UN develops guide on appropriate crops for African farmers

http://www.ghananewsagency.org/s_science/r_22486/

Accra, Nov. 12, GNA - Farmers in 43 African countries can now consult a "quick reference calendar" developed by the United Nations Agriculture Agency for advice on the most appropriate crops to plant, based on climatic conditions and soil types in the areas where they live and other factors.

The web-based tool, developed by experts in the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), covers more than 130 crops from beans to beetroot, to wheat and watermelon.

A statement issued in Accra on Friday by the United Nations Information Centre said donors, aid agencies, government workers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working with African farmers would also be able to use the tool to enable them to provide suitable advise.

The FAO crop calendar is especially useful in case of an emergency such as drought or floods or for rehabilitation efforts following natural or man-made disasters.

As well as crops, it advises on tried and tested seed varieties that are adapted to the soil and climate conditions of each area.

"Seeds are critical for addressing the dual challenges of food insecurity and climate change," said Shivaji Pandey, Director of FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division.

"The right choice of crops and seeds is crucial both for improving the livelihoods of the rural poor and hungry and for dealing with climate change," he said in the statement.

There are 283 agro-ecological zones covered in the calendar, representing the vast richness and variety of the African ecology as well as challenges of land degradation, sand encroachment and floods.

An estimated 50 per cent of the global increase in yields over the past decade came from improving the quality of seeds.

The other 50 per cent was the result of better water management and irrigation practices, according to FAO.

Conservation of Africa’s forest offers great benefits

http://accra-mail.com/

Preserving Africa's surviving tropical forests and planting new trees to replace those lost to deforestation could help reduce the severity of climate change by absorbing more carbon from the air, and ease the local impact of climate change by regulating local weather conditions, scientists have said.

They

also cite the forests' roles as watersheds, defences against soil erosion and conservation pools for biodiversity.

According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), indigenous forests in Africa are being cut down at an 'alarming' rate of about 3.4 million hectares per year, making the continent the region with the second highest net annual loss of forests in 2000-2010.

But reforestation and education on the benefits of conservation are critical to stemming and reclaiming Africa's lost forest and biodiversity, says Dr. John Peacock, who is manager of the IITA - Leventis Foundation Project, during the 2010 Open Day held on November 6.

The 2010 Open Day was marked with the planting of indigenous trees by IITA staff in Ibadan to help mitigate the effects of climate change and losses in biodiversity.

The planting of trees comes at a time when deforestation rate in Nigeria—Africa��s most populous black nation— has reached an alarming rate of 3.5% per year, translating to a loss of 350,000–400,000 hectares of forest per year. In 1976, Nigeria had 23 million ha of forest; today only 9.6 million ha remain—less than 10% of Nigeria's total land area.

Peacock says the planting of trees is part of a new initiative to restore rainforests in Nigeria. IITA is also contributing to the important UN-REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) initiative in Nigeria.

Through the IITA-Leventis Project, the team, particularly Olukunle Olasupo and Deni Bown, have raised over 15,000 seedlings of 33 different species since February 2010 in preparation for planting next year, with at least as many again hoped for during the coming dry season when most tree species produce seeds.

“We would like every family, represented by staff members in IITA, to plant an indigenous tree next year as part of IITA's activities to increase the forest area,” Peacock adds.

Earlier this year, IITA and partners made efforts to raise awareness of the need to preserve biodiversity—a term that describes the variety of living organisms—especially in forests that are increasingly becoming lost or threatened. For example, statistics indicate that Nigeria's Milicia excelsa (iroko) has become endangered, with about $100 million worth of iroko timber illegally poached from remaining forests last year. “The unfortunate thing is that these very valuable trees are not being replaced,” Peacock notes.

Over the years IITA has championed efforts not only to increase crop productivity but also the conservation of biodiversity and natural resources including water and forest. Today, the 1000 ha at IITA Ibadan campus is taken up by research, administration, and residential buildings, lakes and experimental plots, and a further 350 ha comprises valuable secondary forest. This forest can be compared to an oasis in the desert and is dominated by a canopy that includes fine specimens of Milicia excelsa (iroko), Ceiba pentandra (silk cotton tree), Celtis zenkeri (ita-gidi), Terminalia (afara), and Antiaris toxicaria var. africana (akiro).

In 1979, an arboretum was established comprising 152 different tree species, 81 of which are indigenous. Peacock says the IITA-Leventis Project plans to increase the forest area and the IITA arboretum with the planting of more indigenous trees.

Another area of importance to the project is education, particularly of school children, says Deni Bown, project coordinator and medicinal plant expert with the IITA-Leventis Project. “In this regard we are educating the young on the importance of afforestation and conservation,” she says.

Peacock and his team are hopeful that through reforestation and education, the rate of deforestation in Nigeria in particular and Africa in general will be significantly reduced.

Major blow for WFP Executive Director - Executive Board rejects her proposal for Audit Disclosure to Donors

in huge blow to Josette Sheeran's career and in preparation to an incoming Republican House US House, the Executive Board of WFP unanimously rejected WFP's latest "policy for disclosure of internal audit reports to member states" as inconclusive and requested Josette to prepare a comprehensive oversight policy to be presented in the upcoming meeting of the Board.

