International Agreements for Commodity Price Stabilization

This paper looks at commodity stocks, their role in price determination for storable commodities, and past efforts of international stockholding arrangements with economic provisions in stabilizing world prices. Low stocks to use ratios of recent years were one of a number of contributory factors to the grain price spike in 2007-08, the paper finds. However, the experience with past international commodity agreements (ICAs) with price band provisions and stockholding obligations suggests that they had only limited success in reducing the volatility of the prices they set out to stabilize, as well as being prone to many other operational problems. The paper also suggests that as a possible response to apparently inadequate private storage, public sector storage would be costly, ineffective in countering price spikes once stocks are fully exhausted, and would crowd out private storage. Some market-based approaches to countering food price volatility are also examined as alternatives to commodity storage.
http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/fulltext/5kg0ps7ds0jl.pdf?expires=1324460212&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=03982909F61F04C766D0330088EDCFCE 

International Police Standards-Guidebook on Democratic Policing

This toolkit is primarily addressed to all those who intend to create new or develop existing security sector legislation. This includes parliamentarians, civil servants, legal experts and nongovernmental organisations. The toolkit may also be helpful to security officials and, as a reference tool, to researchers and students interested in security sector legislation.

http://www.dcaf.ch/DCAF/EZ/Publications/International-Police-Standards-Guidebook-on-Democratic-Policing

I wish General Kayihura was a member of this forum. Either way, we shall try to educate everyone inishallah

The 10 most dangerous places for journalists

Reporters Without Borders has this year, for the first time, compiled a list of the world’s 10 most dangerous places for the media – the 10 cities, districts, squares, provinces or regions where journalists and netizens were particularly exposed to violence and where freedom of information was flouted. http://en.rsf.org/the-10-most-dangerous-places-for-21-12-2011,41582.html 

Stabilising the Congo

The brief considers the ‘stabilisation approach’ adopted by both the international community and national government to address the continued insecurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Considering stabilisation also offers a way of conceptualising and engaging with the root causes of displacement. Political implications of the stabilisation agenda are brought into sharper relief by focusing on a single question: stabilisation by whom and for whom? Rather than continuing to support the State unconditionally, the brief calls on international actors to strengthen and exercise their combined leverage in critical priority areas that together form a comprehensive ‘road map’ to long-term peace and stability following the elections.
http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/publications/policy-briefings/RSCPB8-StabilisingCongo.pdf 

Making cities smoke-free

This publication is the result of a joint project between the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI) and the WHO Centre for Health Development (Kobe Centre). It is intended as a technical resource to assist Member States implementing Article 8 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and its guidelines in order to fully protect people from tobacco smoke.

More than 739 million people representing 11% of the world's population live in countries that have introduced comprehensive, national smoke-free laws, an increase of more than 385 million since 2008. An additional 210 million people (3% of the world’s population) are protected by comprehensive smoke-free legislation at the subnational level, an increase of almost 100 million since 2008. While national laws that protect all of a country’s residents from exposure are ideal, cities can often pass legislation sooner than countries. City leaders, as credible voices for their citizens, can also directly advocate for smoke-free laws at national level.
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789241502832_eng.pdf

Ethiopia’s vision for a climate resilient green economy

This vision asserts that building resilience to avoid damage to the economy depends on understanding the threats and the priority areas for focusing adaptation efforts. This document sets out the challenges and opportunities which climate change brings for Ethiopia. It makes the case for why a carbon neutral and climate resilient development trajectory to a green economy is a priority for the country and thus for the implementation of the current Growth and Transformation Plan.
http://www.preventionweb.net/files/24317_24317crgegevision40pagesforprinting.pdf 

Ten Stories That Mattered in Access to Medicines in 2011

A list of "Ten Stories that Mattered in Access to Medicines in 2011" was released by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The list looks at developments in 2011 that had an impact whether positive or negative on people’s ability to access needed drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines in developing countries.
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/reports/2011/Access_Report_10Stories_ENG_2011.pdf 

