empty sky

How do you solve a problem like corona? Hands off the FAO

2021-03-17T08:32:00.000+02:00

It's pretty clear at this point that the world did not handle the prevention and management of the COVID-19 crisis optimally. There will be many conversations about how we could have done things differently and what structures and institutions need to change. One such discussion is this one, where a European panel on health and development is proposing merging the FAO and WHO (plus a few others) because we don't have any single body that deals with threats to human health from animals. That's right folks - their solution is to restructure the UN agencies to focus on this specific issue.

On the one hand, it's fairly clear why this preoccupation would emerge for a European group of experts. Europe has been particularly hard-hit by this pandemic. The greatest security threat - perhaps even existential threat - for people living in Europe right now is probably pandemics and in particular zoonotic diseases. One can understand the urge to direct all resources to countering that threat. UN agencies were previously there to deal with the "periphery" and to implement the policy of containment to make sure the "periphery" didn't bother the "centre". Now they have become hugely relevant to the day-to-day lives of people in Europe and the rest of the so-called "developed world".

It's also incredibly myopic. The FAO may not be as well-known or have as slick a fundraising and marketing machine as some other UN agencies but they do important work on food security and livelihoods. Its work is especially crucial for isolated, underserved and poor communities in far-flung very much not-centre places like Mali, Iraq, Somalia. For many of these people, the COVID-19 pandemic is not the greatest or only existential threat they face. We saw with Ebola that communities complained that international actors, and particularly health organisations, only showed up when there was Ebola and didn't care about other health concerns of the population. The same is likely to apply here. Shifting focus and resources to address the pandemic threat by combining these agencies means shifting resources away from work that is fundamentally important to people who are far away from Rome and Paris and Geneva.

The WHO also has a few other things to worry about. COVID-19 is a global crisis but so is tuberculosis. We still have two active Ebola outbreaks. Maternal and infant mortality rates in many countries are still staggeringly high. And Madagascar still has the plague.

This is not in any way to suggest that the way the world currently prepares for and responds to health emergencies should not change. The WHO clearly needs some help. Reform and investment to clarify and improve the functioning of the WHO, as well as regional and country-level health agencies such as the African CDC, is a great initiative.

As it turns out, there already is a structure which is supposed to work on this issue: The Joint FAO–OIE–WHO Global Early Warning System for health threats and emerging risks at the human–animal–ecosystems interface or GLEWS. Clearly it didn't work in this case. However, strengthening and supporting this platform would support systematic pandemic preparedness, thus avoiding knee-jerk responses that see what is close by as the only existential threat and neglect what is happening in the rest of the world. Getting UN agencies to work better together should be the first step. Throwing all the resources of the WHO and FAO at animal-related pandemic preparedness would leave millions without the health, food security and livelihoods assistance and partnership they need.

All that having been said, some of the other ideas of the Pan-European Commission look quite interesting. Hopefully they stick to those and leave the FAO alone.

Livelihoods and Mining in the DRC

2017-04-09T17:01:00.000+02:00

A few years ago I wrote a piece for Al Jazeera about how legislation to enforce conflict-free minerals could have a detrimental effect on livelihoods. It was great to get a piece published and it got quite a bit of attention - some of it, inevitably, rejecting completely the idea that the Dodd-Frank Act provisions to prevent conflict minerals might harm people. This is the piece.

Today I picked up a piece from IRIN that quotes Laura Saey as saying:
“There is a consensus [among academics] that the law had a negative effect on livelihoods,” Laura Seay, a leading expert on Congo and conflict-free minerals, told IRIN. See also here. Seems the Dodd-Frank Act did have a detrimental effect on livelihoods.

Well, who'd a thunk it?

Small wars, small African countries

2016-06-14T08:45:00.002+02:00

There appears to be a thing happening on the Eritrea/Ethiopia border. Accusations and denials abound. Analysis form Simon Allison here.

Meanwhile, Rwanda has sent some more Burundian back to their own country, allegedly over allegations of espionage, as tensions between the Burundi and Rwanda continue to rise. It is unclear whether the Burundians expelled were recent arrivals, asylum seekers, refugees and/or people who had been living in Rwanda for some time.

