Accra, Aug. 27, GNA - The Ministry of Health (MOH) and its Chinese counterpart on Friday signed an agreement to begin clinical trials in Chinese traditional medicine in the country.

The agreement between MOH and Chinese State Agency for Traditional Medicine is to pave way for collaboration between their traditional medicine regimes.

Deputy Minister of Health, Mr. Rojo Mettle-Nunoo, who initialled for Ghana, said the medicines which would be used for the treatment of malaria, hypertension and stroke, diabetes and cholesterol management had been sent to the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) to test their efficacy.

In addition, he said Chinese specialists would work with Noguchi Memorial Institute, the clinical trial unit of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Pharmacy Council, Mampong Centre for Plant Medicine, Medical and Dental Council, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science on Technology (KNUST) and if possible with the pharmaceutical manufacturing companies.

The Chinese would also venture into planting of herbal plants, establish training institutions and train students in traditional medicines.

Mr. Mettle-Nunoo said the agreement would help Ghana traditional medicine manufacturers improve on efficacy and pave the way for both countries to import and export medicines.

He said bilateral relationship between the two countries commenced during the era of Ghana's First President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and there had been fruitful collaboration between them and noted that China would next month hand over a hospital in Teshie in Accra to the Government.

Mr. Li Danning, Deputy Commissioner of State Agency for Traditional Medicine, who initialled for China, said his country and Africa had indigenous medicines that were peculiar to each environment; it was now time for them to share experiences and successes for the benefit of their people.

He expressed the hope that the agreement would encourage the use of traditional medicines and urged Ghanaians to support the trials of their medicines which were already on the Chinese markets.

DAKAR, 27 August 2010 (IRIN) - Further heavy rains in Niger have caused the number of people displaced by flooding to soar from 111,000 last week to 198,740 this week, says the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which is calling on donors and aid agencies to urgently send shelter materials, blankets and mosquito nets.

"Response in rural areas has been slow thus far," the head of OCHA in Niger, Modibo Traoré, told IRIN. Flood-displaced families in remote the Diffa region in the southeast, and Agadez in the north, have received no assistance to date.

In Agadez some 80,000 animals, already weakened by the ongoing nutrition and food security crisis, have died in the floods. "We must find a way to quickly burn or bury their bodies to ensure water sources are not contaminated," Traoré told IRIN.

The government is sending 400 tons of food to people displaced by floodwater, and has released $200,000 in emergency funding to purchase more.

The flooding has aggravated a countrywide food security crisis, in which nearly half of Niger's 15.2 million people are experiencing hunger after the harvests failed, according to the government.

Traoré warned that the flooding could worsen. "The rainy season is still continuing, so victim numbers may rise even further."
 

NAIROBI — The U.S. Government-through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan-and the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) will host a conference August 24-25 in Nairobi, Kenya, to address challenges and priorities for revitalizing agriculture in southern Sudan.

Conference participants will examine both short- and long-term objectives to significantly increase agricultural production in southern Sudan, which was devastated by Sudan’s 22-year civil war that ended in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Despite enormous agriculture potential, poor transport, limited storage capacity and processing facilities, and a poor investment climate are among the legacies of conflict that have hindered development of the agriculture sector.

As a result, most farmers produce for subsistence rather than profit. Meanwhile, consumers suffer from high prices of agricultural products, many of which are imported from neighboring countries. Though USAID and GOSS launched a new five-year Food, Agribusiness, and Rural Markets (FARM) program in May 2010, this conference will encourage and allow key stakeholders to increase investment and partnerships to support agriculture in southern Sudan.

Conference participants, including the GOSS, the U.S. Government and other international donors, agricultural research organizations, financial institutions, and multinational agribusinesses, will initiate development of an 18-month action plan to help subsistence farmers increase production and sell their surplus in local markets. For the longer-term, the conference will focus on establishing a five-year strategic plan for building a vibrant agricultural economy, including roads needed to transport items to markets.

“Agricultural development is a primary catalyst for future economic growth in southern Sudan. This conference will offer a unique opportunity for the Government of Southern Sudan and international partners to bring focus and momentum to a sector that will greatly benefit the Sudanese people,” said U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Jonathan S. Gration, Major General (Retired). General Gration praised “the exemplary vision and dedicated efforts of southern Sudan’s recently departed Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Samson Kwaje.” He added that “this Agricultural Conference would be dedicated to honoring the example and furthering the legacy of our dear friend and agricultural leader.”

