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Arabica Robusta

allAfrica.com: Africa: On Earth Day, Africa Action Calls for U.S. to Support Sustainable Development (Page 1 of 1) - 0 views

allafrica.com/...200804220836.html

africa africaaction allafrica.com development earthday industry international petroleum sustainability

shared by Arabica Robusta on 22 Apr 08 - Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 22 Apr 08
     
    In recognition of Earth Day, Africa Action today released a new resource entitled A Strategy of Extraction examining the oil industry in Africa using the case study of Nigeria's Niger Delta region. Because of poverty and geography, Africa will be disproportionately impacted by climate change. Africa Action urged leaders to prioritize sustainable, people-driven development in U.S.-Africa relations.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka News - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...49569

africa china copper development extractive industry international katanga

shared by Arabica Robusta on 01 Aug 08 - Cached
  • Corruption DRC: Mining multi-nationals get deal of the century 2008-07-18 http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/corruption/49569 Printer friendly version There is potentially enormous mineral wealth in the DRC province of Katanga. In exchange, investors from all over the world, and especially China, are prepared to offer money and infrastructure to revive the DRC after 15 terrible years of war and invasion. The potential for ecological disaster, social exploitation and corruption is almost limitless. Le Monde diplomatique ----------------------------------------------------- July 2008 MINING MULTINATIONALS GET DEALS OF THE CENTURY Copper colony in Congo There is potentially enormous mineral wealth in the DRC province of Katanga. In exchange, investors from all over the world, and especially China, are prepared to offer money and infrastructure to revive the DRC after 15 terrible years of war and invasion. The potential for ecological disaster, social exploitation and corruption is almost limitless. by Colette Braeckman Lubumbashi is the capital of Katanga, the southernmost state of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Day and night, huge trucks roar through its streets, making for the nearby Zambian border with cargoes of copper and cobalt on their way, via the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam, to Asia. Every month new stores open: fast food joints with American names, and shops where the locals stare in wonder at Chinese consumer goods, finally within their reach.
  • Lubumbashi is the capital of Katanga, the southernmost state of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Day and night, huge trucks roar through its streets, making for the nearby Zambian border with cargoes of copper and cobalt on their way, via the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam, to Asia. Every month new stores open: fast food joints with American names, and shops where the locals stare in wonder at Chinese consumer goods, finally within their reach.
  • And there is a third, social threat. The small-scale exploitation of mineral deposits is coming to an end as the big multinationals move in, driving out independent miners. Until a few months ago the Étoile mine at Ruashi, a few kilometres outside Lubumbashi, was just an open pit where men worked unprotected. Children scurried through unsupported tunnels, pulling out rocks striated with green copper or yellow cobalt and cramming them into jute sacks. Cave-ins and fatalities were so frequent that the miners had their own mutual insurance scheme to cover hospital or funeral expenses.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The terms granted to private companies associated with Gécamines took the commissioners aback. The investment of external partners was systematically overvalued and that of the Congolese (the value of mineral deposits and existing Gécamines infrastructure) underestimated. Fiscal and para-fiscal concessions (such as 30-year tax exemptions) deprived the state of essential revenues. Mining rights were acquired for purely speculative ends (the partners sold the shares on the stock exchange before even starting work on the ground), while social and environmental clauses were ignored, local skills undervalued, local workers underpaid and concession boundaries extended without authorisation.
  • Unlike western governments, incapable of releasing the credits necessary for the reconstruction of a country four times the size of France, China has been quick to get down to work: several projects have already begun in Katanga, Kivu and Kinshasa, where 250km of roads and 1,000 units of social housing are to be built. The people's hopes are undermined by fears that the arrival of Chinese workers and engineers heralds a new wave of colonisation. The unconcealed displeasure of the West, Belgium especially, could endanger the stability of the government. But the Congolese government is determined to pursue its relationship with China.
brian R

Student Uses Faith to give Voice to Forgotten Children - 0 views

www.hks.harvard.edu/...gotten-voices-ryan-keith-feb10

africa development international news world aids zimbabwe zambia

shared by brian R on 19 Feb 10 - Cached
brian R liked it
  • brian R on 19 Feb 10
     
