Models of Hope in Ghana

The Community of Practice for African media practitioners working on HIV/AIDS was recently launched in Livingstone, Zambia by Idasa’s Governance and AIDS Programme.  Two of the participants speak in this video clip, about an initiative in Ghana called “Models of Hope” which provides positive role models for people living with HIV.  See more here.

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Media and HIV – getting together

It was hot, humid and sweaty and the airline had lost my luggage.  After filling out a few bureaucratic forms with a smiling Zambian face, I joined the bus of strangers – new recruits to Idasa’s Community of Practice for African communications practitioners who write about HIV/AIDS.  We were to spend two days together, at the start of a 4 year relationship.  The bus journey to the hotel was peppered with polite, get-to-know-you conversations…

Two days later, many hours of sharing stories and exploring how to build citizen action through media and communication work, we were no longer strangers.  The group sessions promoted discussion and deliberation about the role of citizens, and the role of journalists – and how these two overlapped for people in the room.  Questions shot around the room about how to wear two different hats, how to manage conflicts of interest, how to avoid being used for personal agendas, and make sure your journalistic skills are not exploited.

The discussions were thought provoking and relationships formed in a way that will encourage deeper engagement over the next four years.  The workshop included a session on how we should keep talking to each other, especially in between meetings, and for the duration of the 4 years.  Following their suggestions, a social networking hub was set up for participants to keep talking – and a googlemap was also used to plot participants work and partnerships across the continent.  See some of the interviews on video here.

 

- Samantha Fleming was an Idasa participant at the launch of Idasa’s Community of Practice -

Tuning in to citizen’s conversations about HIV/AIDS

More public and less experts: how do we re-connect the work of journalists with the work of citizens?

- by Marietjie Myburg -

For the last 10 years I have been working in the field of HIV and AIDS Communication. During this time, I have watched in frustration what should have been a conversation between citizens and people with power to change things (policy makers, planners), but was actually a conversation between the well-intentioned funders and (often opportunistic) politicians and bureaucrats.

I have watched how, instead of challenging the course of this conversation, journalists become the channels for UNAIDS, USAID and Bill and Melinda Gates to talk to and on behalf of citizens to Departments of Health and AIDS Councils and Presidents and celebrities with an attitude which Donaldo Macedo aptly describes in his foreword to Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of Freedom: “There is no need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself (Freire, 2001:xxvi)”.

Government Committed to Priorities – SA Budget

SA Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan delivered the South African medium term budget statement on 27th October. Government priorities remain social spending, infrastructural expansion and job creation. See Idasa’s comment in the video and statement below.

African Governance – Ibrahim Index

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance is a comprehensive ranking of sub-Saharan African nations according to governance quality. The criteria for assessment capture the quality of services provided to citizens by governments and focus on the results that the people of a country experience.

The criteria are divided into five over-arching categories which together make up the cornerstones of a government’s obligations to its citizens:

•Safety and Security
•Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption
•Participation and Human Rights
•Sustainable Economic Opportunity
•Human Development

See more and downloadable country reports here.

SA and US Economic Relations

By HOPEWELL RADEBE – Business Day

President Jacob Zuma ’s administration could significantly increase economic growth if it carefully spelt out the objectives of its economic relations with the US, says Witney Schneidman*, who advised Barack Obama’s presidential campaign on African affairs.

He was at the University of Pretoria yesterday, where he delivered a lecture in memory of the late US senator Edward Kennedy, who had a particular concern for SA.

Schneidman said SA was important to the Obama administration, but was trailing Angola when it came “to a game plan”.

“From the moment (US) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Angola to the time she flew out of Lusaka during her recent African Safari, they (Angolans) tabled their strategic document, which outlined goals and objectives about the two countries’ future relations.”

Schneidman, who was also deputy assistant secretary of state for Africa in the Bill Clinton administration, told Business Day yesterday the Obama administration wanted relations with SA that would advance the continent and the world on issues of climate change, alternative energy, agriculture development and capacity building for the continent’s institutions of democracy.

On Zimbabwe, he said the US would play a bigger role in a bid to help both SA and the Southern African Development Community resolve the political impasse.

Source: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=85185

* Witney Schneidman is a member of Idasa’s board in the USA

Making Aid Work

Idasa recently hosted the ‘Southern African Civil Society Consultation Workshop & Multi-Stakeholders Consultation on Aid Effectiveness: Catalysing Broad Implementation Of The Accra Agenda For Action (AAA)’. This was one of a series of workshops on the African continent and around the world. Others have been held in the Philippines and Columbia. These workshops are aimed at providing information and building capacity for participation in the aid reform process, ultimately making aid more effective, transparent and democratically accountable in achieving mutually-agreed development objectives. See more here.

Live or Dead Aid – Who is responsible for development in Africa?

Who is responsible for development in Africa?

Dambisa Moyo

This is the question I’m mulling over, after a presentation by Dr Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid.  The book has caused quite some controversy, not least among NGOs and recipients of the aid that Moyo critiques.

Foreign aid is a complex subject and one that has many vested interests. Any discussion on the future of aid is likely to be heated and emotional.  There are those of us whose very livelihoods depend on it, for without that donor money, we wouldn’t be able to pay our own bills.  And there are those of us lefties who struggle with the politics of the author – neo-liberal, economic focus, seemingly aligned to the interests of global capital. Her work experience is at the World Bank (seen by some as an arrogant manipulative International Financial Institution (IFI)) and Goldman Sachs. Her background at these institutions dents her credibility in South African development circles, where your politics and credentials are judged before you’ve opened your mouth.

Some people view her ideas with skepticism and see her as an emissary from yet another global institution that is intent on imposing their own agenda. Moyo contests this vocally, saying she is born and bred Zambian and has strong roots in the heart of Africa.  For most of us, despite any critique, it is fabulous to have an African academic raising these issues for debate.

Your Right to Know …

Without information, citizens live the lives assigned to them or lives of chance. With information, they choose their future.
Celebrating International Right to Know Day on 28th September, Idasa has a range of activities planned – starting with the screening of a documentary about participatory budgeting in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela. Beyond the documentary, Idasa’s commemoration of Right to Know day includes panel discussions on the importance of information in quality basic education in Argentina and the quest for quality basic education in Malawi.

Idasa believes that the citizen’s right of access to information is at the heart of a healthy democratic system. The right of access to information facilitates the ability of citizens to claim other rights (e.g. health, education). enhancing dialogue between citizens and their representatives and ensuring transparency and accountability in the use of resources.

See the full press release here.

Listen to the podcast about Your Right to Know Right to Know Day – Idasa.