On December 1, Development Generation Africa International members joined the rest of the world in observing the World AIDS Day 2008.

At the occasion, the organization launched the Primary ABIA Project against HIV/AIDS to look into the plight of young people living with HIV/AIDS especially in the areas of nutrition and empowerment.

Director of Health-HIV/AIDS of the organization, Christopher Ezemobi who addressed participants stressed the need for the World AIDS Day event to lead, empower and deliver young people from the grip of AIDS in the 21st century and promised that the project will go a long way to present their plight to the people and involve them in solutions.

He said some of the problems being highlighted by young people living with HIV/AIDS is an indication that “We must continue to speak up openly about AIDS. No progress will be achieved by being timid, refusing to face unpleasant faces, or prejudging our fellow human beings. In the ruthless world of AIDS, there are no us and them…and in that world, silence is death.”

Children, young people and civil society groups attended the event as well as government officials.

Change...
Change...
Change...
That is what happened
That was what Obama preached.
Peace...
Peace...
Peace...
Not heard
Change is coming..
It truly came
Change...
Change...
Obama changed.
That is a new concept in America
Change...
Let's laugh for change.
Change is possible.
Change...
We are all change.
New order in America
Change will change thinks
Change...
Fix America and renew hope
Change is permanent.
Change is Obama...
Celebrate Change first.
Then ask questions
Because Change is change.
Change...
Now that it is on ground.
Change will rebuild America
Change...
In my little opinion.
Change proved me wrong, and...
Change...
Only Change...the real change.
Change is definitely going to change things
Change is as of the beginning.
Change is Obama, the 'change-bearer'
The "Change-maker of America"
Change...
Truly came to America
Like never before...
Change! Change! Change!
That name is good---

Ethiopia, a country of chronic food shortages and malnutrition, has launched an agriculture commodity exchange in a daring experiment to raise food production by creating a safe, transparent agriculture market.

The idea to create a commodity exchange was hatched by a former senior economist at the World Bank, Eleni Gabre-Madhin, who was born in Ethiopia and educated in the United States. Gabre-Madhin did her doctoral research on the role of markets in developing countries and refined her ideas while at the International Food Policy Research Institute. She now is the chief executive of the exchange.

Gabre-Madhin said the Ethiopian government began to consider a commodity exchange after the food crisis in 2002-2003; a bumper crop and price collapse in 2002 were followed by drought that threatened 14 million people with starvation the next year.

"In the bumper harvest, prices fell so low that farmers could not repay their loans, despite abundant production. The next year, not enough food was produced to feed the population. This led the government to think about the market: 'Why don't people store grain from year to year? Why can't the market deliver in bad times and save in good times?'" she said.

Although Ethiopia is the biggest grain producer in Africa, its traditional markets are small because of narrow networks of trust among buyers and sellers. "Most farmers trade within 12 kilometers of their farms and only with people they know," Gabre-Madhin said. She said more than two-thirds of farmers have faced contract defaults, and only 4 percent have received legal enforcement of contracts.

In the traditional trading system, grain changes hands four to five times between producer and consumer. With each change, the grain is put into new sacks. This system enables buyers to know what they are getting in terms of quality and quantity, as the contents are inspected and weighed, but it is vulnerable to price shocks.

The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange began operating in April, creating transparency and predictability in the national market and connecting Ethiopian commodities to international markets.

The U.S. Agency for International Development provided $1 million to launch the exchange.

The exchange provides warehousing, a reliable payment system, real-time market information, and quality control. Producers sell directly to the exchange, which assures payment within 24 hours.

"In the past, truck drivers took payment in envelopes filled with cash. It was never certain if or how much of the money would make it back into the hands of the seller," Gabre-Madhin said. Buyers in the traditional system do not know the quality of what they get unless they open up the sacks and inspect the contents. The exchange has assumed the grading task and guarantees the quality, so a distant buyer can be confident of what he is purchasing.

The Ethiopian exchange is linked to commodity markets around the world, making it possible for a trader in India, for instance, to buy futures of the prized Ethiopian lentils.