    "As I held her frail hand, I saw her two children, Peterson and Prudence, watch their mother die," said Keith "These kids had already lost their father to AIDS-related illnesses … what would happen with them? Who would advocate for them and make sure they didn't slip through the cracks? Who would make sure their voices were not forgotten?"
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Hope and despair on the postcolonial campus - 1 views

pambazuka.org/...62349

education postcolonial development international africa pambazuka

shared by Arabica Robusta on 21 Feb 10 - Cached
brian R liked it
  • Colonial professors were what they were, distinguishable hardly from the colonial administrators in town hall. Both had been to college together. Now both were in Africa living the same colonial life in an unjust, unequal, racially divided society.
  • The university radiated serenity, civility, wholesomeness. Within its four walls you forgot you were in the colonies. Within its charmed corridors the colonial professor became again the man of learning that he really in many instances was.
  • To the extent that the writer Chinua Achebe has said of the colonial university that it was the only good thing colonialism did in Nigeria.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The old colonial professors continued to do the same things they did before. Some among them grew contemptuous. The idea of independence for the natives, the audacity of it annoyed them. They vented their anger on students. Look at you, they told the uncomprehending freshmen students.
  • Look at you. In the villages they would be giving you wives now and a spear and a hoe. Here in this white man’s enclave we are giving you books, pen and paper. Look at you. See me Lakayana with my spear. Look at you. The professor assumed a Conrad posture. The natives were welcoming us, cursing us, who could tell.
  • The little known and even less read novel, ‘Marks on the Run’, published in the year 2002 at the Ahmadu Bello University, where I teach, offers some clues. It does so in a way none other has attempted. There is very little debate in Africa about African universities. You are unlikely to encounter anywhere this kind of polemics
  • But nothing has been put in its place. In the vacuum, the regime of marks, grades and the final certificate at the end takes centre stage. It is wielded through the combined dictatorship of lecturers and professors.
Arabica Robusta

Institute for Policy Studies: Africa and the Economic Crisis - 0 views

www.ips-dc.org/...africa_and_the_economic_crisis

development africa international industry governance china news bank pambazuka world economic crisis

shared by Arabica Robusta on 12 Dec 09 - Cached
brian R liked it
  • The current crisis, however, has dictated a more central role for African governments in regulating their economies, preventing capital flight, and creative taxation, so that Africa's resources benefit her people. Africa's focus must be on creating decent jobs by supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises that add productive value to Africa's vast natural resources.
  • The current crisis, however, has dictated a more central role for African governments in regulating their economies, preventing capital flight, and creative taxation, so that Africa's resources benefit her people. Africa's focus must be on creating decent jobs by supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises that add productive value to Africa's vast natural resources.
  • The current crisis, however, has dictated a more central role for African governments in regulating their economies, preventing capital flight, and creative taxation, so that Africa's resources benefit her people. Africa's focus must be on creating decent jobs by supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises that add productive value to Africa's vast natural resources.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The current crisis, however, has dictated a more central role for African governments in regulating their economies, preventing capital flight, and creative taxation, so that Africa's resources benefit her people. Africa's focus must be on creating decent jobs by supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises that add productive value to Africa's vast natural resources.
  • a multi-stakeholder forum convened in Tunis at the end of November that brought together leading economists, government officials, and civil society representatives.
  • The forum was the first high-profile event of the newly formed Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDA), chaired by Botswana's former President, Festus Mogae.
  • CoDA is driven by African institutions and carves out greater space for civil society to set the agenda. At the forum, Professor Fantu Cheru of the Nordic Africa Institute urged support for "knowledge production on the continent."  The establishment of CoDA is a big step in that direction.
  • We must, as the Tunis Forum convener Abdoulaye Bathily, Senegalese academic and former minister of environment, urges "redefine Africa's development paradigm, and above all, support the emergence of new practices and citizen actions in Africa's public space."
Arabica Robusta

allAfrica.com: Africa: Smallholder Agriculture Transforms Lives of Poor - 0 views

allafrica.com/...200912230392.html

development africa international news agriculture smallholder industry

shared by Arabica Robusta on 27 Dec 09 - Cached
brian R liked it
  • Foremost amongst the factors that undermine smallholder agriculture is the gross undercapitalization of the sector. Investment in key areas such as research, infrastructure development, mechanization, irrigation, value chain development and human capital development lags behind that in other developing regions and has actually declined over the past decade.
  • In countries such as India and Thailand, public investments in agriculture have substantially reduced rural poverty by stimulating agricultural growth and reducing food prices. Investments in other key facets of the rural economy such as road infrastructure and education have also been shown to have large positive outcomes. These findings suggest that the "how" of agricultural spending can be as important as the "how much".
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - System change not climate change - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...61235

shared by Arabica Robusta on 27 Dec 09 - Cached
brian R liked it
  • Similarly, should we not consider the implication of toxic waste dumping in Africa by companies such as Trafigura, which dumped truck loads of sulphuric sludge in Ivory Coast in 2006, and the damaging consequences it has for Africa, or the ecological damage caused by Anglo-Dutch Shell in the extraction of oil in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria? Surely any deal at Copenhagen should ensure that richer nations are made to dispose of toxic waste safely? Equally important should be fair compensation for the victims of environmental degradation and not the paltry £100 million paid by Trafigura to the Ivorian government in 2007.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 27 Dec 09
       
