The president visits Ruhango. Photo: PaulKagame on Flickr

The East African nation of Rwanda has come a long way since a horrific genocide 16 years ago resulted in the death of around 800,000 Tutsis, as well as “moderate” Hutus who opposed the genocidaires.

President Paul Kagame’s Tutsi-dominated government has achieved economic, political, and military stability at a time when many surrounding governments face major crises. Many Western admirers look at the Rwandan president as a model leader in the developing world.

Martin Savidge hosts journalist and author Stephen Kinzer and human rights activist Noel Twagiramungu to discuss:

• Post-genocide politics: moving forward, justice & ethnic divisions
• Regional rivalries: security concerns, Rwandan alliances & Congo wars
• Big Picture/U.S.: Sarkozy visit, Clinton regrets & Obama policies

Guests:

Stephen Kinzer is a foreign correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents for The New York Times and Boston Globe. Kinzer’s most recent book is A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It.

Noel Twagiramungu, a PhD student at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, worked as a rights activist in Rwanda from 1991 until he fled in 2004. As general secretary of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, Twagiramungu documented government abuses.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producer: Ben Piven
Associate Producer: Connie Kargbo

A protester outside Uganda’s UN mission in New York City on November 19, 2009. Photo from Flickr user riekhavoc

Over the last six months there has been a worrying surge of institutional homophobia in a number of African states.

In October 2009, Uganda proposed an Anti-Homosexuality Bill that if enacted would introduce the death penalty for those who are HIV-positive and homosexuals with multiple convictions. In addition, South Africa is set to appoint an openly homophobic journalist, Jon Qwelane, as the country’s ambassador to Uganda. Qwelane has published several articles in which he expresses his disdain of gays and has even likened homosexuality to bestiality.

Meanwhile, in Malawi the first gay couple to marry openly was arrested in early January 2010 and faces up to 14 years in prison if the prosecution prove they had sexual relations; and lawmakers in Nigeria are drafting a bill to outlaw same sex marriage.

Gay activists affected by the continued criminalization of their sexuality have written about daily life under the shadow of the proposed Ugandan bill.

From GayUganda, commentary on “sexual minorities in Uganda and Africa”:

We live like ostriches, heads buried in the sand. We party and dance, and forget that we can be deprived of life and freedom. Because we are what we are. I was with some friends who are HIV positive. Asked them what they think about the bill. Silence.

I think I lost my temper. Told them in detail what the bill says. If they are ever caught having sex, them, because they are positive, then they are due to have the death penalty. I don’t joke, because those are the facts.

GayUganda also writes that the planned bill targets more than just homosexual males and makes no concessions to individual circumstances:

[T]his bill is hell on earth. We can’t fight it from the shadows. And, we have to fight it in the face of people who are ready to tell lies, even to the text of the bill, even when it is absolutely specific in language. Have gay sex when you have HIV, doesn’t matter whether you a man or woman. On conviction, life in prison, or death. It doesn’t matter that you have used any protection. It doesn’t matter that you have a partner who is a consenting adult. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know that you are HIV positive.

The Ugandan Member of Parliament responsible for the bill, David Bahati, acceded on January 21 that he will “amend some clauses” in the face of domestic and international opposition and President Yoweri Museveni has distanced himself from the proposed legislation. Observers and activists are concerned, however, that despite the setback to the bill, it will be put before parliament in the near future.

From AfroGay, commentary on gay rights in Africa:

[D]o you remember that the bill was going to be presented to the floor of Parliament in January 2010. Well, keep your eyes open for it. You are not going to see this bill tabled in Parliament this month. February perhaps? Ah, maybe, but most likely not. March? Oh, who is counting?

Others are concerned about the bill’s potential to influence African countries where homosexuality remains a criminal offense.

From BlackLooks, a blog on African affairs:

The Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill remains in place. It will set a dangerous precedent across the continent if it gets passed on any level let alone with the death penalty.  It could influence and encourage those behind the Nigerian Bill as well as the governments in Gambia, Senegal, Malawi, Kenya and Zambia which have all taken a draconian stance towards same sex relationships in their countries.

