Follow @{0}A woman breastfeeds her baby in Garin Badjini village, Niger (file photo)NIAMEY/DAKAR, 27 February 2014 (IRIN) – Niger has made remarkable progress in cutting under-five mortality over the past decade, and it looks set to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on reducing child mortality rates by two-thirds by 2015. But high maternal mortality, skyrocketing population growth and low government capacity are still impeding progress, say partners and health practitioners.Child and infant mortality figures have dropped year-on-year for the past decade. The infant mortality rate – deaths has among children under age one per 1,000 live births – dropped…
Author: ARIN News
Follow @{0}Wedding celebration. Timbuktu residents say reconciliation is possible after a divisive Islamist ruleTIMBUKTU, 27 February 2014 (IRIN) – Residents of Timbuktu, Mali’s cultural capital, are hopeful the city can draw on its long history of tolerance to heal social relations frayed by a 10-month Islamist occupation, which Arab and Tuareg communities are still being accused of having abetted.In his book* on the recent Islamist occupation of Timbuktu, senior government official Houday Ag Mohamed, a Tuareg, explains that successive insurgencies over the years led to a wave of discrimination and hostility against Tuareg and Arabs living in mali. It is…
Follow @{0}Gbagbo supporters at a rally. There are worries over Côte d’Ivoire’s 2015 poll preparations ABIDJAN, 26 February 2014 (IRIN) – As Côte d’Ivoire inches closer to its first elections since the violently disputed polls of 2010, efforts to deliver justice, promote reconciliation and disarm fighters are being criticized for failing to shield the country from renewed instability. Since taking power, the government of President Alassane Ouattara has been dogged by accusations of carrying out only partial justice in response to the clashes, which killed at least 3,000 people following the November 2010 presidential run-off. The bulk of those detained…
Follow @{0}Home-grown solutions are cheap and effective: Children in Namibia eat a meal made from products sourced from their fieldJOHANNESBURG, 24 February 2014 (IRIN) – Rwanda has achieved remarkable success in reducing child hunger, and nutrition experts believe there may be lessons here for other countries in Africa. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in a 2013 report on progress in tackling malnutrition, noted that in 2005 more than half of Rwanda’s children under five years of age – about 800,000 – were stunted. “Just five years later, stunting prevalence had decreased from an estimated 52 percent to 44 percent,” the report…
Follow @{0}A pile of rifles after disarmament in eastern DRC. Weapons smuggling to Boko Haram is heightening insecurity in northern CameroonYAOUNDE, 21 February 2014 (IRIN) – Recent arms seizures and arrests of traffickers in Cameroon’s Far North Region have highlighted the escalating insecurity caused by Boko Haram in neighbouring Nigeria and the impact of the unrest in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Sudan.In January, Cameroon’s security forces arrested a man attempting to transport 655 guns to Nigeria. In September 2013, 5,400 AK-47 rifles were seized on a pick-up truck in Maroua, the capital of Far North Region, according to…
Follow @{0}An FARDC soldier takes a break on the frontline during 2013 operations against the armed group M23New rapid reaction mechanism (ACIRC) gains traction Nigeria cool on ACIRC Recent interventions in DRC spark debate Some African military interventions too partisan JOHANNESBURG, 21 February 2014 (IRIN) – The African Union (AU) is rethinking on how it can most effectively deploy military forces to tackle the continent’s crises. The African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises (ACIRC) was first floated in the AU in 2013 as a stop-gap measure to counter the continued delays of an African Standby Force (ASF), which includes…
Follow @{0}A Chadian baby receiving vaccination. A meningitis vaccine being used outside the cold chain is boosting reachDAKAR, 20 February 2014 (IRIN) – A pilot meningitis A immunization campaign targeting more than 155,000 people in Benin with a vaccine that does not require constant refrigeration has demonstrated clear benefits, enabling wider reach, more efficient administration and potential cost reduction, researchers say.Most vaccines must be kept cold, at temperatures between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, but the meningitis A vaccine known as MenAfriVac can be stored for up to four days at up to 40 degrees Celsius without any loss of…
Follow @{0}A nine-month long military crackdown is yet to break the back of Boko HaramABUJA, 19 February 2014 (IRIN) – Hoping to snuff out Boko Haram, Nigerian forces launched a crackdown in May 2013, swooping into towns, rounding up hundreds of youths and strafing suspected hideouts of the militia, who, despite being pushed back, continue to torment civilians and target security forces.In the latest attack on 15 February, more than a hundred people were killed in the northeastern Borno State by suspected Boko Haram gunmen.But over the course of its crackdown, the military has been accused by rights groups of…
By Chris Simpson Malian soldiers participate in training run by the EUBAMAKO, 17 February 2014 (IRIN) – Despite international efforts to restore peace in Mali, the northern region of Kidal remains an MNLA stronghold. While the rest of Mali slowly recovers from the rebel takeover and Islamist occupation, officials worry the distrust and enmity lingering in Kidal could destabilize the country.”Sandy” El Hadj Baba Haïdara, who has just lost his seat as the National Assembly representative for Timbuktu, says Mali’s destiny is tied up with Kidal, a former garrison town in the remote Adrar des Ifoghas region.”You find people saying…
Follow @{0}Faeqa Saeed Al-Saleh, Joint General Secretary at the League of Arab States, with women in Beydia TaboyettGORGOL/BRAKNA, 17 February 2014 (IRIN) – Drought-prone, chronically hungry Mauritania, with the help of the UN, is reaching out to Arab donors, encouraging them to reach beyond their customary role in development and engage in humanitarian response.Traditional humanitarian donors are largely members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC). But non-traditional, non-DAC donors’ contributions to humanitarian financing have been increasing in recent years. And with many Western donors cutting budgets amid fears of another recession, the Gulf…