      On a partially unrelated note, why have not Western countries pledged to stop illegal international fishing and dumping of waste off of Somalia, as part of their anti-piracy measures?
  • African NGOs such as the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance and Northern NGOs genuinely committed to climate justice in an egalitarian global community need to consistently mobilise post-Copenhagen to ensure that the movement for climate change does not become a business opportunity for the corporate world to profit from. There is a need for all of us to be aware of the smokescreen that will be presented by the elaborate carbon emissions accounting.
  • The challenge of progressive forces both in the South and North is to demand the realisation of the slogan on one placard hoisted at Copenhagen: ‘System Change Not Climate Change!’
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Sudan and oil politics: A nation split by oil - 0 views

pambazuka.org/...70056

sudan election bassey

shared by Arabica Robusta on 16 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Before we could settle to savour the change expected from the split, things took a different turn. The war drums sounded, and bullets began to fly. Streams of refugees flooded through our village and soon enough, we were on the move. I still recall seeing starving kids, rotting corpses by the roadside, and I can hear the screams of young ladies who were captured and forcibly married by rampaging troops.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 16 Jan 11
       
      Biafra
  • As aptly captured by a Sudanese academic in a recent Oilwatch Africa meeting, "Sudanese oil has been developed against the background of war, international sanctions, and political isolation. It has been developed at a time of imposing demand by emerging economies like India and China and a time of unprecedented soaring prices of both food and oil and the controversial use of agricultural crops as a source of bio-energy."
  • The reality is that with the available infrastructure, the South cannot export its oil except through the North. In addition, as the date of possible separation drew nearer, new oil blocks that transverse northern and southern areas were being allocated.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Surely, the companies operating here could not hope for a better space for reckless exploitation and incredibly high profit margins. Added to this is the fact that the regulatory regime is largely non-existent and even the conduct of environmental impact assessments are selective.
  • Oil has certainly greased the engines of exploitation, oppression and war in Sudan. It is oiling the machines of separation today. What will it lubricate next?
  • At a time when the continent should be coming together and erasing the arbitrary boundary lines drawn by colonialist adventurers, we continue to fragment. Certainly, this cannot be the only way to overcome poor and parasitic governance.
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Development aid: Enemy of emancipation? - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...70978

africa news ngos pambazuka crisis process social movements development industry civil society international

shared by Arabica Robusta on 20 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • In Africa there have historically been two types of civil society, those that have collaborated with the colonial power and those which have opposed it.
  • Are the big NGOs (non-governmental organisations) harmful towards Africa? FIROZE MANJI: Let’s not talk about their motivations, which are often good. The question is not about evaluating their intentions, but rather the actual consequences of their actions. In a political context where people are oppressed, a humanitarian organisation does nothing but soften the situation, rather than addressing the problem.
  • I have become anti-development. This wasn’t the case before. Let’s have an analogy: did those enslaved need to develop themselves, or to be free? I think that we need emancipation, not development.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • These last 20 years we have faced a major change: the financialisation of capitalism. Now, nobody can do anything without capital. Finance controls each and every sector of society.
  • Immediately after Kenya’s independence (1963), a great many important liberation figures were imprisoned, exiled or killed, such as Patrice Lumumba in Congo and Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso. Each time a leader had the courage to rebel, Europe and the United States forced them to back down. We then came to know an empty period until the mid-1990s, when people began to resist and organise themselves again. Today in Kenya, spaces for discussion and debate are not lacking. It’s vibrant, alive and a general trend, including in Europe.
  • Look at Tunisia: you hear that the revolution was caused by Twitter – this can’t be serious! Pens were also used as a means of information and mobilisation. Does this mean that pens caused the revolution? This illustrates a tendency towards technological determinism, towards hi-tech fetishism. We imagine that mobile phones, SMS (short message service), Twitter and Facebook have a power. This type of discussion tends to underestimate the role of those who use them.
  • In Tunisia, protesting in the road called for a lot of courage. A protestor who embraces a soldier, as is seen in a photo, is not produced by technology. It’s thought that this can resolve everything, but a third of Africans have one and there hasn’t been revolution everywhere.
  • Take for example agriculture: the bulk of what’s produced in Africa goes to feed Europe, multinationals and supermarkets. In Kenya we produce millions of flowers. Every day, they leave for Amsterdam. The amount of water used and the chemical products involved destroy our environment. While this goes on, populations have difficulty gaining access to water and food. The countryside ought to be used to produce food!
  • Agricultural production needs to be democratised.
  • I think that Latin America is a dozen years ahead of us. Structural adjustment policies began there two decades ago. I think that in Africa a popular movement will rise up from this from 2020. Chávez is not an exception; he is the product of his history, of a movement for emancipation, like Lula. The question is, how can we ourselves politicise this process? It’s not easy; there’s no technical solution. Workers and farmers need to become organised. This takes time. The positive thing is that this point is now discussed; this wasn’t the case 10 years ago.
Arabica Robusta