At the conference, USAID and the GOSS will launch an Agriculture Innovation Fund designed to finance public-private sector partnerships promoting new approaches to agricultural development in southern Sudan. USAID also plans to establish a United States-Southern Sudan Agriculture Advisory Council composed of agriculture experts from the two governments, and from universities in the United States and southern Sudan, to provide expert advice to the governments on the design and assessment of agriculture development programs in southern Sudan. USAID is also working to establish partnerships between Juba University, Catholic University of Sudan, John Garang University, and leading U.S. educational institutions.

For more information about USAID’s programs, please visit: usaid.gov. To read our blog, see blog.usaid.gov.

The American people, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, have provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for nearly 50 years.

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Barney Jopson, FT

Over the past two weeks beyondbrics has run a series of posts looking at the rise of the emerging market consumer. To round it off it we head to the rawest end of Africa’s wilderness spectrum, where one multinational is trying to create a market for its product out of the dust.

The company is SABMiller, the South African brewer, and its venture is in south Sudan - a desolate region of parched scrub that could soon become the world’s newest country. It’s a branding gamble, and an extreme test of whether taking big risks in tough consumer markets really can yield bigger rewards.

South Sudan’s 9m or so people are still recovering from a fight for independence that froze the region’s development for decades and left it with mass illiteracy, deep poverty, scraps of infrastructure, and tragic healthcare facilities.

Yet in this unpromising environment a small but growing number of consumers are buying the chunky brown bottles of White Bull lager that SABMiller has been brewing in a factory on the outskirts of Juba, south Sudan’s capital, since May 2009.

Imported beer was available before - indeed, SABMiller was trucking in some of its own products from Uganda - but the brewer’s marketing ruse has been to turn south Sudan’s liberation struggle into the foundation of a compelling brand.
Beer was banned in the south for decades while the region suffered at the hands of successive, repressive Islamist regimes in Khartoum.

So after a peace deal in 2005, and the promise of a referendum on independence next January, the beer is seen as a symbol of south Sudan’s impending nationhood, and each sip as a rebuke to the reviled president in Khartoum.

As Ian Alsworth-Elvey, boss of SABMiller’s subsidiary South Sudan Beverages, told the FT earlier this year:

A lot of southerners will say their struggle in the civil war was a struggle to drink alcohol.

The beer sells at the equivalent of $1.10 per 500ml bottle and is bought mainly by men with a steady income, such as street traders or security guards working at aid agencies or the UN.

They tend to drink while sat on plastic furniture inside dingy corrugated iron drinking dens, or in courtyard bars whose concrete walls have been plastered with the White Bull logo at SABMiller’s behest.

Its Juba factory rises like a monument to industrialism out of the terrain around Juba and by the end of 2010 the company wants to increase its production capacity to 70m bottles a year (it churns out soft drinks too).

SABMiller spent $37m on building it and it announced another $3m investment to expand the factory’s capacity last week.

That is money that no western multinational has dared to invest in the unpredictable and occasionally violent region. But it’s hard to judge whether the lager is proving to be a commercial success, because SABMiller won’t give out sales figures.

All Alsworth-Elvey will say is that sales have exceeded all expectations and that he sold more in the three months from May to July this year than in the previous nine months.

In many emerging markets it’s still unusual to see an indigenous mark - or at least one presented as indigenous - outdo the caché often associated with western brands, but Levi’s launch of a new brand for Asia is one sign of that changing.

And Jonathan Oates, an SABMiller spokesman, told beyondbrics that the company sees chances to advance a similar trend in other parts of Africa where it is also launching “local” beer brands.

Go to places such as Angola and you see this nationalistic pride growing. These countries are becoming successful in their own right so people are saying ‘No longer do I want to associate myself with a Portuguese brand. I want to have an Angolan brand.’

As emerging market consumers grow wealthier and more numerous, that is further proof - in case anyone needed reminding - that foreign companies that want to profit from them will need to play by their rules.

The President of the Government of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, met on Wednesday with the Southern Minister of Energy and Mining, Garang Deng Akuong, to discuss issues related to oil industry in the region.

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) has accused the National Congress Party (NCP) of delaying the announcement of South Kordofan census results. The SPLM Secretary in the state, Arnold Lodi, told Radio Miraya that delaying census results is an attempt from the NCP to block the conduct of the Popular Consultation as scheduled before Southern Sudan Referendum.

