The ANC is credited with being the first inclusive African liberation movement, uniting South Africans from diverse ethnic and economic groups. The ANC led the opposition to apartheid, the state-enforced racial segregation that persisted in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.

The government’s ban on organized opposition meant the ANC was soon classified as a terrorist organization, and many top ANC leaders spent decades in South Africa’s prisons. Most notably, Nelson Mandela served 27 years in prison before leading negotiations that led South Africa to a multi-racial democracy.

In 1994, the first multi-racial elections brought an end to apartheid and elected Mandela as South Africa’s first black president. During his term, the ANC-led government committed itself to reforming the country by focusing on social issues that were neglected during the apartheid era, such as unemployment, housing shortages, and crime.

There have been four democratic elections in South Africa since 1994, and each victorious candidate has been a member of the ANC. This is both an indication of the ANC’s dominance in South Africa, and the reason why the weekend’s celebrations were met with criticism that the ANC has not done enough to keep the promises made in 1994 to combat ongoing problems of poverty, inequality and unemployment.

Some observers of this weekend’s celebrations are concerned that the ANC is losing its inclusive, non-tribal and non-racial ethos, enriching the few, mostly politically connected, rather than the poor majority.

In the view of some critics, ANC leaders are increasingly chosen by a small group of people, selected for how best they can capture competing interests. Opposition parties are either poorly organized or racially homogeneous and have little chance to secure broad support, so the ANC will likely remain unchallenged for some time.

Without real opposition, change must come from within. ANC party conferences in June and December are an opportunity for the ANC to return to its roots and maintain South Africa as a global example for genuine democracy, equitable economic development and peaceful racial integration.

Here’s footage of Mrs. Obama and family getting off the airplane in Pretoria, South Africa. Apparently, Mrs. Obama’s orange and black geometric print jacket is by Nigerian designer Duro Olowu -– great way to show her support for African commerce. And the girls proudly sported giant South African flags.

Then, Mrs. Obama and family headed to Nelson Mandela’s house to hang out and discuss Mandela’s notebooks from when he was in Prison.…Here’s a twitPic from @Krissah30 of the Obama ladies with this anti-apartheid icon.

The girls followed in their mom’s footsteps and did a little diplomacy work of their own. Look how cute they look reading Dr. Seuss to children at the Emthonjeni Community Center.

Photo courtesy of @Krissah30

And…lastly, Mrs. Obama was warmly greeted by First Lady Ntuli-Zuma.

To keep tabs on where the Obama ladies are this week and who they are meeting, follow the Twitter hashtags #youngAfrica and #FlotusinAfrica. People are talking on there…and so should you. See what I mean?

This is just a sliver of the tons of live coverage of Mrs. Obama’s goodwill tour. Come back tomorrow for more updates.

A new report, “Low Quality Education as a Poverty Trap” by the Social Policy Research Group at Stellenbosch University, has provided a troubling assessment of the quality of education available to children in South Africa. The study reports that by age eight, school children from the most affluent 20 percent of South Africa’s population were already far outperforming children from poorer families, showing stark distinctions between the prospects of children from poorer communities and those from more affluent communities at an early age.

The top 20 percent of state schools have adequate facilities and attract the best teachers, mostly because they charge tuition fees.

In order to improve schools in poor areas, government spending on the poorest fifth of schools is roughly six times higher than spending on the richest fifth of schools, excluding teacher pay and other forms of “personnel spending.” Despite this, education quality has remained disappointing. Even though South Africa is one of the wealthiest countries on the continent, learning outcomes are uneven. The South African government is on the right track budget-wise, having allocated $28 billion, or 21 percent of its FY2011/12 budget to education.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, researchers found job prospects for children leaving schools were determined both by the number of years of schooling they received, as well as by the quality of that education. Education is a proven tool. Even a few years of quality education can reduce infant mortality and increase lifetime wages, helping children escape the cycle of poverty, even if they were born into the poorest 20 percent.

The Oesfees is an opportunity for farm workers to close the season with ceremonial dances, “local musical gems,” and wine — plenty of it. Local workers take the stage for Cape Jazz and goema (a hybrid folk sound rooted in hand drums) numbers, while family members perform traditional dances portraying rural life.

Franschhoek’s Oesfees festival began three years ago, the brainchild of farm owners Mark Solms and Richard Astor. Solms saw the event as an opportunity to reshape the historical relationship between owner and farmer. “I thought, if I can take on one piece of South Africa, if I can fix one farm, then I will have contributed to the new South Africa.” The Solms-Delta farm is doing just that: using musical collaboration to foster community in a post-apartheid nation.

Today, Oesfees provides a showcase for acts developed through the Music van den Caab program. Farm workers blend cultural beats with new songs, bringing veteran talents and young musicians together. Music van den Caab provides an outlet for local children while rebuilding the musical tradition of the Franschhoek Valley community. This South African festival leaves participants buzzing with farm culture — and savoring the aftertaste.