-James Matthews

Barack Obama, the first U.S. president of African origin, visited the continent last summer to great fanfare.

To discuss Obama and Africa, Martin Savidge is joined by Sarjoh Bah, a senior fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, and Emira Woods, co-director of the Foreign Policy in Focus program at the Institute of Policy Studies.

For more on the Obama and the World series click here.

Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson

Ayo Johnson is a contributing blogger for Worldfocus. He writes about how West African presidents are taking the lead in the fight against corruption.

The presidents of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana are raising the bar for the continent by declaring publicly their commitment to fight corruption.

The Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma became the first head of state to declare his assets to the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia went one step further,  offering financial incentives for whistleblowers to expose corrupt officials. The Ghanaian President John Atta-Mills has refused to accept gifts from anyone.

All three presidents have sent the vitally important message: corruption will not be accepted in any form.

The issue of corruption has long been a cancer and a shameful scourge on the African continent. It is estimated that corruption cost the African continent over $150 billion a year. That is money that could have been spent on health education and building up the rural economy.

As awareness of issues surrounding corruption has intensified in the world, some African nations like Sierra Leone are now beginning to change their laws to make it harder for corrupt officials to stash stolen money in foreign banks.

The presidents of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana have shown great courage and exemplary leadership by leading the fight against corruption for the rest of Africa to follow.

Developed nations in the West now have a positive role to play, in promoting good governance and monitoring poorer economies.

- Ayo Johnson

An editorial in Sierra Leone’s Daily Mail echos that sentiment.

‘Cor­rup­tion in Africa ranges from high-level polit­i­cal graft on the scale of mil­lions of dol­lars to low-level bribes to police offi­cers or cus­toms offi­cials. In as much as polit­i­cal graft imposes the largest direct finan­cial cost on coun­try, petty bribes have a cor­ro­sive effect on basic insti­tu­tions and under­mine pub­lic trust in the gov­ern­ment…. Africans must demand trans­parency and account­abil­ity in gov­ern­ment. Inde­pen­dent Cor­rup­tion watch­dogs free from gov­ern­ment con­trol and influ­ence must be estab­lished to inves­ti­gate, pros­e­cute and severely pun­ish offi­cials who engage in cor­rupt prac­tices. The peo­ple should be given access to state rev­enue sta­tis­tics in all its form through pub­li­ca­tion in local media. We must take con­trol of our country’s finances and end this era of cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment of our wealth and resources.

With the recent discovery of oil in Sierra Leone, investors are pouring into the country looking to get a piece of the liquid gold. This article from the Daily Nation reports on the oil discovery and its link to corruption.

Sierra Leone’s anti-corruption commissioner has a simple message for foreign investors coming to his country for its mines and oil — offer bribes and you could find yourself in prison….The former human rights and insurance lawyer said his commission would have no compunction about prosecuting corrupt foreign investors in court in the capital Freetown, and that could land them in a Sierra Leonean prison.

Still, anti-corruption efforts face serious challenges in Africa.  Among them, as Forbes columnist John Hooker argues, are traditional practices that worked well in different settings in many non-Western countries.

In a traditional village context, African leaders earned respect by judiciously bestowing gifts and favors on their subjects. That wasn’t simply a patronage system; it was also a form of rational redistribution. The chief channeled wealth where it was most needed, increasing the community’s survival advantage. With the coming of colonialism and Western-style institutions, men frequently left villages to take government jobs in the capital. They continued to use gifts to obtain influence, but they left behind the social context that had structured and guided the practice. Responsible generosity became irresponsible influence peddling.

Business executives operating in Africa today should try to earn the influence they need through responsible generosity. They might build infrastructure or schools instead of paying off officials or political parties. There–and in general–the key to avoiding corruption is to understand what makes the local business culture work, and to stick to practices that reinforce the system, not ones that tear it apart.