Here the text of the decision:

POLICY ISSUES 2010/EB.2/3

Policy for Disclosure of Internal Audit Reports to Member States

The Board approved the revised “Policy for Disclosure of Internal Audit Reports to Member States” (WFP/EB.2/2010/4-B/1/Rev.1).

It requested the Secretariat to develop a comprehensive oversight policy, including budget implications, in line with best practices of the United Nations, that includes inter alia provisions and procedures for sharing all internal reports with Member States. The oversight policy should be presented for approval, at the latest, at the Annual Session of 2011.

The Board also took note of the comments of the ACABQ (WFP/EB.2/2010/5(A,B,C,D,E)/2 and WFP/EB.2/2010/4(B,C)/2) and the FAO Finance Committee (WFP/EB.2/2010/5(A,B,C,D,E)/3 and WFP/EB.2/2010/4(B,C)/3).

11 November 2010

Former Chief UN Investigator says more over the leaked UN Report on Rwanda-led Genocide in Congo

by Chief Editor

Leaked UN Report on Congo “Was Very Closely Guarded”

Jason Stearns – Former Chief UN Investigator

Former Chief UN Investigator on the Congo, now an independent analyst, Jason Stearns provides expert insight into the draft UN report that raises concerns of genocide in Congo and reveals details on the draft’s UN internal circulation in the run-up to its leak.

in his interview with Voices on Genocide Prevention, see transcript below, Jason stresses that, because many of the perpetrators of these massacres are in government positions in the countries in the region including in the Congo, the key recommendation should be to create a tribunal to try the people who committed these massacres.

In his answer to probable changes to the final version of the report, Jason also reveals that, according to members of the UN Human Rights High Commission, speaking on condition of anonymity, there won’t be changes. It will be difficult to subsquently change the report after its final draft has been leaked.

On the question of why the report was leaked, the former chief investigator emphasizes that the report had been finished for over one year, was submitted over one year ago by this team that had carried out the investigation, submitted to the High Commission in Geneva and then it was circulated amongst a very small group of people.

“This was a very closely guarded report. So the leak was not- could not have been a gratuitous leak. There most likely was a very good reason for somebody to leak the report, and that would have been because the report was about to be changed” says Jason.

Click the link to download and listen to Jason Stearns on Voices on Genocide Prevention from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“The novelty of this report was that it was done by the United Nations with rigorous standards and in a very comprehensive fashion so it comes with much more authority and gravitas than many of the reports that have come previously.” Former Chief UN Investigator on the Congo.

TRANSCRIPT:

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Welcome to this month’s episode of Voices on Genocide Prevention. This is Bridget Conley-Zilkic. With me today is Jason Stearns, who is the former Chief U.N. Investigator on the Congo and now an independent analyst. Jason, thank you for speaking with me today.

JASON STEARNS: Thanks for inviting me.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: So we have you on today to discuss a report that was produced by the Office of High Commissioner on Human Rights at the United Nations on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It’s a mapping exercise covering the years 1993 to 2003. Jason, what does this report attempt to do?

JASON STEARNS: The report was commissioned to chart out the main human rights abuses, the war crimes, and crimes against humanity between 1993 and 2003. What had happened was that there had been really no accountability for any of the many, many crimes that happened during this period, and the U.N. Secretary General at the time, Kofi Annan, decided that we needed some sort of report to jumpstart the process of transitional justice so he commissioned this report several years ago and then it finally came to fruition. Investigators were sent to the field and they then — the reason it’s called a “mapping report” is because they didn’t do — it’s not an international tribunal standard of investigation. It’s a rigorous investigation but it’s supposed to map out and not dig in depth into each individual atrocity.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And the report is broken up into several time periods. Can you talk about the various phases of the conflict that the report attempts to map?

JASON STEARNS: Sure, the first phase I would call sort of prewar phase. This was the dying days of the dictator Mobutu’s regime. The reason that it starts in 1993, in March 1993 specifically, was because that was the date there was a large massacre in the eastern Congo. And really this massacre as well as other massacres under Mobutu had sort of came about because in his dying days he was trying to cling on to power and he used divide-and-rule sort of politics pitting different ethnic communities against each other leading to quite a bit of bloodshed between 1993 and when he finally left power in 1997.

The second phase of the report is then the first war, the war that was called the War of Liberation or the War of Aggression depending on which point of view you come from. But it was the war to topple Mobutu that began in 1996 and lasted for roughly six or seven months. He was deposed in 1997. That period I guess the most — the biggest massacres covered in that period were the massacres perpetrated by the alliance that had formed to topple Mobutu led by the Rwandan government. In particular massacres against Rwandan refugees that were in the Congo at the time as well as many other massacres during that period. There were various different massacres, local level feuds, that turned into violent conflict.