As for Ethiopia's major export, coffee, 461 coffee suppliers have obtained one-year memberships on the new commodity exchange.

"We're going to disseminate New York prices on our trading floor, and we'll feed our prices to the New York market. That means if you are looking at Ethiopian, Colombian or Rwandan coffee, you will have a basis for comparison," Gabre-Madhin said.

Agricultural traders have deluged the exchange with applications for membership, which, in Gabre-Madhin's view, is a sign that market confidence is building. "Worries about getting paid and getting the expected quality are being eliminated," she said.

Gabre-Madhin said she expects the exchange will create incentives for farmers to bring more of their produce to market. In the traditional trading system, about one-fourth of Ethiopia's grain is brought to market. She said the goal of the exchange is to handle 50 percent of Ethiopia's grain production in five years.

She said that nearly half of Ethiopia's rural households are net buyers of food. "Poor people buy food as well as sell food, which means that markets matter a lot, even at this low level of income," she said.

The exchange is not without its critics. Some say it will not work as a market institution because government officials occupy six of the 11 seats of the board. Gabre-Madhin believes that the government's involvement with the exchange will help it learn quickly how markets function.

Another concern has been that the exchange will further increase food prices, which have doubled in the past year. If Ethiopia's food-deficient neighbors can buy Ethiopia's commodities, then there will be less food for the country's already malnourished people, critics say.

Gabre-Madhin counters that the exchange is not the panacea for all of Ethiopia's food problems, but it is an important element for a functioning agriculture-based economy.

Brazil will host the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meetings in 2008.

What is The G-20?

G-20 is an important forum to promote dialogue between advanced and emerging countries on key issues regarding economic growth and stability of the financial system. Brazil’s chair to this group aim to consolidate previous efforts and to give a stronger impetus towards a more balanced and stable environment for global economic.

Since 1999, the G-20 has contributed to strengthen the international financial architecture and to foster sustainable economic growth and development. In 2004, for instance, members agreed to the G-20 Accord for Sustained Growth and committed to standards of transparency and fiscal governance in order to combat abuse of the financial system, money laundering and terrorism financing. Moreover, the forum has dealt with financial crises, international co-operation policies and reform of international financial institutions.

For 2008, Brazil proposes dialogue on Competition in Financial Markets, Clean Energy and Economic Development and Fiscal Elements of Growth and Development. To follow with the discussions, there will be three technical workshops in the first semester and two Deputies Meetings. The objective of these meetings is to provide an updated view on those themes that will be further discussed on the Ministers' and Governors' Meeting.

As is usual practice, the organization of the G-20 events during the year will be shared between the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank. This year the G-20 will work closely with South Africa and United Kingdom, and other G-20 members, whose valuable experience will help promote a successful term. South Africa, i believe would promote the African peoples interests.

I am optimistic this forum can make clear its objectives and give young people a space to express, but would the proposed dialogue fail, what is our hope and future? We are expectant that the G-20 would make aFRICAN DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH A PRIORITY IN THE FACE OF THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS!

Helping to increase the food production of farmers in 25 to 30 of the countries most vulnerable to food shortages is a key aim of the United States' increased focus on agricultural development and food aid, says Josette Lewis, the top agriculture official of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

More than 920 million people worldwide do not get enough to eat. In 2007, the number of undernourished increased by 75 million because of rising food prices, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Addressing the World Food Prize Symposium held in mid-October in Des Moines, Iowa, Lewis said USAID especially wants to help small farms in sub-Saharan Africa double their yields of rice, maize and other staple crops by 2015 and increase farm incomes. The international community agreed in 2000 to a goal of cutting in half the number of people living in poverty and hunger around the world by 2015.

Cutting hunger and poverty in half is "an achievable goal," Lewis said, and one envisioned in proposed legislation now before Congress that would significantly increase U.S. support for agriculture development.

Senators Richard Lugar of Indiana and Robert Casey of Pennsylvania have proposed $10 billion in new funding for international agriculture programs. For the period 2008-2009, the United States has committed $5.5 billion in foreign food and agricultural assistance.

