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"In 1999, the
range of conflicts extending diagonally across Africa from Angola
in the southwest to Ethiopia and Eritrea in the northeast continued
to generate new humanitarian disasters and to pose formidable obstacles
to hopes for continental advance...
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The roots of most African cultures lie deep in the soil of the countryside,
where an agrarian way of life has thrived for centuries. The same
could be said of most cultures of the world...
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Two decades after the appearance of the human [highly resistant and
infectious] virus (HIV), an estimated 30 million people have contracted
the virus, and 6 million have died of acquired immune deficiency syndrome
(AIDS). About 90 percent of infections occur in developing countries,
where the disease has already reduced life expectancy, in some cases
by more than a decade. HIV is already widespread in many countries
in Sub-Sahara Africa and may be on the verge of exploding in other
regions...
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The UN Security Council yesterday discussed a health issue for the
first time in its history, with the United States leading an initiative
to focus on the AIDS [crisis, saying that] governments must consider
the epidemic a threat to peace and security on the continent. (Chris
McGreal, London Guardian, 11 Jan).
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Outcome of G-7 Meeting
on HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Country)PARIS,
DECEMBER 10, 1999 U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced
today at a press briefing that four countries-Uganda, Bolivia, Mozambique,
and Mauritaniaare on track for receiving debt relief in January under
the "enhanced" Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative of
the World Bank/IMF program for the poorest countries...
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Following is a press release from members of an debtor nation leadership
group which was formed primarily to promote the elimination of all
debts presently owed by countries typically from South of the equator.
Note especially the principle upon which their cause is based...
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New York - Africa's refusal to be marginalised at the World Trade
Organization's third ministerial meeting in Seattle was a "watershed"
in relations between the industrial North and the developing South.
It also strengthened UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's call for a
"development round" of talks that would place poverty reduction and
sustainable development at the center of the global trading system...
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THE AFRICAN AGENDA
Despite the adoption of sometimes painful economic reforms by many African
countries over the past two decades, the promised benefits of trade
liberalization have not materialized. Fully 70 percent of the wealth
generated by trade liberalization has flowed to developed countries.
By some measures, the rules governing world trade-set largely by the
industrialized countries over the course of the 1986-94 Uruguay Round
of Agreements-have only contributed to Africa's economic woes... |
Before
examining the suggested classroom strategies, it is important to realize
that for many years studies and texts
about Africa have been guilty of some erroneous ideas about the continent.
while the available instructional texts
and materials have improved somewhat in recent years, there is reason
to believe that some of those misleading
ideas have real
life
in classrooms across the nation. |
