Building community leadership in Malawi

iLEDA Volunteer Amy Eaglestone from the Netherlands visits Idasa’s iLEDA School for citizen leadership for democracy in Malawi. She travelled to the southern African country with iLEDA School head Noxolo Mgudlwa and trainers Auburn Daniels and Lesley Adams. She discovers several development challenges and argues for citizen leadership training. By Amy Eaglestone It was raining [...]

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.

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 [...]

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

Who is responsible for development in Africa? 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 [...]

Action for a Safe South Africa

Action for a Safe South Africa is a new initiative of Idasa and other partners. One of the primary aims of the movement is to encourage citizens to be more active in creating safe communities in which we can live without fear. What do you think can be done to create a safer South Africa? [...]

Constitution must become a living reality for the poor

“It is all too easy to put the poor into a category, a mental ghetto of sorts, and leave them to eke out their existence, hoping that the government will make good on its promises to address the issues: lack of housing, hunger, denial of the basic rights to education and indeed to the hope [...]

Defending the Constitution

Idasa has endorsed the following statement, drafted by Kader Asmal. The SA Constitution is only as strong as the ability of ordinary citizens to use it. Words such as these are an important part of making a Constitution a living document, but words alone are not enough. We need to be thinking about this question [...]