By API Kenya

As an incentive, persons coming forward as witnesses may relocate to other countries, and Europe will be a very attractive destination.

The protection program includes relocation to other countries in the world if a person’s life is in danger after having witnessed a crime. The agency is number 2 in the Continent of Africa after South Africa. Other African countries should follow suit.

It is an important step in the right direction if a country wants to get rid of impunity. Witnesses in Kenya can now be safe to give information to the authorities when major crimes are committed and witnesses fear for their safety. This time around they will be protected in safe houses or even get their identity changed and relocated in or out of the country.

However, this must not be misused. Some people may volunteer as witnesses with manipulated intent so as to get relocated to foreign countries especially Europe. The relocation must not be made attractive because that may lead to misuse. Relocation should be within the continent and those who are real witnesses will come forward. If Europe becomes the area to relocate to, be sure thousands and thousands will volunteer as witnesses only to travel to European cities and start new lives, probably after making up lies to inflict other citizens with lasting pain.

End

Norwegian Minister of the Environment and International Development Erik Solheim has visited one of Kenya’s many refugee camps for victims of the food crisis. He is seriously concerned about the situation in the Horn of Africa.

“It is terrible to see how unfair the world is. There are three-year-olds here who weigh less than a newborn baby. Many of the children I’ve met will probably not survive. I am a father myself, and this overwhelming tragedy has made an indelible impression on me,” said Mr Solheim.

The food crisis in Somalia and neighbouring countries in the Horn of Africa continues to worsen. The UN reports that thousands of people are arriving at the refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya every day. In Somalia itself, many are also fleeing to the war-torn capital Mogadishu. There are now more than 12 million people who are directly affected by the drought and food crisis. They have no food.

“In Somalia alone, there are 640 000 acutely malnourished children. I don’t think any of us can really take in the scale of this disaster,” said Mr Solheim.

Norway is one of the countries that has provided most money in response to the food crisis. So far, Norway has given NOK 273 million in emergency relief to the areas affected by the drought. These funds have been channelled through the UN, the Red Cross and various Norwegian NGOs that work in the area.

“We are considering on an ongoing basis whether Norway should contribute more. But now other countries must also get more involved. I also urge the Norwegian people to support the major relief organisations, which are doing a fantastic job,” said Mr Solheim.

The main cause of the disaster is the protracted conflict in Somalia. The Government has little legitimacy, and most of the country is under the control of the Islamist insurgent group al Shebab. The war has made local communities very vulnerable, also to natural climatic variations.

“The challenges in Somalia are huge. In the long-term, only a political solution can lift the country out of the difficulties it is in. But now the international community must provide help to address the acute humanitarian crisis,” urged Mr Solheim.

There are strong indications that there will be greater changes to the climate in the region. There have been longer and more frequent periods of drought in recent years. One rainy season failed altogether last year.

By the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway

EGYPT: Missing out on vital medicines

Photo: Amr Emam/IRIN

Pharmacists face difficulty in finding locally-made drugs

CAIRO, 8 August 2011 (IRIN) – Until a few months ago Rifaat Mahmud, a day labourer from Giza near the Egyptian capital Cairo, could afford to buy drugs for his 13-year-old daughter who has aortic stenosis, a condition which causes reduced blood flow between the left ventricle and the aorta.

“The medicine is nowhere to be found. Pharmacists tell me the drug companies stopped producing my daughter’s medicine,” Mahmud told IRIN.

The economic crisis in post-revolution Egypt, and deteriorating security conditions, seem to be affecting the nation’s ability to produce or access medicines required by millions of patients. Pharmaceutical companies are unable to import the necessary quantities of medicines or the raw materials from which they are manufactured, say observers.

Egypt used to have 120 pharmaceutical companies importing medicines, but 80 of these have closed in the past few months, and other factories are expected to follow suit, according to Makram Mahana, chairman of the Pharmaceutical Industry Section of the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI).

“Revolution-induced economic and security deterioration caused a 50 percent drop in national medicine production at least,” he said, adding that a fall in the value of the Egyptian pound combined with a rise in international raw material prices was making life difficult for importers.

Khalid Al Ruby, an independent drug expert, said the government needs to rescue the pharmaceutical industry to alleviate the suffering of eight million people with diabetes and four million with blood pressure problems, as well as those on medication for heart problems and cancer.

Leading medical experts at the 5th conference of the Egyptian Cardiology Society in Cairo on 1 August, said more than 250,000 people faced the threat of paralysis or premature death because cerebrovascular accident drugs were nowhere to be found. People with diabetes were finding it almost impossible to get insulin, and if they could get hold of it, it was very expensive.