Then the third phase of the war is really 1998 until 2003, which is the end of the mandate of the report, which is the second Congo war during which the Congo was carved up into a bunch of different zones ruled by different armed groups, and with a startling amount of complexity because each of these armed groups had a foreign backer. There was different bouts of violence in that period, as well. So those were the basic three phases that the report covers.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And the report has subsequent sections on particular abuses against women and children, as well as the role of minerals and resource exploitation. But the most controversial part of the report, as it currently stands comes from that period in 1996 when the Rwandans invaded Congo and initially claiming that they wanted to get rid of remnants of the genocidal regime that had reformed in eastern Zaire at the time. What does the report document though from that time period that has proven to be so controversial?

JASON STEARNS: Well, what happened was that the refugee camps that you spoke about were really the reason for the invasion in the first place. What happened in 1994 after the genocide in Rwanda, a million people roughly fled into the eastern Congo and were based in refugee camps there. This included most of the people who had carried out Rwandan genocide, an estimated hundred to two hundred thousand people were involved in Rwandan genocide, including security forces, police, army, presidential guard, but also many civilians.

But on top of those there were hundreds of thousands of civilians who had little or nothing at all to do with the genocide who fled because they were afraid that the people who took power in Rwanda after this, the Tutsi-led RFP party that had been engaged in the civil war in Rwanda since 1990, that they would then take revenge against the Hutu population that they saw as having perpetrated the genocide. So you had refugee camps in eastern Congo that housed around a million refugees. Also and they also housed the forced that perpetrated the genocide. This was an untenable situation for the Rwandan government of Paul Kagame, who was Vice President at the time. It was basically you had the same forces that perpetrated the genocide lurking across the border running a radio station and rearming.

There were cross-border raids in both directions. The refugee camps as well as into as well as into Rwanda, but I mean it was a completely untenable situation. These people were being kept alive by the United Nations and aid groups in these huge, huge refugee camps in eastern Congo. Something had to happen. Kagame, Vice President Kagame went on numerous occasions to the international community to the United States and said “Take action.” Or “If you don’t take action, I will take action.”

And then finally in September and October 1996, the Rwandan government took action although at the beginning people spoke of Congolese rebels. What really happened was the Rwandan government, as well as other governments in the region had come together in an alliance led by the Rwandans and used a Congolese rebel coalition sort of as a fig leaf to make people believe this wasn’t a foreign invasion, but it really was a foreign invasion. They came in to break up the refugee camps. It was in the process of breaking up these refugee camps that these massacres occurred and the most controversial part was that not only did the Rwandan government come in and kill some of the perpetrators of the genocide, but they committed systematic, generalized massacres against the civilian refugee population including infants, young children, babies, pregnant women, old women and men, who had not taken part in the genocide, and the massacres were so widespread and systematic that the U.N. mapping teams investigators concluded that there may have- this may have constituted acts of genocide. So that’s what the biggest controversy comes from.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And in the various massacres and abuses that the report documents, can you give us a rough sense of how many Hutu the report claims that the RPF killed?

JASON STEARNS: Well, I went back and actually sort of added together on a calculator how many Hutu refugees could have been using the smallest number because often what happens is because it’s not a- you know it’s difficult to find out exactly how many people died because you know people fled. Huge massacres and mass graves and to get a precise figure it was difficult, but if you use the smallest number possible, you probably arrive at a figure around 8,000.

Now it is not clear whether some of these civilians may actually have been militiamen and soldiers. It’s possible but in many, many cases the U.N. documented cases where these were people who had been disarmed or were identified at road blocks, or in many cases, for example, stragglers, who the Rwandan troops were chasing these people down across the Congo over 1,000 miles through the jungles in the Congo. And the people they caught up first with were the sick and elderly and people who couldn’t make it. These were not young, fit, strong Hutu militias and soldiers. These were often people too weak to have made it. So these were the people that were often killed first. So it was those people who were killed. Those amounted to about eight to ten thousand, but the report suggests it could have been many, many more.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: While the report is perhaps the most comprehensive in looking at the wars in Congo over this long ten-year period, there have been reports of abuses throughout. What in your opinion is really new about the information or about the structure of the report?

JASON STEARNS: Well, I mean this is the first time, you’re right. There are many of the massacres in the report. I want to emphasize this is not just a report about the Rwandan government’s abuses, although they do come off very poorly in the report. Many of the massacres have been documented and investigated before, but never so rigorously. Never by a United Nations team and never as comprehensively. So we had news maybe on you know 20 or 30 percent of these massacres were known but nobody had ever gone back and rigorously documented what exactly happened. For example, some of the worst massacres committed by Rwandan army and the proxy against the Congolese civilians in 1998 and 1999, for example, there were several famous massacres that happened in eastern Congo.

So the really the novelty of this report was that it was done by the United Nations with rigorous standards and in a very comprehensive fashion so it comes with much more authority and gravitas than many of the reports that have come previously. And the documents massacres that nobody even knew about. I mean even I who had been working on the Congo for a decade now, you know, I hadn’t heard of many of these abuses before so I think in terms of a historical document this is an incredibly important document.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: What were the key recommendations of the report or the draft report I guess we should say?

