2003 the Southern African Development Community leaders met in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, and committed to allocating at least 10 percent of their national budgetary resources to agricultural sectors, but Lesotho has only managed to allocate around 3 percent annually towards meeting the target set in the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security.

Lesotho's representatives will go to the World Summit on Food Security in Rome from 16 to 18 November with an eye to garnering more donor finance for agriculture and food security programmes. "But that would only be realistic if the country showed a genuine commitment to implementing their own policies," Udas said.

In the meantime, FAO will continue supporting agricultural development, and WFP will keep feeding people through its "Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation" and "Development Project" - but only the most vulnerable.

"We don't feed everyone here; we provide food assistance that is targeted," Udas said, to the chronically poor, and food insecure beneficiaries like orphans and vulnerable children, and those involved in prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission, antiretroviral therapy, and tuberculosis treatment in remote, mountainous and inaccessible areas, and there is also a school feeding programme. Altogether the schemes benefit some 244,000 Basotho.

Udas did not think WFP would leave Lesotho anytime soon. "The country still faces too many problems - that's why Lesotho will always need donor support - but you cannot talk about [donor] dependency when it's an issue of life or death for people."

tdm/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86910NAIROBI Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Encouraging the use of traditional African herbal medicines could prevent some of the one million malarial deaths on the continent, according to specialists attending a conference www.mimalaria.org/pamc in Nairobi. Many poor communities, especially in rural settings, cannot afford modern malarial drugs and many people die due to inaccessibility of treatment.NAIROBI Wednesday, November 04, 2009 (IRIN) - Encouraging the use of traditional African herbal medicines could prevent some of the one million malarial deaths on the continent, according to specialists attending a conference www.mimalaria.org/pamc in Nairobi. Many poor communities, especially in rural settings, cannot afford modern malarial drugs and many people die due to inaccessibility of treatment.

“Malaria kills many people in Africa, both children and adults, despite the availability of free treatment in certain African countries. While it is true many governments in Africa, with development partners, give free pediatric treatment for malaria, many still cannot access this facilities and resort to home treatment,” says Merlin Wilcox of the Research Initiative on Traditional Antimalarial Methods and the University of Oxford.

Some specialists at the ongoing 5th MIM Pan African Malaria Conference in Nairobi said medicines drawn from plants that abound in the continent could be utilized to save many people, especially those in poor settings, from malaria.

BN Prakash, a researcher with the Foundation for the Revitalization of Local Health Traditions, based in Bangalore, said Africa could draw on experiences in India where medicinal plants have been used with great success in the control of malaria-related deaths.

“Research in India has shown a 5-10 times reduction in malaria-related deaths among communities who use traditional medicinal plants like Guduchi [tinospore coeditdia], a local medicinal plant found in India,” said Prakash.

Preserving traditional knowledge

Another speaker, Gemma Burford of the Global Initiative for Traditional Systems of Health, said while there had been increased cases of loss of knowledge about traditional medicinal plants, student-led research could be used to preserve knowledge and create a database on these plants.

“When we carried out research involving school children in rural Tanzania about traditional Maasai medicines, we found out that 48 percent of these children already had knowledge about these plants. We used [this knowledge] to create a database for the purposes of preserving the knowledge and these plants too,” said Burford.

“It is important to note that many malarial drugs are still bought from commercial pharmaceutical shops and not many of them are that cheap. Costs also involve how easy or not it is to access these government facilities, especially in Africa where medical facilities are far-flung,” Burford said.

Educating the youth

Speakers at the conference called on African governments to introduce educational programmes that would teach the younger generations about the traditional methods of treating malaria and other diseases plaguing the continent.

“The biggest obstacle to use of traditional medicines is lack of interest from the youth and teaching them about these medicines would be the best way to let them appreciate their values. Evangelical churches and development agencies must also be persuaded to stop fighting traditional African medicine because modernity and tradition can be married to provide a formidable force against malaria,” added Burford.

Effectiveness and dangers

Doumbo Ogobara, director of the Mali Malaria Research and Training Centre, and a lecturer at the University of Bamako, said there should be more research to ensure the effectiveness of traditional medicinal plants in the treatment and management of malaria.

“More research must be directed towards finding out the effectiveness of these traditional medicinal plants and their safety and efficacy because initiatives on using them could be counter-productive if this is not done. More emphasis therefore must be laid on research for plant-based prophylactics for malaria,” said Ogobara.

Mahamadou Sissoko of the Centre called for caution in taking the traditional medicinal route, arguing that many malaria-related deaths have occurred even among communities that have relied heavily on traditional plants for treatment.

“People are dying even in places where there is still widespread use of traditional medicinal plants and unless the efficacy of a traditional plant on malarial treatment can be ascertained through vigorous research, we could have our backs against the wall. Many traditional healers will abuse this and give anything as medicine so long as it is a plant - we must urge caution,” said Sissoko.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86866MASERU Monday, November 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Having more than one sexual relationship at the same time is driving the spread of HIV in small landlocked Lesotho. The health sector has long suspected this, but a new report by the National AIDS Commission (NAC), in partnership with UNAIDS and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, has confirmed it.MASERU Monday, November 02, 2009 (IRIN) - Having more than one sexual relationship at the same time is driving the spread of HIV in small landlocked Lesotho. The health sector has long suspected this, but a new report by the National AIDS Commission (NAC), in partnership with UNAIDS and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, has confirmed it.

The report, Gender and Multiple and Concurrent Sexual Partnerships in Lesotho, found that 76 percent of men and 82 percent of women knew that having only one partner reduced HIV risk, but they were reluctant to limit themselves.

Now a new awareness campaign aims to get people talking about the taboo subject of HIV and how to prevent it. "Changing behaviour begins with communication," said Ma-'Neheng Ninie Mopeli, the NAC's Director of Services.

"People know about HIV prevention but they are afraid to talk about it, so mothers do not discuss the practical application of their knowledge with their daughters, or husbands with wives."

Open and frank discussion cannot start soon enough; 23 percent of Lesotho's adult population are infected with HIV, the third highest prevalence in the world.

The study on multiple concurrent partners (MCPs), conducted in focus group discussions and interviews with participants of various ages and socioeconomic backgrounds at five sites in Lesotho, found that poverty was among the factors driving the practice. Young girls often engaged in sex with older men for financial reasons, providing HIV with a major entry point into the younger generation.

"Financial neglect, along with domestic discord, physical and emotional abuse, were mentioned as some of the reasons for seeking other partners," the report said. Marriage offered no protection from HIV infection; in fact, it was a major source of risk for women married to unfaithful husbands.

Cultural factors also played a role; men were considered the dominant partners in marriage by virtue of the dowry they traditionally paid to brides' families.

Unwillingness to use condoms stemmed from a perception that they implied a lack of trust. "It is critical to help people understand that condoms are used even in trusting relationships." The study also recommended "more focus on fidelity among married partners" if anti-AIDS efforts were to succeed.

Getting the word out

"Having the data is the starting point. We suspected that MCP is a major driver, and now we know; now we have the process of getting the word out," said the NAC's Mopeli.

Media organizations, sports organizations, faith-based groups, and youth groups will all be briefed on how to disseminate the study's findings. "Men need to talk to men, telling each other not to be ashamed to carry a condom, and women should talk to women about such things as being frank about sexual matters with their sisters, daughters and neighbours. Then we will bring those groups together," said Mopeli.

Health motivators often ran into obstacles, such as needing permission from parents to speak to children about sexual matters, but encouraging people to talk about HIV among themselves would help overcome these.

"Having different group discussions is also important for cultural reasons," Mopeli said. "It is inappropriate to discuss condom use and such matters with the elderly, but there are things they too must know."

Mohau Mokoatsi, a UNAIDS programme officer in Lesotho, said respect for cultural traditions would be vital to successfully getting the message out. "We have revised our national strategy to incorporate chiefs and traditional leaders; it is these authority figures who will take the message to their subjects," he told IRIN/PlusNews.

Lacking large numbers of facilitators, the government is relying on existing programmes to spark a nationwide debate about MCPs. "When the agriculture ministry agents go out to talk with the farmers about fertilizer and irrigation, then they can also talk about AIDS. We will train them to spread the message," Mopeli said.