Course Recommendation: Global Health and Humanitarianism

2016-04-03T12:26:00.000+02:00

I recently did an online Coursera course in Global Health and Humanitarianism. It's a six week course offered by the University of Manchester's Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI). Humanitarianism is pretty specialised and there isn't a lot of good, solid free info out there. This was obviously focused on medical humanitarianism. Good handling of the issues and dilemmas and an engaging course. Not too challenging - would be good as an intro, too. I'd recommend it.

On Turning Away

2016-02-20T17:08:00.002+02:00

A few weeks ago, this piece was posted on the HCRI blog. It's a piece by Dr Tammam Aloudat from MSF Swiss, reflecting on our collective ability to let crises and terrible examples of suffering and the infliction of suffering slip from our minds so easily. It's a strong reflection from someone who grew up in Syria.

What struck me, also, was the contrast between the obvious, constant immersion of Dr Aloudat in these crisis and the reality he sees in the rest of the world. That isn't something we talk about much.

Over the past few years, we have been witnessing what feels like an intensification of conflicts. These conflicts have been harsh for people in many places around the world...

MSF has intense familiarity with both the victims and survivors of these conflicts...

What this tells us is that as brutal and extreme as the Madaya siege has been, it is one of the numerous examples where war has stopped being the mere “continuation of politics by other means”, as van Clausewitz puts it, to become essentially a brutal act of eliminating any opposing form of identity, belief, or group.

"MSF has intense familiarity with both the victims and survivors of these conflicts". The intensity of solidarity in a context of intensification and multiplication of crises sometimes feels a little like drowning.

Nor is it only those who are working directly in the field who experience it. As Rebecca Davies writes so importantly here, even fundraisers are constantly immersed in a flow of updates and information, reports and témoignage about the realities those victims and survivors are experiencing. Sometimes the process of "sifting through pictures and program reports to find the best, most horrible stories to tell donors" can be harrowing.

All careers are tough and all people have problems. Aid workers aren't special, particularly the ones who live in suburbs and work in offices. Of course, the reality is always far tougher for those we are trying to help.

But one of the consequences of living and working in a space where the crisis are in your face all the time, where you will hear and care about every new outbreak, evacuation and flare up of fighting, every time another hospital gets bombed, is that it is difficult to understand or even have conversations with the people who don't.

A friend is working on research about rape, so a topic with similar challenges. We were commiserating the other day about that awkward dinner-party conversation-killer when someone asks what you spent your day writing about or what interesting thing is going on at work.

I thought about that HCRI blog post again today, when an aid worker posted this Pink Floyd video on social media and I started thinking, again, about complexities of a concept like "turning away".

DRC and MONUSCO - What Next?

2016-01-18T10:03:00.001+02:00

Fairly detailed and in-depth analysis of the MONUSCO situation and future in eastern DRC, with particular reference to anti-FDLR activities here at IRIN.

One interesting point is the new MONUSCO appointments:
"The UN has taken some measures to try to encourage the Congolese government to reopen dialogue. Maman Sidikou, of Niger, has replaced Kobler, and a South African general, Derrick Mgwebi, has relieved Brazil’s Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz as MONUSCO’s commanding officer. Kinshasa is understood to be happy about the choice of the two Africans, reckoning that there will be fewer “misunderstandings” now."

I have reservations about the idea that appointing Africans will necessarily mean having teams of people who inherently have more understanding of and ability to deal with other Africans. It's a little like suggesting that a German would naturally, inherently, be better able to understand and relate to a French authority than, say, someone from an African francophone former colony. Just because they're from the same continent doesn't mean they're going to understand each other.

In this case, however, the two people appointed seem to be interesting as individuals. Great interview with Mgwebi via African Defence Review here. It'll be worth watching MONUSCO over the next few months to see how this plays out - particularly as elections loom in the DRC.