JASON STEARNS: We should say the draft report because report is now supposed to be released at the beginning of October, although I gather it’s going to be very similar to the one that’s been leaked. The key recommendations are really to try some sort of process of getting accountability to the Congo. The Congo is an anomaly compared to many post conflict countries around the world. Usually there’s at least some efforts for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a tribunal, vetting out officers out of the army who are known to have committed abuses, something. And in the Congo we’ve had absolutely nothing. We had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was a bit of a sham that never worked, that never published its work so that doesn’t even really count. So we’ve had nothing.

And many of the perpetrators of these massacres are in government in the countries in the region including in the Congo so the key recommendation is to create some sort of tribunal to try the people who committed this. They offer two basic proposals. One is to have a tribunal separate from the Congolese justice system that would include Congolese and foreign judges. That would sit in the Congo probably, but would be an independent institution, funded independently and not dependent on the Congolese justice system. The second proposal would be to create a specialized court within the Congolese justice system also mixed foreign and domestic judges but dependent on the Congolese justice system.

And the last thing is that they propose some sort of means of reparations for the losses of the local population and all of these things of course are going to have to be discussed by Congolese government first and foremost but also its foreign partners.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And the Rwandans have specifically threatened to pull their forces out of the peace-keeping, the joint African union, United Nations peace-keeping force in the Darfur region of Sudan. Have you heard any fears, concerns or grounded suspicions that there would be any retaliation in Congo or along the border?

JASON STEARNS: Well I think the- it’s a complicated situation. The Rwandan government indeed has threatened, says the report is not rigorously documented. It’s a shoddy job, a “hatchet job” I think they called it. And they threatened to withdraw troops from Darfur. That doesn’t seem to be a very productive stance given the fact that their troops are supposed to be preventing genocide in Darfur and the reason they’re withdrawing them is that they’re accused of genocide. It doesn’t make a lot of sense in my mind but they have indeed threatened to do so. They have not threatened to do anything similar in the Congo.

Actually since the release of the report President Kagame has been inaugurated again for another term in office in Kigali just a couple days ago and the guest of honor so to say of that ceremony was President Joseph Kabila of the Congo. So one could say the relations between those two countries are closer now than ever before and that the fact the spotlight has been shown on Rwanda now through this report may make them more hesitant to try to meddle in the business of its neighbor at least for now. So I don’t- I haven’t seen any concrete threats against the Congolese but I’m sure if there were investigations then many of the witnesses provided information for this report who, of course, are anonymous would probably be fearful for their lives.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: The report is dated June 2010 but it was leaked the third week of August, and now this draft report, various countries that have a stake in it are being given until October first, basically to review it. Are you expecting many changes in that report or do you think they will be successful in changing any of the key language?

JASON STEARNS: I’m not privy, I don’t think many people are privy, to the internal wrangling within the U.N. between the U.N. and these different countries. What I’ve been told by the members of the High Commission for Human Rights, which is in charge of the report, is that no, there won’t be a lot that’s changed, and indeed I would imagine it would be difficult to change, substantively change the report after a version has been leaked. Imagine they take out the word “genocide” now and the report is already out there. It would be very easy to compare those two versions and to see that. So it would be very difficult I think at this stage to go back and change the report substantially.

I think this is primarily an effort to give diplomats more time to cool tempers, to prevent the Rwandans from withdrawing troops from Darfur and to give diplomacy a little bit more time. I think it’s true the Rwandans wanted more time to react to this report. But it’s, you know, the Congolese government, for example, had two months, had seen the report two months before it was leaked. It’s not clear that by having more time to react to the report it’s necessarily going to help their case much further. They’ve already rubbished the report in the press. It’s not clear to me what exactly they’re going to do to strengthen their case over this next month but we’ll see I guess come October 1st.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Do you know why the report was leaked?

JASON STEARNS: This is a good question. I mean certainly the- well most people believe it was leaked because some changes were about to be made to the report and people on the inside who had access to the report did not want those changes to be made so they leaked the report. That’s one theory. I should emphasize that the report has been finished for over one year. Was submitted over one year ago by this team that had carried out the investigation, submitted to the High Commission in Geneva and then it was circulated amongst a very small group of people.

You know, having worked with the U.N. for or worked with and worked alongside the U.N. for many years, it’s usually fairly easy to get reports leaked to you. Not with this report. It was very different. Nobody would give me a copy of this report. I saw a page of the report on a computer screen somebody dared to show me. But even that was a little bit audacious on their part, so this was a very closely guarded report. So the leak was not- could not have been a gratuitous leak, I think. I don’t think somebody who just said “Ah, I’m just going to leak it for fun.” There must- there most likely was a very good reason for somebody to leak the report, and that would have been because the report was about to be changed.

Now, since then numerous U.N. officials, anonymously and on the record have said that no, the report was not going to be changed. Those were all just rumors and slander. So some people disagree with that. But if that’s true, if the report wasn’t going to be changed, then I don’t see why release- why leak the report three or four days before the official version was supposed to be made public. It doesn’t make much sense, but I think the answer to that, we’re probably only going to know months or even years from now.

BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Okay, Jason, thank you very much for your time.

JASON STEARNS: Sure.

NARRATOR: You have been listening to Voices on Genocide Prevention, from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. To learn more about responding to and preventing genocide, join us online at www.ushmm.org/genocide.

[The ProxyLake]

Flawed and Dangerous Mapping Report Threatens Regional Stability: Rwanda

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS STORY ON RWANDA FACT CHECK

Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 12:40PM in Official Statements

PRESS STATEMENT

Kigali, 30 September 2010

At noon today (Thursday), the Government of Rwanda provided the United Nations with comments on the draft report of the Mapping Exercise in the DRC.

“Despite the media’s focus on sensational aspects of the leaked draft, Rwanda categorically states that the document is flawed and dangerous from start to finish,” Rwandan Foreign Minister and Government Spokesperson, Hon Louise Mushikiwabo said today.

“Our comments to the UN today center around seven specific areas of objection that clearly demonstrate how the Mapping Exercise has been a moral and intellectual failure – as well as an insult to history,” Ms Mushikiwabo said.

The seven areas of objection are:

1. The manipulation of UN processes by organizations and individuals—both inside and outside the UN—for purposes of rewriting history, improperly apportioning blame for the genocide that occurred in Rwanda, and reigniting conflict in Rwanda and the region.

2. The omission of the historical context, especially the immediate and serious threat posed by armed and ideologically charged refugees positioned right at the border of Rwanda and Zaire, as well as the nature of the conflict within Zaire at the time. This is despite the UN’s knowledge of the situation and its blatant inaction.

3. The contradiction between the report and contemporaneous accounts of the situation from the UN Security Council, NGOs and many other eyewitnesses in the region who confirmed that genocidal forces, often posing as civilian refugees, were operating under the cover of UN refugee camps.

4. The flawed methodology and application of the lowest imaginable evidentiary standard.

5. The overreliance on the use of anonymous sources, hearsay assertions, unnamed, un-vetted and unidentified investigators and witnesses, who lack credibility; and allegation of the existence of victims with uncertain identity.

6. Failure to address the glaring inconsistency that claims of genocide are directly contradicted by Rwanda’s extensive and coordinated efforts to repatriate, resettle and reintegrate 3.2 million Hutu refugees; efforts that were supported by the UN.

7. The dangerous and irresponsible attempt by the Report to undermine the peace and stability attained in the Great Lakes region, which directly contradicts the very mission of the United Nations.

“Given these objections, it seems clear that no amount of tinkering can resuscitate the credibility of this fundamentally misguided process,” Ms. Mushikiwabo said.

See the full comments here (PDF)

World Food Program's 'Sunshine Policy' Falls Short, U.N. Oversight Panel Says

By George Russell

Published November 11, 2010 | click here to view story on FoxNews.com

As the World Food Program grudgingly prepares to vote on opening its sensitive internal audit system to inspection by the nations that pay its bills, a key United Nations oversight committee has protested that the proposed sunshine policy doesn’t go far enough.

It also suggests that the agency should go back to the drawing board and try again.

Whether the world’s largest food aid agency will do that remains to be seen. Its 36-nation supervisory Executive Board is supposed to vote on the original, more restrictive proposal from WFP management at the end of its regular three-day session on November 11.

The issue of U.N. agencies exposing their internal audits to the nations that support them—even the ones on their executive boards—has been an explosive one for years, with North Korea as a trigger.

In 2007, a scandal involving the United Nations Development Program’s North Korean operations boiled over after confidential internal UNDP audits disclosed that the agency had funneled tens of millions in hard currency to the brutal dictatorship of Kim Jong Il, hired North Korean government employees in sensitive financial positions, and other transgressions. (The existence of the audits were revealed by U.S. diplomats during the Bush Administration.)

UNDP ended up closing its offices in North Korea from 2007 to 2009—and handing over its functions as lead U.N. agency in the country to WFP.

Two months ago, Fox News revealed that a summary of WFP audits in late 2009 had discovered “lapses,” “anomalies,” and unexplained variations in the way the relief agency reported its financial and commodity management in the same country.

Click here to read that story.

WFP refused to show the audit to Fox News, and disclosed that under its longstanding policy, even members of the Executive Board—including the U.S.-- did not receive the audits, which were deemed “management tools.” At the same time, it claimed there were only “a small number of inconsistencies in commodity accounting” involved, even though the document obtained by Fox News suggested otherwise.

That no-show policy is what is supposed to change this week—but as proposed by WFP management, it will only disclose audits in response to precise questions about the ones involved, and only to nations that sign a confidentiality pledge. Curious nations must also supply their reasons for wanting to look, and promise to keep anything they read confidential.

Just to be sure, they won’t get a copy to keep. They will instead be allowed to read one only in the office of WFP’s inspector general. No copying or note-taking is allowed during what the rules call a “consultation.”

