UN NEWS
As part of its Knowledge Sharing initiative,  the UN Country Team in Ethiopia has organized a discussion forum on the theme “Biofuel, a viable alternative source of Energy?” on  Thursday, 5th June 2008 at Sheraton Addis from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.  In his opening remarks, Mr. Fidele Sarassoro, the UN Resident Coordinator, UN Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative,  remarked that “Bioenergy is emerging as a top priority as countries face the triple challenge of ensuring energy security, food security and sustainable development.”   He also further reminded the message from Mr. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, addressed on the World Environment Day of June 5, that our dependence on carbon-based energy has caused a significant build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

During the discussion forum presentations has been carried out on different ongoing practices and experiences of the Government, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), UN, Private Sector and Research Institutes by different panelists.  The discussion forum has been attended by His Excellency Mr. Mekonnen Manyazewal State Minister of Finance and Economic Development, His Excellency Dr. Abera Deressa, State Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, UN Agencies working in Ethiopia, Civil Society Organizations, and Governmental sector offices.

The forum was the first edition of the UN Country Team Knowledge Sharing initiative which is part of the effort of the UNCT in Ethiopia to promote and create space for exchange of ideas, information and knowledge.

By Scott Baldauf, The Christian Science Monitor

Tshwane, South Africa — More than three weeks after beginning, South Africa’s xenophobic attacks continue as the nation’s leaders urge communities to begin bringing African immigrants from other countries back into their communities.

Just days after a Mozambican man was burnt alive in the township of Atteridgeville, and police raided a camp near the nation’s capital, swinging clubs and firing rubber bullets and injuring dozens of the nearly 1,500 Somalis, Ethiopians, and Congolese inside, President Thabo Mbeki made a renewed appeal for the violence to stop. More than 62 have died since the violence began.

Speaking at a ceremony commemorating Youth Day on Monday, Mr. Mbeki praised the past efforts of South African youth in the liberation struggle that ended the racist system of apartheid. But, he added, “at the same time, we must admit that all of us have been humiliated and shamed by the small number of young people who took it upon themselves to lead criminal attacks against the Africans living among us.”

Kgalema Motlanthe, the ruling African National Congress party’s No. 2, reinforced the message at a speech in Soweto: “The current situations suggest that we are sinking into a flood.”

While few predicted the anti-immigrant attacks, the warning signs have been present for years. Attacks against Somali shopkeepers alone have led to hundreds of deaths in sporadic violence since 1994, say Somali groups. The government doesn’t track attacks based on national origin.

Anger about the government’s inability to create jobs or to deliver electricity or drinking water to burgeoning townships has spilled over into open protests, complete with roadblocks, burning tires, and residents wielding clubs. Now, angry citizens have taken their frustrations out those who arrived in South Africa to make a little money, and succeeded.

“We’re talking about the poorest of the [South African] poor, and there was no pressure valve, and so when the pressure grew, and you lit a match, the whole thing blew,” says Adrian Hadland, director of democracy and governance programs at the Human Sciences Research Council. Dr. Hadland recently conducted focus groups in townships for a report for the government on the causes of and solutions for xenophobic attacks.

In the focus groups, “People describe themselves as being in a state of siege. Food is more expensive. Housing is more expensive. Jobs are harder to find. You would already be looking for a scapegoat, and then you have migrants arriving, most of them better educated, some of them with access to money,” he says. The violence is “nothing new, but what is new is how the violence spread so rapidly, and nationally.”

Tito Mboweni, the Reserve Bank Governor, said earlier this month that poor South Africans spend half of their income on food alone. “Food and petrol prices are the main contributors to inflation, but in recent months, more generalized price pressures have emerged as well,” said Mr. Mboweni.

While government officials like President Mbeki are urging citizens to allow the migrants to return, Hadland says that few South Africans want reintegration to begin until the government meets some of their demands for better service and less corruption.

Judging from the mood at a transit camp for migrants north of Tshwane, as Pretoria is now called, few migrants would return to their former homes and businesses anyway without assurances for their safety.

On Saturday, violent clashes between camp dwellers – most of them Somalis, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Congolese – and local police left dozens injured when police used clubs and fired rubber bullets to bring a restive crowd under control. Tensions rose, camp dwellers say, after a policeman demanded cigarette from a camp dweller, and when he was refused, he insisted on searching the boy for drugs.