Someone Should Be Paying Attention To Mozambique

2016-01-17T11:06:00.001+02:00

Some crises go largely unnoticed, at least until they get so big and terrifying that they disrupt the day-to-day of business or someone high-profile or connected (or connected to a journalist) is affected. Sometimes the government is quite keen to keep them unnoticed - a report of ongoing, low-level conflict or unrest doesn't do wonders for tourism or FDI.

Of course, stories still get out, even when the crisis goes largely unnoticed. The stories of kidnappings, like this one, continue to filter into mainstream media. These often seem isolated and got lost in the noise.

But something is building. Or maybe it's continuing to bubble under the surface. On Thursday, the leader of RENAMO "declared that his decision to seize control of six northern and central provinces as from March is “irreversible”. Just to be clear, this is not an electoral takeover - although he does claim that these provinces are rightfully his based on results he says were falsified in the October 2014 elections.

Meanwhile, the number of people fleeing across the border to Malawi from Mozambique continues to grow. The UN/UN agencies are reporting that these people are fleeing clashes between government and opposition forces. Other reports suggest that at least some of these people have fled victimisation and harassment by government forces specifically - government which in turn "reportedly said those fleeing into Malawi are either thugs or lazy people", denying the displacement crisis entirely.

It's unclear the extent to which either side in Mozambique will be able to enact their threats but civilians are already feeling the heat and the movement across the border. Those who make it across the border typically also represent a tip-of-the-iceberg, with many more people likely displaced within the country. Mozambique is an LDC with impressive gas-and-oil related growth over the last few years and huge problems of poverty. This isn't a story that should be ignored.

The US and Burundi

2015-11-09T12:00:00.000+02:00

I'm just going to leave these two links here and let y'all draw your own conclusions:

2015: U.S.fears Burundi ultimatum will trigger violence this weekend

2012: Why is US giving $13.1m military aid to Burundi?

#JustSaying

Midnight Ramblings on Management and IHL

2015-11-09T03:52:00.000+02:00

10,000 hours. That's the Malcolm Gladwell rule on becoming an expert, right? Or at least, becoming so familiar with something that you are well-positioned to take advantage of opportunities related to it as they come along. I have a hunch there is more to it than that, but let's go with it for now.

I feel like I must have spent at least 10,000 hours on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in recent years - a good portion of that in the last few weeks. It's interesting. Okay, it's fascinating. I find myself constantly on the look-out for new courses, online learning and discussions about it. I see applications of it everywhere, not in a dry or theoretical policy sense, but in the practicalities of the work. Humanitarian law is so closely related to humanitarian access and "humanitarian space". Plus MSF's hospital got bombed, so IHL has suddenly become a hot topic in the sector (really looking forward to this discussion on the issue). I'm beginning to realise that my particular interest is pretty solidly rooted in the roots of humanitarian law - humanitarianism specifically focused on conflict contexts.

It's also terribly frustrating because my day-to-day is still stuck in the banality of fundraising. We talk about a glass ceiling - the idea that people are unable to move beyond a particular level because invisible prejudices and structural barriers to advancement. That is certainly happening. There seems to be an entirely layer of staff who are constantly banging their heads against the glass ceiling while managers fiddle and fret about not wanting to upset anyone by creating opportunities for movement.

At the same time, it's as if everyone is stuck in a glass box - we can all see what other people are working on but no-one is allowed to step out of their prescribed roles and engage with, contribute to or support anyone else's work. It's... odd. I've always enjoyed the kind of space I work in because the humanitarian and development spaces lend themselves so much more towards generalist skills sets as a simple and probably inevitable result of never really having enough money to hire people who do only one thing. The networks of intelligence that result can stimulate and create fantastic outcomes because different perspectives, experiences and spheres of knowledge combine to produce new ideas and improved ways of getting to where you want to be.

Little glass boxes of frustration. I'm writing an IHL exam today. Best part of my week!