Click here for more on this story.

The complaint about the overly-narrow policy of show-and-tell comes from a United Nations General Assembly oversight body called the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, or ACABQ—a standing oversight group composed of all U.N. members and currently headed by a U.S. diplomat, Susan McLurg. The ACABQ vets all financial proposals for the New York based U.N. Secretariat, and has the same function for WFP. Its recommendations are usually, but not always, accepted, as they carry the weight of the whole membership behind them.

In a terse, one-paragraph assessment dated October 29—WFP’s own proposal is dated September 24—the Advisory Committee calls the proposals “quite restrictive,” and “finds that the procedures lack clarity on the criteria that would be used for approval or denial of requests from Member States for access to internal audit reports.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE ACABQ REPORT

In muted fashion, it then suggests that “WFP may wish to explore ways to achieve greater transparency.” It does not specify what those ways might be.

The ACABQ document, which also deals with a number of other WFP items, was listed on the WFP website as “not available” until just before the current Executive Board session.

The ACABQ claims that its urge for greater openness is in line with a United Nations General Assembly resolution passed in 2005 about the reports of the U.N. Secretariat’s own internal auditing watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). That resolution made OIOS audit reports available to any inquiring U.N. member state. They could be withheld by the head of OIOS—but not the U.N.’s top management-- for confidentiality reasons, or if it harmed “the due process rights” of individuals under investigation for wrongdoing.

CLICK HERE FOR THE U.N. RESOLUTION

WFP’s position is apparently that, as a separate U.N. program, it isn’t bound by Secretariat rules, and has a policy more like that of the other controversial actor in the North Korean drama—UNDP.

Whether the nations that supervise WFP find that argument compelling will be better known after November 11.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News.

U.S Ambassador inspects projects in Kailahun

click here to go to AWOKO.ORG

The United States Ambassador to Sierra Leone Michael Owen has made his first official visit to the provinces to look at the U S Government funded projects.
He described the World Vision supported projects as impressive and economically viable for the transformation of war ravaged communities in the Kailahun District for economic growth and sustainable development.
The US Ambassador made this statement after visiting World Vision /PAGE funded projects implemented in one of the most difficult terrains and deprived Chiefdoms in the Kailahun District.
The Ambassador was greeted by hundreds of cocoa farmers along the deplorable roads leading to Kailahun Town.
Upon arrival he was welcomed by the Kailahun District Council Chairman Tom Nyuma and other stakeholders.
They discussed several developmental issues on trade, agriculture, education and health. The US Ambassador assured that the United States Government remains committed in their continued support towards the sustainable development of Sierra Leone.
Ambassador Owen was also taken on a conducted tour of the Sinava Farmers swamp development experience site where he met with enthusiastic farmers supported by World Vision and PAGE.
Sinava farmers comprising of 25 people in the group have cultivated 7.6 acres of swamp land for rice with the hope of commercializing their harvest to the local market or WFP.
He also commissioned a Cassava Micro Processing Centre at Tongea in the Sande Yalu Section Kailahun District with funds from the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and launched the Power of Cassava in Africa (UPOCA).
Most of the beneficiaries had lost their homes during the war and the project is geared towards providing them with income generating activities for their livelihood.
The National Director of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Sylvanus Fannah and Dr. Brima James expressed optimism over the sustenance of the project.
The US Ambassador said his Government will continue to support World Vision and PAGE projects in Sierra Leone because most of the projects are making huge impact on the lives of the ordinary people, and also empowering the youth for economic growth and sustainable development.
At a dinner organized in honour of the visiting Ambassador, several stakeholders expressed gratitude to the United States Government for their support to the people of Sierra Leone and gave a gift of a traditional dress to appreciate the US support to Sierra Leone.
In the Ambassadors’ keynote address at the dinner he said the US Government will be sending more Peace Corps Volunteers to Sierra Leone and that plans are in progress to increase the number of volunteers to 100 and the US Embassy will also be launching a five year nutrition and agro project on the 10th of this month which demonstrates their commitment to support Sierra Leone.
The Ambassador was briefed by Dr, Tom Roberts of World Vision the brain behind the PAGE Project and the status of various World Vision supported projects in the Kailahun District while the Chief of Party for PAGE, Jeam Dean also highlighted the impact of the PAGE project since it was launched in Sierra Leone two years ago.
The Promoting Agriculture, Governance and the Environment (PAGE) program is a four-year USAID-financed project that builds on previous USG projects in the sectors of agriculture, democracy and governance (D&G) and natural resource management (NRM).
A consortium of international NGOs is implementing the program: ACDI/VOCA is the prime organization, with ARD, Inc. and World Vision International (WVI) as the sub-grantees.
The program is improving the incomes derived from agriculture for 29,000 farm households, and will directly benefit 147,150 people, including 88,000 women and children.
The program will establish 375 new farmer field schools (FFS) and support the existing 600 FFS to become marketing associations.
The program is currently working in four Districts Kono, Kenema, Kailahun, and Koinadugu respectively targeting 250 communities.
By Saidu Bah just from Kailahun

"Cash-for-Work" Seen as a Double-Edged Sword

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By Correspondents*

A cash-for-work team in Perèy whose members are mostly not working. Credit:Haiti Grassroots Watch

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 10, 2010 (IPS/Haiti Grassroots Watch) - All across Haiti, United Nations, bilateral and non- governmental agencies are running scores of "cash-for-work" programmes. But are they "working"?

