Africa
On Africa
What we're reading
Aug 15th 2011, 16:03 by The Economist online
OUR East Africa correspondent recommends this solid piece of reporting on the famine in the Horn of Africa. Written from Kenya, where over 10% of the population needs food aid, it looks at whether the food crisis was avoidable.
Back in January, we looked at the phenomenon of NGOish, the jargon-filled gobbledegook so favoured by aid workers. According to the Literary Review, it is spreading fast in Sierra Leone. "Capacity building" activities are announced on a near-daily basis, and apparently the staff at the mining ministry are "well capacitated".
Foreign Affairs has a fascinating piece on rape reporting during wars and why the numbers don't mean what what you think they do, a subject we have also covered this year.
On this blog our correspondents delve into the politics, economics and culture of the continent of Africa, from Cairo to the Cape. The blog takes its name from the baobab, a massive tree that grows throughout much of Africa. It stores water, provides food and is often called the tree of life.
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I work for an NGO and I can't stand the NGOish!
When I was living in Liberia, it was terrible to hear of UN peacekeeping force abuses.
Another sad story, a large part of which is the uselessness of UN peacekeeping forces. A suggested partial solution to war time rape: don't use UN peacekeepers, but rather competent contractors such as South African mercenaries, and give them rules of engagement that permit shooting rapists on sight. I lament that some innocent men might be killed, but it's better to err on that side than permit the ongoing rape and murder of far more women.