More police were called in to search the camp for weapons, but when police entered a tent that had been designated as a mosque, camp dwellers pushed them out, and the violence began. Camp dwellers say that three persons – one Ethiopian and two Somalis – were killed during the Saturday raid, but pol ice took away their bodies. Police confirm only that some of the camp dwellers were injured.

“I am encouraged to see the situation is under control,” Tshwane Executive Mayor Gwen Ramokgopa told a community meeting after the police raid. She said the raid occurred after a female police officer was “held hostage” within the camp, a charge the camp dwellers deny.

“For 15 years, Somalis have been killed in robberies, their shops burnt, but the government did nothing,” says Abdul Abbas, a spokesman for the Somali community in the camp. “Then when the xenophobic attacks started, they did nothing again. They saved our lives, but they did nothing to save our shops. Then they bring us here, and now the police are fighting us. We are fed up.”

Yitbarak, a young Somali whose shop in a Johannesburg township was burned by angry mobs 23 days ago, says that conditions in the camp are abysmal, that it’s not safe to leave. “The government says they are going to protect us, but it is the police who are attacking us,” he says. “The police tell us, ‘Go home, this is not your country. This is South Africa.’ ”

Elmi Hissa, an elderly Somali shopkeeper, says that she has been robbed more times than she can remember in the past 10 years, and each time moved to a different community – from Johannesburg to Durban to Cape Town to Kimberly to Pretoria – in the hopes that the local people would accept her once they got to know her.

“For 10 years I was patient, but now I’m tired,” she sighs.

“You struggle hard, you work hard, and after that people take it from you. You go to police and they say, why don’t you go to your own country?” The reason she doesn’t go back, she says, is that there’s a war in Somalia that has already claimed seven of her children. “Sometimes I think until I cry,” she says. “South Africa is not the place to stay anymore. You can’t stay with people who don’t want you.”

Lukmaan Abdullah, a young Somali clothing salesman, fled Somalia just two months ago, when warlords came to take him as a soldier. His parents sold the house they were living in in order to pay for his transportation to South Africa, hoping the young man would be able to make enough money to help the family survive.

The day he arrived, however, the xenophobic attacks began, and Mr. Abdullah has spent the past 23 days in this camp. “When I left Somalia, the rockets were hitting the market where I worked. When I came here, the xenophobic attacks had just started. If I go back now, there will be no other way but to work with the warlords. They will force me, without a doubt.”

MOGADISHO, Somalia — A roadside bomb killed two policemen in Mogadishu just minutes after a convoy carrying Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed had driven past, reports said Wednesday.

Yusuf has been targeted several times in recent months, including by a mortar attack on his plane as he flew to Djibouti to meet with UN officials there to push for a peace deal.

Three other people were injured in the latest attack, the BBC reported.

Somalia and some opposition figures earlier this month agreed a cease, but insurgents battling the transitional government have rejected the deal.

Violence has continued unabated and fighting in Mogadishu Tuesday killed at least seven people.

The deaths came as the insurgents late Tuesday attacked government and Ethiopian Woyanne troops searching for weapons in people’s homes.

The UN’s refugees chief on Wednesday also called the plight of Somalis packed into a border camp in Kenya a desperate cry for peace in their homeland.

At the sprawling camp in Dadaab where nearly 200,000 refugees people are sheltered, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said Somalia is one of the world’s worst crises, and the international community has ignored it for too long.

The Somali crisis is in the same league as Afghanistan, Iraq and Darfur, said Guterres as he toured the camp for Somali refugees in eastern Kenya, 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Somali border.

“We need to improve these living conditions for Somalis until peace allows them to go back,” said Guterres.

The conflict in Somalia seems to have grown more wretched every year since 1991, when warlords toppled Mohamed Siad Barre.

Source: Alalam

MOGADISHU (Xinhua) — A senior Somali police commander and two of his bodyguards were killed by a roadside bomb Wednesday shortly after the arrival of Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf backto Mogadishu, a Somali government official confirmed to reporters on Wednesday.

Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Mohamed Wasuge, head of the Western Section of Mogadishu police command and two of his bodyguards died as they were taking part in the security operation for the return of Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who came back from an official visit to Djibouti, Deputy Mogadishu Mayor for Security Affairs Abditetaf Shaweye said.

The blast occurred shortly after the president arrived in the capital. The commander’s vehicle was reportedly destroyed by the huge explosion which could be heard in much of the Somali capital.