The United States wants to "strengthen every link of the food-value chain," including agricultural research and information sharing, credit programs for small farmers and the use of new high-yield seeds that are resistant to diseases and drought, Lewis said.

Lewis said the United States will support more training programs for farmers in developing countries to help them use modern food-production techniques.

The training will help developing countries reduce by 75 percent their reliance on food aid, she said.

Lewis said USAID also is focusing on improving the nutritional value of the food aid it gives for children under age 5 and is refining its community-based nutrition monitoring programs. In addition, USAID is refining its forecasting tools to obtain better information on where a food emergency is likely to occur.

The United States is already working with other donor nations on the implementation of a strategy presented in June at an international forum in Rome to address the food crisis. That includes providing immediate aid to countries most vulnerable to rising food prices. Between 2007 and 2008, global food prices rose 52 percent, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.

The U.S. strategy also includes encouraging policies that can expand regional trade in farm products and ease infrastructure constraints such as poor roads and border checkpoints that slow trade, Lewis said.

In the long run, USAID plans to form partnerships with private-sector companies, she said.

She said a number of U.S.-based companies such as John Deere, Land O'Lakes Inc. and the Monsanto Company "have made it clear they are ready to step up" and partner with various organizations to help boost agricultural productivity and reduce poverty in developing countries.

"It's time for a second Green Revolution that enlists a broader array of actors," Lewis said, referring to the first Green Revolution in the early 1970s that increased agricultural yields through development of new varieties of grains. New types of disease-resistant wheat created then are credited with saving more than 1 billion people in Asia from starvation.

Also at the forum, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Edward Schafer and World Food Prize President Kenneth Quinn signed an agreement to enhance information sharing between the two entities and to bring more agricultural scientists and farmers from developing countries to the United States to learn about agricultural technology from their U.S. counterparts.

The $1.2 billion Global Food Response Program (GFRP) - the World Bank's fast-track food crisis initiative - was created in May 2008 to rapidly disburse assistance to countries hardest hit by the food crisis.

"Hunger knows no boundaries," said Africa Region Vice President Obiageli Ezekwesili. "All across the African continent, poor people are bearing the brunt" of soaring food prices.

As of end-September 2008, the World Bank has approved $83 million in GFRP financing to ten Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries: Burundi, Central African Republic, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Somalia. In addition, $100 million in IDA financing has been approved or reallocated for eight countries: Ghana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Malawi, Togo, Eritrea, Cote d'Ivoire, and Madagascar. Through these projects, farmers are receiving seeds, fertilizers, and technical expertise. School feeding programs are also being launched, and food safety nets targeting vulnerable groups are being created. The Bank expects to provide a total of more than $800 million in financing to the GFRP.

The GFRP is based on several dimensions:
across time-thus addressing short-term and medium-term needs;
across sectors-such as agriculture, health, social protection, energy; and
across instruments-budget support to help mitigate short-term financial stresses; safety net programs for the most vulnerable; and investment lending to stimulate an agricultural supply response.

A basic principle of the GFRP is that a country can select from a large comprehensive menu of possible interventions, depending on its specific needs. The Bank provides detailed technical guidance appropriate to these interventions. A sample of interventions in SSA includes:
Food Distribution to School Children and Other Vulnerable Groups
In Liberia ($10 million disbursed), monthly distributions of 300-400 tons of food targeting more than 60,000 school children in five counties started at the beginning of the school year in October, 2008. Distributions of food rations for pregnant and lactating women attending clinics and hospitals have also started.

In Burundi ($10 million disbursed), the WFP has been implementing a school feeding program in six provinces (out of 17) in the country. The GFRP grant makes it possible to provide 120,000 additional students in 60 additional primary schools with hot meals since the beginning of the school year. The Grant has also helped the Government to maintain fiscal stability after the suspension of import duties on 13 basic food items undertaken by the authorities to mitigate the impact of food crisis.