The next step will be to ensure that people know where to find condoms and counselling services so they can apply what they have learned.

jh/ks/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86842JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 29, 2009 (IRIN) - An African international agreement has opened the door to a debate on the rights and protection of people displaced by natural disasters, with a nod to migration as a result of climate change. JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 29, 2009 (IRIN) - An African international agreement has opened the door to a debate on the rights and protection of people displaced by natural disasters, with a nod to migration as a result of climate change.

The Kampala Convention, a ground-breaking treaty adopted by the African Union (AU), promises to protect and assist millions of Africans displaced within their own countries. Significantly, the treaty recognized natural disasters as well as conflict and generalized violence as key factors in uprooting people.

Jean Ping, chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, told IRIN that "more and more people are likely to be displaced" as Africa experiences more frequent droughts and floods brought about by climate change.

He said the inclusion of displacement by natural disasters was informed by the global debate on the need to develop a framework for the rights of "climate refugees" - people uprooted from their homes and crossing international borders - because the changing climate threatened their survival.

The treaty also calls on governments to set up laws and find solutions to prevent displacement caused by natural disasters, with compensation for those who were displaced. Migration expert Etienne Piguet said with the Kampala Convention the AU had "once again" tried to push the envelope.

In 1969 the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, adopted by the then Organization of African Unity, had gone a step further than the 1951 UN Refugee Convention by using a definition of "refugee" that included not only people fleeing persecution but also those fleeing war or events seriously disturbing public order.

Piguet described the reference to people displaced by natural disasters as an "interesting attempt" to find "adequate answers to the new concern about migration linked to environmental degradation".

In 2008 climate-related natural disasters like droughts, hurricanes and floods forced 20 million people out of their homes, while 4.6 million people were internally displaced by conflicts, according to a recent joint study by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

The Representative of the UN Secretary-General (RSG) on the Human Rights of the Internally Displaced Persons in a submission to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change noted that people uprooted from their homes by natural disasters enjoyed protection under the existing human rights law and the guiding principles on internal displacement.

However, the Kampala Convention also calls on governments to "prevent or mitigate, prohibit and eliminate root causes" of displacement, and find "durable solutions" to them.

Moussa Idriss Ndele, President of the Pan-African Parliament, the legislative body of the AU, said the debate in Kampala on the rights of people displaced by natural disasters did not "quite evolve properly - we did not address the issue of climate change" because most people still believed conflict was the biggest trigger of displacement.

Can of worms

However, it was unclear which events could be linked to climate change. "More and more people are being displaced by floods, which are becoming more and more frequent and intense," said Rachel Shebesh, chair of the African Parliamentarian Initiative for Climate Risk Reduction.

The RSG said there was a need to clarify or even develop a legal framework to help people who moved inside or outside the country because environmental degradation and slow-onset disasters - like desertification, salination of soil and groundwater - made areas uninhabitable, and if displaced persons could not return to their homes they should be considered forcibly displaced.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected more frequent and intense floods and droughts in Africa during the next few decades, and the debate is not only set to continue, but to intensify.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86805KAMPALA Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is a comprehensive document that will, if ratified, fill a void in international humanitarian law, say experts. KAMPALA Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is a comprehensive document that will, if ratified, fill a void in international humanitarian law, say experts.

Whereas the rights of people who flee across national boundaries are protected under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and a similar instrument introduced 18 years later by the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union), there has been no international legislation catering specifically for people displaced within their own country (IDPs).

IDPs vastly outnumber refugees in Africa. In just 10 of the 18 countries in east and central Africa, there are more than 10 million IDPs, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), with Sudan (four million), the Democratic Republic of Congo (2.12 million) and Somalia (1.55 million) heading the list.

In the same region, there are refugees in 16 countries, totalling just less than two million, according to OCHA.

This latest instrument, also known as the Kampala Convention because it was signed in the Ugandan capital, "obliges governments to recognize that IDPs have specific vulnerabilities and must be supported", said Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.

"It covers all causes of displacement, is forceful in terms of responsibility and goes beyond addressing the roles of states to those of others like the AU and non-state actors."

Signed by 17 African states at the end of summit on 23 October, the convention defines IDPs broadly, irrespective of who is displacing them.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the convention provides a solid framework for enhancing the protection and assistance of IDPs in Africa. The ICRC is the custodian of international humanitarian law.

"The crucial challenge now is the same one facing international humanitarian law in general – ensuring that once the convention is signed and ratified by as many states as possible, it is actually implemented and respected," ICRC president Jakob Kellenberger said.

"States must now take concrete steps to implement the convention into their own national legislation and regulation systems, and develop plans of action to address issues of displacement.

"The convention goes further than international humanitarian law treaties in some aspects, for example, in the rules it contains on safe and voluntary return, and on access to compensation or other forms of reparation," Kellenberger added.

Next steps

To become a binding document, the convention has to be ratified by 15 of the AU's 53 member states.

"No international treaty is perfect, and the AU IDP Convention does have a few weaknesses. Concerns over the lack of effective enforcement mechanisms and insufficient guarantees for equality and non-discrimination have been raised," the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement noted in a statement.

"There is some question regarding the extent to which non-state actors and armed groups called upon by the convention to protect IDPs can be bound by its provisions. Nevertheless, the convention, which has benefited from the input of international experts, is considered to be generally consistent with international standards such as the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement."

AU officials in Kampala were cautiously upbeat, urging member states to remain engaged. "It is the responsibility of member states that the convention becomes a binding instrument," Jean Ping, AU Commission President, said. "At this point, it is an achievement, but not an end in itself."

Zambian president Rupiah Banda also chose his words carefully. "We have given legal force to the task ahead and Zambia is ready to sign," he said. "Those who are displaced should not be forgotten."

An observer who requested anonymity said progress would require member states to demonstrate greater political will to implement the convention and address concerns about sovereignty and enforcement.

"It is a question of a progressive [AU] Commission versus [conservative] member states," he told IRIN in Kampala. "For example, the inclusion of armed groups in the draft was interpreted by some member states as lending legitimacy to such groups."

The convention emphasizes the sovereignty of member states but spells out the obligations and responsibilities of armed groups. Among others, it prohibits armed groups from carrying our arbitrary displacement, recruiting children and impeding humanitarian assistance.

"Overall, though, the convention has a good chance of getting the necessary signatures rather quickly," the observer added. "In April, SADC’s [Southern African Development Community] 11 members committed to speedy signature."

Political will

Civil society leaders, attending a parallel event, insisted political will and demonstrated commitment were key to progress. The fact that only five presidents came to Kampala, they said, called for an urgent strategy to bring on board more states.

Present were Banda, Ugandan President and host, Yoweri Museveni, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Somalia's Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Mohamed Abdelaziz of Saharawi, along with high-level UN, INGO and AU delegations.

"It is one thing to have a good convention and another to implement it," Dismas Nkunda of the New York-based International Refugee Rights Initiative told IRIN.

In 2007, the AU adopted the African Charter on democracy, elections and governance, but it has so far been ratified by only two member states.

The basic question of impunity also needed to be addressed. Until African countries learn to respect the law, participants said, the continent would "remain at rock bottom" in its attempts to address the problems of the displaced.

AU officials seemed conscious of these sentiments. "We have come a long way, but a plan of action is now envisaged," Jolly Joiner, AU commissioner for political affairs, told IRIN. "Once member states are on board, we will take this convention forward."

Antonio Guterres, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and representative of the UN Secretary-General at the summit, said solving the question of displacement in Africa required political solutions.

"There is no humanitarian solution to conflict," he explained. "The solution is always political."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86762NAIROBI Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Replacing manual data with electronic health records would significantly improve the quality of care and enable African HIV treatment programmes to be scaled up more efficiently, say the authors of a new article on the subject. NAIROBI Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Replacing manual data with electronic health records would significantly improve the quality of care and enable African HIV treatment programmes to be scaled up more efficiently, say the authors of a new article on the subject.

