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IRIN-WA Update 553 of events in West Africa (Friday 17 September 1999)
SIERRA LEONE: Joint World Bank/donor assessment mission
A joint team representing international financial institutions,
UN bodies and donors will start assessing Sierra Leone's
reconstruction needs on Monday 20 September, a World
Bank official in Washington told IRIN.
Led by the World Bank Country Director for Guinea, Liberia
and Sierra Leone, Mamadou Dia, the mission includes
representatives of the US Agency for International
Development, Britain, the Netherlands, Japan, Sweden,
Germany, Norway and the African Development Bank (ADB).
It also includes officials from the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the UN Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Action (OCHA), the World Bank official said.
The mission will also enable the World Bank and donors to define jointly a framework for moving from humanitarian to development assistance, the World Bank said.
Timely donor assistance is critical in helping to consolidate the peace, the World Bank argues, in light of the signing of the Lome peace agreement and recent improvements in the security situation.
WEST AFRICA: Guinea, Liberia agree to live in peace
After weeks of trading accusations of supporting insurgents fighting each other's governments, Guinea and Liberia pledged on Thursday to end hostilities immediately and live in peace.
They made the undertaking at an emergency summit in Abuja, Nigeria, called by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to ease the tension between the two countries.
Presidents Lansana Conte of Guinea and Charles Taylor of Liberia agreed at the summit to abide by a mutual defence pact that requires members of the 16-nation community to refrain from supporting anti-government rebels.
"We, heads of state and government are determined to re-establish good neighbourliness, and security - without delay," they said in a joint communique signed with other ECOWAS heads.
Tensions rose to an all-time high this month when Guinea threatened to retaliate against Liberia for attacks on Guinean villages. Liberia denied any involvement in the attacks.
Conte and Taylor are now required to establish direct
lines of communication for regular consultations, according
to the communique. Guinea, Liberia and their common
neighbour, Sierra Leone, have also pledged to provide
each other with a list of persons engaged in subversive
activities in their territories.
Thursday's meeting appealed for international help to
enable Guinea and Liberia to care for the tens of thousands
of refugees on their territories. All three countries
host refugees as a result of wars in Liberia and Sierra
Leone. The heads urged the refugees to abstain from
subversive activities and agreed to form a joint committee
to ensure security along their common borders.
The three leaders are due to meet in Freetown in the first week in November to reactivate the Mano River Union (MRU) development bloc which links their countries.
LIBERIA: Resettled IDPs much more wary now
Former internally displaced people who have resettled
in the villages of Madina and Bendu are far more security
conscious now than before the war.
Madina now has regular head counts and if a new person arrives, he is closely screened and his movements monitored. In Bendu there is a bell which villagers ring at the first sign of trouble.
[See separate item titled 'IRIN special report on the return of displaced persons']
Mainstreaming gender
Facilitating the "engendering of the development process in post-war Liberia through institution-strengthening and capacity- building in gender mainstreaming and the advancement of women" is the aim of a project involving UNDP and Liberia's government.
The "Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment" project, whose estimated cost is US$ 447,000, was signed on 2 September by Minister of Planning and Economic Affairs John Wesseh McClain and John O.Kakonge, UNDP's resident representative in Liberia, UNDP reported.
Liberian women have been marginalised particularly in the areas of education, governance, decision-making, credit and health, according to UNDP.
Only 22 percent of them are literate compared to 54 percent for men, according to UNDP, which said girls make up only 40 and 32 percent of enrolments in primary and secondary schools respectively.
Women occupy two percent of ministerial positions, 5 percent of legislative seats and one percent of executive posts.
Customary laws deny rural women the right to own and inherit property such as land and the right to access credit directly. Socio-cultural beliefs pose enormous challenges to women's reproductive health rights and curtail their educational and employment opportunities, UNDP said.
NIGERIA: Truth commission snowed under
A commission set up in Nigeria to look into human rights abuses by former military governments says it is overwhelmed by submissions.
The commission, which was sworn in earlier this week, says it's already received 10,000 cases.
Most - some 8,000 - come from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, whose leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged by General Abacha. Others refer to the cancellation of the l993 elections by then military ruler General Ibrahim Babangida.
The commission can summon witnesses to attend its hearings, and recommend that people be tried for their crimes, although the question of political amnesty has not yet been resolved. Its period of remit begins with the government of General Buhari in l984 and ends in May, when the civilian government took over.
NIGER: EU to help finance elections
The European Union has offered Niger 808,000 euros (US $ 840,000 dollars) to help pay for upcoming presidential elections, AFP reported the national independent electoral commission as saying on Thursday.
The EU suspended aid to Niger after the assassination on 9 April of President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara, but said that it would lift the ban after the new junta completed an investigation into the late president's death.
The electoral commission's president, Issaka Souna, reportedly said that the commission needed about 1.5 million dollars for the poll, the first round of which is scheduled for 17 October.
EU food aid for flood victims
The EU has also provided Niger with 115 tonnes of food aid for people affected by floods in August, Nafoga Adamou of Niger's Systeme d'Alerte precoce et de Gestion des Catastrophes (Early Warning and Disaster Management System) told IRIN this week.
The floods killed a total of seven people, left 22,000 homeless and destroyed 2,000 houses. They also swamped 21,600 ha of farmland in various parts of the country in the last third of August, Adamou, who heads the System's Early Warning Unit, said.
As a result about 2.5 million people were threatened by a food deficit.
Abidjan, 17 September 1999; 17:55 GMT
[ENDS]
[IRIN-WA: Tel: +225 217366 Fax: +225 216335 e-mail: irin-wa@ocha.unon.org ]
Item: irin-english-1632
[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, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org 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
Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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