Tag: GreatLakesNews

{{South Sudan is set to sign an agreement that would replace a colonial-era law that gave most of the River Nile’s waters to Egypt and Sudan, local media have reported.}}

The signing of the Cooperative Framework Agreement of the Nile Basin countries, sometimes known as the Entebbe agreement, is likely to be signed and ratified at the Nile Water Summit in Juba on Thursday.

Paul Mayom Akec, South Sudan’s Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, said earlier in the week that the signing of the agreement was “inevitable”.

“The process of joining the agreement has started at all levels of the state apparatus in South Sudan,” Akec stated in a press conference on Wednesday.

Akec said South Sudan would implement the agreement as soon as parliament ratifies it.

If signed, South Sudan will be the seventh riparian country to sign the agreement on sharing the Nile waters.

Six other countries have already signed the agreement: Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Burundi.

{{More than a dozen advocacy groups urged the first U.S. special representative to Africa’s war-torn Great Lakes region on Wednesday to push for democracy and good governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo.}}

The United States named Russ Feingold on Tuesday in an effort to promote peace in a region long afflicted by violence, not least in eastern Congo, where mineral wealth and ethnic strife have drawn in neighboring states.

“We are convinced that this is a critical moment of opportunity for U.S. policy towards the Great Lakes region,” said an open letter from groups including the Enough Project, the International Crisis Group and the Rift Valley Institute.

As a former U.S. senator, Feingold headed the sub-committee on African affairs.
The letter said that Congolese President Joseph Kabila’s government lacked the commitment to improve governance and tackle corruption.

“The U.S. and other donors (must) help create political space for democratic forces that can … generate anti-corruption, reformist ‘will’,” it said.

Regional leaders signed a U.N.-mediated accord in February intended to end two decades of conflict in eastern Congo and pave the way for the creation of a U.N. intervention force to combat armed groups, which is currently deploying.

However, there has been little progress in talks between Congo’s government and the M23 rebel group to end a year-old insurgency in the east, rich in copper, cobalt, rubber, timber, gold, diamonds and uranium.

The United Nations has estimated that the conflict has driven more than 3 million Congolese from their homes.

{{African Parliamentarians have urged governments to deepen democratic processes and to sustain efforts to curtail recurrent pockets of instability and poor governance in the region.}}

At the same time, the legislators are recommending for linkages of democratic governance with the provision of basic needs of the citizens, a move they say shall stabilise countries.

The commitments emanate at the end of the two-day International Parliamentary Conference on emerging democracies in Africa which took place in Abuja, Nigeria.

The conference held on June 17-18, 2013 agreed to advocate for strengthening of institutions including the judiciary, legislature, security services, electoral commissions and a free press as a pre-requisite for sustainable development in Africa.

EALA Speaker, Margaret Zziwa was emphatic that effective political participation can only be realised when it offers minorities and indigenous peoples opportunities to promote and protect their identity and to ensure respect for their dignity and their communities.

Delivering a paper on opening political competition and effective participation, Zziwa remarked that it was significant for all political actors including governments in power to open up and create space for healthy competition.

“What we need is an assured level of civil and political liberties including freedom of expression, that of the press and freedom of association so as to ensure the integrity of political competition and participation”, the EALA Speaker maintained.

Zziwa encouraged states and Parliaments to make better laws in order to give all people a sense of ownership.

{EALA Speaker, Margaret Zziwa.}

{wirestory}

{{Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has challenged Africa leaders to come up with strategies to help the continent achieve its economic dreams.}}

Speaking at a forum in America, the former Premier noted that the continent was endowed with abundant resources that needed proper leadership to make it competitive in the global market.

“In the next 50 years, I envisage Africa to have youthful and healthy population, to serve as a granary to the World, and rest poverty to history,” he said.

“My dreams are reasonable and achievable only if bodies such as the Africa Union (AU) stop chest thumping like we recently witnessed during the celebration of Africa’s 50th Anniversary and get back to serious reforms,” he said.

“We want to see AU come up with strategies on sustained reforms and develop productive forces for an inclusive economic growth,” he said.

To achieve these goals, the AU needs to guide Africa towards continental democratic revolution.

“There must be a deliberate strategy to develop the continent’s productive forces and build structures to manage Africa’s political, economic and technological relations within its members and International communities,” he said.

Odinga noted that the continent’s development trajectory will only depend on how Africa leaders manage political, economic and technological relations.

He called on leaders to respect human rights, enforce better management on mineral resources, revenues, and work on better prices for agricultural produce to help eradicate poverty in the continent.

The former premier noted that Africa’s liberation from present challenges would not be achieved if governments were not ready to allow civil society, media, and Private sector to operate freely in shaping development agenda.

He condemned recent action by the Africa Union to exclude members of the civil society actors from its events in Addis Ababa saying it was against development spirit the continent was looking for.

The former Prime Minister spoke at a forum in America discussing the past 50 years, highlighting both achievements and challenges on Africa as a continent.

At the forum he also shared his vision for Africa over the next 50 years, with a particular focus on Africa’s future engagements with China and the United States.

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{{Kenya sought to assuage concerns over a planned review of capital gains tax, saying it was too early to say what asset classes will be targeted in a measure aimed at compelling the rich to fund development.}}

Finance Minister Henry Rotich told lawmakers in his budget speech last week there would be a review of the tax, suspended in the 1980s, to allow the wealthy to make a token contribution to the development of the country.

Since the budget there has been speculation that the capital gains tax will affect property and gains on equity investments, but the finance ministry said plans were at an embryonic stage.

“We have not even worked out how (the tax) will be implemented, the rates or even which areas will be taxed,” Geoffrey Mwau, economic secretary at the Treasury, told reporters on Wednesday, promising consultation on any measures.

Shares had dropped to a 14-week low on Tuesday as investors fretted the tax plans might sap the appeal of equities.

The shilling currency came under pressure and is still at a 13-week low of 85.65/85 against the dollar, also reflecting concerns of possible damage to the economy.

One local investor said the government had to find a balance between raising funds for development projects and supporting economic growth through private investments.

{Agencies}

{{A suicide bomber and several gunmen attacked an office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday, a senior police officer and a witness said.}}

“A suicide bomber blew himself up at the gate of the UNDP and then several armed fighters went in and opened fire inside,” Abdikadir Mohamed, a senior police official told Reuters.

The UNDP compound is several hundred meters from the city’s fortified airport that serves as the main base for an African peacekeeping force battling Islamist militants in the Horn of Africa country.

{wirestory}

{{A grenade attack at a public gathering in Arusha over the weekend claimed lives and left several people injured }} .

The attack was a second of its kind in a period of a month; the previous attack was on May 5, at a church compound in the outskirts of Arusha city, killing three worshipers.

Tanzanian government said political parties and politicians should be held accountable for the spate of bloody attacks.

The ruling party CCM and the main opposition Chadema are pointing fingers at one another, each alleging their rival is sponsoring terrorism and orchestrating violence.

While politicians blamed one another, the death toll in the Arusha attack rose to three yesterday, hospital officials told the Vice President Dr Mohamed Gharib Bilal.

{{NMG}}