WEST AFRICA: Remittances set to fall in 2009
DAKAR, 11 November 2008 (IRIN) - For the first time in over a decade remittances to sub-Saharan Africa are set to fall in 2009, increasing people’s vulnerability to poverty, officials at the World Bank say. Remittance income in developing countries is expected to decline by about 1 percent from 2008 to 2009.
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WEST AFRICA: Taking on climate change as a region
COTONOU, 23 October 2008 (IRIN) - Climate experts and ministers in West Africa have committed to coordinating national efforts to fight climate change, at the conclusion of an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meeting in Benin’s economic capital, Cotonou, on 22 October.
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WEST AFRICA: Cross-border FGM on the rise
OUAGADOUGOU, 17 October 2008 (IRIN) - Cross-border female genital mutilation / cutting (FGM/C) is on the rise in West Africa according to the UN, spurring the need to impose a region-wide law banning the practice, say experts.
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WEST AFRICA: Tiny fonio cereal may hold big answers in food crisis
DAKAR, 17 October 2008 (IRIN) - Despite growing for centuries in some of the driest, toughest agricultural zones of West Africa, the fonio cereal has been neglected by most agricultural development programmes, according to the World Bank. But skyrocketing rice price increases that have slammed rice-dependent West Africa and declining profits in other cash crops like cotton have some local producers turning back to the ancient cereal.
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WEST AFRICA: Train the soldiers, protect the children
DAKAR, 17 October 2008 (IRIN) - An international NGO is using cartoons to spell out to African soldiers the rights and wrongs of how to treat a child.
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WEST AFRICA: Region among the world’s hungriest
DAKAR, 14 October 2008 (IRIN) - The 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI) says sub-Saharan African countries have the highest level of hunger in the world, with Niger, Sierra Leone and Liberia experiencing “extremely alarming levels of hunger,” however, this is still an improvement over 1990 levels.
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WEST AFRICA: Voices from exile
DAKAR, 13 October 2008 (IRIN) - The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, has appealed to international donors not to cut back on aid to humanitarian programmes amid a global financial crisis that has shuttered financial institutions in rich countries. At the conclusion of UNHCR’s annual meeting in Geneva from 6-10 October, Guterres said refugees remain the most vulnerable victims of the global economic fallout.
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WEST AFRICA: Mixed report card in 2008 corruption index
DAKAR, 23 September 2008 (IRIN) - Nine West African countries shot up while nine others sank lower in the 2008 Transparency International (TI) ranking of perceptions of corruption in 180 countries.
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BURKINA FASO: European Union pledges more aid to fight malnutrition
OUAGADOUGOU, 15 September 2008 (IRIN) - The European Commission (EC) is ready to increase its aid to fight malnutrition in Burkina Faso if current EC nutrition projects prove to be "success stories," said its humanitarian chief Louis Michel.
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WEST AFRICA : Thousands affected by floods
DAKAR, 8 September 2008 (IRIN) - Floods from heavy rains across West Africa have damaged infrastructure, and destroyed the homes or crops of up to 130,000 people, and caused more than 20 deaths, according to Hervé Ludovic De Lys, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
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