Ethics and Innovation

2015-07-19T23:14:00.000+02:00

As part of a course I'm doing, I attended a webinar recently on innovation. I'm not a fan of innovation. At least... that's a silly statement... of course I'm a fan of innovation but I'm not a fan of the recent fascination with innovation at the expense of anything else which appears to have infected the humanitarian and development sector(s). So I was sceptical. Boy, was I wrong. This PHAP session was one of the most interesting things I've done in the past couple of years of humanitarian work. Why? Because when was the last time we really though about ethical principles in terms of the work? Yes, of course I know about the origins of the sector, rooted in the principles - that's one of the main reasons I do what I do - but lately there seems to be a lot of talk about accountability and efficiency and overheads and not a lot of talk about ethics. It's not popular, any more, to think about and talk about and debate the ethics of the work. Not explicitly, anyway. But that's important. Why we do what we do cannot function without a serious philosophical commitment to reviewing the ethics of what we do. And here's the thing: the ethical principles they were talking about don't feel like they're just about innovation - they feel like they're a review of what the ethics of the sector are. Some of those arguing wanted to suggest that all of this was covered by the four humanitarian principles, but I'm not sure they're right. I really felt like this was the kind of ethical engagement that the work of the sector has been missing for a while.

Maybe I'm just missing it because I'm stuck at the arse end of the world. I sort of hope that's true. Either way, it's good to see that there are people in humanitarianism who are willing and able to engage with the ethical questions far beyond "donor requirements". These ethical principles feel like they could start a conversation that could push us all to reconsider why we do what we do and whether, ethically, half of what we do is really justifiable. Is it old-fashioned to consider ethics over, say, accountability, innovation and sustainability? I don't care. When I sat, trying to decide if I wanted to share these principles with my colleagues (not wanting to upset delicate balances or sensitive people), it was the moment I realised how far our sector may have strayed and how much I want to get back to ethics, not just in innovation but in all aspects of what we do.

Event page
Draft principles [pdf]

Marriage in Malawi

2015-02-20T08:55:00.002+02:00

So, Malawi has finally managed to change an outdated law that allowed girls to be married at 15 with parental consent (H/T DAWNS Digest).

This seems to be a good thing - although lawmakers who think regulating marriage age is going to solve HIV in Malawi is a little worrying.

However, there seems to be a backlash. Wait, it's not what you think; traditional leaders oppose the bill because they think 18 is too young for girls [emphasis added] to marry. They're pushing for 21.

At which point, reading some of the comments, everything degenerates and one begins to wonder if those who think feminism isn't necessary would like to spend some time in Malawi. A choice example from the VOA article:

"I am not in support of that because at the age of 18, most of the girls are young and they can’t be able to make independent decisions."

There also appears to be a conflict with the constitution, so sounds like the debate (if it can be called that) will continue.

Depressing Diseases Update

2015-02-12T15:08:00.000+02:00

Not Ebola. This time.

The WHO has announced that Madagascar still has plague. and 71 people (out of 263 known cases) have died since September.

Meanwhile, Mozambique is battling a cholera outbreak after heavy flooding.

So, yeah.

(H/T Dawns Digest)

Food Security Crisis in Madagascar

2015-02-06T08:53:00.001+02:00

Madagascar has plenty of problems, ranging from political instability to plague. They also appear to be facing a serious food security crisis. This report suggests, worryingly, that people are already dying of hunger - the systems are supposed to be in place to pick up the problem way earlier than this - with 3000 reportedly displaced. The National Bureau responsible is verifying figures, working with WFP and said that "An assessment team has been dispatched to investigate" after local district leaders appealed to the media. A little late for initial assessments, perhaps? Particularly as some red flags were previously raised in FAO-WFP food security reports and by others.

Definitely a worrying situation to watch.

Falling in Love (With Work) Again.

2015-02-04T12:46:00.000+02:00

I had a conversation the other day with someone I respect a lot. It's a wonderful part of this work to be able to interact regularly with people whose experience, professionalism and courage you honestly admire. It also has the flipside consequence of making their advice quite hard to ignore. Which is tough when that person is saying something you particularly don't want to hear.