Cameroon: Corantin Talla "Cameroon under the dictatorship of Paul Biya has no good image to polish." - 0 views

www.camer.be/index1.php

development africa international news governance cameroon biya

shared by Arabica Robusta on 06 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Recently, i have organized a series of protest in front of the Cameroon embassy in Washington DC, attended by hundreds of Cameroonians and sympathizers of Cameroon; and in reaction to that the ambassador of Cameroon in the USA requested your help to polish the image of Cameroon.
  • Therefore, we will react promptly to any attempt by your agency to convey false positive images of Cameroon in a subjective manner without hearing from the Cameroons of all sides of the political spectrum as well as the ordinary Cameroonians who are suffering because of the bad governance of President Paul Biya.
Arabica Robusta

British banks complicit in Nigerian corruption, court documents reveal | Global Witness - 0 views

www.globalwitness.org/...ruption-court-documents-reveal

development africa international industry governance pambazuka news world bank china corruption britain banks mncs multinational corporations

shared by Arabica Robusta on 03 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • British high street banks have accepted millions of pounds in deposits from corrupt Nigerian politicians, raising serious questions about their commitment to tackling financial crime, warned Global Witness in a report published today. By taking money from corrupt Nigerian governors between 1999 and 2005, Barclays, NatWest, RBS, HSBC and UBS helped to fuel corruption and entrench poverty in Nigeria.
  • What is so extraordinary about this story is that nearly all of these of these banks had previously fallen foul of the UK banking regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), in 2001 by reportedly helping the former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha funnel nearly a billion pounds through the UK. These banks were supposed to have tightened up their systems but as this report now shows, a few years later, they were accepting corrupt Nigerian money again.
  • "Banks are quick to penalise ordinary customers for minor infractions but seem to be less concerned about dirty money passing through their accounts,"
Arabica Robusta

Pambazuka - Occupied territory: Africa and the oligopolies - 0 views

www.pambazuka.org/...71165

development africa international industry pambazuka governance news firoze manji

shared by Arabica Robusta on 05 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • I would argue that far from having de-growth, what we need is a democratisation of production, democratisation of the economy, so that citizens themselves decide what is produced, how it is produced, how much is produced and under what conditions the production takes place, and what is done with the surplus. We actually need a growth in this form of production.
  • Arabica Robusta on 05 Mar 11
     
    I would argue that far from having de-growth, what we need is a democratisation of production, democratisation of the economy, so that citizens themselves decide what is produced, how it is produced, how much is produced and under what conditions the production takes place, and what is done with the surplus. We actually need a growth in this form of production.
Arabica Robusta

Is palm oil a kernel of development for African countries like Liberia? | Environment | Guardian Weekly - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...africa-asia-palm-oil-caramel

development africa international industry governance news liberia palmoil palm

shared by Arabica Robusta on 11 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Arabica Robusta on 11 Mar 11
     
    To win the contract Sime Darby sweetened its bid with a list of community benefits, undertaking to build five primary and secondary schools with free education for the children of its workforce, to rehabilitate a hospital, with better access to treatment, subsidise half the price of rice and more.
Arabica Robusta

Ghana Oil Bill May Improve Credit Rating, Spur Loans, IMF Says - Businessweek - 0 views

www.businessweek.com/...ating-spur-loans-imf-says.html

petroleum industry development oil international extractive transparency curse resource ghana

shared by Arabica Robusta on 11 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • The law, passed on March 2, allows oil revenue to be used as collateral for loans in a “credit enhancement” program, said Wayne Mitchell, resident representative for the fund, based in Accra, the capital. The risk of default is reduced, which will lower interest rates, he said.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 11 Mar 11
       
      This is a truly questionable development strategy, likely to land Ghana in a speculative debt.
  • A provision to keep 21 percent of the revenue in a stabilization fund for the country to fall on in times of price volatility and a heritage fund with 9 percent of earnings saved for the future is “best practice,” Mitchell said in an earlier interview on March 2.
  • Arabica Robusta on 11 Mar 11
     
    The law, passed on March 2, allows oil revenue to be used as collateral for loans in a "credit enhancement" program, said Wayne Mitchell, resident representative for the fund, based in Accra, the capital. The risk of default is reduced, which will lower interest rates, he said.
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