The Somali president attended a regional summit in Addis Abba, the Ethiopian capital, before he went to Djibouti for an official visit. Peace talks between the Somali transitional government and opposition members were recently concluded in Djibouti.

No one has claimed for the assassination of the senior Somali police commander but Shaweye said that insurgents were behind the blast.

“The anti-peace forces who often disrupt the social peace and security are behind this heinous act but the security forces will pursue the perpetrators and put them before the law,” Shaweye said.

UN News

The Ethiopian HIV Knowledge Sharing Network: Community of Practice, a joint initiative of the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) and Federal HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office (HAPCO) was launched on May 29 during a one-day workshop held at the conference center of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The keynote address by the United Nations Resident Coordinator, Mr Fidele Sarassoro, and an opening speech by HAPCO Director General, Dr Betru Tekle, both stressed that the initiative will enhance the AIDS response through the networking of practitioners from HAPCO, sector responses, academic institutions and other researchers, NGOs, donors, civil society, the private sector and others.

The HIV Community of Practice connects professionals through electronic and face-to-face knowledge-sharing platforms. Its objectives are to enhance collaboration and coordination; to enable individual community members to learn faster, work smarter and avoid duplication; to open up a new channel for government to gauge the value and effectiveness of its policies and programmes; and to capture, synthesize, document and disseminate national success stories and indigenous knowledge.

The network will be moderated and facilitated by full-time staff members. A resource group chaired by Federal HAPCO will provide guidance and support. Membership is open to any practitioner working on HIV prevention, treatment, care and support at any levels. More than 100 HIV practitioners from a wide variety of stakeholder groups participated in the workshop and signed the HIV community of Practice Membership agreement. During the launching, the community began a discussion on “the situation of HIV transmission and the response among young people in tertiary education institutions”. Discussion on this issue will continue in the community e-discussion platform over the next few weeks. Practitioners working on HIV and Development at all levels are invited to join the community and contribute.

Basic Facts about Ethiopian HIV Knowledge sharing Network

Ethiopian HIV Knowledge Sharing Network is a joint initiative of United Nations Country Team in Ethiopia (UNCT) and the Federal HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office (HAPCO). Ethiopian HIV Knowledge Sharing Network is a Voluntary Knowledge Management Platform designed to enable individuals working in the area of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support to share useful knowledge, best practices and learn from each other in a spirit of collaboration.

Ethiopian HIV Knowledge Sharing Network: HIV Community of Practice (CoP) connects practitioners working on HIV/AIDS at public and private sector, Academic and research institutions civil society Organizations, Donors and other Stakeholders. Its Oobjectives are:

• to enhance collaboration and coordination;
• to enable individual community members to learn faster, work smarter and avoid duplication;
• to open up a new channel for government to gauge the value and effectiveness of its policies and programmes; and
• to capture synthesize, document and  publicize indigenous knowledge and national success stories.

Linked by a common vision, field of practice, challenges and engagement in development activities, HIV CoPs members will meet physically in face-to-face meetings and virtually on the electronic knowledge sharing platform (KSP) to continuously learn from each others’ knowledge, and expertise. The initiative will provide the following services to members and beyond:-

• Post quires and get solutions as a consolidated reply from community members experience  and  knowledge for challenges that encounter in their day-to-day activities
• E-Consultation for drafters of projects, programmes, plans, policies and legislation to obtain feedback from Community members as an input into finalization.
• E-Discussion to address and gain insights on issues of wide concern to the Community and build a case for further development of policies and programmes.
• Commission Action Group to produce a quick, strategic deliverable such as a project proposal, strategic plan, pilot project or action research.

In addition the initiative will systematically capture, synthesize, document as Consolidated Reply booklets, Best Practice books, Success Story pamphlets and disseminate the knowledge products of the community to wider public use.

The network will be moderated and facilitated by full-time staff members. A resource group chaired by Federal HAPCO will provide guidance and support.

Joining Ethiopian HIV Knowledge Sharing Network: HIV Community of Practice is free, voluntary and open to any practitioner working on HIV prevention, treatment, care and support related development programmes, interested in contributing advice, experience and expertise for use by others, or for adapting others’ advice, experience and expertise for their own use.

Your use of the Ethiopian HIV Knowledge Sharing Network: Community of Practice websites and /or your membership to the Community governed by the Community terms and conditions specified in the community membership agreement.

For further information please contact Dr. Amha Haile, Network facilitator for the HIV/AIDS CoP at [email protected]