Football, the IMFs and an Editorial

Britain and France will today announce a joint initiative to help send 16 million African children to school in the next two years, in partnership with international football authorities.

The Guardian: Plan to put 16m African children into school

At the East African Health and Scientific Conference in Kenya on Wednesday, experts testified that constraints in the health sector are exacerbating health problems in rural communities. Some blamed conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund in the early 1990s.

Daily Nation: Shortage of health staff hits East African states

An editorial by Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, appeared in today’s Washington Times. The piece praises President Bush’s work in Africa, noting that this story hasn’t made headlines in the United States but is making headlines around the world.

Washington Times: Bush’s Africa legacy

-Chandler Smith

Brits Call on World Bank to Do More For Africa

On Saturday, Britain’s International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander called on the World Bank to focus more on fighting poverty in Africa.

From Reuters:

“We want a stronger focus on poverty reduction, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and the gender issues of poverty. I have seen myself today the female face of poverty,” Alexander said after visiting a packed clinic near Makeni in Sierra Leone.

He administered polio vaccine to a baby and medicine to its mother — a gesture of help in an area where health workers said there are just two doctors for 321,000 people.

“The clinic is so tight (crowded) we have to use the ground for deliveries. It is not hygienic,” said Nabinta Koroma, a maternal child health worker, pointing to the filthy tiled floor covered in urine from a crowd of children waiting for checkups.

Britain sent troops to shore up Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown against a rebel threat in 2000, and then helped rebuild its security forces after a decade-long war fuelled by gems dug from the mud of its rich eastern diamond fields. British aid is now turning more to development projects than security in a bid to help the country’s poor, Alexander said.

Read the full piece here.