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: 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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MALI: When the world’s deserts flood
DAKAR, 10 October 2008 (IRIN) - In August floods loosened the dry caked Sahelian earth in Gao, northern Mali, affecting more than 1,000 people, many of whom temporarily took refuge in area schools. While displaced families have since vacated schools in time for the beginning of the school year on 6 October, many families remain homeless, according to the Mali Red Cross.
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MALI: Returnees sceptical about new EU information centre
BAMAKO, 7 October 2008 (IRIN) - The European Union (EU) has opened its first multi-million dollar immigration centre in West Africa, but returnee migrants told IRIN the Bamako centre would not change their minds about migrating without visas.
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MALI: Violence against women on rise
BAMAKO, 2 October 2008 (IRIN) - At least 300 women are victims of sexual violence every year in Bamako, according to local police records, but the actual figure is much higher said the president of the Bamako-based non-profit, Women in Law and Development in Africa.
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MALI-NIGER: Insecurity persists despite militia leader's arrest
BAMAKO, 29 September 2008 (IRIN) - Analysts say despite the government's efforts to secure the north through its clampdown of a militia accused of masterminding recent Tuareg killings, lasting peace is still elusive in the north because of restive ex-fighters, extreme Sahelian poverty, and drug trafficking.
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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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