Mahmud is helpless when his daughter gets chest pains or faints. On a monthly income of 500 Egyptian pounds (US$84), he depended on the state-run Heart Institute in Giza to give him his daughter’s medicine for free. Now that the Institute is unable to provide the drugs, he has had to turn to private pharmacies. “Now, I have to pay almost a third of my income to buy the necessary drugs every month.”

Prices set by government

The prices of locally produced drugs are set by the government, something that could be contributing to the current drug shortages, experts say. If the government gave manufacturers more freedom to set medicine prices, they might be able to offset some of their losses and remain in business.

“Drug pricing by the government causes many problems for manufacturers,” said Al Ruby. “When the prices of raw materials rise on international markets, our local pharmaceutical companies cannot raise the prices of the drugs they produce. Some companies went bankrupt because of this.”

Egyptian pharmaceutical companies import US$673 million worth of raw materials a year, according to FEI officials.

The government has promised to reconsider medicine prices. But for the roughly 20 percent of the population living in poverty medicines at any price are going to be too expensive.

The government blames the unavailability of some locally manufactured drugs on speculators and middlemen who have been hoarding certain drugs to force people to buy the more expensive imported varieties – from which they get a cut.

“These drugs are so expensive for a large number of patients,” said Magdy Ameen, a member of the Health Ministry’s Medicine Pricing Committee. “They are causing untold suffering for patients.”

ae/cb source www.irinnews.org

SOMALIA: Aid against the odds

Photo: Jamal Osman/IRIN

There is need to coordinate aid distribution inside Somalia, an official of the Somali Red Crescent Society has said (file photo)

JOHANNESBURG, 8 August 2011 (IRIN) – As aid agencies attempt to scale up assistance to thousands of people in south-central Somalia, controlled by Al-Shabab militia, IRIN asked the Somali Red Crescent Society, which has been active in the region for the past four decades, how it operates.

“The thing is to be absolutely transparent in your dealings with Al-Shabab and other organizations [Al-Shabab is not a monolithic entity] and not politicize your work in any way,” said Abdulkadir Ibrahim of the society. “That is the advice we would like to give to other NGOs who want to work here.”

The Somali Red Crescent, helped by more than 4,000 volunteers, runs operations in south and central Somalia. “We have been running OTP [outpatient therapeutic feeding programme] centres there for two to three years.”

In early 2010, humanitarian organizations were still able to function in many Al-Shabab-held areas because of good dialogue, “built on long-established relationships within local communities, of which local Al-Shabab leaders were a part”, pointed out UN Monitoring Group’s new report on Somalia.

But the situation shifted dramatically by mid-2010. “The Al-Shabab shura [consultative body], based in Mogadishu [the capital], Kismayo [port southwest of Mogadishu] and Baidoa [capital of Bay region, now in the famine zone], had consolidated, reorganized and extended its reach far beyond Somalia’s major urban centres,” said the report.

In the Middle and Lower Shabelle regions – now in the famine zone – the Al-Shabab and its factions continue to hamper humanitarian operations. The UN report said even in early 2011, it had been demanding a payment of US$1 per child per week to attend school and even a payment from teachers. The Al-Shabab factions have also been known to impose taxes on aid organizations.

But NGOs with strong community support continued to function throughout 2010, said Ibrahim. “We have never been asked to pay anything; we do not even pay tax for transporting aid on the roads.”

Before each aid consignment is transported outside Mogadishu, the Somali capital, Ibrahim said, the organization makes contact with whatever faction controls the route they intend to ply. “They go through all our papers and we explain what we are doing and why we are doing it and we are given the go-ahead.”

Ibrahim said because they had been around since 1963, survived the civil war which began in 1991 and the last big famine in 1991-92, they were “part of the community and much-respected and we believe in dialogue. We have constant dialogue with whoever is in charge in the areas we operate about the people’s needs and what we are doing.”

He said his agency had picked up signs of the famine but “we did not have the capacity to respond as we saw the needs becoming even greater”.

Earlier this year, Ibrahim said he had seen more than 200 people queue for help by 7.30am at an OTP centre in Lower Juba. “We are now trying to focus only on health issues and recruiting nurses from within the community.”

Skills, infrastructure

There are trained primary healthcare workers in the community, he said. Several NGOs and UN agencies have run workshops to develop skills over the years, as Somalis fled the civil war.

Lack of good roads was one of the bigger impediments in transporting aid in a timely manner.

