Full Coverage: West Africa

29.07.2004 Nigerian education minister Hajia Binta Ibrahim Musa has said the country’s future educators must be computer literate by 2005 to be eligible for teacher training certification. At a meeting in Abuja, she said ICTs and distance education could be an affordable way of expanding and improving the quality of education in Africa.

28.07.2004 After more than 10 years of frozen cooperation, the European Commission wants to re-open consultation with Togo and has agreed a roadmap for the resumption of financial support. The key test is to hold free and fair elections within the next 24 months and European monitors will be working in the country over that period.

28.07.2004 Political talks between the Togolese government and opposition parties officially opened under pressure from the European Union (EU) despite the absence of main opposition parties.

28.07.2004 Togo's health ministry is throwing its weight behind new combination drugs in the fight against malaria but their high price-tags put them beyond the reach of many people, who turn instead to traditional remedies and black market medicines.

27.07.2004 Poor and illiterate women and girls in Togo will soon be helped to learn how to avoid HIV/AIDS infection and care for those infected in a joint project between the UN and the Togo government.

27.07.2004 In spite of a heavy eradication program in West Africa run by the Jimmy Carter Foundation, guinea worm continues to threaten West African countries. The Foundation aims to eradicate guinea worm from Togo by the end of 2004.

27.07.2004 The cholera epidemic in Lome which claimed many lives in February 2004 was centred around households close to the polluted water of the city lagoon and illustrates the serious risks faced by the city's population.

27.07.2004 New research has revealed that the consumption of aflatoxins, which contaminate staple foods stored in hot and humid conditions, is associated with impaired growth in children in Togo and Benin.

27.07.2004 Rubbish, dumped in gutters, is choking up the crumbling sanitation works that poorly service the capital Lome, worsening flooding in the rainy season and encouraging the spread of disease, to the concern of residents and health workers.

22.07.2004 Angry Sierra Leoneans are demanding that their government ask Guinea to withdraw its troops from their territory which they occupied five years ago. Troops from Guinea occupied the eastern border town of Yenga during Sierra Leone's civil war between the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and government forces.

18.07.2004 A case study of the impact of World Bank and IMF prescriptions for Senegal concludes that key poverty indicators have gone into reverse and that the debt burden has unnecessarily increased.

18.07.2004 In this analysis prepared before the recent HIPC Initiative trigger for Senegal, Jubilee Research posits that HIPC debt relief levels will be insufficient to enable the country to attain its MDGs. Only full debt cancellation will enable poverty strategies to be adequately pursued.

17.07.2004 A Canadian company has been contracted to extend Sonatel, Senegal’s national telecommunications provision, into rural areas. Senegal ranks second in sub-Saharan Africa for internet connectivity, surpassed only by South Africa.

17.07.2004 In April 2004 President Abdoulaye Wade fired his fourth prime minister, Idrissa Seck, and installed Macky Sall to the position. Political commentators suggest that Wade’s measures are as much about reinforcing his own position as improving government.

17.07.2004 Community organizations and government health services are working jointly on a Roll Back Malaria Partnership in Matam, to stem the spread of malaria, particularly amongst children. Health resources in rural areas are thinly spread and 35% of child mortality in Senegal is caused by malaria.

09.07.2004 The International Press Centre, Lagos, Nigeria will on Monday, July 12, 2003 hold the Media Launch of the documentary film titled, We Speak for US. The documentary is part of a project designed to highlight the plight of the unheard voices and the under-reported in our society titled "We Speak for Us".

08.07.2004 As members of Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front go on trial this week for atrocities committed during the country's civil war, the world is once again reminded of the toll that the trade in blood diamonds has taken on this West African state. But, has government managed to clamp down on the illegal trade in diamonds which fuelled the fighting?

John Karimu, Commissioner General of the National Revenue Authority, believes that it has. And, he ascribes this in part to the introduction of the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme in the aftermath of the civil war, which was declared over in Jan. 2002.

08.07.2004 Anup Shah explores how the activities of large oil corporations such as Mobil, Chevron, Shell, Elf, Agip etc have raised many concerns and criticisms. Oil, which could potentially have allowed Nigeria to be one of the wealthiest countries in Africa has instead led it to become one of the poorest.

08.07.2004 Il 40% dei diamanti che escono dalla Sierra Leone passa tuttora per le vie del traffico illecito - riporta Ipsnews. Una drastica riduzione rispetto agli anni del conflitto, ma che non rassicura certo i promotori del "Kimberly Process Certification Scheme" che impone la certificazione dei preziosi per mettere al bando i diamanti provienti da zone di guerra. Si è aperto intanto in Sierra Leone il primo processo contro gli ex-ribelli del Ruf (Fronte unito rivoluzionario) accusati di numerosi crimini durante il decennale conflitto 1991-2001.