CONTENTS:

1 - GLOBAL: Mixed scorecard for donors
2 - In Brief: Darfur groups flouting arms embargo - new report
3 - KENYA: In and out of school in Samburu
4 - SOMALIA: Saudi livestock move boosts Somaliland economy
5 - UGANDA: Government halts forced IDP repatriation
6 - ZIMBABWE: Oversight body "not toothless"


1 - GLOBAL: Mixed scorecard for donors

DAKAR, 10 November (IRIN) - The world's wealthiest donors do not put enough into
helping communities prevent and prepare for disaster, says the non-profit DARA
International, in its third annual rating of donors on quality and efficacy of
humanitarian aid.

Using the principles donors adopted in the 2003 good humanitarian donorship
(GHD) initiative, the Humanitarian Response Index assesses donor performance in
assisting people affected by crises.

Released on 10 November, the 2009 HRI says wealthy countries' support for
prevention remains weak, while disasters - many climate-related - and conflicts
mount.

The good donorship principles stress the need for donors to invest in prevention
and risk reduction to minimize the human costs of disasters, DARA (Development
Assistance Research Associates) says. "Countless lives and livelihoods could be
saved if the international community made a concerted effort to prevent human
suffering" through better preparedness measures.

"A serious shift in donor policy and practice is needed to scale up support for
conflict and disaster prevention and risk reduction efforts at the community
level," the report says. This requires new funding, DARA executive director
Silvia Hidalgo told IRIN.

Many aid experts say preparedness often falls through the funding cracks - not a
top priority in emergency relief operations or in long-term development.

Hidalgo said donors must create more flexible funding pools in order to address
prevention. "[Prevention] is too weak right now and it has to be everyone's
[humanitarian and development actors'] business to engage in it."

Per Byman, head of the humanitarian team at the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), agreed that donors do not support
disaster preparedness to the extent necessary, but said it must be incorporated
into development.

"The main challenge is to make disaster preparedness an integral part of
development, not humanitarian response," Byman told IRIN.

He agreed that disaster risk reduction (DRR) must be integrated into
humanitarian work. "But in order to reduce poverty and reach the Millennium
Development Goals [disaster preparedness/DRR] must be an integral part of
development programmes and integrated into poverty reduction strategies."

DARA notes the continued gap in donor support for the transition from relief to
recovery and development. Humanitarian assistance should include long-term
strategies for both DRR and climate change adaptation, the HRI report says.

Other "serious gaps" in how the international community deals with crises,
according to DARA, are in ensuring access to at-risk populations and boosting
the capacity of local organizations.

Tough environment

DARA looked at 22 donor governments and the European Commission, which together
provided about US$10.4 billion in humanitarian assistance in 2008 to help some
250 million people affected by crises.

This is "far less than required" to meet humanitarian needs, DARA said, noting
that in late October the UN alone reported a $3.6-billion funding gap for
humanitarian programmes covering 43 million people.

DARA said the global economic crisis has led to an "unprecedented shortfall".
The report said donors and humanitarian agencies faced increasingly complex and
difficult working environments, with the scale of disasters rising, security
problems reducing humanitarian space and staff and budget cuts limiting
capacity.

The HRI 2009 ranks donors on five "pillars": responding to needs; prevention,
risk reduction and recovery; working with humanitarian partners; protection and
international law; and learning and accountability.

DARA's Hidalgo noted some progress in coordination. "Donors are engaging more
with each other than they were in the past" and have become more oriented to
accountability drives like Active Learning Network for Accountability and
Performance (ALNAP), she said.

But knowledge among donors of the GHD principles and how to uphold them slipped
over the past year, she said.

Good gauge?

Some donors have been critical of the HRI approach. Sida's Byman told IRIN that
while it is important to look at donors in terms of the GHD principles, the
"naming and shaming" mode is not the best way to go. "We prefer to address GHD
issues in bilateral discussions or through joint action within the GHD
Initiative."

He added: "We have doubts about the methodology [of the HRI] and about whether
the report is an accurate representation of all aspects of humanitarian aid."

aj/np/bp/cb[ENDS]


2 - In Brief: Darfur groups flouting arms embargo - new report

NAIROBI, 10 November (IRIN) - Armed groups in Sudan's Darfur region have
continued to violate a UN arms embargo as well as international humanitarian and
human rights law, a new report by a UN panel of experts has said.

"All parties to the conflict continue to fail to meet their affirmative
obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law in areas under
their control," the report said.