In Sierra Leone ($3 million disbursed), the Bank is providing budget support to partly compensate for lost revenues resulting from reduced tariffs on food and fuel imports. The budget support is creating fiscal space for the Government to provide food to more than 21,000 people, including school children and patients (lactating mothers and children under the age of five) in district hospitals and community health centers. In addition, 78 food-for-work projects will begin shortly; and preparations are underway to distribute 300 to 400 metric tons of food in target communities.
The GFRP is also working for bountiful harvests. In Rwanda, $10 million has been allocated for filling a financing gap for bulk fertilizer purchase and supporting the development of private sector-friendly auctions and voucher distribution schemes. Vouchers for purchasing fertilizers have been distributed to farmers ahead of the fall planting season.

Reform of Food Policies:

In Madagascar ($10 million disbursed), the increase of rice prices has been slowed, due in part to the temporary elimination of VAT on rice. The Bank's budget support operation helped mitigate the fiscal impact of this policy action.

In Guinea ($10 million allocated), budget support from the Bank is supporting the Government's policy to reduce customs duties on rice from 12.75 to 2.75 percent.

In Burundi ($10 million allocated and disbursed), Bank financing has helped mitigate the fiscal impact of the suspension of import duties on 13 basic food items.

Other SSA countries in the pipeline to receive GFRP disbursements include Benin ($9 million for fertilizer); Central African Republic ($7 million, school feeding, inputs, extension, infrastructure); Comoros ($1 million for seeds, risk management, access to credit); Guinea-Bissau ($5 million for safety nets, inputs); Mali ($5 million for budget support); Mauritania ($9 million for inputs, safety nets, irrigation, livestock); Mozambique ($20 million for budget support); Somalia ($7 million, for inputs, irrigation, livestock); Southern Sudan ($5 million for seeds and other inputs); and Togo ($7 million for safety nets, agricultural production).

Women’s full participation in decision-making

The full participation of women in political decision-making at all levels, including their involvement in measures to achieve all other MDGs, is of paramount importance to achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women. In addition to the political arena, women’s full participation in decision-making positions in the private sector, academia, civil society and the media is also crucial to build synergies across different sectors. Women’s public participation is a human rights issue; women have a right to be represented. Increased women’s participation also ensures that women’s interests are represented in decision-making and their participation widens policy debates and priorities. Research has shown that increased participation of women in decision-making has a positive impact on development priorities and poverty reduction, and that, when empowered, women make decisions that not only have a positive effect on themselves, but the lives of their families and communities as well. Progress in increasing the political representation of women in national parliaments has been increasing at a steady but slow pace, but growth has been uneven across regions. Insufficient data are available on women’s role at local government level as well as on their role in senior positions in other areas, such as the private sector and civil society.

Women’s economic independence

Women’s economic independence is critical to achieving all MDGs, not only MDG3. Even though women’s participation in paid employment outside agriculture has increased, women’s work continues to be characterized by a concentration in low status and low pay jobs, which are often temporary and informal. Globally, gender wage gaps exist and unemployment rates for women are higher than for men. While inequalities continue to define the quality, conditions and characteristics of women’s labour market participation, they also shoulder a disproportionate share of responsibilities at home. Women perform the majority of unpaid work which restricts their access to employment opportunities outside of the home and reinforces the traditional division of labour between women and men. Increasing women’s participation in paid employment is one of the most important strategies for poverty reduction, as is the promotion of women’s entrepreneurship. However, the employment must be based on decent work principles such as labour standards, social protection and recognition of workers’ rights. In addition, it is important to recognize the value of women’s unpaid work, and develop and promote policies that facilitate the reconciliation of employment and family responsibilities for all workers, women and men.

In addition, women’s access to and control over productive and economic resources is central to their empowerment and must be expanded if gender equality is to be achieved. Women’s access to land and property, including through inheritance, is critical to their economic empowerment. Land ownership has direct economic benefits, for example as a source of income, as a key input for production, and as collateral for credit. Without equal access to credit and other financial services, such as insurance or savings, women’s economic empowerment will remain limited.

Issues for discussion

What good practices exist to increase women’s access to decision-making positions at all levels?
What measures need to be taken to increase women’s access to employment opportunities, and access to and control over productive resources?
How can measurement of progress in these areas be strengthened?

