Harare:  Directors of Mbada Holdings, a firm in partnership with the Zimbabwean government to develop the highly controversial Marange diamond field, on Monday again failed to appear before Parliament's mines committee despite repeated requests by the panel.

Johannesburg: "We should not have to be dragooned into setting high standards in public life. We should willingly seek maximum openness about what our public representatives do, and receive." These words are as true today as they were in 1996, when senior African National Congress member Kader Asmal…

Dar es Salaam:  The Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr  Samuel Sitta, yesterday spoke of the need for Parliament to educate the public on its roles to avoid unnecessary blame or criticism directed to Members of Parliament.

Dar es Salaam:  Full implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategic Action Plan (NACSAP) would help reduce public discontent over corruption in public service delivery, it has been said.

The massacre of nearly 200 opposition demonstrators in Conakry, Guinea, in late September 2009 shocked Africa and the world. Beyond the sheer brutality of the crackdown, one feature was particularly stunning to many survivors and observers, although it has become a common one in most African conflicts:…

New Delhi:  For all the tokenism around International Women's Day, numbers tell a very different story. The government's per capita allocation for women-centric schemes is less than Rs 1,200 per woman per annum with a majority of allocations restricted to health and education, leaving areas like economic…

Nairobi:  Although women in Kenya would vote for female candidates for Parliament, the majority would still prefer a man to lead the country, according to a new opinion poll.

Johannesburg:  Women are yet to make significant inroads into the media 15 years after the Beijing Platform of Action recognised its centrality in advancing women's rights. Preliminary findings of the  2010 Global Media Monitoring Project conducted by the World Association for Christian Communication…

London:  A third of seats in India's Parliament are to be reserved for women under a law to be put before the legislature today - International Women's Day - in one of the country's boldest steps towards gender equality since independence in 1947.

Dar es Salaam:  Despite the fact that women form the bulk of the population and majority of voters, their interests have not been well represented over the years.  The invisibility of women in politics is a worldwide historical Phenomenon and Tanzania is no exception. Over the years elections in Tanzania…

Dar es Salaam:  Recent pronouncements by President Jakaya Kikwete that the government is working on plans to adopt the 2008 Southern African Development Community (Sadc) protocol that calls for at least 50 per cent women representation in parliament are re-assuring. But the challenge is whether or…

Juba:  We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia's largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure…

Rights group, Global Witness (GW) has called on corporations in Europe to break their links to conflict resources from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in order to dissuade rebel groups from continuing with their campaigns of violence against civilians.

Few issues have generated as much heat in recent African affairs as China's foray onto the continent. Much has been made of the dragon's insatiable hunger for the continent's mineral wealth. The breadth of Chinese involvement has focused minds in the West and provoked much media hyperbole.

In 2009, BIC conducted a survey of civil society organizations involved in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a coalition that works with the World Bank Group to promote transparency in extractives. The survey looked into the effectiveness of CSO participation and the role of the World…

During the British colonial era, Ghana was known as the "Gold Coast" for its prolific gold deposits. Now, as in many countries before it, Ghana's recent discovery of a major offshore oil field has created a mixture of exuberance and trepidation. Billions of dollars will flow into the government treasury,…

Kampala:  Uganda's members of parliament (MPs) are pressurising government to make public details of oil production-sharing agreements it signed with various international oil companies.

Atlanta:   Participants from the African Regional Conference on the Right of Access to Information today released the Regional Findings and Plan of Action to advance the right in Africa. The conference found that while access to information is a fundamental human right, political and institutional…

Durban:  President Jacob Zuma has not made any declaration of his financial interests, assets and liabilities as required by the law, the Sunday Tribune can reveal.  The Executive Members' Ethics Code says that every cabinet member must disclose full particulars - including those of their spouse,…

Johannesburg:  It is necessary to open the debate on political party funding, the ANC said in Johannesburg on Friday.  "...If we say no party, including the ruling party, should have a funder who gets his profits from state coffers, we must say so," party spokesman Jackson Mthembu said at a media…