- Stephanie Savage

But surprisingly enough, the prison was also home to a vibrant football league. Andy Richardson of Al Jazeera English reports from Robben Island.

Last year, the Economist magazine slotted Ethiopia as the fourth fastest growing economy in the world, ahead of China. The World Bank report “Doing Business 2010” ranks Ethiopia in the top 10 African nations in terms of the ease of doing business. The Ethiopian government is trying to strengthen local and regional businesses and attract foreign direct investment.

Martin Savidge, Ethiopian businessman Ermyas Amelga and economics professor Phillip LeBel discuss how easy it is to do business in Ethiopia, who’s investing and what this means as Ethiopia moves from an agrarian society to a more urban society. The entrenched poverty hinders the robust investment environment, saddling the country with drought, food shortages and inadequate infrastructure.

Some highlights from the show:

• Ethiopia is not a resource-based economy. The sectors that are thriving in Ethiopia are real estate, construction, services, manufacturing, textiles and commercial agriculture with arable land leasing
• A growing population topping 80 million people make Ethiopia a strong consumer society
• Major investors in Ethiopia: China, India, Turkey and Egypt — the U.S. is not a major investor
• Ethiopia’s poverty-stricken image and government-controlled electronic communications and the Internet are potential hurdles to foreign investment
• Ethiopia’s Diaspora community is driving Ethiopia’s real estate boom

Martin Savidge hosts the following guests:

Ermyas Amelga is an Ethiopian businessman based in Addis Ababa. In 1996, he returned to Ethiopia after academic training and working in investment banking in the U.S. He has founded or acquired 11 companies, overseeing more than 2000 employees in the mining, oil, agriculture and financial services sectors. Ermyas also consults investors on entering the Ethiopian market.

Phillip LeBel is an economist and business professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey. He specializes in economics of developing countries, with emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia. This Spring, he was a Fulbright senior fellow in Addis Ababa teaching natural resources economics. He has consulted for USAID, the World Bank, UNESCO, WHO, FAO and the U.S. State Department on various subjects pertaining to economic policy issues.

For more coverage on Ethiopia, watch Worldfocus’ signature videos on the coffee industry, a remote village and Ethiopia’s history and beauty. Watch the PBS Wide Angle film “The Market Maker” about one woman who has created a commodities exchange and revolutionized agricultural distribution in the country.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven

For more Worldfocus coverage of Ethiopia, visit our extended coverage page: Ethiopia Past and Present.

Worldfocus correspondent Martin Seemungal reports from Ethiopia’s coffee country, where farmers are deciding to plant corn and khat, a leafy drug that is chewed with stimulating effects somewhere between caffeine and cocaine.

For more on Worldfocus’ coverage on Ethiopia, click here. Listen to Worldfocus Radio on Entrepreneurship in Ethiopia. Watch the PBS Wide Angle film “The Market Maker” about one woman who has created a commodities exchange and revolutionized agricultural distribution in the country.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Ethiopia, visit our extended coverage page: Ethiopia Past and Present.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Ethiopia, visit our extended coverage page: Ethiopia Past and Present.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Ethiopia, visit our extended coverage page: Ethiopia Past and Present.

It collects surplus medical supplies — such as hospital beds from a facility that is upgrading — and ships them to Africa.

Dalijit Dhaliwal spoke last week with Doc to Dock’s founder, Dr. Bruce Charash.  He says the supplies are desperately needed in a continent where some hospitals are so ill-equipped that women give birth on the floor.

Children in Ethiopia’s highlands. Photo: Flickr user turkairo

Organizations large and small — from the World Bank to local NGOs — are working to eliminate public health scourges in Africa. Whether sending malaria prophylactics or collecting leftover medical supplies, Americans also contribute to the fight against major health problems.

Do you think the United States has a moral obligation to do more to alleviate hunger and disease around the world?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Worldfocus partner A24 reports on a kingly celebration.