I work in a space that is intense. I can't imagine not being challenged and passionate and tired. I'd hate it. But the risk of this kind of intense work is that it's all too easy to burn out. I've been there a time or two (yes, I'm a slow learner). You'd think I'd spot the signs. Sometimes I don't. It's strangely comforting (although uncomfortable in the moment) when someone spots that tendency and is willing to call you on it. The conversation left me feeling a little guilty. I should know better. I really should be able to recognise that tight knot of anxiety and insecurity and exhaustion that is the tell-tale sign of slipping slowly towards becoming unproductive to the point of incompetence and no longer being able to add value in the workplace. Guilty and grumpy and a bit miserable.

It stayed with me - like wandering around dragging a small dark cloud. I kept thinking, miserably, about burn-out and about how much I don't want to feel like that again. Finally, it occurred to me that I have done this before and a significant part of what I don't want to go through again is the supposed "cure". When you find yourself tied up in insecurity|anxiety|exhaustion knots, the prevailing wisdom is that you should pull away and stop being so invested. Find a hobby, they say. Go on holiday, they say. Take time off, they say. Stop trying to do so much. Find something else to focus on. The idea is that when you've been pushed or pushed yourself to breaking point over something, the best way to solve the problem - to recover from the burn-out - is to find something else to make you happy.

The argument makes sense on the surface. But it's wrong, at least for me. It assumes that the fault lies with what you love instead of the way you interact with it. It's also premised on the idea that finding a new love, a new passion is both easy and obviously possible. Maybe it is for other people. Maybe other people are multi-dimensional and have many different passions. I don't. I love this one thing. I love this one kind of work. That last time around (like I said, slow learner), I pulled away and frantically poured my already exhausted self into trying to engage with and become interested in other things. I took a step back. I disengaged. I changed direction. And then I spent two miserable years trying desperately, with all my heart, to get back to what I love. I did what the prevailing wisdom says you're supposed to do. It was wrong. Not wrong for everyone but wrong for me.

What I need when I'm slipping towards exhaustion and anxiety and insecurity isn't to push away; it's to fall in love again. That doesn't have to mean working longer hours or making myself even more exhausted. Sometimes it means reading more and writing more and becoming inspired, all over again, about this work. Sometimes, counter-intuitively, it means studying humanitarianism more - taking on more hours of being immersed in this thing because it is what energises me. Sometimes it means focusing in on a particular project that I believe in whole-heartedly and which brings me joy. Above all, (and which is more fun now than ever before), it means spending more time with the smart, engaged, incredible people who share this passion and commitment.

The smart person I respect so much who spotted that I'm not doing okay is a precious relationship for me. I need people like that. I need people who know how this goes. I need people who have been there. More than anything, I need people who have been there and still care. I have been grappling for months with growing frustration with people who are full of advice about my life which basically boils down to "stop caring so much". I can't. I won't. If I did that, I'd stop being me. I'm starting to remember that I don't need to. All I need is to fall in love with this work all over again.

67 Minutes of Nonsense - The Trouble With Mandela Day

2014-07-23T10:12:00.003+02:00

Last week, South Africa celebrated Mandela Day. 18 July was Nelson Mandela's birthday. At some point, someone decided that the best way to honour the legacy of Mandela was to encourage people to volunteer 67 minutes on his birthday to help others. This sounds like a good idea. Replace volatile rallies, endless speeches and the risk of the legacy being politicised, with getting people to commit to helping others.

Instead, South Africa has managed to turn voluntourism into a national sport. Yes, I know local volunteering normally avoids the pitfalls of voluntourism; this doesn't. All the problems with rich (white) people popping over to Africa/Asia/South America to "volunteer" by hugging smiling babies for a week-long vacation, crammed into one day of the year. Into 67 minutes, even. This is not volunteering to work with children, to read to the elderly or to work with food security projects. It's not the same thing when doing these things for 67 minutes on one day of the year makes you a good guy or a good company or a good Friday afternoon ladies book club group.

And of course, not only can people feel great about their act of "selfless charity", but they get to talk about it too. South Africa's media very obligingly talks of little else and creates plenty of space for individuals and businesses to publicize how wonderful they are for taking part in this charade.