"Among the armed movements, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) is the most
active violator of the arms embargo, carrying out repeated attacks," it said.

Sudan has rejected the report saying it would demand that the Security Council
terminate the panel's mandate. "We are fed up with this committee," news reports
quoted its ambassador to the UN, Abdel-Mahmoud Abdel-Halim, as saying. "Our
position is a total rejection of this report."

eo/cb
[ENDS]


3 - KENYA: In and out of school in Samburu

LESIDAI, 10 November (IRIN) - Many Kenyan children are in school, but enrolment
in the north has been adversely affected by insecurity, food scarcity and
traditional attitudes, residents and teachers said.

"I just joined a new school a few weeks ago [20 October]," 14-year-old Kelly
Lanyasunya said at Lesidai primary school in Samburu Central District
(central-northwestern Kenya). "I got a new uniform and I am making friends but
if this area gets insecure, I will have to move to another school."

Like her classmate, Nabik Kekichorumongi, is forced to change schools whenever
bandits attack the surrounding villages.

Stephen Leparachwo, head teacher at Lolkunono primary school in Samburu
Central, said Lesidai primary school often receives parents bringing their
children from Pura, a neighbouring area affected by banditry.

"When they come, some are even without food. The bandits follow the fleeing
residents [and their cattle], not giving the children a chance to read," he
said.

Cattle-rustling

Much of the insecurity is due to cattle-rustling between the Samburu, Pokot,
Turkana and Borana communities, according to local residents. In September, for
example, Pokot cattle raiders killed 32 people in Samburu Central.

Rustling has also affected food production, especially in fertile areas like
Ngano on the Kirisia ranges, where bandits lurk in the beautiful landscape.

In 2008, insecurity worsened in Ngano, according to the headmaster of a local
school, Simon Lenolkulal. "We could hear gunshots, so we were seeking cover on
the ground with the children," he said, recalling a recent incident.

"There is a high rate of transition even of school teachers here. Teachers are
reluctant to work here because of the insecurity. One week there is peace, the
next week we are moving... Every week we enrol new children, then when there is
tension they leave."

The school relies on food aid from agencies like the UN World Food Programme
(WFP). According to Lenolkulal, however, people could farm the land and
eliminate food aid, if there were more security.

At neighbouring Lgoss primary school, deputy head teacher Bernadeta Lesuruan
told IRIN: "When there is conflict and the parents flee, we have more children
coming to the classes."

Hunger

Food scarcity tends to drive up school attendance, local residents said.

When there is a general food distribution, enrolment in school goes down, while
in more difficult times the number of children increases, Lesuruan said.

"During such times you see young children carrying toddlers to school for the
food. During the drought, the children were entirely relying on food in school.
Some were fainting after coming from home hungry. When there is no food [at
all], school attendance is very low."

In August, WFP was feeding at least 900,000 children in schools to help
drought-affected families in Kenya's arid and semi-arid regions.

"Food is an issue," said Peter Emanman, the school feeding programme officer in
Samburu Central.

Recent rain has brought hope of an improved food situation. "People are
starting to plant but the food crops will not be ready by December [the next
school holiday month]. What will happen then?" Emanman asked.

Few girls at school

There are few school teachers and hardly any female teachers. At Lgoss,
Lesuruan was the only female member of staff.

"Since I came here [in 2008] more girls are staying in school especially those
who would run away for the period of their menstruation," said Lesuruan. "I
bring pads to the school for the girls."

Apart from the location of the school, 12km from the nearest shopping centre,
the high cost of sanitary pads also feeds absenteeism.

Early marriages also affect girls' attendance at school: Most drop out in the
middle primary school classes. In 2008, some Samburu schools had no girl
candidate sitting the national primary school leaving exam.

"There is a mentality that if girls are educated and get jobs, the earnings
will not return home but go to the husband," said another teacher.

Most of the boys in school are late entrants; some of the girls stay at home to
work. "In this community people are not fond of keeping children in schools,"
the teacher added.

Night school

However, some communities are trying to educate residents about the value of
education: Currently under way in Baragoi District, the pastoralist night school
initiative targets cattle herder children who are unable to attend day school.

"The children leave the fields at 4pm and then attend class," said Emanman.
"The students get `uji' (maize meal porridge) in the evening and are taught
until 10pm."