It’s a task complicated by both a worldwide financial crisis and a steep learning curve about economics.

Watch the full film and find more information at the Wide Angle website.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Ethiopia, visit our extended coverage page: Ethiopia Past and Present.

Modern buildings such as this nightclub and restaurant have emerged out of the old Accra.

Accra, the capital city of Ghana, was host to U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent trip to Africa, during which he pushed developing countries to strive to build prosperity and progress.

Although Accra continues to have problems with its sewage system, among other things, it is modernizing at a relatively quick rate. Ghana as a whole maintains an 11 percent unemployment rate and a 28 1/2 percent poverty rate, both comparatively lower than many of the country’s neighbors.

Ethan Zuckerman of the blog My heart’s in Accra visited Accra and compares the city now to the city he saw during a trip more than a decade earlier.

Visiting Accra feels like time travelling. [...]

I feel as if I could recreate the past by layering a thin film on top of the current reality - a scrim that covers that new four-story shopping plaza with the disused concrete and rebar hulk that stood there a decade before. Add some burning plastic and we’d be able to take me back to a past I remember, if I squint a little bit. It’s the same place, just gentrified, in a particularly Ghanaian fashion. My friend Amos met me for lunch at Asanka Local, a deservedly popular chop bar that’s new since my last visit, and mentioned that he was looking for a house in the area to use as an office. He figured he’d need to spend at least 100,000 cedis, or about $67,000. Makes me wish I’d bought the apartment building I used to live in.

When I visited the Accra Mall on Sunday, there was no amount of squinting that could have convinced me that I was in a country I knew and understood. Ten minutes past the airport, the mall features two supermarkets, a cinema, several high-end boutiques and an excellent bookshop. It’s beautiful, as nice as its counterparts in Nairobi and Cape Town, and it’s got a steady buzz of people, tourist, Filipino overseas workers, Lebanese traders and lots of middle-class Ghanaians.

The bookshop left me babbling. In 1993, the only bookstores we had in Accra were the university shop in Legon, which featured required reading texts, Akan-English dictionaries, and the occasional heavily used Mario Puzo novel, for $5.

[...] And then there’s the grocery store. When I first came to Accra, I asked the bartender at the hotel where I was staying where I should shop for food. “All the obruni go to Danquah Circle. You can get anything you imagine there.” I walked around for a couple of hours, visiting the handful of western-style food shops and discovering that my imagination now needed to be limited to canned corned beef, canned mackerel, dried beans and pasta. Add in the amazing fruits and vegetables on sale on almost every corner, and we had a perfectly servicable diet, but one light on the comfort food that everyone needs now and again. My family and friends ended up feeling like they were supplying a prisoner, sending me letters that included packets of dried orange cheese mix so I could buy pasta, oil and a little milk and make macaroni and cheese. A letter from Rachel included sheets of nori, which led to a sushi party, using soy sauce bought from one of the Chinese restaurants in town. I almost got into a fistfight with a housemate about his incursions into my most prized posession - a jar of Skippy peanut butter.

And now there’s a supermarket, and it has cheese. A whole cold case full of it. Apples aren’t luxury items sold for a dollar a piece by roadside hawkers - you can buy them by the kilo. I looked like a madman, walking through Shoprite with my camera, snapping photos of remarkable, miraculous sights - chickens, already gutted and plucked, frozen and in bags! - that looked completely ordinary to everyone around me.

I don’t know that one could come to Accra and pretend that it’s 1994 anymore. If the mobile phones don’t give it away - with phonecard sellers, repair shops and charging stations on every corner - the architecture does. [...]

My friends who support the NDC - the party that regained control in the most recent election - tell me that NDC won because people felt like eight years of NPP government had resulted in a lot of developments that looked like Citizen Kofi and not much improvement of schools or infrastructure. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair - driving throughout the city, I saw roads I knew to be almost impassible that are now paved and smooth. I ask about whether a particular neighborhood is still plagued by traffic jams and learn that a two-lane road has been replaced with a six-lane carriageway with two flyovers.