Sister Suzan with Erin Hohlfelder

I feel so lucky to travel around sub-Saharan Africa with ONE, because I get to come face-to-face with the people who are recipients, distributors and designers of development programs. I flew to Johannesburg, South Africa, last Tuesday with a few of my colleagues, and my time here so far has yet again allowed me to meet up with some really impressive people who have devoted parts (or all) of their lives to making their country a more healthy, stable and just place.

Take Sister Suzan, the head of the antenatal clinic at Chris Hani Baragwanath “Bara” Hospital on the outskirts of the Soweto slum. She’s worked at Bara for 35 years — through apartheid, through the emergence of the HIV pandemic, through the previous government’s refusal to allow antiretroviral treatment for AIDS, and (most notably of late) through major progress.

When AIDS first hit Soweto, mothers who were pregnant couldn’t get drugs to prevent the spread of HIV to their babies or to protect themselves. In the early 2000s, a single dose of treatment (nevirapine) was available for the babies, but mothers struggled to access treatment early enough to stay healthy, and as many as 50 percent of babies were still born HIV-positive. Now, all mothers who come to Bara can receive treatment and counseling services from Sister Suzan and her staff, and rates of mother-to-child transmission of HIV have been reduced to less than 5 percent across Soweto.

Or, take the staff of Grassroot Soccer (GRS), a motley and energetic crew of both South Africans and Americans on year-long internships. GRS taps into the energy of thousands of children ages 10 to 19 who aspire to be star athletes and teaches them the life skills they’ll need to prevent the spread of HIV and to feel empowered along the way. When we weren’t kicking around soccer balls on the field, we heard impressive testimonies from the staff members — many of who became emotional when describing their commitment to the work they did on a daily basis, often having seen the devastating impact of HIV in their communities and families firsthand.

There are not enough blog posts to profile all of the Sister Suzans here. In less than a week, we’ve met up with health experts, brave AIDS activists, innovative thinkers — and they all have a lot of great advice for ONE on how we can be smarter advocates. Each of these people has one other thing in common — they are working on development projects that have benefited from US foreign assistance.

In fact, the message we’ve heard over and over is that US funding for programs like PEPFAR and the Global Fund helped to lay the groundwork for massive scale up of health efforts and a more sustainable path for the South African government to adopt a majority of the responsibility for health services themselves (another ONE colleague in Jo’burg, Josh Lozman, will have more on that in a later blog post).

So, it was with great anxiety that we received news this week that the House Appropriators had submitted massive cuts to the international affairs budget.

Like the catchy words used by the development community, budget cuts are often abstractions that disguise the true negative impact they make. It’s hard to conceptualize what less money means when it’s just a series of numbers (can you really tell the difference between $200 million and $190 million on paper?).

But this week has reminded me that when we think budget cuts, we should think about what it means for Sister Suzan’s ability to ensure that all mothers can prevent their babies from being born with HIV. We should think about what it means for the jobs of South Africans and Americans alike, working at GRS to ensure that the next generation of kids can have lower rates of HIV and higher rates of education and skills. We should think about what it means for the civil society groups and doctors who are doing selfless work every day to make sure people don’t have to suffer from diseases that aren’t even a nuisance in the western world. Because Americans have been generous and bold with our foreign aid investments, and our partners in the developing world can’t afford for us to hide behind the abstractions in this critical moment.

But despite this progress, too many still live in extreme poverty. And even those who don’t fall within the technical definition of poverty often suffer as a result of poor governance and a lack of opportunity.

Yet balanced against these challenges are real signs of hope.

Rapid advances in technology – together with our greater understanding of how to harness it – are accelerating the ability of citizens to demand improvements in the services their government provides, just as they are enabling governments to improve the supply of services to their citizens.

New technologies are also enabling other progress: entrepreneurs can expand their markets to reach the most marginalised people, and the most remote producers can sell their goods at fairer prices because their mobile phones allow them to find out the real market rate. And with these developments come the hope of a more equitable form of growth in years to come.

It is within this context that ONE will be hosting a dynamic discussion on the role of transparency and technology in promoting and driving economic development in Johannesburg on 15 February. The ONE Africa Symposium 2011 will feature several speakers in short inspirational 10-minute presentations about ideas that will help shape ONE’s work.

We will hear from students, policy makers, technology experts, academics and creatives, from all over Africa. Together we’ll highlight innovations that can drive increased transparency and accountability in governments and corporations. Throughout the symposium, we hope to amplify ideas that can inform policy makers and inspire entrepreneurs and activists. These ideas could ultimately transform Africa.

I’ll hope you join us and follow the conversation on Twitter via the #ONEsymposium hashtag.