The National Congress Party and Juba Declaration Coalition said they have failed to reach any commonalities regarding the referenda issues, support for unity, Darfur and price hikes. This came following a meeting held on Thursday between the NCP's Political Secretary, Ibramin Gandour and Coalition's delegation.

The Chairman of the Local Administration of the Messiriya, Nuer and Dinka tribes, Bashtana Mohamed Salim, said that the Messiriya welcomed the organizing of the Peaceful Coexistence Conference in Abyei area. He added that the conference is an initiative from the African Organization-main stream. Salim told Miraya that the purpose of the conference is to discuss the disputed issues and how to solve them.

• New constitition heralded as 'new birth' for country
• Sudan leader wanted for war crimes attends ceremony

A triumphant day meant to mark Kenya's "second birth" has been tarnished after its government was reported to the UN security council for hosting and refusing to arrest Sudan's fugitive president, Omar al-Bashir, in defiance of its legal obligations.

Bashir, who is accused by the international criminal court (ICC) of genocide and war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur, was a guest at the signing ceremony for a historic new constitution yesterday. As a party to the court, Kenya was legally obliged to arrest Bashir. The ICC has no police force and relies on member states to enforce its warrants.

Foreign minister Moses Wetangula said it had "no apologies to make about anybody we invited to this function.

"He [Bashir] was here today because we invited all neighbours and he is a neighbour," said Wetangula.

In a statement, judges in the Hague said they were formally reporting Kenya's non-compliance to the UN security council and other ICC member states "in order for them to take any measure they may deem appropriate".

The court issued an arrest warrant for Bashir in March 2009, and since then he has only once risked travelling to a member state, visiting Chad earlier this year.

Kenya's stance was strongly criticised by local and foreign human rights groups, and raises serious questions over the government's commitment to co-operate with the ICC in connection with its own case. Within the next few months the court is expected to announce charges of crimes against humanity against several senior Kenyan politicians accused of fomenting ethnic violence after the disputed 2007 presidential election.

With Bashir looking on, tens of thousands of Kenyans braved the cold and rain to celebrate the promulgation of the new constitution on what the president, Mwai Kibaki, yesterday called "the most important day in the history of our nation since independence".

The legislation, which replaces colonial-era laws, curbs the vast powers of the president and senior politicians that have enabled decades of impunity for the ruling elite and encouraged a ruinous system of ethnic patronage. The new constitution also provides for devolved power to often-marginalised regions, requires sweeping judicial and land reforms, and improves civil rights and women's representation.

Despite an energetic campaign by the church and some politicians to reject the laws, Kenyans overwhelmingly approved the constitution in a national referendum this month. The vote for reform was peaceful and well-organised, a marked contrast to the 2007 presidential election which plunged the country into chaos.

Passing a new constitution was a key element in the power-sharing deal to end the post-election chaos, although efforts by local reformers to replace the colonial-era laws go back more than 20 years. Kibaki, who is trying to rescue his legacy after his dubious election win, and the prime minister, Raila Odinga – his 2007 presidential foe and probable successor – both campaigned strongly for the yes vote. They, together with all of Kenya's MPs, were freshly sworn in today.

Full implementation of the constitution is expected to take several years, with parliament required to pass dozens of laws. There will be hiccups along the way, as the political class is notoriously self-serving and those who campaigned against it continue to demand concessions. The church wants to tighten the provision on abortion, which is outlawed in the new legislation except where the mother's health is in danger.

Land is the other main issue of contention. In Rift Valley province, the only region to vote no in the referendum, senior politicians, including the former president Daniel Arap Moi, have whipped up fears that the land reform programme will see poor people lose title deeds. Proponents of land reform say the main people under threat are politicians and their cronies who have been illegally allocated vast tracts of land since independence in 1963.

Authors: Xan Rice

 Khartoum, Aug. 23 (SUNA)- President of the Republic, Field Marshal Omer Al-Bashir, announced that the government campaign for the referendum will be launched from south Sudan in accordance with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which stipulated that the two partners of the agreement shall work for the unity of Sudan

He affirmed the government pledge to provide all the requirements for the campaign and acquainting the southern citizen with the importance of unity and the risks of the separation, stressing that the majority of the southerners are supporting to the unity

Authors: SUNA - Sudan News Agency English Latest News