Governance models and leadership quality in universities
Governance models in African higher education have evolved over the decades, but their impact on university leadership appears not to have been highly significant. The key drivers of quality leadership are factors such as individual capacities, leadership training and state funding, according to new research.
Professor Joseph Oonyu, head of the school of education at Makerere University in Uganda, believes governance models are important but management of them is key. "There are things we need to look at beyond the models – who are these leaders, who should we have, what sort of training should they receive, and how should they be appointed?"
Oonyu has been conducting research into "Governance Models and the Quality of Leadership in African Universities" for the Higher Education Leadership Programme of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, or CODESRIA.
The three-year initiative, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, is reaching its conclusion and a HELP Dissemination and Policy Dialogue Workshop was held last November in Arusha, Tanzania, to present and debate the research produced.
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http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20160122161320466
'Using education as a carrot to stay a virgin'
Durban - Sexual health experts have equated virginity tests with sexual assault in their reaction to matriculants from Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal having to undergo these tests to get bursaries.
This follows a report in the Times of Ladysmith on Friday that 16 women were awarded "maiden" bursaries for tertiary education on condition they were virgins. They would lose the bursaries if they failed virginity tests, which took place every holiday, the report said.
The uThukela District Municipality, led by mayor Dudu Mazibuko, awarded the bursaries.
The report brought widespread reaction with the media quoting traditionalists justifying it because this prevented pregnancies and infections such as HIV/Aids. The Guardian in the UK covered the story on Saturday.
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http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/virginity-has-nothing-to-do-with-education-1.1975034
Investors Optimistic About Africa Despite Headwinds
In spite of the economic headwinds facing African economies, there is still an increasing appetite to invest into Africa globally, mostly for those who are willing to make the long-term investment in the continent, Footprint to Africa has learnt.
"I think it depends really on your time profile for your investments, I think there's a growing interest from people who have a five- to ten-year view of what they want to be investing in to actually go to Africa," said Geoffrey White, Chief Executive Officer, Agility Africa, at the 2016 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Recall that ahead of the WEF, some analysts had pointed to low commodity prices and currency volatility, impact of slowing growth in China and the tightening of interest rates by the US Federal Reserve, and rising terrorist activities on the continent, saying these issues had punctured the 'Africa Rising' narrative and halted the rush to and the unbridled enthusiasm about Africa.
"After the initial good cheer at the beginning of last year, 2015 turned out to be very poor for the continent. Lower commodity prices and China's economic slowdown unravelled the 'Africa Rising' narrative," said
Dr Rafiq Raji, a principal at Macroafricaintel Investment Ltd, a Lagos-based Africa-focused macro research and investment consultancy.
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http://footprint2africa.com/investors-optimistic-about-africa-despite-headwinds/
Why the Middle East and North Africa Need More Women in the Workforce... And What Can Be Done About It
Co-authored by Roba Al-Assi There are many good reasons for tackling female workforce participation as a matter of priority in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The potential economic benefit of increased women's employment is striking.According to recent estimates, if women's participation in labor markets in the MENA equaled that of men's, the regional GDP could rise by 47% over the next decade, and the MENA could realize $600 billion in economic impact annually ($2.7 trillion by 2025).
These numbers are too big and significant to ignore. But despite the work that has been done in combating gender discrimination in the MENA, women still face widespread challenges in entering the workforce. When it comes to labor force penetration of women, the World Bank predicts that at the current rate, it would take 150 years for MENA countries to reach the current world average.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reem-boudraa/why-the-middle-east-and-n_b_9064888.html
From South Africa, a lesson too late on US legacy of racial oppression
When it comes to race and inequality, the United States is disturbingly similar to South Africa
We have a history of politically suppressing and economically exploiting black and brown people, a history that continued generations beyond the Emancipation Proclamation
And yet, like South Africa, we have done precious little to address the searing inequality and fundamental unfairness that we created and that continues to wound our societ
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Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article56101475.html#storylink=cpy
S Africa girls given student grants to remain virgins
Women's rights activists have criticised a South African municipality for a scholarship programme that funds studies for young women if they can prove they are virgins.
On Friday, the uThekela municipality, in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), announced that 113 students would receive scholarships to pursue higher education in the country.
Sixteen scholarships were specifically designated for sexually inactive students, as part of a programme called Maiden's Bursary Awards. The programme started in January 2015, but it is unclear how many students were awarded the scholarship in 2015.
Sisonke Msimang, a policy development and advocacy consultant for the Sonke Gender Justice project in Johannesburg, said the municipality's decision was "a terrible idea [that] had so many layers of ridiculousness".
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http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/worldNews/S-Africa-girls-given-student-grants-to-remain-virgins-410283
U.S. urges African leaders to sway Burundi on peacekeepers
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The United States on Saturday urged African leaders to "work behind the scenes" before their annual summit next weekend to convince Burundi to accept a deployment of international troops in the tiny African state amid festering political violence.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said members of the African Union Peace and Security Council expected leaders to endorse its proposed deployment of 5,000 troops to protect civilians, despite a rejection of the force by Burundi.
"I didn't get a sense from the African countries gathered in the room that they're going to take that as a final answer," Power told reporters after a meeting between the U.N. Security Council and the AU Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa.
"As well as the AU meeting (next weekend) to endorse it, we will need leaders to work behind the scenes to get the Burundi government to change its position," she said.
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http://news.yahoo.com/u-urges-african-leaders-sway-burundi-peacekeepers-083313642.html
UN Security Council Considers Burundi Options
ADDIS ABABA—
The U.N. Security Council departed Africa on Saturday, considering its options to help quell political violence in Burundi.