"Talkin' About a Revolution", published in the latest edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, looked at the Academic Model for Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), a programme that uses electronic health records in care and treatment services for around 100,000 HIV-positive patients at sites across western Kenya.

"Scaling up treatment programmes requires timely data on the type, quantity and quality of care being provided," the authors said. "Health care is an information business; managing patient care requires managing patients' data at many levels ... health care systems the size of AMPATH (or larger) cannot effectively be managed without ... [electronic] data."

More efficient care

The health data system can help programme managers avoid medical errors and stock-outs of key medicines, while enabling clinicians to monitor and care for their patients more effectively.

"Electronic records help us store data efficiently, retrieve it when we need it, and monitor and evaluate the progress of our programmes much more easily than if we were using manual systems," said Erica Kigothe, AMPATH's programme manager in charge of data management.

"When a patient comes to a clinic for a visit, instead of poring over large files, the clinician has one summary sheet that contains all the vital patient information and should he or she need more information, they can always go back to the patient's computerized file," she told IRIN/PlusNews.

A previous study comparing an AMPATH clinic before and after the adoption of electronic health records found that patient visits were 22 percent shorter, provider time per patient was reduced by 58 percent, and patients spent 38 percent less time waiting.

Kigothe noted that assessing disease trends was also easier with electronic records, as was collating data for the purposes of research and new directions in programme development.

Electronic health systems have been successfully used in the care and treatment of HIV in Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda, but few African countries have adopted the systems on a large scale.

"Programme implementers in low-income countries sometimes see clinicians' recording of patient data and the management of those data as secondary to providing good care, or even a distraction," the article's authors commented.

Not all smooth sailing

The programme has not been without its difficulties. "In one of our sites in Busia [town on the Kenya-Uganda border] they have very frequent power outages, so they have had to find ways to work around it, inputting data when power is on, even if that is at night," Kigothe said.

Finding people with computer skills is not always easy in the developing world, particularly in rural areas, and "like any equipment, computers break down from time to time and require repair or replacement, which can cause some problems" and incur additional expenses, she said. "In addition, the data collectors are human, and therefore prone to the occasional error."

Electronic systems are not cheap; they require considerable investment in computers, training data collectors and hiring information technology experts. However, according to the study, AMPATH's total cost of care is under US$100 per patient per year, making the system financially feasible even in resource-poor settings.

"You're going to have to spend quite a lot of money to set up the system," Kigothe said. "But looking at the big picture, it saves so much in the long run - for example, each of our data collectors manages 2,000 patients' information, something that would be impossible using manual data collection."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86768MIDRAND Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Disaster risk reduction as a tool for climate change adaptation is a "technical mouthful" said Rachel Shebesh, chair of the African Parliamentarian Initiative for Climate Risk Reduction. MIDRAND Tuesday, October 27, 2009 (IRIN) - Disaster risk reduction as a tool for climate change adaptation is a "technical mouthful" said Rachel Shebesh, chair of the African Parliamentarian Initiative for Climate Risk Reduction.

Members of the Pan-African Parliament thought so too. The legislative body of the African Union met in Midrand, halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa, for a parliamentary debate on climate change in Africa.

Shebesh, the new champion of disaster risk reduction (DRR) in Africa for the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN-ISDR) has been given the job of making the subject accessible.

Why?

The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlström, said DRR was "the first line of defence" against climate risks. Many countries did not have a plan that covered what to do to adapt to the impact of climate change, but drawing up a disaster risk reduction plan was a starting point.

DRR deals with the short-term changes in climate variables, such as temperature; adaptation to climate change is about long-term changes to climate. It is now widely acknowledged that reducing vulnerability to climatic variables could improve resilience to the increased hazards associated with climate change.

What does it mean?

Wahlström acknowledged that trying to explain to countries what this meant, and how to take DRR into account, could sometimes be problematic. Essentially, it is about "disaster-proofing" any plan or programme.

"You take into account the current and future disaster risks. If you are building a bridge in an area, you study the soil, ask the people who live in the area about what they know about the conditions in the area: do they build in the area? What precautions do they take? The easiest thing to do is draw up a check list."

Wahlström said she had come across several cities and towns in developing countries who had already been doing this, and "we are now busy putting all this information together for our next report."

She also said she would not be surprised if "disaster-proofing" became a pre-requisite for sourcing money for any climate change adaptation project, "but I would rather countries took up the initiative on their own." India, she said has made it mandatory for projects costing a certain amount to be disaster-proof so as to qualify for funds.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86774KAMPALA Monday, October 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Seventeen countries signed the African Union convention on internally displaced persons (IDPs) after years of preparation culminated in a week of meetings in the Ugandan capital but a lot more hard work remains before it becomes effective, according to observers.KAMPALA Monday, October 26, 2009 (IRIN) - Seventeen countries signed the African Union convention on internally displaced persons (IDPs) after years of preparation culminated in a week of meetings in the Ugandan capital but a lot more hard work remains before it becomes effective, according to observers.

"The most important step now is implementation," Julia Dolly Joiner, AU commissioner for political affairs, said. "We need to move from intentions to actions."

For the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement,  it is crucial that implementation is carried out "in a timely fashion and in a manner that makes a real difference to the lives of persons affected by internal displacement in the region, including host communities.
 
"The first step forward should involve a process of national dialogue and civic education aimed at securing the Convention's ratification and implementation by the State parties," according to a statement by the project, which monitors displacement issues worldwide to promote best practice among governments and other actors.

Fifteen countries must ratify the convention before it enters into effect.

Organizers of the 19-23 October meetings  insisted that the fact that only 17 signed did not represent a lack of political will and commitment on the part of the African states.

"We debated together and we agreed but when it comes to signing, the person has to have been given the authority by his government to sign," one AU official told IRIN. "Only 17 had such authorization."

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who chaired the summit, praised it as "a very important milestone [that] has gone beyond conflicts to address issues of development.

"We have at least agreed in words, we now have to put our words [into] action," he told a news conference. "The solace for the women in Darfur may not be very immediate, but the fact is that people have come together to discuss the matter."

Partnerships urged

Joiner called for international support. "Africa cannot do it alone; that is why we are calling for partnerships," she told IRIN. "We are optimistic that countries will be faithful to their commitments under the convention.”

The AU will now try to get more signatures, and lobby 15 countries to ratify the convention so it can become a binding document. Observers, however, say much more work needs to be done to generate political will, given that most presidents stayed away from the summit.

The convention addresses the root causes of displacement in Africa, where at least 11 million people are displaced by conflict and climate change-related natural disasters, among other reasons.

According to the Brookings-Bern Project, three of the world's top five countries with the largest populations of conflict-induced IDPs are in Africa.

These include Sudan, with an estimated 4.9 million IDPs, the Democratic Republic of Congo, with at least one million, and Somalia, where the UN estimates 1.5 million are displaced. Hundreds of thousands more are displaced in Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Overall, citizens in at least 20 African states are experiencing internal displacement.

The convention aims to promote regional and national measures to prevent, mitigate, prohibit and eliminate the root causes of internal displacement as well as provide durable solutions.

"People who flee persecution or conflict and cross into another country are categorized as refugees and, as such, benefit from a long-standing and well-oiled international legal protection system, including the 1951 Refugee Convention," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said.

"Until now [IDPs] have been more or less excluded from the system of international legal protection, even though they are often displaced in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same reasons, as refugees. At least in Africa, that should no longer be the case."

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The IDP convention obliges states to:

- Prohibit and prevent arbitrary population displacements, respect the principles of humanity and human dignity, as well as aspects of international humanitarian law concerning the protection of IDPs;

- Ensure assistance to IDPs, incorporate obligations under the convention into domestic law and designate a body to coordinate IDP protection and assistance;

- Devise early warning systems on potential displacement and establish disaster risk reduction strategies, protect communities and respect individual rights on protection against arbitrary displacement;

- Respect the mandates of the AU and UN, and the roles of international humanitarian organizations; and

- Take necessary action to effectively organize humanitarian relief and guarantee security; respect, protect and not attack humanitarian personnel or resources, and ensure armed groups conform with their obligations.