Food security experts say international donors' response to the world's food crisis has been inadequate when compared to interventions to contain the global financial meltdown.

"Huge financial resources have been mobilised by the international community in a matter of days" in response to the global financial crisis, wrote Teresa Cavero in a report by the international NGO Oxfam released on 16 October - World Food Day.

While the US government put up US$700 billion to bail out financial institutions in one day, on 3 October, total global development aid for 2007 was $104 billion, according to Alexander Woollcombe, food security advocacy adviser at Oxfam in Dakar.

This year's food crisis threw an additional 75 million people into hunger and poverty in 2007 according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The World Bank estimates there are currently 967 million malnourished people in the world.

FAO says the financial crisis, following on the heels of the food price crisis, could deepen the plight of the poor in developing countries.

Remittances dropping

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf stated in a 15 October news release: "Borrowing, bank lending, official development aid, foreign direct investment and workers' remittances - all may be compromised by a deepening financial crisis."

There are no precise numbers yet about the impact of the financial crisis on developing countries, said Josef Schmidhuber, senior economist at the FAO's Global Perspectives Unit, but he noted that when industrialised countries face a crisis, fewer people work and fewer remittances are sent to developing countries.

"We're already hearing noises from Mexico that fewer remittances are being sent back. These [remittances] are more important than credits and foreign direct investment," he stressed.

Mexico receives $22 billion in annual remittances, and Bangladesh $4 billion, according to Schmidhuber. In Haiti and Honduras remittances make up over 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Response 'a slow trickle'

The FAO's Schmidhuber said donors promised $20 billion in aid to agriculture at the Rome FAO conference in June 2008, but according to Oxfam, five months on just $1 billion of this has been dispersed. Oxfam's Woollcombe said this is partly because "it takes time to distribute cash for agricultural production. The problem is it is not clear when or where it is actually coming."

The UN has estimated that $25 billion to $40 billion is needed to lessen the impacts of high food prices on developing countries.

"With the new commitments of the financial crisis, I would not be surprised if we don't get much more than the trickle that has arrived so far," said Schmidhuber.

The UK government's commitment of US$ 1.4 billion pledged at the Rome meeting still stands, said Matt Wells, spokesperson for the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

"Yes, there are challenges we are all facing, but we are continuing to call on other donors not to let the economic crisis deflect the fact that we need to remain focused on supporting those most in need," Wells told IRIN.

Building up resilience

To boost vulnerable people's resilience to crises, Oxfam and the Washington DC-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) stress the need for donors and international finance institutions to support 'social protection' such as aiding access to health and education, which they say will have a knock-on boost on their food-purchasing power.

Such measures could include targeted cash transfers, nutritional interventions, and fee waivers on targeted services, according to an October World Bank report 'Rising food and fuel prices: addressing the risks to future generations.'

It is the erosion of the global food system's resilience that underlies the food price spikes, according to Steve Wiggins, research fellow at the UK-based Overseas Development Institute.

The world needs to replenish severely depleted global grain reserves, which have dropped from 30 percent to 19 percent of annual grain use, Wiggins said. "Rebuilding stocks would help to calm nerves and restore the resilience of the global food system."

See related story: Cereal banks in Niger

FAO's Schmidhuber said as an alternative to real grain reserves, which are expensive to build and keep up, 'virtual grain stocks' should be developed; developing countries would purchase the right to buy at subsidised prices.

He said such alternatives would lead to a more efficient market that could also protect poor communities, adding that export bans and subsidies in the developed world distort markets and discourage production.

Progress is being made on both sides, he said. "We are starting to see a convergence between the developing and developed world as they shift these opposing approaches."

As the FAO's World Food Security Committee discusses these and other challenges in Rome from 14 to 17 October, Schmidhuber said governments should start by taking a simple step. "They need to do what they've said they are already committed to doing, and deliver the money."

Poverty is making people get mad. Support the world movement against poverty and be your brothers and sisters neighbour.

Scholars, policy makers and civil society leaders from within and outside Africa are currently meeting in Addis Ababa in a three-day United Nations-sponsored conference aimed at giving momentum to the fight against corruption on the continent.