Study identifies key interventions to reduce maternal, newborn and child deaths

About 358 000 women still die each year during pregnancy and childbirth; 7.6 million children die before the age of 5 annually. A new study, Essential interventions, commodities and guidelines for reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, describes key evidence-based interventions that will sharply reduce these numbers, with a specific focus on how to allocate limited resources for maximum impact on the health of women and children.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2011/reduce_maternal_deaths_20111215/en/index.html 

International Water Management Institute (IWMI) research reports

Bellow are research reports from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

• Farmer-based financing of operations in the Niger Valley irrigation schemes
• Bailout with white revolution or sink deeper?: groundwater depletion and impacts in the Moga District of Punjab, India
• Low-cost options for reducing consumer health risks from farm to fork where crops are irrigated with polluted water in West Africa
• Shallow groundwater in the Atankwidi Catchment of the White Volta Basin: current status and future sustainability
• An assessment of crop water productivity in the Indus and Ganges River Basins: current status and scope for improvement
• Impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture in Sri Lanka: a review and preliminary vulnerability mapping
• Wetlands, agriculture and poverty reduction
• Climate change impacts and adaptation in Nepal.

http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/Publications/IWMI_Research_Reports/ 

Gender, assets, and agricultural development programs

Being able to access, control, and own productive assets such as land, labor, finance, and social capital enables people to create stable and productive lives. Yet relatively little is known about how agricultural development programs can most effectively deliver these outcomes of well-being, empowerment, and higher income in a way that acknowledges differential access to and control over assets by men and women.
http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/capriwp99.pdf 

The Future of Climate Negotiations after Cop 17

Throughout two decades of climate negotiations, diplomats have invoked the phrase “common but differentiated responsibilities” — CBDR — as shorthand for the idea that while all countries need to take action on climate change, their actual responsibilities will differ, depending on how developed they are. Countries fell into one of two categories: industrialized or developed countries were considered wealthy and capable enough to have immediate legal obligations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, while developing countries were allowed to set their own pace for acting on climate change. The just-closed COP 17 meetings in Durban, South Africa, challenged CBDR in two ways, one of which makes meaningful action to restrict climate change more likely, while the other makes it less likely.
http://www.cigionline.org/publications/2011/12/future-climate-negotiations-after-cop-17-likelihood-meaningful-action?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cigi%2Flatest-publications+%28Latest+Publications%29 

China, Africa and the International Aid Architecture

This paper analyses China’s growing foreign aid and export credit programme as an element of the changing international aid architecture. The paper finds that practices governing Chinese aid and development finance diverge from clear OECD standards and norms on transparency and definitions, the management of concessional export credits, and the management of sovereign debt. In the area of environmental and social protections, corruption, and governance, the paper finds mixed results. Regarding governance, both China and the traditional sources of development finance have rules that discourage corruption in the procurement of aid, but export credits are less well policed. Neither seem to have rules for when or how aid should be restricted when a pattern of corruption characterizes an entire recipient government.
http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/WORKING%20107%20%20PDF%20E33.pdf 

See Photos of dying Lake Victoria(Nalubale)

The attached photos of a dying Lake Victoria are picked from Lake Victoria Shore -
Interesting- i asked several people who I found at Garuga exactly as I did at Imperial Botanical Gardens Entebbe -
Question: what has happened to the water

Answer: At Garuga a teacher told me that probably someone had pour green oil paint in the water!
Answer: Ggaba Landing site a fisher man - that was Mukasa - a sort of natural an unexplainable phenomenon with sequenced occurance
Answer: Imperial Botanical Gardens - fish food maybe!

The truth is that all so called beaches on lake Victoria  are polluted with
- Fecal pollutants
- High levels of phosphates from flowering farms
- Nutrient Load  from drainage channels - Nakivubo

all the above are necessitating toxic algae blooming -   a result of NRM industrailisation process!