It prohibits armed groups from:

- Carrying out arbitrary displacement, hampering the provision of protection and assistance to IDPs and restricting the movement of IDPs;

- Forcibly recruiting, kidnapping or engaging in sexual slavery and trafficking; or

- Attacking humanitarian personnel or resources.


It obliges the AU:

- To intervene in respect of grave circumstances such as war crimes and crimes against humanity;

- To respect the right of members to request such an intervention and support efforts to support IDPs; and

- Strengthen capacity and coordinate the mobilization of resources for protection and assistance to IDPs.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86746KAMPALA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - With increasing natural disasters, including floods, storms and droughts, hitting the continent, more people in Africa are likely to be displaced, creating a challenge for governments, the UN warns.KAMPALA Friday, October 23, 2009 (IRIN) - With increasing natural disasters, including floods, storms and droughts, hitting the continent, more people in Africa are likely to be displaced, creating a challenge for governments, the UN warns.

Displacement caused by natural disasters, said John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, promised to be one of the greatest challenges African countries would face.

“As many countries… know from recent painful experiences, climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme hazard events, particularly floods, storms and droughts,” Holmes told an African Union (AU) summit in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on 22 October.

In 2008, Africa reported 104 natural disasters, of which 99 percent were climate-related, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Over the past 20 years, the population of Africans affected by natural disasters doubled from nine million in 1989 to 16.7 million in 2008. Of all the disasters on the continent, 75 percent were a result of drought.

“By 2020, rain-fed agriculture is expected to have reduced by half because of shifting rainfall patterns, scattering millions of people across the continent in search [of] new livelihoods,” Holmes said.

The meeting is discussing a draft convention for the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons and a declaration on refugees, returnees and the internally displaced.

The convention is the first such global document that aims to comprehensively address the problems of Africa’s 12 million IDPs.

Transitional justice

Before the meeting, civil society leaders called for concrete action on the convention, when adopted. Chris Dolan of the Uganda Refugee Law Project urged delegates to look beyond existing models of protection and assistance to IDP, refugee and returnee populations and draw from creative transitional justice practices around Africa.

“One step towards this would be to ensure that the plan of action that is put in place to implement the decisions adopted at the summit makes links between the African Union’s draft… and the policy on post-conflict reconstruction and development,” he added.

“Another will be to link… to ongoing transitional justice processes on the continent.”

At least 15 countries need to ratify the proposed convention for it to come into force, and diplomats at the summit are confident the signatures will be raised soon. Preparatory work, they added, had shown broad support across the continent.

“It is the responsibility of member states that the convention becomes a binding instrument,” Jean Ping, AU Commission chairman, told the meeting. “It is an achievement, but not an end in itself. It is a beginning.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86716JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - The availability of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and legislation prohibiting discrimination have helped turn HIV/AIDS into just another chronic disease, but an HIV-positive status can still be an obstacle to getting a loan or buying insurance.JOHANNESBURG Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - The availability of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and legislation prohibiting discrimination have helped turn HIV/AIDS into just another chronic disease, but an HIV-positive status can still be an obstacle to getting a loan or buying insurance.

Most life insurance companies in southern Africa still require applicants to take an HIV test and deny cover to those who test positive. Without life insurance as security, financial institutions are reluctant to lend money to buy a house or start a business.

"The denial of life cover inflicts on other rights," said Amon Ngavetene, coordinator of the AIDS Unit at the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), a non-profit legal advice organization in Namibia.

The LAC has called on the Namibian government to pass legislation prohibiting insurers from discriminating against people living with HIV, but so far to no effect.

Ngavetene noted that HIV-positive individuals were discriminated against even after their deaths. Those who contract HIV after taking out life cover and fail to notify the insurance company run the risk of having their policies invalidated if their death certificate shows they died of an AIDS-related illness.

"A person could be paying for 15 years, and then when they die their family can't get a penny," Ngavetene told IRIN/PlusNews. "It's unconstitutional but very difficult to challenge because it becomes an issue of the terms of the contract."

Insurance companies in Botswana also require applicants to take HIV tests, but Linny Keorapetse, an assistant legal officer at the Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA), said at least one company, Metropolitan Life, would cover HIV-positive people, although at a much higher cost.

Those who test negative are required to re-test every five years, but a positive result at a later stage means the policy is automatically converted from life insurance into pure savings.

Botswana's constitution does not provide for socio-economic rights that could form the basis for a court case, said Keorapetse. "The only thing we can do is to make noise about it; we can say it's discriminatory because it's the only medical test [insurance companies] ask for, yet there are riskier conditions."

Botswana has the second highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, with nearly one in four adults living with the virus, but it also has one of the most extensive ARV programmes in the region, with free treatment reaching about 90 percent of people who need it. "Nowadays, people living with HIV who take treatment can live another 20 years," Keorapetse pointed out.

A different approach

Instead of discriminating against people living with HIV, Ross Beerman, managing director and co-founder of AllLife, a South African company, decided to take advantage of this gap in the market to specialize in providing HIV-positive people with life cover.

"We have a very different operating model," he told IRIN/PlusNews. "In a standard model, you price policies based on historical behaviour ... we price on forward-looking behaviour: if you're HIV positive, we don't really care how you behaved in the past, we care about you staying healthy in the future."

Policyholders must commit to going for regular blood tests and starting ARV treatment when their CD4 count [a measure of immune system strength] drops below 200. Once on ARVs, AllLife closely monitors a client's adherence via links with healthcare providers, and regular cellphone text message reminders and warnings if appointments are missed.

Premiums are between two and five times higher than normal life insurance policies (an average monthly payment of about US$40 buys $40,000 worth of life cover), but can be used to secure home loans and start businesses.

In addition, being a policyholder appears to have a positive health effect. "Just by virtue of being our clients they're going for regular monitoring," said Beerman. "They actually get approximately 15 percent healthier after six months; the realization they can have an impact on their longevity means they start behaving in more healthy ways."

In contrast, HIV-positive people in Botswana are steered towards funeral policies or advised to join burial societies. "Currently, there's no company that offers life insurance specifically for people living with HIV," said Keorapetse.

AllLife relies on fairly sophisticated administrative and IT systems to function efficiently, which would be difficult to replicate in less developed countries in the region where, for example, blood test results are not captured electronically.

Nevertheless, Beerman said, people living with HIV have the right to participate in the mainstream economy "in a normal way".

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86698KAMPALA Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Civil society and government officials are gathered in the Ugandan capital of Kampala to discuss the Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Africa and a declaration on refugees, returnees and IDPs.KAMPALA Thursday, October 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Civil society and government officials are gathered in the Ugandan capital of Kampala to discuss the Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Africa [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86585] and a declaration on refugees, returnees and IDPs.

“It is a good convention, but the next steps are even more important,” said Dismas Nkunda of the New York-based International Refugee Rights Initiative. “The key test to the continent’s commitment to it will be the implementation.”

Countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, said Traore Wodjo of the Ivorian civil society coalition, needed to quickly implement the convention because political developments there could raise tensions, leading to renewed displacement.

“Some of those who were displaced during the 2003 conflict are yet to recover,” he added. “Forced displacement again, without protection, would completely disrupt their lives.”

The leaders at the summit, including presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed of Somalia, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Ruppiah Banda of Zambia, realize just how important is the challenge of displacement in Africa.

“Displacement is a scourge that is blighting the African landscape – and some of us are talking from experience,” said Zainab Bangura, former activist and now Sierra Leone’s foreign minister. “One day you are a minister, the next you are on a boat running for your life – with nothing on your back.”

Uganda’s Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi, while praising his country’s policies on refugees, said: “The inability to effectively protect, assist and find timely solutions to the problems that created these displacement situations is posing a major threat to Africa’s development."

The convention, the first such global document, aims to comprehensively address the problems of Africa’s 12 million IDPs. It contains provisions on obligations of state parties relating to internal displacement and protection and assistance.

It also contains provisions on obligations relating to armed groups, the African Union, as well as obligations on sustainable returns, local integration or relocation and compensation.