It is vital for Africans to "regain the discourse and agenda on anti-corruption in Africa" and "explore ways by which [they] can effectively tackle the problem," UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) Deputy Executive Secretary of ECA Lalla Ben Barka told the conference on "Institutions, Culture and Corruption in Africa" which opened yesterday.

She stressed the need for Africans to "think outside the box" in tackling the problem and urged delegates to "come up with practical suggestions and policy options on how we can move the anti-corruption drive ahead in Africa."

The conference, jointly organized by UNECA and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa is (CODESRIA), an independent pan-African research organization, is one of the key events marking the Commission's 50th anniversary.

"The problem of corruption remains intractable in many African countries, and it is widely acknowledged that there is a need for more innovative, creative and strategic approaches to deal with it," UNECA said in a news release.

The Commission is currently at the forefront of the regional anti-corruption agenda and has adopted a holistic approach that includes engaging major stakeholders, such as the judiciary, national anti-corruption institutions, parliament and the pan-African body of national anti-corruption institutions in Africa.

In 2006 and 2007 UNECA conducted a study on "Deepening Judiciary Effectiveness in Combating Corruption" and convened two ad hoc expert meetings on its findings. The report on the study and its related expert meetings will soon be published and widely disseminated.

The Commission is currently undertaking a study assessing the efficiency and impact of national anti-corruption institutions in Africa." In February it will convene an ad hoc expert group meeting of heads of national anti-corruption institutions to present the findings of that study.

In addition, UNECA will shortly undertake training workshops for civil society organizations on monitoring and reporting corruption, the first of which will convene on 11-12 November in Kampala, Uganda.

IMF Managing Director Dominique has called for special attention on food and energy on high food and energy prices in developing economies.

He said that the call became imperative, saying "as we deal with the financial crisis the world should not forget the other crisis facing developing economies, which are the problem of high food and energy prices".

He said: "We are in a big crisis, but don't forget the other ones (food and energy crises)."

The managing director spoke yesterday at a meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee on the sidelines of the 2008 World Bank/IMF Annual General Meetings in Washington DC. The committee is the policy-setting body representing the IMF's 185 member countries.

Strauss-Kahn urged donor countries not to abandon promises of aid to the developing world because of the financial crisis otherwise many of the worlds poorest would starve or suffer from malnutrition.

Also speaking, Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group, noted that in the face of the current downturn, the developed countries are not expected to help 28ccountriesreeling from twin shocks of rising food and fuel prices.

Zoellick stated: "For the poor, the costs of the crisis could be lifelong."

NAN reports that the IMF and the World Bank are holding annual meetings amid increasing strains in the global financial system caused by the spreading credit crisis triggered by the U.S. subprime meltdown.

Developing countries fear the financial crunch could affect them severely.

Tendai Moyo, 28, living in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, goes into a shop in the downtown area and heads for a shelf where, a day ago, she saw a feeding bottle she wanted to buy for her three-month-old son.

She picks it up and goes to the till, convinced she can afford this luxury for her child, but the cashier nonchalantly tells her the price has more than doubled, and the new price is more than the cash she has on her.

Moyo, a cleaner and one of the few people with a job in a country with an unemployment rate of more than 80 percent, storms out and joins a long queue at a nearby bank to see if she can withdraw more money.

After three hours, having withdrawn the maximum daily limit of Z$50,000 (US$) and added it to the $Z100,000 (US$) given to her by her husband, a driver for a commercial bank, she returns to the shop. She again picks up the feeding bottle, but is then told by the cashier that in her absence the price has gone up and she is now $Z30,000 short.

Moyo is no longer on maternity leave and had hoped to use the bottle for her son's formula because she cannot breastfeed him regularly.

"This price madness is frustrating, and it makes you hopeless because it seems it will never come to an end. I just don't understand why and how prices keep on increasing at such a rate," Moyo told IRIN. "I have given up and will have to use a cup instead of the bottle that is ideal for my son."