Read this article in the Daily Monitor-

Uganda’s unsafe water, abrupt power outages

Daniel Bwanika

www.idrc-ug.com

Jeniffer Musisi’s salary of $178,509 (shs.432m) annually is very disturbing

Jeniffer Musisi’s salary of $178,509 (shs.432m) annually is very disturbing

13 Dec 2011 10 Comments

by semuwemba in Corruption, Economics, Politics [Edit]

Kampala Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi

Folks,
I have been saddened by the salary that has been accorded the executive Director of Kampala City, Jeniffer Musisi. Apparently, she is to earn shs.432 million (US. $178509.08) annually as a salary excluding other financial privileges. I find this kind of extravagancy so hurting and unbearable especially for one person to earn that much in country where the biggest part of 33 million people are barely having any food.


How does someone doing cleaning or teaching as a job in Uganda feel about this. I don’t know how much exactly people make in these jobs but I equate them to someone flying burgers in Europe or USA. Let’s take a look at a McDonald’s burger flipper. Here they make between £6.50 to £7.50 an hour. That may be what a burger flipper makes next year and the year after, as well. That does not matter if the cost of living does not rise either. In fact, it is to be expected in a non-inflationary economy. The value of any given labor is going to remain the same relative to the overall economy, unless for some reason that particular labor becomes more important.

But why would Jeniifer Musisi get that kind of salary in a country that is clearly facing a financial crisis? Is this selfishness of the highest order or our leaders are just heartless? The simple fact is that the NRM party does not care about poor Ugandans and low-level working people in general. They either seem to be stronger believers of the theory of trickledown economics, by which if we let rich people make more money, jobs would be created, and it would then trickle down to the rest of the society, or they are purposely making people poor to keep them at the bottom of Maslow’s theory of needs. They want them to keep thinking about basic needs instead of changing governments.

Under Gordon Brown leadership here in the UK, when we were in recession, the government was borrowing money and increasing spending where it is necessary.
‘Where is necessary’ here involved pumping more money into the banking system or nationalising some banks but not buying expensive jets for the executives or presidents or increasing the salaries/bonuses of company executives ( as is the case with Jeniffer Musisi’s shs.36m per months[US.$ 14875.76]or other public workers. This is where Uganda has got it wrong. They should not allocate biger salaries to public officials in such a poor country. Even bigger salaries are questionable in developed nations.

All countries or local governments around the world are reducing on their budgets because of global recession. In USA, according to the centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, 44 states have reduced their budgets by more than $350 billion dollars since 2009.

In the UK, bodies such as the Association of British Insurers, the Investment Management Association and Pirc, a consultancy advising shareholders, believe the bonus culture should be reformed during this recession period. Both in Nigeria and Tanzania, there are finding ways of reducing on public spending.

It is also true that different countries deal with recession using different theories of economics which I prefer not to go through today. However, the theory people are familiar with is the Keynesian theory which was welcomed by former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, with open hands, before David Cameron switched to cutting down on public spending. This is where governments advocate for deficit spending.
With Keynesian theory, when you are heavily in debt, the only way to keep spending is to keep borrowing. I supported Gordon Brown but his Keynesian theory was more of a political survival decision rather than anything else. The whole thing was a gamble from the start. Yes, consumer spending is the main driver of the UK’s economic growth but an increase in people saving to pay off their debts normally results in companies’ profits falling. Companies in turn tend to lay off staff, leading to a vicious cycle of people losing their jobs and being unable to pay their debts and mortgages.

The only reason why Gordon Brown could not easily reduce on public spending was basically because he had been on TV telling people that reduucing public spending means worse public services, so he couldn’t turn around and start slashing it. So the only real option for the UK government then was to spend some of the money that was saved during the good times combined with less borrowing to beat the recession. After all, the UK economy had been booming for years. UK had not had a recession since 1992.

But the reality is that any government under financial crisis should be trying to cut debt by trimming public spending. But that is suicide to some political leaders especially if all they care about is keeping themselves in power.

The main downside to Keynesian style of economics is that government borrowing is exactly the same as consumer borrowing. At some point, you have to pay it back. And the way government pays off borrowing is through higher taxes.