The humanitarian agencies that run the $5-a-day job programmes [see Sidebar 1] claim they helped "relaunch" the economy and now are supporting "reconstruction and disaster risk reduction, increas[ing] the sustainability of agricultural rehabilitation and stimulat[ing] the local economy," to quote the World Food Programme (WFP).

"The idea is to increase the amount of agricultural land in the countryside so that people can earn more from their land," Stephanie Tremblay, WFP communications officer, told Haiti Grassroots Watch.

And where people are clearing roads or rubble or building canals, there are tangible effects, although some are temporary [see Sidebar 2]. But other effects are more lasting. The jobs programmes – employing somewhere between 5,000 and 50,000 people a day, although nobody seems to know for sure – do much more than inject cash into the economy.

SIDEBAR 1: What is "cash-for-work"? "Cash-for-work" (CFW) is a term used by humanitarian agencies to mean short- term unskilled labour jobs. A main objective is to get money circulating in order to "relaunch" an economy. The term appears to come from "Food for Work" (FFW), which humanitarian agencies have been using for decades. In Haiti, CFW programmes are aimed at earthquake victims who live in the 1,300 camps for displaced people or in the countryside with friends or family. A CFW job is typically eight hours a day, five days a week, for four weeks, with a daily salary of 200 gourdes (Haiti's minimum wage, about $5). Typical jobs include: street- sweeping, cleaning drainage canals, rubble removal, repairing rural dirt roads by hand, and digging contour canals on hillsides. Unfortunately for the Haitian government, for economists and for the public at large, no one person or agency actually knows how many people are working in the multitude of CFW and FFW programmes in Haiti at the moment. Origin of cash-for-work While the term "cash-for- work" is a relatively recent addition to the humanitarian lexicon, the concept has been around for a long time. British Economist John Maynard Keynes (1883- 1946) might be considered the father of "cash-for-work" because of his theory that the state must intervene in capitalist economies to lessen "booms" and "busts" and to create demand when needed. During the Great Depression in the U.S., the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration put Keynes' theory to work with New Deal jobs programmes like the Work Projects Administration (WPA) which employed millions at a time. But, as Robert Scheer recently wrote in his new book, 'The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street', capitalism is haunted by more than depressions and recessions: "The great and terrible irony of capitalism is that if left unfettered, it inexorably engineers its own demise, through either revolution or economic collapse." FDR's New Deal offers a perfect example. With thousands of jobless men and women marching on Washington, and with labor organisations and socialist or communist parties gaining strength, the jobs programmes were likely as much about preventing revolution as they were about jump-starting the economy.

Not unexpectedly, this kind of deal engenders some corruption and favouritism, as local "strong men" or political leaders pass out jobs in exchange for kickbacks or votes. But these kinds of concerns are minor compared with other consequences.

"The main impact of cash-for-work is on the circulation of money," noted Haitian economist Gerald Chéry, adding that whereas the programme was helpful immediately following the Jan. 12 earthquake, today it is having a perverse effect because people use their money mostly to buy imported food, or items – again, mostly imported – to hawk on the street.

Over half of the food Haitians eat is imported. In 2008, Haiti imported almost $1 billion in goods and services from the U.S. alone, spending some $325 million on food.

"We need the money to circulate in Haiti, not leave Haiti to go to another country. The money needs to stay in Haiti so that it will create work," Chéry said, adding that to be useful, job programmes need to be tied into a vertically integrated economic effort.

Another problem is that in the countryside, the programmes – which are supposedly targeting earthquake refugees – appear to be drawing peasants off the land.

Agronomist Philippe Céloi, who supervises a six-month Catholic Relief Services programme in the south, admitted that most of his 468 workers were local peasants, not refugees from the capital.

"After six months there will be benefits – not only the workers have gotten a salary but also the community benefits," Céloi said.

Asked about farmers' fields however, Céloi admitted there was a downside.

"These people are not doing the planting they ought to be doing. Right now it's bean season… And they aren't planting potatoes or manioc or sorghum, so when this programme ends, there is going to be a problem," he said.

But there is another impact that has become increasingly troubling to observers and even some implementers.

The American Refugee Committee recently had about 1,500 people a day working at camps in the capital.

"We helped people get immediate cash, as well as to help them get some things done within neighbourhoods and communities," said Deb Ingersoll, ARC Cash-for-Work Coordinator.

But like economist Chéry, Ingersoll thinks it is time for the programmes to stop, and she has another concern.

"I worry that we're creating maybe a bad work ethic because I think that you see a lot of cash-for-work teams all over the city and the country and if you watch, those work teams aren't necessarily… working," she noted. "I worry that we're providing… a visual association of working with not necessarily working hard."