Council members had a disappointing meeting with President Pierre Nkurunziza on Friday, in which he showed no sign of softening his rejection of an African Union peacekeeping force or engaging in a substantive and inclusive dialogue with the opposition.
"The African Union has to work through what its next move is, now that the force it authorized is rejected," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told reporters after meeting with the AU Peace and Security Council for more than two hours Saturday here in Ethiopia's capital.
African heads of state will hold their annual summit next week, and diplomats said they would be watching to see what comes out of the gathering.
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http://www.voanews.com/content/un-security-council-considers-burundi-options/3159879.html
Mark Pursey: A new deal with Kenya represents a significant move away from Blair's unworldly foreign policy
Mark Pursey is the founder and Managing Partner of BTP Advisers.
Late last year, unnoticed in Parliament or by Fleet Street, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office made an important policy change that stands to significantly improve Britain's relations with Africa: it agreed to allow British military personnel accused of crimes committed in Kenya when off duty to be tried in Kenyan Courts.
At first glance this may seem insignificant, yet the decision has major geopolitical implications. At a stroke it begins to smooth Britain's complicated diplomatic relations with world's fastest growing continent. But as a consequence it deals a blow to the International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent global justice tribunal that UK has long championed, but which has been to the detriment of that partnership. The Kenya decision reveals the FCO is turning away from the unworldly and moralistic foreign policy championed by Tony Blair and continued under the Coalition – of which the ICC is a prime example – to a more tactical, hard-nosed approach. Labour's desire to save the world through global justice for all is being replaced by what is good for Britain.
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Federation is not East Africa's salvation
ISAAC Mwangi's article in the Daily News of January 17, 2016 titled: "Want to know why EA is getting poor? Ask your thieving leaders" in fact started well by stating that the region's poverty and underdevelopment is caused, primarily, by the prevalence of selfserving leaders, pre-occupied with looking after their own interests and those of their families and cronies rather than the welfare of their electorates at large. The fact that there are exceptions, rare as they may be, is in fact an exception which proves the rule of his statement.
For instance, the reality of President John Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania having managed to accomplish in a couple of months what others failed to do in thirty years; or President Kagame of small and previously impoverished Rwanda having successfully, out of the genocide of 1994, created a society where people enjoy a better quality of life and longer life expectancy than mega-rich Nigeria, are the clearest exceptions.
However, Isaac Mwangi's article diverged from political reality when he characterised nationalism as myopic and protectionist policies as inherently bad, implying that there cannot be integration without political union and that prosperity in the region is contingent on the creation of a Federation; all these are fallacies that have no basis in reality.
History is a clear witness to the fact that vital national interests are indeed at the core of world events, whether long past or recent, and continues to be so today throughout the world. Nothing will change this; not globalisation nor freemarket slogans.
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http://dailynews.co.tz/index.php/analysis/46300-federation-is-not-east-africa-s-salvation
Security conference aligns military, political priorities for East Africa
Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa hosted the 2016 East Africa Security Synchronization Conference Jan. 20-22, at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.
The EASSC is the only conference between U.S. Department of State and U.S. military representatives dedicated to aligning military and political priorities for East Africa.
More than 70 U.S. embassy representatives from each East African country and organizations including the African Union, U.S. Africa Command, and AFRICOM components attended the event to kick start the process of synchronizing and prioritizing all activities in East Africa.
"Events that bring together the diplomatic and military leaders from the U.S. and the region are incredibly valuable because we're all working on the same set of problems, and they're not easy issues," said Amb. Tom Kelly, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Djibouti.
The ambassador said we can achieve progress by engaging in informal discussions, and the conference provides, "the luxury of us all being here together to talk about the tough issues."
"All of these efforts are focused on achieving a single goal: operationalize the Theater Campaign Plan by synchronizing the combatant commander's primary ways with all available means to achieve our end states and execute our enduring tasks," said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Mark Stammer, CJTF-HOA commanding general.
The conference encompassed several working group sessions that consisted of discussions on some of AFRICOM's major priorities, known as lines of effort, to include neutralizing Al-Shabaab, interdicting illicit activity and building the peace-keeping capacity of African partners.
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Spiritual Colonialism Hurting Africa
"African parents in church wail, jump and scream for some so called god to save them, while their lives deteriorate further." - Teekay Akin
"The oil that keeps this machine (anti-gay violence) moving is bad religion."
- Bishop Joseph Tolton
Bishop Joseph Tolton heads the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, a network of African-American churches rooted in the Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal traditions.
A social justice activist, committed to securing rights for Africa's gay community, he was one of three speakers briefing journalists at the New York Foreign Press Center on January 12.
Other speakers included Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of Dignity USA, and the Reverend Dr Ngeo Boon, director of Asian affairs at the Global Justice Institute, Metropolitan Community Church.
Their theme was unified. The culture of marginalisation and violence against homosexuals are endemic in certain parts of the world.
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http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20160124/spiritual-colonialism-hurting-africa
Ethiopia gripped by drought the worst in 50 years
ETHIOPIA is in the grip of the worst drought in half a century with three failed rain seasons, crop failures and dying livestock forcing farming families to now eat the seeds they are supposed to plant.
While the world has been firmly focused on the humanitarian crisis in Europe stemming from the Syrian conflict, the African nation has slipped further into its own crisis with donations drying up as fast as their lands.
A team of Australian-based Save The Children frontline aid workers has been urgently dispatched to the country to tackle an "unprecedented" drought, the worst in 50 years, where more than 400,000 children under five are severely malnourished and one tenth of the population can no longer feed themselves.
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Posted by: Africa Realities <africarealities@gmail.com>
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The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
When the white man came we had the land and they had the bibles; now they have the land and we have the bibles.
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