One Ugandan wrote on the Ugandans At Heart(UAH) forum in 2009 when recession had hit big nations such as UK: ‘To say that Uganda has recession is like talking of a chicken with a toothache’. Basically, the statement would have been:’ to say that Uganda has got no recession, it is like a man sleeping with a woman with HIV for a long time without a condom, and then turn around and say that he has got no HIV before he even goes for a check up’.

Uganda has been sleeping with the donor countries who have got HIV (recession) for a long time. Uganda is basically married to the donors ( USA , UK , Canada , France, Japan , Dubai ,…) and there have got a lot of children (Ugandans abroad) together. Donors support over 30% of our budget at the moment.

Ugandans abroad gave Uganda about $1.4 billion in 07/08 alone and there are the major source of foreign exchange in the country. Each of these guys looks after a lot of families in the 75% non-monetary sector. So because the ‘’Nkuba Kyeyo’’(unpaid Ugandan ambassadors abroad) or donors are affected financially, less money is being sent back home at the moment, and as a result the following services have been affected one way or the other: Construction boom in Uganda has declined; Quality of life of families is affected especially those depending on Ugandans abroad; Businesses in Uganda cities like the hospitality industry are feeling it because of reduced spending; Uganda’s general export industry has been affected because of less spending in USA or UK . We don’t have enough market within Uganda to consume the goods we produce. Let’s hope that the donor countries don’t shut down their markets from us as was the case in 1930s.

NGOs are already reducing their activities in Kampala because donors have squeezed funds. Tourism industry is already in decline in Uganda and this is directly affecting the so called CHOGM hotels and travel agencies. Foreign investment is in a decline as few foreign investors wish to bring money into the country. Food prices have become high in Uganda such that I was told a sack of charcoal costs over shs.90,000 and I kg of sugar is at shs.4000.

This country needs to make some changes. It has to start with Campaign Finance Reforms, corruption and the excesses there. To get that passed, we need a new Executive leadership, and it certainly can’t be NRM to get this done.

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

Dr.Gombya on Andrew Kayiira’s Death

Dr.Gombya on Andrew Kayiira’s Death

Apr 2, 09 10:34 PM

Henry Gombya

I have read with great amusement comments from Ugandans At Heart(UAH) forum. It seems there is a very hot argument about what happened to the late Dr Andrew Lutakome Kayiira and the relationship I had with him. I am going to, hopefully, once and for the last time, explain this relationship. I am not being forced by anybody to contribute to your members as I believe I have explained myself for so many years now. But this is the first time I have addressed the issue on a website.


There has been a lot of conspiracy theories regarding my relationship with Dr Kayiira. Most have been so hurting and painful to me and my family. Questions have been raised as to how Dr Kayiira came to stay at my house and not at anybody else’s. There has also been conspiracy theories that in someway, I was privy to Dr Kayiira’s finances and that when he came out of prison he wanted to know where his money was. These are pathetic conspiracies mostly engineered by those who are bent on seeing that the killers of Dr Kayiira are never brought to book.

Nobody should ever doubt how much I would like to see Kayiira’s killers brought to justice.. But every time the theory conspirators engage in telling the world that I had anything to do with his death, those who fall for their tricks help in making sure that attention is driven away from the killers and those who planned this assassination. I believe these killers (apart from those that have since died) are still roaming the streets of Kampala believing that they got away with murder. But  let me tell them this: Whatever it takes and however long it will be, one day they will be brought to justice.

As I have already explained in newspapers worldwide, TV (BBC 2 Newsnight) and on Ugandan and foreign radios about how Kayiira was gunned down in my house, I want to use this opportunity to dioscuss some of the conspiracy theories below.