Some children from these schools have progressed to the formal education
system, but the night school initiative is largely designed to teach basic
literacy to herders and others, he added.

aw/cb

[ENDS]


4 - SOMALIA: Saudi livestock move boosts Somaliland economy

HARGEISA, 10 November (IRIN) - Days after Saudi Arabia lifted a nine-year ban on
livestock imports from Somalia, the market in Hargeisa, Somaliland, has seen a
10-fold increase in sales, according to local traders.

"One thousand five hundred sheep used to be sold in the market before the
recent announcement... compared to more than 16,000 animals in the market daily
in the last few days," Jama Farah Du'alle, a middleman (`dilal') in the market,
told IRIN on 7 November.

Livestock keepers in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, whose mainstay
is pastoralism, said they were beginning to see a change in their fortunes.

"In the last nine years I used to earn 5,000-10,000 Somaliland shillings a day
[US $1.6 - 3.2] but by Allah's mercy in the past few days I have been earning
60,000-70,000 a day, which has really improved my life," Du'alle said.

Somaliland's livestock minister, Idiris Ibrahim Abdi, announced the Saudi move
on 5 November. Imposed in late 2000, the ban followed an outbreak of Rift Valley
Fever (RVF) in the Horn of Africa region.

RVF is an acute viral infectious disease of humans, cattle and sheep, which
usually occurs during the rainy season. Clinically it is characterized by fever,
loss of body coordination and sudden death.

Saudi Arabia, which used to be the biggest buyer of Somali livestock, said it
had lifted the ban to coincide with the `haj' pilgrimage later in November.

Better days for Berbera

The decision allows livestock keepers to ship animals to Saudi Arabia through
Somaliland's traditional livestock port of Berbera. In the past, the port also
served livestock trucked from the neighbouring Ethiopian regions of Somali and
Oromiya.

Berbera had been losing its importance as a business centre since 2000.
Thousands of people there moved to other towns such as Hargeisa and Burao.

"[Most] of the young men who used to work in the livestock export business as
animal herders on vessels heading to Saudi Arabia, have moved to Arab countries
or other urban centres within Somaliland," a local resident said.

The Saudi decision, according to local pastoralists, has renewed hope that
Somali livestock can fetch a good price. "We have suffered in the last few years
because of the ban; our animals had no value in the market.

"For example one lamb was valued at only about US$20, which is much less than
the cost of foodstuff," said Rashid Haybe Illeeye, from the Lebi-Sagaale region
along the Somaliland-Ethiopia border.

"Today I came with four lambs as usual - to buy food - and three of them were
bought at $40-50," Illeeye said.

A local journalist based in Burao told IRIN that the lifting of the ban was a
boon to all. "The market has not seen such activity for nine years," he
explained. "The whole of Burao - from tea ladies, truckers and nomads, to
porters - is doing a booming business."

maj-ah/aw/cb

[ENDS]


5 - UGANDA: Government halts forced IDP repatriation

MASINDI, 10 November (IRIN) - Forced repatriation of displaced persons in Uganda
to their original homes in the north is "inhuman and against the government
policy of voluntary return", local officials have said.

Hundreds of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled clashes between the
rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and government forces in the 1990s, and
sought refuge in the central district of Masindi, were recently rounded up by
local authorities and sent back on trucks to northern districts.

"We hear that these IDPs are being rounded [up] and loaded into trucks and
brought back to their districts in northern Uganda; this is against the
principle of the voluntary return of formerly displaced persons to their homes,"
Kitgum District [northern Uganda] chairman John Ogwok Komakech said.

Sources in Masindi said 2,492 IDPs living in Kihura A village, 1,300 in Kihura
B, 1,511 in Kasubi and 1,843 in Nyamiringa were to be repatriated.

The Disaster Preparedness and Recovery Coordinator for the Office of the Prime
Minister in Amuru, northern Uganda, Lilly Adong, said the government had
intervened.

"The whole exercise was stopped because it was done in total violation of IDP
rights. IDPs being repatriated have expressed concern over their security and
dignity," she told IRIN. "These people were loaded into a truck and dumped in
Amuru at a police station without our notice."

Joseph Otto, who fled Mucwini village in Kitgum District in 1996, said he would
remain in Kitgum town because he could not go back to the village with nothing
to start a life.

Other IDPs said they were born in Masindi and did not know where to go, while
some had vegetable gardens or children at school in Masindi.

"I was forced onto the truck by one of the law enforcement officers in
Nyamiringa village where I was living," Harriet Achayo, who fled Guru-Guru
village in Amuru District in 1997, told IRIN at Ociti return site in Amuru.
"They said they were taking us back because the land we are occupying will be
planted with sugar cane."