Navigating the official annual inflation rate of 231 million percent is as perplexing to the customers as it is to the vendors. "We spend more time changing price tags than serving customers. The branch manager visits the shop floor at least two times a day with a new list of prices for the commodities that are still in stock," the cashier at the shop, who declined to be identified, told IRIN.

"In fact, these days he spends more time in meetings with other managers than supervising us, and I suspect that it is at these meetings that changes to the prices are made." As inflation spirals, business has rapidly tapered off. Most customers walk into the shop, examine the price tags, shake their heads and walk out.

He said shoppers were sometimes annoyed, or made derisory remarks like: "You will have to buy these items yourselves before they rot, because we will never come back here!"

Three prices for one item


At another shop a few streets away, transactions in foreign currency have become accepted after the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) recently allowed them.

A three-tier pricing system is used: some commodities are sold for foreign currency, others - mostly small and perishable goods - are sold for local currency, and another set of prices - marked up by more than a 1,000 percent - are for those paying by credit card.

"Never in my life have I seen one shop selling the same product using three different prices. It boggles the mind, and I cannot understand why the value of one item changes from one shelf to another," said Samuel Godzongi, an informal trader who left his job as an auto-electrician because the salary became meaningless.

Even the cost of commodities priced in foreign currency changed routinely. "It seems this is the only country in the world where goods bought in foreign currency are eaten up by inflation so fast," he said. "Besides, the prices are way ahead here as compared to neighbouring countries, and to me there is no justification for it."

He told IRIN that consumers had no option but to go without basic items, because "there just is no way in which you can buy them, unless you were to resort to robbery."

"What is even more painful is that no matter how much money you have in the bank, the daily withdrawal limits make it impossible for you to buy the items that you need. No matter how fast the central bank introduces higher denominations for the local currency, it cannot keep pace with the speed with which prices are galloping."

Innocent Makwiramiti, a Harare-based economist and former chief executive of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC), said licensing shops to sell in foreign currency was contributing to inflation.

Inflation and politics


"It should be remembered that black market [parallel market] rates of foreign currency are going up every day, if not several times a day. As a result, for goods sold in local currency, the prices go up as well in direct response, and retailers tend to use the foreign currency mark-ups to increase the prices of goods sold in cash," Makwiramiti told IRIN.

He said prices were also responding to the political climate, and the deadlock in talks since a power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change was signed on 15 September.

"After news that a political deal had been signed, parallel market rates fell and prices were beginning to respond. However, when it became clear that political parties had reached a deadlock, prices began to shoot up again, this time more steeply than ever before. It is mostly speculative," Makwiramiti said.

"With prices of basic commodities such as food now unaffordable to the majority, average workers have turned into beggars, going to restaurants during lunch time to ask for leftovers from the few who are still able to afford it."

President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has said that “we shall do anything as an Administration within available resources and the imperfect constitutional provisions within which we are constrained to operate” to solve the problems in the Niger Delta.

The President said this while receiving a delegation of South-south leaders in the State House on Tuesday October 14,. 2008.

Responding to the request for certain constitutional amendments in the bid to tackle the Niger Delta challenge, the President made it clear that while he “appreciated the issues raised and supported constitutional amendments, such must be undertaken as provided by the constitution” and should not become another excuse for allowing the problem to fester.

According to President Yar’Adua, with the creation of the Niger Delta Ministry, his administration was now poised to begin the implementation of its agenda for infrastructural development, cleaning the environment and youth empowerment in the Niger Delta.

While acknowledging that the 1999 Constitution may not be a perfect document and that its amendment was necessary, the president said it is not a preoccupation of his administration to engineer another elaborate effort at constitutional review. He added that “to tie our efforts in the Niger Delta to constitutional amendments would be a distraction at this point.”

Referring to the Niger Delta crisis as “a national problem,” the president urged those canvassing constitutional amendments to go through the National Assembly. “While I have no objections to your feelings about constitutional amendment I strongly believe we have to follow the procedures”. He added that “building a just, prosperous and equitable society is not an easy thing,” as it “requires patience, efforts and perseverance.”