CONSPIRACY THEORY ONE:

I had been taking care of Andrew’s finances and I had fallen out with Kayiira!
This is indeed a fallacy! Andrew was Chairman of the Uganda Freedom Movement (UFM). This was a big organisation that had him at the top. It meant there were many people below him holding offices as is always the case in similar organisations. I have never been a member of the UFM so I could not have held any position in an organisation where I wasn’t even a member.. To this day, all I know about the UFM is through mostly my academic research here in the United Kingdom. At the time when Andrew was alive, I did not know much about the UFM apart from what every journalist like me knew at that time.

I believe organisations like UFM have Treasury Secretary or those that look after their finances. To this day no such official has ever come forward to claim I was handling any of their monies. Can anybody believe that any organisation wanting to fund a guerrilla movement like the UFM would have channelled their aid through a journalist filing stories for the BBC, the Nairobi Standard, New African and African Concord? Anybody knows that this, for a journalist, would have made very good copy.

The fact is I have never been UFM’s financier nor has anybody ever approached me to handle its money. The last few days of Kayiira’s life were spent with friends who looked after him, bought and always paid drinks for him and fed him. While in prison, friends rallied together to collect funds to look after him and pay for his lawyers. I am happy to have been one of thiose friends who was approached for help while Andrew was in prison and I obliged without hesitation.

It should be noted here that I knew Dr Kayiira for a very short period. But our relationship was very much strengthened when he gave me protection while the NRA were shooting their way to power. We all stayed indoors most of this time particularly myself, as I was afraid to be seen on the streets. Staying in close quarters with people often brings them closer.

Therefore there is not a thread of truth  that at anytime, Andrew and I had fallen out. He liked me, no doubt and I adored him, but that is where it stopped. Our association grew when he asked me to accompany him on a tour of Western Uganda when he was Energy Minister. What Andrew was doing at that time was rare as Ugandan ministers often never asked journalists to accompany them on tours. But having lived abroad for a long time and as a university professor in Boston, Massachusetts, Andrew was doing what every politician in the West does. They take prominent journalists around with them to record what they (the politicians) are doing. Are you aware how many journalists Prime Minister Gordon Brown usually travels with? Or ho0w many are now travelling with the US President here at the G20 summit? Loads!

CONSPIRACY THEORY TWO: I was working for the NRA!

How stupid! How low can anyone go in advancing such a theory? What am I doing here in Europe 23 years since leaving Uganda if I was a NRA stooge that tricked Dr Kayiira to come and stay at my house? FACT: I invited Kayiira to my house because he had saved my life when the Okello’s threatened me. He gave me 24 hour protection until the NRA captured power and secured Kampala. Finding him squeezed into a one-bed-roomed flat belonging to his cousin, I thought that since this was the very fellow who had protected me I owed it to him to take him into decent accommodation.

My only regret is that I failed to return his favour. Contrary to the belief of those cowards who gunned him down, Andrew had no plans to stage a coup against Museveni. Those cowards know themselves. They are the ones who ahve kept quiet and not uttered a word about the many times, Andrew attempted to see Museveni after his release, saying that he could talk to the rebels who were  causing problems in the North and that he believed he could persuade them to stop fighting. But every time he tried to make an appointment with Museveni, the door was cruelly banged shut against him..

One of your bloggers thinks I was an NRA spy because I was the one who told Museveni that the Okellos had overthrow Obote. While it is true that I did tell Museveni about Obote’s overthrow, there is no truth whatsoever that I was doing this because of being an NRA spy. FACT: I called Museveni in Gutenberg, Sweden after my bosses at the BBC in London gave me his number and asked me to call him to get a comment about the Okello coup. So calling Museveni was to do with my job as a journalist and nothing to do with the spy conspiracy.

CONSPIRACY THEORY THREE: Where did I get the wealth to live in a 14.5 million house?

I have never lived in a house this expensive and I have no idea where the figure came from. The house I was renting at Gaba was at UgShs3 million a year. I was able to afford this amount because while I may have been working for Ngabo and the Star, I was already freelancing for the BBC programme Focus On Africa, a monthly stipend with the Nairobi Standard newspaper, the weekly African Concord, then based in London, articles for the New African and Africa Now magazines. These paid me in foreign currency and I was easily able to transfer this in Uganda currency and afford such a house.

