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IRIN-WA Update 519 of events in West Africa (Friday 30 July 1999)
SIERRA LEONE: Refugee children neglected, NGO says
The US-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused
the international community of neglecting Sierra Leonean
refugee children living in camps in Guinea.
In a report released on 29 July, HRW also said that
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had failed
to ensure the security of the refugees and to prevent
or respond to domestic violence, sexual abuse, and
exploitation against refugee children.
"We're trying to do what we can within our limited resources," Marcellin Hepie, UNHCR Senior Programme Officer for West Africa, told IRIN on Friday. If UNHCR does not receive from the donor community the financing it needs to do its work, he said, the beneficiaries are affected.
UNHCR started a project in April to prevent sexual abuse and reduce prostitution to a minimum, according to the minutes of a meeting on 2 July between HRW and UNHCR officials. UNHCR initiatives in the camps also include an income-generating project for women, especially heads of households, whose cost, Hepie said, is around US $50,000.
"The more resources, we have the more we can do," Hepie said.
[See separate item titled 'SIERRA LEONE: HRW Sends out S.O.S. in favour of refugee children'
LIBERIA: Ex-combatant situation - an "emergency issue"
The situation of Liberia's former combatants will be addressed as an "emergency issue" at a meeting of UN agency heads in Monrovia on 4 August, Felix Downes-Thomas, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, told IRIN on Friday.
Some 150-200 veterans, including some disabled during the civil war, demonstrated "energetically" outside the UN Peace Building office in Monrovia on Tuesday, demanding resettlement benefits from the international community, Downes-Thomas said.
They spoke of their feelings of neglect and accused the United Nations and the rest of the international community of not keeping a promise to help them reintegrate into society - including by providing skills training - after they handed over their weapons to the ECOWAS Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) at the end of the civil war.
"We champion your cause but there have been financial constraints," Downes-Thomas told Eric Meyers, spokesman of the Veterans Association of Liberia, at a meeting on Thursday. He told him UN agency heads would meet next week to deal with their situation.
[See separate item titled 'Ex-combatant situation - an "emergency issue"']
Civil servants salaries to be increased
Salaries for Liberia's civil servants, who number about 40,000, are to be quadrupled, Finance Minister John Bestman told IRIN on Friday.
"The minimum gross salary will be 850 Liberian dollars (US $21) and the ceiling will be 2,500 Liberian dollars," Bestman said. "The government wants to increase people's disposable income to serve as an economic stimulus."
The current gross minimum salary for civil servants is 200 Liberian dollars.
The increase was already programmed in the budget and will be financed out of improved tax collection and streamlining other expenditures such as foreign travel. Payment to civil servants will be retroactive to 1 July, Bestman added.
TOGO: Parties sign deal to defuse political crisis
Togo's political parties on Thursday signed a framework
agreement to defuse a prolonged political crisis that
came to a head in June 1998 with President Gnassingbe
Eyadema's disputed re-election, news organisations
reported.
The agreement noted decisions by Eyadema not to seek another term and to rerun the March 1999 parliamentary elections - boycotted by the opposition - in March 2000, according to the Republic of Togo web site. Eyadema, who seized power in 1967, announced on 23 July that he would not seek re-election when his term expires in 2003.
Thursday's agreement, that capped 10 days of talks between the ruling Rassemblement du Peuple togolais (RPT) and the opposition, provides for the creation of an independent national electoral commission and mechanisms to complete Togo's transition to democracy, which began in the early 1990s.
AFP quoted Gilchrist Olympio, head of the Union des Forces du Changement (UFC) as saying that the pact was a good start but that "there are shady areas and specific issues to be settled".
Olympio, who maintains that he won the 1998 presidentials,
told AFP the first question the UFC would lay before
a follow-up committee made up of opposition and ruling
party representatives would be "the date of legislative
and presidential elections".
Thursday's agreement notes the disagreement between
the parties on the 1998 presidential poll. It said
"the parties to the dialogue have agreed to transcend
the past and look toward the future".
However, Olympio said there was no question of agreeing to Eyadema's finishing his term of office and he insisted on a re-run of the 1998 presidential election.
The European Union has conditioned any resumption of its aid to Togo, suspended in 1993, on the settlement of the political crisis.
GUINEA BISSAU: United Nations sets up trust fund
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced on Thursday the establishment of a Trust Fund in Support of the Activities of the United Nations Peace-building Support Office in Guinea-Bissau.
The fund is now ready to receive contributions that will go to mobilizing international political assistance for Guinea Bissau. The fund will be used to enhance the participation of civil society and the armed forces in peace-building,democracy and the rule of law process, and contribute to the civic education of former combatants, national armed forces and police.