“The concern is that there are already millions of laws that should protect IDPs, but they are not always observed,” Nkunda said. “So we need to ensure that this convention is respected by setting some kind of benchmarks against which we will evaluate its implementation.”

Civil society and AU role

The civil society meeting will make recommendations to the summit, which should strengthen the convention’s implementation processes, Nkunda said, and is keen to work with the AU to ensure it succeeds.

AU officials are upbeat that the summit, whose side events include an exhibition by actors in the humanitarian field, will fully explore the root causes of forced displacement in Africa and ways to prevent it.

“We are here to reflect on the specific challenges facing IDPs and to adopt an instrument that would bridge existing policy and legal gaps,” said Julia Joiner, AU political affairs commissioner.

Delegates include the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, and the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes. There is also a big NGO and government presence.

Before the summit, Holmes flew to the northern Ugandan district of Pader where most returnees are resettling in their villages. He visited IDP camps, host communities and met aid workers and local leaders.

“As emergency relief needs reduce, development efforts need to be stepped up,” he said of the Ugandan situation, where about 500,000 out of more than two million IDPs are still in camps.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86700JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, October 21, 2009 (IRIN) - When a place is so remote that you can only reach it on foot or horseback, a cash-in-transit operation is a real challenge - but Lesotho's Child Grants Programme (CGP) has overcome it with air support.JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, October 21, 2009 (IRIN) - When a place is so remote that you can only reach it on foot or horseback, a cash-in-transit operation is a real challenge - but Lesotho's Child Grants Programme (CGP) has overcome it with air support.

In Thaba Khubelu, a tiny village in the mountainous district of Qacha's Nek, about 400km from the capital, Maseru, some 250 households eagerly watched as a military helicopter touched down to deliver their first quarterly instalment of 360 maloti (US$48) each.

"It is a gift from the sky! Now I can buy clothes for myself and my brothers so we will look like all the other children when we go to school," said Mamello, 16, who received the cash in phase two of the CGP, launched on 20 October.

"I am so happy to get this money, we need it so much," she said. The programme aims to supplement the income of the poorest households caring for orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) to ease the poverty that has prevented them from having enough to eat, staying healthy and going to school.

Unfortunate to be so lucky

Yet even with the free money Mamello was hardly the envy of the village: she lost both her parents and now has to care for two younger brothers. "They [parents] were very sick and it was painful to see them suffer. I had to stay out of school for some time," she said.

Speaking at the launch, Ahmed Magan, Lesotho representative of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), said: "We need to ensure the most needy families and children are the ones that are being reached and that benefit from social protection programmes."

This is not easy, considering the depth of poverty in this tiny landlocked country. UNICEF has noted that over half the population live below the poverty line and in a state of chronic food insecurity, which has been worsened by the global economic crisis.

Mphu Ramatlapeng, the Minister for Health and Social Welfare (HSW), said: "The grant is meant to benefit the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, not anyone else."

According to his department, Lesotho has more than 180,000 orphaned children, of which 55 percent have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS-related illnesses. About 23.2 percent of the country's nearly two million people are HIV positive - one of the highest prevalence rates worldwide.

Ambitious scale-up

The project started in April 2009 with payments in the western district of Mafeteng, where access was not an issue. Now, having covered the most remote of the three pilot districts, the government hopes to extend the programme throughout the country.

Mohemmad Farooq, a UNICEF social policy specialist who helped design the project, said the current budget was expected "to take the programme to five districts of the country, and reach around 24,000 OVC in approximately 8,000 households by 2011". The European Commission donated $7.3 million to the initiative and UNICEF is providing technical assistance.

The pilot phase would help develop and test the systems for targeting, enrolment and payment of beneficiaries; monitoring, procurement and financial management; training stakeholders, public information and education. "Lessons learned will guide refinement of the Cash Grant in preparation for expanding into other districts," Farooq told IRIN.

"Social cash transfer programmes provide a predictable income for the poorest and most disadvantaged families to alleviate the burden of poverty, meet their basic needs and invest in children ... it will [also] create economic activity to contribute to the overall development of the country," he said.

"The Government is already looking at strategies for fund-raising, and for absorbing the cost of the programme in their national budget."

Ramatlapeng was optimistic that the project could be rolled out sustainably: "Through the grant, the government is aiming to reach about 60,000 children and ensure they attend school, access services and receive counselling and nutrition support."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86677NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Forty years after the rights of Africa’s refugees were enshrined in a landmark convention, the continent’s leaders are due to make legal history again by adopting a new instrument to assist people displaced within the borders of their own country.NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Forty years after African leaders adopted the 1969 Refugee Convention under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity, now the African Union, the continent's leaders are due to endorse a convention on internally displaced people.

The African Convention on the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa is the main agenda for the heads of state summit on refugees, returnees and IDPs in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, from 19-23 October.

"It will be the first legally binding international instrument on IDPs with a continental scope, and UNHCR [UN Refugee Agency] hopes that it will translate into better lives for African IDPs," the agency's spokesman Andrej Mahecic told reporters in Geneva on 8 September.

Advocacy groups, including IDP Action, Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights, and Refugees International, have hailed the convention. However, they noted, the initial draft contained elements that were vague or inconsistent with other international human rights standards.

"There are too many IDPs in Africa and their situation is too precarious for the situation to be allowed to drift any longer," says Jeremy Smith of the advocacy group, IDP Action. "The AU needs to move quickly to adopt its IDPs Convention and then invest sufficient resources and political will to see it effectively implemented."

The AU, in a statement, said it demonstrated Africa's leadership in addressing forced population displacement. Observers, however, say action on issues affecting African IDPs has generally been slow.

Over the years, the AU has developed various initiatives, including deployment of peace support operations, appointment of special envoys and special representatives, and mobilizing international support for post-conflict reconstruction.

In some cases, regional blocks have intervened to prevent, de-escalate and resolve conflicts - including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire; the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in southern Africa; and the InterGovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Sudan's north-south conflict.

In addition, various instruments exist that offer protection to the displaced, such as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

"Africa has shown the most progress in transforming the [UN] Guiding Principles into binding international instruments," Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the human rights of IDPs, said in a report to the General Assembly.

Half of all IDPs in Africa

Africa hosts at least 11 million of the world's estimated 25 million IDPs. The causes of displacement vary, according to the AU, but are largely homegrown and exacerbated by extreme poverty, underdevelopment and lack of opportunities.

"Since the 1990s, African conflicts have witnessed massive brutality against the civilian population," notes Bahame Tom Nyanduga, member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, and Special Rapporteur on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and IDPs in Africa.

Calling on African states to accept responsibility for addressing human rights abuses faced by IDPs, he notes that armed combatants in Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, northern Uganda, Darfur and eastern DRC violated the Geneva Conventions' protocol on civilian protection with impunity.

Climate change factors

Climate change has also increased the frequency and intensity of natural hazards in Africa, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

A study by the two organizations found that natural disasters displaced 284,000 people in Mozambique in 2007, 150,000 in Benin, 72,805 in Ethiopia and 59,000 in Algeria.

However, forced displacement across the continent is mostly attributable to the acts or omissions of the state, such as human rights violations, political and socio-economic marginalization, conflicts over natural resources and governance challenges, according to the AU.

Unable to flee to another country in search of safety, IDPs seek refuge from violence within their own borders, sheltering in makeshift camps, shanty towns or scattered in local communities.

"The number and plight of IDPs in Africa is a scandal," according to IDP Action's Smith. "The African Union has talked the talk - drafting an IDP Convention which lays out the protections IDPs should be accorded - but does not walk the walk."

No global agency

The situation is complicated by the fact that globally there is no agency with a specific mandate to protect and assist IDPs - unlike refugees, who fall under UNHCR.

IDPs in armed conflict have rights as civilians under international humanitarian law. They are also protected - although not expressly referred to therein - by various bodies of law, including, most notably, national law, human rights law and, if they are in a state affected by armed conflict.

"While they are displaced, IDPs are entitled to the same protection from the effects of hostilities and the same relief as the rest of the civilian population," notes the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

However, while they make up almost two-thirds of global populations seeking safety from armed conflict and violence, they have fewer rights than refugees.