The Red Crescent is feeding about 160,000 people a month’s supply of rice, oil and pulses across Somalia, said Ibrahim. “A Land-Cruiser takes about a day-and-a-half to travel a distance of 300km from Mogadishu; a truck laden with food aid takes about three to four days.”

The organization prefers to fly aid directly to Mogadishu as it then has to deal with fewer lines of authority. “We don’t like the overland route from the Kenyan border as we have to travel from Transitional Federal Government-run areas along the border into Al-Shabab areas. Crossing the lines from a TFG area into an Al-Shabab area is very difficult [involving a lot of negotiations at both ends].”

The UN Monitoring Group report noted: “The principal impediments to security and stabilization in southern Somalia are the Transitional Federal Government leadership’s lack of vision or cohesion, its endemic corruption and its failure to advance the political process. Arguably even more damaging is the government’s active resistance to engagement with or the empowerment of local, de facto political and military forces elsewhere in the country.”

At the moment, aid could do with some coordination in Somalia, said Ibrahim.

“We have so many NGOs, including a lot of Arab ones, coming into Somalia to help but no one seems to know where they should focus, where the needs are – they are all in Mogadishu trying to link with local NGOs – this is an emergency, we need the help but someone must coordinate,” Ibrahim said.

jk/mw source www.irinnews.org

CONGO: High-tech measures to curb illegal fishing

Photo: Laudes Martial Mbon/IRIN

Congo banned fishing with explosives and the use of small-mesh nets in an effort to crack down on illegal catches (file photo)

BRAZZAVILLE, 9 August 2011 (IRIN) – Congolese authorities have taken steps to curb illegal fishing in their territorial waters to ensure the survival of fishery resources and boost food security.

The latest measure is a satellite surveillance system that monitors all the fishing boats operating in the country’s maritime waters.

“The Vessel Monitoring System allows us to conduct surveillance of all the fishing vessels in the sea without exception,” said Dieudonné Kiessiekiaoua, a fishing and aquaculture adviser in the Department of Fisheries.

Kiessiekiaoua said: “The Minister of Fisheries has a screen at his desk that allows him to follow, in real time, the movements of every ship. It’s a measure designed to combat illegal fishing, since we have to ensure sound management of the fish, which are the inheritance of all Congolese. We must safeguard them for future generations who will also turn to them for food.”

Illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, Kiessiekiaoua said, has had repercussions for the lives of fishermen and all citizens. “When the fish are caught at an immature age, the whole chain is disturbed: the fishermen will not have any money to live decently with their families and it’s certain that there won’t be any more food on our tables,” he said.

The authorities put the VMS system in place with help from the international satellite data group Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS), based in Toulouse, France. The two signed an agreement in 2006, but the system became operational in February 2011.

Most of the boats plying Congolese waters come from China. Others are from the Netherlands and France.

The VMS results are already living up to expectations.

“The ships that used to fish in restricted zones, notably the six nautical miles that are designated a breeding ground, have been turned back thanks to the VMS system,” Kiessiekiaoua said. “They went toward the recommended fishing area as designated by the fishing law in force since 2000.”

It’s a measure designed to combat illegal fishing, since we have to ensure sound management of the fish, which are the inheritance of all Congolese

Nature preservation and conservation organizations are not challenging the satellite system and have called for extra support for it.

“I don’t doubt the efficacy of the satellites but you have to have men on the ground to strengthen the surveillance,” said Arsène Guélélé of the NGO Action for the Environment and International Solidarity. “Five or six years ago, because of a lack of supervision, Chinese fishermen were even taking fish fry. If you start taking the fry, will anything else remain in the water?”

Other actions

A signatory to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, Congo banned the practice of fishing with explosives and the use of small-mesh nets in an effort to crack down on illegal catches.

Donatien Animiyo of the Fishermen’s Group of Mpila, said: “Explosive devices were widely used at the end of the civil war in 1997. They destroy the ecosystem and prevent fish from reproducing. There was a time when fish were rare in the markets.

“It’s not enough for the authorities to put more laws in place. What’s important is that they are strictly enforced.”

Despite all the provisions, Congo is far from assuring its own food security. It continues to import foodstuffs, including fish.

Kiessiekiaoua said: “Since each Congolese consumes 25kg of fish per year, we have to produce 100,000MT. We are not currently producing this much and sometimes we have to resort to imports to make up for the deficit. We think that aquaculture, fish farming, and inland fisheries should be developed to fill this gap.”

Fisheries Minister Hellot Mampouya Matson said: “The fishing and aquaculture sector plays an important role in the Congolese economy, especially in terms of the contribution to food security, income-generation, job creation, and livelihoods.”

lmm/jb/js/mw source www.irinnews.org