The contributions will also go towards helping the government to implement its programme of voluntary arms collection, disposal and destruction, as well as demining.
Annan had recommended the establishment of the fund in a report on 1 July 1999 to the Security Council on the situation in the he country. The fund, part of the United Nations' contribution to the restoration and consolidation of peace in the country, will also be used to support the work of the UN Country Team in Guinea-Bissau.
The team is engaged in reconciliation efforts, the establishment and strengthening of democratic institutions and the development of an integrated approach to peace-building programmes.
Contributions to the fund will be accepted from governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, or private institutions and individuals, the United Nations says. Pledges and contributions, it adds, will be accepted only by the Secretary-General or officials acting on his behalf.
The following bank account will keep the fund's resources: United Nations General Trust Fund Account The Chase Manhattan International Agencies Banking Account No. 001-1-508140 ABA 021-000-021 For the Trust Fund in support of the activities of the United Nations Peace-building Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS)
UNITED NATIONS: Global forum on human development
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Thursday that the world needed advice on how to manage globalisation to ensure it benefits everyone, according to a UN news release on Thursday.
"One of the things we look for, from experts like you, is advice on how to manage globalisation, how to catch it at the flood and channel it so that all can benefit," Annan told government ministers, policymakers and academics at the Global Forum on Development in New York.
He said industrialisation and urbanisation needed to be managed so that they do not do irreversible damage to the global environment and those people who controlled financial resources must be persuaded to "to deploy them in ways that will enable the poor to lift themselves out of poverty".
The three-day forum, organised by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), is the first in a series of annual events to stimulate discussion on recent innovations in human development concepts, measurements and policies.
The events are intended to provide an opportunity for dialogue between the research community, policy makers and development practitioners.
The forum also celebrated the tenth year of the Human Development Report.
AFRICA: UNICEF and OXFAM call for debt relief
Wealthy nations must honour the Cologne Initiative (CI) and speed up debt relief to countries that make a commitment to reduce povery, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and OXFAM, a UK-based non-governmental organisation, said on Thursday, according to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).
"No country has ever reached its development goals when the majority of its people were suffering the deep povery facing hundreds of millions in today's world," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said.
The central objective of the CI, which expanded the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative by some US $28 billion to be applied at the rate of US $2 to US $3 billion a year, was to provide greater focus on poverty reduction by releasing resources for investment in health, education and social needs, the DPI said.
UNICEF and OXFAM, which released a joint paper at the opening of a conference of finance ministers at the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, said that it was important to identify the new resources that will be used for debt relief and to speed up the release of HIPCs from the debt crisis.
US economist calls for stronger debt relief
Meanwhile, renowned US economist Jeffrey Sachs has called for stronger debt relief for African countries, the US Information Service (USIS) said on Thursday.
Sachs, who is director of Harvard's Institute for International Development, said a bolder approach by international lenders towards cancelling bad debts held by African nations would help spur economic development on the continent, according to USIS.
Sach told the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs that uncollectable loans to poor African countries which agree to meaningful economic and political reforms should be written off, thereby ending the cycle of indebtedness that is undercutting the globalisation of sub-Saharan Africa, USIS reported.
NIGERIA: Energy minister wants power cuts ended within two years
Power and Steel Minister Bola Ige on Thursday gave the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) two years to end the frequent power cuts that have plagued Nigeria, AFP reported.
"I have taken it as my first task and duty to apologise to all Nigerians on behalf of NEPA," AFP reported Ige as saying. The cost of the daily power cuts to industry and private users was "so colossal it is mind-boggling", he said.
The minister said he had set clear targets for the team of new managers brought in to NEPA since the new government took office. "The target for the power sector is put in very simple language," Ige said. "Cut down incidents of power outages by 50 percent in six months, by 75 percent in 12 months and by 100 percent in 24. No excuses will be accepted or acceptable. Meet target or be fired."
Phased privatisation
Meanwhile, President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday set out a three-phase plan for privatising more than 1,000 state enterprises, news organisations reported.
The key privatisations of telecommunications firm NITEL, power firm NEPA, oil refineries, the state airline and a fertiliser company will be held back until the last phase, Reuters quoted Obasanjo as saying at the inauguration of a National Council on Privatisation set up to oversee the process.
``For the utility companies such as NITEL and NEPA a lot more work would have to be carried out ...,'' he said. ``Privatisation will only follow after we have established the correct value of these parastatals. The government will not be short-changed in this exercise.''
Obasanjo said the first phase, to be completed by the end of 1999, involved selling shares in companies quoted on the stock exchange that were part of a privatisation round in the 1980s. Phase II, for which no date was given, will include hotels and vehicle assembly plants.
ABIDJAN, 30 July 1999; 18:10 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1380
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information or free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or fax: +254 2 622129 or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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