Sudan, for example, has the world's largest IDP population, with an estimated 4.5 million people affected, including 2.7 million in Darfur - of whom 317,000 were displaced this year.

"Since they are living within their own countries, IDPs remain under the legal jurisdiction of their national authorities, which may well be involved in the violence that they are fleeing," the medical charity, Médecins Sans Frontières, notes.

Binding hopes

The Kampala summit was recommended by AU ministers meeting in Burkina Faso in May and the AU Executive Council meeting in The Gambia in July 2006.

In 2007, NGOs meeting in Brazzaville urged the AU to "adopt legally binding instruments for the protection of the rights of migrants... the protection of and assistance to [IDPs] in Africa, based on the [UN] Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement".

The current draft is heavily informed by these principles, whose contents are mainly derived from existing international legal rules and standards. It is, however, a non-binding, soft law.

According to IDP Action, it "offers the hope of African states being held to binding standards by which they are to prevent displacement, respond to the immediate needs of those displaced and create the conditions for sustainable return and resettlement".

Approved by African ministers in November 2008, the convention will become legally binding once endorsed at the Kampala summit.

"The theme of the special summit," notes Tarsis Kabwegyere, Ugandan Minister for Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Refugees, "...fits in well, given the displacement trends on the continent, which have continued without a stop since the days of independence".

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86585NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Africa hosts at least 11 million of the world's 25 million conflict-affected IDPs. Millions more are displaced annually by natural disasters. NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - - Africa hosts at least 11 million of the world's 25 million conflict-affected IDPs- Millions more are displaced annually by natural disasters-

- Sudan has an estimated 4- 5 million IDPs, thanks to the recent civil war in the south, and violence in Darfur and the east-

- At the peak of Uganda's northern conflict, at least 1- 8 million people were displaced- Most have returned home-

- Displacement does not only result from conflict, but also from natural disasters such as floods and drought-

- The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement restate and compile existing international human rights and humanitarian law and attempt to clarify grey areas and gaps in the various instruments pertinent to IDPs-

- Refugees, after crossing an international boundary, normally receive food, shelter, and a place of safety, and are protected by international laws and conventions-

- IDPs have little protection or help, and remain under the jurisdiction of their government- No specific legal instruments relating to them exist-

- The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has no specific mandate to cover IDP needs, but because many of them face similar problems to refugees, it sometimes oversees their protection and shelter-

- Female IDPs face greater risks because of potentially increased sexual and domestic violence-

- Killings and brutal sexual assaults against women, girls and men massively increased in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after the start of military operations in January-

- Children face increased risk of abduction and recruitment by rebels or government forces, enslavement and sexual exploitation, and miss out on education-

Sources: IDMC, AlertNet, NGOs, UN agencies-

eo/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86587NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Most IDPs in Africa have been forced out of their homes by conflict, either between government forces and armed opponents or between communities.NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - Most IDPs in Africa have been forced out of their homes by conflict, either between government forces and armed opponents or between communities.

Here are some numbers:

SUDAN:

The country has the largest number of IDPs in Africa with an estimated 4.5 million at the start of the yearAt least 250,000 have been forced to flee their homes by inter-communal violence in Southern Sudan since JanuaryMost IDPs are from the war-ravaged western region of Darfur but there are concerns that with increasing violence, more southerners could become IDPs

SOMALIA:

An estimated 1.3 million displaced mainly by violence, including 700,000 who have fled the capital, Mogadishu, since FebruaryThe IDP camps lack basic facilities, such as schools, healthcare, water and sanitation, leading to widespread acute malnutrition and diarrhoeaWomen and girls are extremely vulnerable

DR CONGO:

Since the start of military operations against militia in the east in January, nearly 900,000 people have fled their homes and live in desperate conditions with host families, in forest areas, or in squalid displacement campsThis brought the total of those displaced across North and South Kivu and Orientale Province to at least two million, as at JulyAccess is a major problem for aid agencies

UGANDA:

The northern conflict between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army displaced at least 1.8 million people from their homesMost have returned home in the past two or three yearsAbout 494,300 still displaced (in camps plus transit sites), down from 710,000 in February

KENYA:

Government ordered all IDP camps to close in early OctoberMost IDPs were victims of post-election violence in 2008, which forced an estimated 600,000 people out of their homesInter-ethnic tensions over pasture have also displaced families in the north, while flooding has affected some communities in the west

COTE D'IVOIRE:

The conflict that erupted in 2002 forced an estimated 120,000 people out of their homes in the west, of whom about 45,000 are still in "transition situations" awaiting their return to their communities

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC:

A ceasefire agreement between the government and the armed opposition in 2008 allowed many IDPs to return homeHowever, an estimated 100,000 had still not returned by the end of last yearMost of these live in makeshift homes in the bush, quite close to their villages

CHAD:

At least 168,000 people were displaced as at April, living in 38 sites, mainly in the eastMost of these fled fighting between the Chadian army and armed opposition groups, inter-ethnic violence and the spillover effects of the Darfur conflict in neighbouring Sudan

Sources: IDMC, Congo Advocacy Coalition, UN agencies

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86588NAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - The objectives of the ConventionNAIROBI Thursday, October 15, 2009 (IRIN) - - Promote and strengthen regional and national measures to prevent or mitigate, prohibit and eliminate root causes of internal displacement as well as provide for durable solutions;
- Establish a legal framework for preventing internal displacement, where possible, and protecting and assisting internally displaced persons in Africa.
- Establish a legal framework for solidarity, cooperation, promotion of durable solutions and mutual support between the state parties to combat displacement and address its consequences;
- Provide for the obligations and responsibilities of the states parties, with respect to the prevention of internal displacement and protection of, and assistance, to internally displaced persons;
- Provide for the respective obligations, responsibilities and roles of armed groups, non-state actors and other relevant actors, including civil society organizations, with respect to the prevention of internal displacement and protection of, and assistance to, internally displaced persons.

After adoption, a plan of action will be put in place to implement the convention.

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SOURCE: African Union Commissionhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86589DAKAR Wednesday, October 14, 2009 (IRIN) - Designed to be safe havens in times of disaster, health facilities are vulnerable to upheaval when catastrophe strikes, according to the UN, which is focusing on hospital safety for International Day for Disaster Reduction.DAKAR Wednesday, October 14, 2009 (IRIN) - Designed to be safe havens in times of disaster, health facilities are vulnerable to upheaval when catastrophe strikes, according to the UN, which is focusing on hospital safety for International Day for Disaster Reduction.

Only half of UN member countries have set aside money for health facility emergency preparedness, according to World Health Organization (WHO).

The world’s 49 least-developed countries house at least 90,000 health facilities, most of which have not been evaluated for disaster preparedness. Latin American and Caribbean countries have created a Hospital Safety Index that has been used in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Oman, Sudan and Tajikistan.

In Burkina Faso September 2009 flooding forced the largest hospital to shut down. The facility is barely functioning six weeks later.  Health Minister Seydou Bouda told IRIN he believes disaster can effect change. “In Burkina Faso nothing will be like it was before. Each [health] sector activity should integrate crisis management into its operations because catastrophe can arrive at any moment.”

UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction Margaret Wahlström said much has been done to boost hospital safety worldwide, but more investment is needed to brace hospitals for potential disasters.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86581BANGKOK Thursday, October 08, 2009 (IRIN) - Africa faces a double burden of obesity and hunger as millions take up increasingly sedentary lives in cities and the global financial crisis hits rural populations’ food security, nutritionists warn. BANGKOK Thursday, October 08, 2009 (IRIN) - Africa faces a double burden of obesity and hunger as millions take up increasingly sedentary lives in cities and the global financial crisis hits rural populations’ food security, nutritionists warn.

Under-nutrition continues to plague sub-Saharan Africa, where 32 percent of the world's hungry people live. However, those migrating from the countryside to cities are eating too much fatty food, leading to rising rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and high blood pressure, delegates at the International Congress of Nutrition (ICN) in Bangkok were told.

“The problem in Africa is [that] both under- and over-nutrition are the worst in the world. We really are facing a double burden,” Hester Vorster, of the Centre for Excellence in Nutrition at South Africa's North-West University, told the congress, which runs until 9 October.