The money I was paid for my work as News Editor of The Star only paid for fuel for my car. At that time I remember I was one of only about four Ugandans journalists who made most of their earnings through foreign news organisations. We were all relatively well off compared to our fellow colleagues in Uganda.

The killing of Dr Kayiira completely turned my life around.I lost so much money in contracts I had captured with the foreign media. I have had to start my life all over again. The only positive I can take from my exiled life is the fact that I have educated myself to such a degree that I am in a very good position to understand why Africa is the way it is today. Had I been in Uganda all these past 23 years, I doubt whether I would have accumulated the kind of knowledge my poor and exiled life has enable me to achieve.

Throughout this period no one seems to have taken a step back and wondered how it feels to lose a close friend and read every day of your life conspiracy theories that you could have been part of the plot to kill him. No one has had the courage to come out and speak against these theories and no one has spared a thought about my dear wife who was the last person to see Dr Kayiira breathe his last breath.  And no one seems to care what effects the killing of Dr Kayiira has had on my life and that of the immediate members of my family.
No one seems to question why some former senior ranking officers of the UFM have chosen to stay quiet and neither come out in my defence, nor speak out against me. No one has question why people like Francis Bwengye who was UFM Secretary General at first fled Uganda soon after Kayiira was killed and is now living comfortable in Kampala. No one has questioned the acceptance of ambassadorial posts by Dan Ssozi, a former close friend of Dr Kayiira. And while I have not stepped on the African continent for more than 23 years now, no one seems to question why so many have come to London and claimed asylum saying they had been Kayiira’s supporters and on getting their immigration status take the next plane back home.

When crimes are committed, the police usually look for a motive. Does anyone in their sane minds really believe that an ordinary journalist like me would have planned and carried out the killing of a leader of a guerrilla movement? I may be academically clever but I doubt whether I would have managed this assignment. It was a professional job done but professional killers. I have never been one. No one has taken much interest in comments made by a Uganda police dog handler who categorically stated that police dogs followed a scent from my house to lubiri barracks and inside, they found my wife’s handbag. Why has no onwe said anything aboyut this? What was my wife’s handbag doing at the end of the police dog scent inside Lubiri barracks? Am I wrong then in thinking that I have been purposely made a scape goat?

I hope I have given you guys something to think about and it is my prayer that you help me find who killed Kayiira. It is a job I intend to do as long as I am alive. It is a job that every peace loving Ugandan should be doing now. On his release from Luzira prison, Museveni told journalists in Kampala: “Kayiira may have been released by the courts. We in the NRA believe he was atttempting to  overthrow the government. And we will follow him. If anyone is looking for a motive, shouldn’t they be starting here?  And that is one reason I have refused to return to Uganda as I believe this can be done better while I am here. As long as the NRM is in power, Kayiira’s killers may never be brought to justice but as a historian I can only say that history repeats itself. The Museveni regime is here today. It will be gone tomorrow. And then, the search will resume on homeland.

This is the only and last time I will speak on this issue.
Regarding Ngabo Radio, I am happy to report that I will be presenting an English show every Saturday starting May 19, 2009. I am writing this while covering the G20 summit in the Excel Centre East London. I will be away for two weeks and will start the show on Saturday 19th. The show will be the English version of Tuula Twogere, the Luganda show I have been hosting for the last three weeks. We intend to bring on the show several important people to help us understand the problems we have in Uganda today. Ngabo Radio is for all Ugandans and not only for the Baganda.

It may have started with Luganda but rest assured that we want each and every Ugandan tio feel free to participate in the shows as this is the only voice at the moment Ugandans have to voice their concerns with fear or favour, knowing that after the show, they will return to their homes without having to look over their shoulders wondering whether anyone is following them. So I urge you to join in by calling the show to say whatevere they want and let everyone know about the radio.

A luta continua!
Dr.Henry Gombya
Journalist/Ugandan residing in the UK
UAH forumist