For business, and particularly corporate social investment departments, it's a very welcome gift. Instead of all the bother of sorting through endless funding requests or going out and checking that NGOs actually exist, they can just "do Mandela Day". What better way to motivate your staff than to pay for them (transport, T-shirts, packed lunches) to spend 67 minutes volunteering at a soup kitchen or donating clothes at an orphanage or (this year's run-away favourite) handing out food parcels at under-resourced schools? What better way to spend your CSI budget - tax-deductible, minimal effort and all over in just one day?

Double-bonus for businesses, government loves the idea. In fact, they're taking the lead. This year, for example, the Ministry of Sports and Recreation spent their 67 minutes, among other things, handing over sports and recreation equipment. Environmental Affairs dedicated their Mandela Day to running a campaign about recycling and cleaning up the environment. It should be noted that South Africa struggles with very serious service delivery protests because many government departments fail, most of the time, to do the things they're mandated to do (like handing over sports and rec equipment and cleaning up the environment).

The Mandela Day circus also reinforces all the things we do not want to reinforce: the idea that "development" is about duty-bound, wealthy givers and abject, grateful recipients. The idea that hand-outs that "make people happy" should be encouraged (67 kinds of SWEDOW, for example). Perhaps the worst of all: the idea that anyone can do social development work. In a country (and on a continent) that desperately needs skilled professionals (including in government roles - no, not you, millions of irrelevant DIY one-woman-saving-the-brown-babies South African NGOs) to fix the problems, we're putting all our focus on what has turned into a carefully crafted publicity platform for middle-class and rich people, government departments and businesses to look good without actually doing any good.

It's horrifying to see the legacy of a man who spent his entire life working and fighting to change a terribly oppressive, unequal and unacceptable system, "celebrated" in a way that so strongly reinforces the status quo and the myth that handing out food parcels is a) doing enough and b) making a difference. It isn't. And we should stop saying that it is. That's the trouble with Mandela Day.

Read this

2014-07-08T13:11:00.002+02:00

This

Because: "If you have to explain the humanitarian aid, you’re doing it wrong."

Weeks of frustration summed up.

Also: "Aid doesn’t mean what you want it to mean"

Humanitarianism and Stability

2014-05-09T09:33:00.000+02:00

Great (and unexpected from this source, tbh) piece of sanity from Oxfam on aid and the stabilisation agenda in the DRC. Must read here.

Echoes of a piece by MSF on Somalia in 2013, as well as the recent debate on resilience.

As political and military solutions become more prominent, focus is shifting away from providing vital humanitarian assistance in the places and to the people who need it most. This is a problem. More debate definitely good.

PPP (Outsourced Healthcare) Bad for Lesotho

2014-04-15T15:46:00.000+02:00

This video from Oxfam shows quite clearly the problems that have resulted from the decision of the Lesotho government to outsource the management of their hospital to Netcare.

There are many people who will probably try and dispute this. There are those who will claim that the success of the hospital has created this problem and it was impossible to foresee that more patients would need to be treated than the "ceiling" agreed to (although this would require ignoring all sorts of logical projections, etc.).

Two responses: Firstly, a government-run health system is that it doesn't run on an absolute per-patient cost - it adapts as required. The economics of more patients = more money must be spent, irrespective of whether that money exists or this is the best way to spend that money is the exact problem with this outsourced healthcare model!

Secondly, not only was it possible to foresee this type of problem; it was predictable - see this post from this blog written in 2011. So basically, I told you so. Sigh.

Mobile Payments Infograhic

2014-03-31T06:33:00.000+02:00

Interesting infograhic from Afrographique showing the proportion of mobile users who regularly make and receive payments on their phones. East Africa way out in front again.

Mozambique's Backward Leap on Women's Rights

2014-03-25T08:42:00.000+02:00

Great piece from Daily Maverick on the bizarre moves by Mozambique's parliament - including quite a lot of women.

Worth a read here.