“Over-nutrition is much the same thing as what we see in the west. Significant numbers of Africans have migrated to the cities and they are eating the wrong foods. So for Africa, the burden of disease is increasing all the time,” Jean-Claude Mbanya of the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon, and president-elect of the Belgium-based International Diabetes Federation, said.

Both over- and under-nutrition can be caused by poverty and food insecurity, with the urban poor unable to access or afford fresh and nutritious food, Helene Delisle, a nutritionist at the University of Montreal in Canada, told IRIN.

In some northern and southern African countries, over-nutrition has surpassed under-nutrition, but there is a complete lack of awareness about the new problems it brings, she said.

“These countries are not aware of it. In many areas, obesity is seen not as a problem, but as a positive sign that you are doing well in life,” she said.

Meanwhile, lower-income countries continue to suffer mainly from under-nutrition, which has actually increased over the past five years, thanks to the food price crisis of 2008 and the global financial crisis, Delisle said.

Obesity on the rise

Statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) show how obesity has risen while under-nutrition has persisted in some countries.

In Madagascar in 1992, just 1.6 percent of children were overweight, while 35.5 percent were underweight and 60.9 percent suffered stunted growth. By 2004, 6.2 percent of children were overweight while 36.8 percent were underweight, and 52.8 percent were stunted.

The rate of overweight and obese women also doubled between 1997 and 2004, to 8.1 percent overall.

And in 1987, 5.5 percent of Moroccan children were overweight; by 2004, that figure had increased to 13.3 percent.

Obesity is also on the rise in Uganda, although under-nutrition continues to pose the biggest problem, with about 40 percent of children under five suffering from stunted physical growth and mental development due to a lack of vitamins and nutrient-rich food.

Obesity and other so-called “lifestyle diseases” are widely regarded as a problem only for older people in Uganda but are increasingly prevalent in young men, Elizabeth Madraa, the head of food and nutrition at Uganda's Ministry of Health, and a delegate at the congress, told IRIN.

Anaemia in teenage girls is also increasing due to a lack of iron in diets, she said. And in another new trend, Ugandan mothers are increasingly choosing to give their babies powdered milk rather than breast-feeding them.

“They buy milk powder because they see it advertised, and we have to fight that. We need to address all this as a nutrition problem,” Madraa said.

Greater awareness

Mbanya called for awareness campaigns and legislation to fight the negative effects of a poor diet fuelled partly by advertising. “If we want our people to change their habits we have to make it easy for them to have healthy choices,” he said.

However, progress is hampered by the poor status of nutritional science in Africa, experts say.

Few well-defined job openings, poor salaries and recognition, and a plethora of competing curricula taught by unqualified trainers are among the challenges, said Tola Atinmo, Nigerian president of the Federation of African Nutrition Societies.

"At the moment in Africa, nutrition is everybody's problem but nobody's business," said Atinmo.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86490NAIROBI Thursday, October 08, 2009 (IRIN) - When an earthquake strikes a town, or a building is levelled by an explosion, news footage invariably shows search and rescue teams trawling through the rubble looking for survivors. But what does it take to rescue people trapped under tons of concrete?NAIROBI Thursday, October 08, 2009 (IRIN) - When an earthquake strikes a town, or a building is levelled by an explosion, news footage invariably shows search and rescue teams trawling through the rubble looking for survivors. But what does it take to rescue people trapped under tons of concrete?

Step one - coordination

The first thing is to activate search and rescue teams, often highly trained volunteers.

"Most of our members are doctors, ambulance operators, engineers or fire fighters," said John Holland, operations director of Rapid UK [http://www.rapidsar.org.uk/], a charitable search and rescue group.

They go through a rigorous two-year training process before they are allowed to assist in disasters.

"We try to deploy within 24 hours because the earlier we are on the ground, the better the chances of rescuing survivors," Holland said. "During the Pakistan earthquake [in 2005], we were able to deploy in 21 hours."

The International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) [http://ochaonline.un.org/Coordination/FieldCoordinationSupportSection/INSARAG/tabid/1436/language/en-US/Default.aspx] - a global network of more than 80 countries and disaster response organizations under the UN umbrella - has standardized guidelines for rescue missions.

"Once a government has made that call for international assistance, we alert our members, who begin mobilizing to travel to the area," said INSARAG's Winston Chang, a Singapore Civil Defence Force veteran who coordinated the search and rescue efforts following the recent earthquake in Padang, Indonesia. "We run a portal where once a disaster occurs, we pool information and our various teams can input data on their movements - whether they are on standby, mobilizing or have reached the ground."

INSARAG will usually set up an “on site operations coordination centre” where all search and rescue teams get instructions - depending on their area of specialty - on where to go and how to operate; the desk holds regular meetings to update itself and the teams on the progress being made on the ground.

"These operations can be quite large; just now in Padang, there were a total of 21 teams with 668 personnel and 67 search dogs," Chang said. "They need bases of operation where they will fuel their heavy equipment, coordinate their internal logistics and sleep."

"We also ensure that they follow specific standards of operation and remain culturally sensitive, especially since the teams are from such diverse backgrounds," he added.

Step two - analysis

Once in the disaster area, the first step is to analyze the task at hand, said Julie Ryan, a volunteer with the British NGO, the International Rescue Corps. [http://www.intrescue.co.uk/news/index.php/about-us/home]

In a collapsed building, "you need to analyze the building, assess its history and try to establish where in the building people are most likely to be", she told IRIN. "You also need to determine how badly a building has been damaged and whether it is likely to collapse any further, causing damage to [survivors] and rescue teams."

The assessment also involves checking for hazards such as downed power lines, gas leaks, flooding and hazardous materials. Protective gear includes special suits, gloves, masks, and oxygen and carbon monitoring systems for air quality.

Step three - search mode

At its most basic, this involves trying to spot limbs in the rubble, and calling out to survivors to identify their locations.

Rescuers look for "voids", or pockets where people may be trapped when walls collapse or where survivors may have hidden, such as under desks, in bath tubs or stairwells.

"We feed a camera on the end of a flexible pole into the collapsed building - this shows where people are and how much of the building's structure is left," Ryan said.

"Rescuers also use sound location devices connected to a microphone system; the device bangs on the rubble three times and if people tap back or call out for help, they can be tracked and assisted," she added.

Listening is a crucial part of the operation, and search teams will often stop for several minutes to try to hear any calls, scratches or taps.

Other search tools include a thermal image camera system, which shows areas of body heat, and trained sniffer dogs. "We also use a carbon dioxide analyzer, which helps us detect people who might be unconscious but still breathing," Ryan said.

Buildings that have been searched are marked with INSARAG-recognized signs to avoid duplication of searches.

As survivors are found, rescuers try to get them to keep talking to determine their exact location, and dig towards them - the least dangerous way to do this is by hand.

Step four - the rescue operation

If survivors are trapped under rubble, it may need to be stabilized first; a process called cribbing - the construction of a rectangular wooden framework, a box crib, underneath the debris - may be used.

Survivors who are not able to move usually need to be lifted, dragged or carried out of the rubble using special equipment.

"If people cannot be manually dug out, then we can cut them out - there are specialized tools that can cut through concrete, metal and wood to reach survivors," Ryan said. "There is also a process known as `slabbing’, where heavy slabs of concrete are removed in order to free survivors - this is always a very difficult judgment call, because it risks further collapse, which could injure or kill more people."

Concrete saws, jackhammers, chainsaws, bolt cutters, cranes and bulldozers are all part of the tool kit; chains, cables, anchors and rope-hauling systems are used to remove large pieces of masonry. Other equipment may include flat bags that are inserted under heavy objects and inflated with an air pump, and “shoring” equipment, which ensures passageways are stable and safe.

As survivors are removed, their medical condition is determined; patients are prioritized according to triage - based on the severity of their condition.

Search and rescue teams usually start the most urgent medical procedures on site; the most experienced teams may have defibrillators and endo-tracheal equipment to shock people back to life or perform emergency tracheotomies.