President Yar’Adua who thanked the South-South Leaders for “frankly airing their views” and for their sacrifices to bringing peace not only to the Niger Delta but to the nation, assured them that his doors would “always be open to listen to advice and opinions that will help us find a lasting solution to national problems like that of Niger Delta.”

The leader of the 11-member delegation, Justice Adolphus Karibi Whyte, explained that they had come to present the resolutions of the Vanguard-organised South-South Legislative Retreat on Constitutional Review held in August 2008, to the Federal Government, commended the establishment of the Ministry of Niger Delta.

Part of the resolutions included amending the current Constitution to restore “true federalism.”

The delegation included Vanguard Publisher, Mr. Sam Amuka; Chief Edwin Clark, Mr. Ledum Mittee, Chief John Oyegun and Sen. Felix Ibru while Vice- President Goodluck Jonathan, the Ministers of Petroleum, Transportation and Science and Technology, and the NDDC Managing Director, Mr Timi Alaibe, also attended.

Sometimes in ones life, he/she fells like oneself and sometimes like the other.

This part of my life must not sleep as it comes in contact with success.

I felt like Fabrigas against AC Milan today and felt like Theo Walcot against Coatia on Wednesday, when we completed a health programme.

I was meant to understand that in our world there is no us and them...and in this world, silence is death.

The way the world tries to solve its economic problems needs to be rethought amid today's global crisis, including turning the Group of Seven into a Steering Group that empowers rising economic states, said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick.

Referring to the upcoming U.S. election, Zoellick said the new president will have to move beyond "the firefight of financial stabilization" to address the "economic aftermath". Whoever wins the White House should work with others in modernizing the multilateral system as there needs to be a greater shared responsibility for the health and effective functioning of today's global economy.

"The G-7 is not working. We need a better group for a different time," Zoellick said in a speech to the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington D.C. "For financial and economic cooperation, we should consider a new Steering Group including Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the current G-7."

Speaking ahead of the Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group, Zoellick said the new Steering Group should be more than just replacing the G7 with a fixed-number G14, as this would be using old world methods to remake the new. The Steering Group should evolve to fit changing circumstances, including new emerging powers, while serving as a network for frequent interaction. "We need a Facebook for multilateral economic diplomacy," Zoellick said.

Warning about the effects of the financial crisis, Zoellick said: "The events of September could be a tipping point for many developing countries. A drop in exports, as well as capital inflow, will trigger a falloff in investments. Deceleration of growth and deteriorating financing conditions, combined with monetary tightening, will trigger business failures and possibly banking emergencies. Some countries will slip toward balance of payments crises. As is always the case, the most poor are the most defenseless."

The former U.S. diplomat, trade negotiator and financial executive, said economic multilateralism needed to be redefined beyond its traditional focus on finance and trade. Energy, climate change, and stabilizing fragile and post-conflict states were economic issues and not just part of the global dialogue on security and the environment.

Zoellick said the New Multilateralism must give an equal value to development as to international finance otherwise the world would remain an unstable place. But the aid system was not working well enough and it needed to move much more quickly and effectively to help those who were most vulnerable when crisis hits. The World Bank Group also needs reform. Zoellick announced the creation of a High Level Commission under the leadership of former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo to consider modernizing the governance of the World Bank Group.

Turning to multilateral trade talks, Zoellick said the Doha round "has hit the rocks" and countries should therefore consider trade facilitation as another way of cutting the costs of trade. "There are opportunities to cut costs of trade far in excess of those imposed by tariffs and other trade barriers," he said.

Describing world energy markets as "a mess", Zoellick called for a "global bargain" between energy producers and consumers. Both sides could share plans for expanding supplies, improving efficiency and lessening demand; assisting with energy for the poor; and considering how these policies related to carbon production and climate change policies.

"There could be a common interest in managing a price range that reconciles interests while transitioning toward lower carbon growth strategies, a broader portfolio of supplies, and greater international security," Zoellick said.

Zoellick said the World Bank Group is developing an Energy for the Poor initiative with a number of donors to help the poorest countries meet energy needs in efficient and sustainable ways.