And this is only part of the negative effect the programmes seem to be having.

Following the earthquake, in addition to providing much- needed emergency goods and services, humanitarian agencies spread out across Haiti, even into areas that weren't really affected. Many have now set up shop in places like Les Cayes or Hinche, and now provide basic services, jobs and food.

Romel François, who used to be a street vendor and who now manages the cash-fo

SIDEBAR 2: Cash-for-work's predecessors in Haiti For almost 100 years the U.S. and others have been overseeing jobs programmes aimed at preventing "economic collapse" as well as "revolution" in Haiti. In addition to using his "Tonton macoutes" terror squads, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier had a programme of "make- work" jobs to help prevent any kind of uprising. But long before that, the U.S. began what has turned out to be a series of radical interventions in the Haitian economy. The first one occurred during the U.S. occupation (1915-1934). By its end, over a dozen agro- industries had sat on hundreds of thousands of acres of land, offering the now-landless peasants jobs for 10 to 30 cents a day. After the occupation, the U.S. government's Ex-Im Bank backed mostly U.S. investors who set up companies that had New Deal-like promises of employing thousands and stimulating consumption. The programmes and projects did produce many results, including corruption, deforestation, profits for foreign companies and debt – $33 million – for the Haitian government. But no real increase in jobs and demand. In 1993, during the coup d'état, when Washington realised that the return of then-exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was inevitable, USAID created an $18 million jobs programme to "increase the income of many poor Haitian families" and "create a sense of confidence and hope". Focusing on rehabilitation and improvement of agricultural land, the "JOBS Initiative" was bumped up to a total of $38 million, running for 34 months, and reportedly employed 50,000 workers a day at its peak. But a 1997 study, 'Feeding Dependency, Starving Democracy: USAID Policies in Haiti', showed that the JOBS Initiative produced few lasting results, since canals soon silted in and dirt roads reverted to their rocky state. Instead, the programme "actively strengthened anti- democratic forces and weakened grassroots, democratic organizations," in part by providing jobs to supporters of the illegal coup regime. The report also said the programme pulled peasants off the land, created new, "unsustainable" habits of consumption, hindered "volunteerism and community spirit and "generate[d] dependency." Was the objective really to "create a sense of confidence and hope"? Or was it also to assure that supporters of Aristide and the progressive democratic and popular movement didn't find terrain to mobilise once Constitutional order was restored in 1994?

or-work teams at a camp in the capital, said he thinks the non-governmental organisations should take over Haiti.

"Our future lies with NGOs! We can't count on the government. If it were for the government, we would be dead already," he said.

In the countryside, Wilson Pierre, who heads the Perèy Peasant Association and is running a 600-job programme, said that "whatever programme that comes our way, we'll do it. If it's work, and we get paid, we'll do it… I think these jobs should be permanent."

These attitudes are "very concerning", economist Camille Chalmers told Haiti Grassroots Watch. "This system of 'humanitarian economy' or 'emergency economy'… is locking the country into a 'humanitarian approach' and a dependency on aid."

And as people become more dependent, they become less engaged in their communities.

"There is a growing disconnect between what people think they can do as citizens because more and more roles are being played by NGOs and international actors in all domains... [and] it also legitimises the presence of international actors in all the domains," Chalmers added.

"International actors" have been in Haiti for almost a century, and they have been active in both the economic and political spheres. [see Sidebar 2]

Chalmers and others are troubled to note that sometimes cash-for-work programmes tie the two spheres together. A recent audit obtained by Haiti Grassrsoots Watch makes it clear.

The USAID Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), which through Jun. 30 had spent over $20 million on cash-for-work programmes, had as its primary goals to "support the Government of Haiti, promote stability, and decrease chances of unrest".

In a letter attached to the audit, Robert Jenkins, acting director of USAID-Haiti and AID/OTI, reiterated that the primary goal was not rubble-removal, it was "stability", and he added that the programmes were "clearly branded as a Government of Haiti initiative". In an election year, this heavily favours the incumbent party and its candidates.

Cash-for-work "is a double-edged sword, which doesn't do anything for the country, and which can even cause damage," said Adeline Augustin, a journalist from Radio Voice of the Peasant in Papaye and one of the Haiti Grassroots Watch journalists who carried out a three-week investigation into cash-for-work. "We need a sustainable economic plan based on national production."

*Read the complete series, see an accompanying video at Haiti Grassroots Watch – http://www.haitigrassrootswatch.org. Ayiti Kale Je (Haiti Eyes Peeled, in Creole), Haiti Grassroots Watch in English and Haïti Veedor (Haiti Watcher in Spanish), is a collaboration of two well-known Haitian grassroots media organisations, Groupe Medialternatif/Alterpresse (http://www.alterpresse.org/) and the Society for the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS - http://www.saks- haiti.org/), along with two networks – the network of women community radio broadcasters (REFRAKA) and the Association of Haitian Community Media (AMEKA), which is comprised of community radio stations located throughout the country.