Burundi - Threats to National Security: Jogging with Other People

2014-03-24T11:33:00.000+02:00

It's never a good thing when African (or any other) governments start randomly banning things on security grounds. Burundi's latest move should definitely ring alarm bells - they've banned people from jogging in groups in Bujumbura because "opposition parties are using them as an excuse to organise "uprisings", Bujumbura's mayoral spokesperson said on Thursday". A group, for the record, refers to two or more people.

Burundi has been growing restive and the UN has called for "restraint and dialogue" ahead of presidential elections in 2015. The country has also been dragged into the escalating diplomatic drama between South Africa and Rwanda - one of Burundi's diplomats joined the three Rwandans who were expelled from South Africa recently for planning to assassinate Rwandan opposition leaders on South African soil.

Burundi has had a particularly difficult post-independence history, including a long civil war (from which, out of interest, South African assisted them to extricate themselves) and a small genocide alongside the Rwandan one. The rising tensions do not bode well.

Wonder how the US feels about their USD13.1 million 2012 military aid to Burundi now?

Malawi-Tanzania Border Dispute - Mediation Meeting Held in Mozambique

2014-03-22T10:41:00.001+02:00

Former presidents of Mozambique, South Africa and Botswana are mediating on behalf of SADC in the on-going border dispute between Tanzania and Malawi over ownership of Lake Malawi/Nyasa (although I imagine Mbeki is spending less time there as he's also responsible for trying to sort out the Sudan/South Sudan border and possible do something with the CAR). Former Mozambican President Chissano hosted a meeting in Moz on Thursday to try and move the two countries towards an agreement. Malawi claims the whole of the northern part of the lake falls within it's borders, as per a colonial era agreement, while Tanzania claims that modern practice of splitting a border body of water should hold force. It should be mentioned that the southern part of the lake is divided according to said modern norms with Mozambique.

Malawi seems unwilling to budge, with the Malawian delegation leader, Malawi Foreign Minister claiming that

“This is not a historical question or one of mere recognition”, Chiume said. “It's a fact that the lake belongs to Malawi. Since the colonial epoch this was clear, and it was admitted at the time of the independence of our countries”. He claimed that, unless the Malawian claim was accepted, the frontiers of all African countries would be under threat.

Another reason may possibly be the significant hydrocarbon deposits recently identified on the bed of the lake.

If this mediation fails, the case will go to the International Court of Justice. More here.

Regulating the (I)NGO Sector - Zambia

2014-03-03T06:14:00.000+02:00

Zambia has committed to reviewing the new NGO laws they've just passed in response to NGO complaints. The review is unlikely to change the fact that the Zambian government, like many other developing world governments, particularly in East and Southern Africa, is increasingly determined to regulate and to some extent control the NGO sector.

This affects two groups directly. Local NGOs being controlled by government creates questions around the ability of civil society to play a critical and watch-dog role. But what about INGOs? There has been plenty of discussion about the changing role and projectory of INGOs based on many factors. To what extent, I wonder, have INGOs begun to pay attention to the shrinking space specifically for their work in these countries? Whatever the rhetoric, it's generally fairly widely accepted in these countries that part of the purpose of these laws is to shut out or at least control the activities of INGOs. In fact, there is muttering from local NGOs in some of these countries that the new laws imposed on them are the fault of the INGOs.

Humanitarian organisations - at least those who work in the worst of world situations - are fairly used to the frustration of having to negotiate for access from controlling, unwilling governments. Development INGOs who work in relatively stable, mostly fairly democratic countries have had to deal with far less of this. This coupled with the fact that it is quite a lot more difficult to argue that a relatively stable, democratic, developing country desperately needs expat skills than to argue the same in a conflict or natural disaster situation. What are the implications of forcing INGOs to negotiate access with developing world governments? How will this change their relationship with anti-government/opposition movements in these countries and their appetite for supporting or acting parallel to governments' development plans?

Civilians Flee Tete, Mozambique

2014-02-28T08:28:00.000+02:00

This is not good. AIM is reporting that 2000 civilians have crossed the border into Malawi because Renamo gunmen are operating in the Tete Province. It's unclear whether there have been any attacks or whether people are fleeing because they remember how bad it was during the civil war. Also unclear what government reaction will be.