Is this just benefitting the comparatively wealthy who are lucky enough to live in the capital city? No idea - I was there for 51 hours, and I didn’t get outside Greater Accra. And I know it’s a mistake to characterize the direction of a country based on half a dozen long walks and conversations with a dozen old friends. But I felt like I was catching glimpses of a future Accra, the stylish capital of a middle-income nation.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user ethanz under a Creative Commons license.

Worldfocus was nominated for an Emmy in the “Best story in a regularly scheduled newscast” category for our coverage of the “Crisis in Congo” (Executive Producer: Marc Rosenwasser, Correspondent: Michael J. Kavanagh of the Pulitzer Center, Producers: Lisa Biagiotti, Taylor Krauss). The “Crisis in Congo” videos also won the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in the international television category.

Pascal and Vestine are alive, but still not home

Rape as a weapon of war

Worldfocus was also nominated for an Emmy in the “Outstanding feature story in a regularly scheduled broadcast” for our coverage of “21st Century Africa” (Executive Producer: Marc Rosenwasser, Correspondent: Martin Seemungal, Producer: Yuval Lion).

China strengthens trading ties in Africa

Middle class sprawls in Nairobi, Kenya

Tech advances rev up across Africa

Rwanda aims for one laptop per child

Obama’s message was described as a kind of “tough love,” encouraging democracy and at the same time warning African nations they need to take care of themselves.

Yaw Nyarko, a professor of economics and director of Africa House at New York University, joins Martin Savidge to discuss why the president chose Ghana and what is at stake for the U.S. in Africa.

Longtime CNN correspondent Gary Strieker, now a citizen correspondent, traveled to western Kenya recently, where he discovered a health project taking that very approach.

Michael Novacek, provost of science at the American Museum of Natural History, joins Martin Savidge to discuss scientific methods used to fight the ivory trade and animals that are at risk.

Over the past several decades, women politicians have made strides in Africa. The share of parliamentary seats held by women increased from 7 percent in 1990 to 17 percent in 2007.

The Rwandan parliament is a world leader in terms of female political participation, with 56 percent of its seats held by women. Liberia now has Africa’s first elected woman president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Watch Worldfocus’ signature story and an extended interview with Sirleaf: Africa’s first elected female president lifts Liberia.

But this heightened gender equality in government has not necessarily translated into equality in everyday life for the majority of African women, who still face disproportionate poverty, violence and challenges in accessing education.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored the political, economic and social implications of the rise of women power players in Africa.

Thank you for your questions. Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

Micheline Ravololonarisoa is the chief of the Africa Section at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). She has more than 25 years of experience as a sociologist, feminist and activist specializing in African development and women’s issues. Micheline began her activist career with a student movement in her native Madagascar and was forced to leave the country in 1974 because of this work. She has served as program director at the Agency for Cooperation Research and Development (ACORD) and remains a member of several African and international women’s networks, including Akina Mama wa Afrika and ABANTU for Development.

Lynn Sherr is an award-winning journalist and author who has contributed to Worldfocus reports from Liberia, Guatemala, Mexico and Nicaragua. She is a former correspondent with ABC’s “20/20″ and covered a wide range of stories, specializing in women’s issues and social changes, as well as investigative reports. Lynn is the author of “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words” and “Tall Blondes.”

Aili Mari Tripp is a professor of political science and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the director of the Women’s Studies Research Center. Her research has focused on women and politics in Africa, women’s movements in Africa, transnational feminism, African politics (with particular reference to Uganda and Tanzania), and on the informal economy in Africa. She is co-author of “African Women’s Movements: Transforming Political Landscapes” and author of “Women and Politics in Uganda” and “Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania.”

See related Worldfocus videos and blogs:

Women rank high in Rwanda’s government

Africa’s first elected female president lifts Liberia

Liberian summit celebrates African women with laughter

Women’s movement transforms post-war Liberia

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Nicole E. Foster and Katie Combs