Out of Africa: Mysteries of Access and Benefit Sharing by the Edmonds Institute with collaboration of the African Centre for Biosafety, details 36 cases of bio-piracy in Africa. These case studies are of medicines, cosmetics, and agricultural products that originate from biodiversity (including plants, marine life and microbes) in African countries that have been patented by multinational companies without there being evidence of benefits accruing to the countries of origin. You will find the report at www.edmonds-institute.org

Campaign against small arms (IANSA Communications, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

The Million Faces Petition has reached 943.000 faces! It will be delivered to the UN at the start of the Review Conference on 26 June. Many campaigners will be delivering their national photo petitions to their governments during the 100-Day countdown. An excellent opportunity for delivering national photo petitions will be the Global Week of Action Against Small Arms, 22-29 May 2006.

Update “Controlarms” Campaign - Burundi
In Burundi, the ITEKA League for Human Rights and the Centre of Training and Development for Ex-Combatants (CEDAC) are collecting guns from ex-combatants all over the country and then destroying them.  There will also be a conference-debate with parliamentarians, members of the government, politicians, and civil society on the need for a national plan of action on civilian disarmament and new national legislation on gun ownership.

Oil Grab in the Gulf of Guinea
(by Ugh McCullum http://www.africafiles.org/atissueezine.asp#art1)

The Gulf of Guinea is the open arm of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the great bend of the coast of West Africa. The exploitation of major offshore oil deposits began in the late 1990s and very conservative estimates claim reserves are in excess of 35 billion barrels of recoverable oil, one of the largest reserves in the world, after the Middle East. Multi-national oil giants are jostling for position with widespread production and exploitation in as many as 11 nations. The Gulf also harbours one of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world and is one of the planet’s richest and most diverse ecosystems and biodiversities. It is also potentially one of the most explosive regions in Africa with cocktails of poverty and underdevelopment, organized crime and unstable, undemocratic regimes.

Sâo Tomé is a classic example of what could happen in Africa’s new oil boom. Coupled with its even smaller island of Principe, it straddles the equator, with 190.000 dirt-poor subsistence farmers as a population. As slaves, they first discovered oil 200 years ago in bubbling pools that were unexploitable until recently. Today, those bulling pools contain at least 4 perhaps 10 billions barrels of oil and the first $100 million down payment from ExxoMobil, the world’s largest oil company, has been paid to one of the most impoverished nations in the world. It could become the Qatar or Kuwait of Africa.

W Nairobi W

For the last two years the WNairobiW Campaign has been working to defend the right to land and housing in the shantytowns surrounding Nairobi. The campaign results from the co-ordination of missionaries, Italian and International Organisations and Christian Networks in Kenya, alongside AfrikaSi, an organisation that works in the shantytowns surrounding the Kenyan capital. An initial success enjoyed by the WNairobiW! Campaign has been the suspension since March 2004 of the forced evictions of 300,000 people in Nairobi.

Now the challenge continues with the matter of restructuring Kenya’s external debt to Italy, to promote development and improve living conditions among the most vulnerable residents of the Kenyan capital.

With this objective the WNairobiW! Campaign is echoing the response of the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Alfredo Luigi Mantica, to the parliamentary interpellation of the Deputy Giachetti.

Always making use of interaction with Italian missionaries and the networks of civil society in Italy and Kenya, the WNairobiW! Campaign met with representatives of the Italian government in January 2006 and reaffirmed the following priorities to them:

• Obtaining guarantees from the government of Kenya and the local authorities that all demolition and eviction operations will be blocked.
• Setting-up, within the agreed framework of the restructuring of the debt between Kenya and Italy, a “People’s Fund for Land and Housing” which should receive the newly released economic resources and which would be controlled by all interested parties, especially by local civil society.
• Ensuring that the funds from the debt restructuring are invested in the regeneration of two suburbs where consultation and organisation among the population are more advanced, thanks also to the work of the Kutoka Parish Network: the populations of the Soweto and Korogocho shanty towns would thus become a model, replicable in other large suburban areas, if further funds were to be released through the restructuring of other debts.
• It is necessary to arrive at agreement on two key points: i) the ownership of the lands in the suburbs which are to be regenerated should be accorded to the communities which live on them (Community title deed); ii) there should be a guarantee that Kenyan society will take part by means of a clear, formal and efficient method of participation throughout the process (management of the Fund, regeneration plan, effective completion stages). This participation cannot be limited solely to the consultation process but should be extended also to the decision-making.

World Bank approves Final Plans for Debt Cancellation Deal

On 28 March, the World Bank announced that the Bank’s Executive Board had approved the final plans for implementation of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). 17 countries can expect to benefit from IDA debt cancellation as of 1 July 2006 with a further 25 countries becoming eligible over the next five years.

On a positive note the Bank has reversed its decision to provide debt cancellation only once annually. The Bank has now said that it will provide cancellation every fiscal quarter, following intense lobby efforts from civil society organisations on this issue. The highest standards in transparency should be expected not only of the beneficiary countries but of the Bank also.

Brussels, 19 April 2006