Step five - closure

Deciding when to end a rescue operation is always difficult.

"Obviously, the more time passes the less likely you are to find people alive," said Ryan. "But sometimes - especially if they have water available - people can remain alive for many days. In Pakistan, our team rescued two boys five days after the earthquake; they had survived on trickles of rainwater through the rubble."

According to Ryan, finding bodies - cadaver rescue - after the search for survivors is over is a very important part of any operation.

"Even when people haven't survived the collapse of a building, families find that having a body to bury is an important part of getting closure," she said.

According to INSARAG's Chang, the high octane operations can take their toll on rescuers, especially when they have to pull hundreds of dead people out of buildings.

"Most of them are used to dealing with blood and death in their daily professions, but from time to time it can become very difficult," he said. "Many teams are equipped to deal with trauma - the Swiss government's team, for instance, has a psychologist on hand, while doctors in the Singapore team have been trained to search for signs of trauma in team members."

Once the host government officially calls off the search, INSARAG starts the process of withdrawing the teams. A few remain and become part of the humanitarian relief effort, rebuilding hospitals and schools or shelter for families, but most will head back to their day jobs and await the next call to action

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86493MASERU Thursday, October 08, 2009 (IRIN) - The volunteer children's counsellor hangs up, visibly distraught: the latest call to Lesotho's toll-free child helpline was from a nurse in a remote village in the northern district of Butha–Buthe, where she had just helped an abandoned, mentally handicapped 16-year-old girl give birth. MASERU Thursday, October 08, 2009 (IRIN) - The volunteer children's counsellor hangs up, visibly distraught: the latest call to Lesotho's toll-free child helpline was from a nurse in a remote village in the northern district of Butha–Buthe, where she had just helped an abandoned, mentally handicapped 16-year-old girl give birth.

"Nobody knows who the father is - she lives alone in a hut with a door that can't close, so she is often raped by all kinds of people in the village," the nurse said. "She is HIV positive and should be on ARVs, but nobody is taking care of her."

Motselisi Shale, Programme Manager at Save the Children (SC), the NGO hosting the Child Help Line, commented: "This is not unusual in Lesotho."

She opened a thick binder. "The case of a girl who was living with her abusive father - he did not let her go to school after the death of her mother and forced her to mind the livestock. Sometimes when the girl was out in the field some men from the village raped her," she randomly read out from the case log.

"A newborn baby found on the street and taken to the CGPU [Child and Gender Protection Unit of the police]; the case of a 16-year-old mentally and physically disabled girl who was raped and impregnated by her father, who is 59 years old," she said, flipping through the file.

"The teacher reported a case of a child who was raped by four men; the case of a 13-year-old girl who was sold by her mother to a brothel in Gauteng [Province in neighbouring South Africa] for R15,000 [US$2,000]," she said.

Similar calls have been pouring in since the government of Lesotho, a tiny country surrounded by South Africa, opened the service in April 2008 with support from UNICEF, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the national telecommunication authorities.

Shale said the sheer number of calls was staggering, "and growing", in a country with a population of just over two million and limited access to telecommunication services. In 2008 there was an average of 232 calls a month, but by August 2009 this had multiplied almost six-fold to 1,339.

Only 31 in every 100 people in Lesotho have a telephone (fixed and mobile), and most live in the capital, Maseru - well below the world average of 77 per 100, according to the International Telecommunication Union.

Can I help you?

According to Kananelo Moholi, the child line coordinator, the rocketing number of calls did not mean there had been a sudden rise in child abuse. It was likely that a public awareness campaign to popularize the 24-hour number - 8002 2345 - was the reason more children were calling in for help.

"The situation in Lesotho has been bad all this time, but people were not reporting it," Moholi told IRIN. "At least now they know where to go," she said.

A variety of factors have combined to raise the level of adult frustration in Basotho society, and child abuse was a product of deeper problems: years of persistent food insecurity; HIV prevalence of 23.2 percent, one of the highest rates worldwide; stubbornly high rates of unemployment and a lack of income-generating activities; poverty in towns and the countryside, with rural-urban migration by the desperate in search of opportunity.

The prices of basic goods were soaring. Agriculture, the mainstay of Lesotho's largely rural population, had virtually collapsed due to land degradation and chronic drought; more recently, retrenchments in neighbouring South Africa's mining sector, where many men worked as migrant labourers, and an ailing textile industry - the corner stone of Lesotho's tiny industrial base - had aggravated an already bad situation.

UNICEF's statistics for the country are numbing: more than half the population is dependent on food assistance and life expectancy at birth had dropped from 60 years in 1991 to 35 years today.

Children were mainly bearing the brunt. Moholi said "adult frustration" translated into a grim reality of child abuse, violence, neglect and exploitation, with thousands left to fend for themselves, excluded from crucial services such as hospitals and schools.

According to the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) Lesotho has more than 180,000 orphaned children, of which 55 percent have lost one or both parents to AIDS-related illnesses.

Orphans were often deprived of their inheritance, shunned by family, stigmatized, were poorly educated and usually reached working age with few marketable skills; they were also socially isolated and rejected, leaving them extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.

Listen, then resolve

"Our core business is to link children with the relevant services that are available; we don't do the hands-on work," Moholi said. While not all calls warranted opening a case file - sometimes there were "prank calls" or "silent calls" - child line had various options for providing assistance.

If immediate help was needed, the police were called; in other cases counselling was given on the phone, or services such as the CGPU, the Department of Social Welfare, teachers, and legal protection agencies were contacted and asked to assist the child.

Child line staff would then follow up until the case was resolved, but with most service providers in Lesotho understaffed, underfunded and under-resourced, the process could be gruelling.

"The cases can be very stressing," Moholi said. The staff often became emotionally involved in dealing with the distress of a child. "We have debriefing sessions and try to share experiences to help deal with it."

Nevertheless, she welcomed the rising volume of calls. "After the TV advert for the service the number of calls doubled. It's a positive thing, because at least they know that if there is a problem there is someone to listen."

tdm/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86501DAKAR Thursday, October 08, 2009 (IRIN) - A landmine survivor in Senegal’s Casamance region on 6 October used the recent report, ‘Voices from the Ground’, based on a survey of mine victims worldwide, to remind aid agencies, Senegal’s anti-mine agency and the media of victims’ needs and governments’ responsibilities. DAKAR Thursday, October 08, 2009 (IRIN) - A landmine survivor in Senegal’s Casamance region on 6 October used the recent report, ‘Voices from the Ground’, based on a survey of mine victims worldwide, to remind aid agencies, Senegal’s anti-mine agency and the media of victims’ needs and governments’ responsibilities.

The Handicap International report, which authors say is the first such compilation of mine victims’ views on assistance, says: “[Landmine] survivors are still too often left to do just that – survive – on the margins of society, when they should be helped to rebuild their lives and thrive in the heart of their communities.”

The report includes input from 1,645 mine survivors in 25 affected countries.

Mamady Gassama of the Senegalese Mine Victims Association highlighted the Senegal portion of the report, which says the government needs to boost national funding for victim assistance rather than depend on donors.

“The government must not leave victims’ needs to – often uncertain – external aid,” said Gassama. Senegal is a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, which calls on the international community, and individual governments “in a position” to do so, to assist victims.

Mine survivors surveyed said among their greatest needs is assistance in skills training and employment.

np/mad/pthttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=86506BANGKOK Monday, October 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Most migrants do not move from developing to developed countries, and when they do, rather than hurting host economies, they benefit them, according to a new report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).BANGKOK Monday, October 05, 2009 (IRIN) - Most migrants do not move from developing to developed countries, and when they do, rather than hurting host economies, they benefit them, according to a new report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

The UNDP's Human Development Report 2009, launched globally on 5 October in Bangkok, dispels several myths about migration, instead underlining the economic and social benefits for countries.

"Mobility can bring large gains in development," Jeni Klugman, director of the report, told IRIN. "It's presently very much constrained by a whole range of barriers, and reform [of] these barriers could allow much greater potential to be released."

The annual report calls for several migration reforms, including for states to ensure basic rights for migrants, and the mainstreaming of migration into national development plans.

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