Achayo and 122 other IDPs were dumped at Amuru police station, local officials
said. Another 93 were taken to Pader District.

Relative peace returned to northern Uganda after the signing of a cessation of
hostilities agreement between the LRA and the government in 2006. Since then,
most IDPs have returned to their original villages.

Observers, however, say services at places of return are failing to meet the
demands of returning populations. These include schools which lack housing for
teachers, classrooms, latrines and water points.

ca/eo/cb
[ENDS]


6 - ZIMBABWE: Oversight body "not toothless"

HARARE, 10 November (IRIN) - Intervention by the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) to resolve a dispute between Zimbabwe's unity government
partners has highlighted the redundancy of an oversight body specifically
established to smooth the road of political reconciliation.

The Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) was constituted on 30
January 2009 by the SADC Facilitation Team to ensure that the signatories abided
by the terms of Zimbabwe's Global Political Agreement (GPA), signed on 15
September 2008.

According to article 22 of the GPA - which paved the way for the formation of
the unity government in February 2009 - JOMIC would "ensure full and proper
implementation of the letter and spirit of this agreement ... [and] receive
reports and complaints in respect of any issue related to the implementation,
enforcement and execution of this agreement."

JOMIC has been plagued by funding shortages and "does not have legal or
statutory powers to enforce the implementation of the GPA. That therefore means
it has limitations in terms of ensuring the full and proper implementation of
the political agreement, and that forces everybody to work on consensus," Elton
Mangoma, economic planning minister and co-chair of JOMIC, told IRIN.

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, "disengaged" from the unity government on 16 October
in protest over President Robert Mugabe's alleged refusal to abide by the terms
of the GPA.

This, the most serious breakdown in the unity government so far, has been
patched up after the SADC Troika on Defence, Security and Politics met in
Maputo, capital of Mozambique, where all parties in the unity government were
given a 30-day deadline to resolve outstanding issues.

Mangoma said one of JOMIC's mandates was "to serve as a catalyst in creating
and promoting an atmosphere of mutual trust and understanding between the
political parties, and to promote continuing dialogue ... If everything was
working according to plan, then the recent meeting in Maputo would not have
taken place." The secretariat now had "reasonable" resources and could not be
dismissed as "toothless".

"We cannot change the mandate of the JOMIC without amending the GPA. For JOMIC
to function smoothly, all outstanding issues to the Global Political Agreement
and the SADC communiqué of January 2009 have to be implemented in order to give
the country a fresh start," Mangoma noted.

Among the outstanding issues was a transparent land audit to identify multiple
farm ownership, halted by fresh farm invasions; the swearing-in of provincial
governors, most of whom are MDC representatives, stalled by Mugabe since
elections in 2008; media reforms; and the furore over deputy minister of
agriculture designate, Roy Bennett.

Bennett, a former white commercial farmer who lost his farm in 2003 during
Mugabe's fast-track land reform programme, is currently on trial for weapons
possession and intent to commit terrorism and banditry. Bennett's defence team
has dismissed the charges as based on a confession extracted under torture.

The MDC has also listed as a stumbling block Mugabe's unilateral appointment of
the reserve bank governor and the attorney-general, contrary to the terms of the
GPA.

In turn, Mugabe's ZANU-PF contends that the MDC has not done enough to persuade
the US and European Union to lift sanctions against hundreds of senior ZANU-PF
officials, as well as Mugabe and his family, and that the MDC has failed to stop
radio stations funded by foreign governments from broadcasting into Zimbabwe.

Ben Freeth, a Zimbabwean commercial farmer, told IRIN: "As far as we are
concerned, JOMIC does not exist. They have not done anything to stop the fresh
farm invasions taking place." His farm was taken over by a senior ZANU-PF
government official.

"The SADC Tribunal has ruled that some aspects of the land redistribution were
illegal, and the government of Zimbabwe has been in contempt of that ruling
since June, but JOMIC has not said or done anything about it."

According to JOMIC communications manager Joram Nyathi, "It [JOMIC] cannot
force parties to perform any specific provision. JOMIC can only persuade the
parties to be faithful to the letter and spirit of the GPA. Where the parties
hit a deadlock, JOMIC's role is to try and break it or propose alternatives."

In a recent newspaper column he wrote: "More importantly, because of its role
as a 'permanent' negotiating forum of the parties to the GPA, JOMIC cannot
afford the luxury of standing on hilltops to attack or condemn its constituent
partners for the infringements of the GPA."

dd/go/he

[ENDS]


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