Recently health related NGOs all over the world condemned the decision by the Global Fund to cancel Round 11 Funding and place restriction on Grant renewals.  The implications of this action are far reaching, with Jeffery Sachs, PhD – the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and special advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, going so far as to say “it’s game over for the Millennium development Goals’.

Adding his voice to the condemnation of the decision was Stephen Lewis, Co-Director of AIDS Free World. His remarks at the 2011 International Conference on Aids and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, December 6, 2011 did not pull any punches:

… if you sense a certain impatience in me, you’re right. We don’t have another day to lose. Peter Piot did the arithmetic yesterday 1,350,000 put on treatment in 2010; 2,700,000 new infections, exactly double the number in treatment in the same year. It works out to 7,397 new infections every day. And it’s 2011, for God’s sake.

But right at the moment when we know, irrefutably, that we can defeat this pandemic, we’re sucker-punched at the Global Fund.

What’s a sucker punch? It’s when a boxer in the ring gets a punch below the belt that he doesn’t see coming. No one expected a complete cancellation of Round Eleven, with new money unavailable for implementation until 2014.

It’s just the latest blow in a long list of betrayals on the part of the donor countries; in this instance the Europeans in particular. I’ve heard from several people that the politics of the Global Fund meeting in Accra two weeks ago, when the decision was made, were not just complicated, but amounted to miserable internecine warfare. Certain governments on the Board of the Global Fund simply discredited themselves. They give a soiled name to the principle of international solidarity [].

The decision on the part of the donor countries is unforgiveable. In a speech a few days ago, I addressed the Global Fund predicament by talking of the moral implications of a decision that you know will result in death on the African continent.

I asked: “Do they regard Africa as a territorial piece of geographic obsolescence? Do they regard Africans themselves as casually expendable? Is it because the women and children of Africa are not comparable in the eyes of western governments to the women and children of Europe and North America? Is it because Africans are black and unacknowledged racism is at play? Is it because a fighter jet is worth so much more than human lives? Is it because defense budgets are more worthy of protection in an economic downturn than millions of human beings?”

Read the full statement here

From the Parliamentary Roundup Bulletin No. 41 – 2011 published by the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust:

Dissolution of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) Board

Hon. Settlement Chikwinya gave notice to introduce a motion in the House of Assembly calling for the dissolution of the BAZ Board and the cancellation of the radio licences that it recently awarded to Zimpapers talk Radio and AB Communications. He said the BAZ Board was improperly constituted and ultra vires the Broadcasting Services Amendment Act (2007) which provides for the appointment of BAZ Board by the President in consultation with the parliamentary Standing Rules and Orders Committee (SROC). However, the current BAZ Board was unilaterally appointed by the Minster of Media, Information and Publicity, Hon. Webster Shamu.

Okay. So everyone knows that buying day-old chicks, feeding them up, and selling them once they’re big puts money in your pocket. So clearly, that’s not the kind of chick the “Truly Zimbabwean” company Lunar Chickens is talking about here.

Rather, my inference from this recent newspaper advert is that “chicks” (read women, wives, small houses, girl friends, etc) take money from your pocket, unlike these day-old chicks.  I contacted Lunar Chickens on Monday asking them to clarify, but I have yet to hear back from them.

Okay, so I’m sensitive. And sure, I can see the humour they’re going for. But Zimbabwe has enough problems with sexism. This really isn’t the kind of advert we need doing the rounds – during 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, or any other time.

I expect better from Lunar Chickens, and from Barkers Ogilvy, the agency behind this advert.

Kubatana! Get Up. Stand Up in Harare to mark International Human Rights Day. Join Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights on Thursday 8th. Meet 12:30 at High Court. Sharp!

C.E.E. (Climate Economic Empowerment)
By Comrade Fatso

Comrades I’m sure you’ve heard of the crisis in the world today
Floods in France, disappearing islands and droughts in Zimbabwe
How do we deal with all our carbon emissions rising
With global warming, increased instability and insane petrol pricing
Comrades I would like to announce my brand new policy
I call this policy C…E…E…
Its simply entitled Climate Economic Empowerment
How to make money from mother nature and from the environment
Because climate is the new bling
The new diamonds, the new shiny, spangly thing
We’ve run out of ways to make money for a living
But, comrades, now we have carbon markets and carbon trading
So will we save the planet? Hell muthafukking no!
But we’ll have the biggest, most fantastic party til we hit ground zero
So lets co-opt the NGO’s and some scholarly scholars
Coz we wanna go green like freshly minted US dollars
So in that sense yes we are the real green party
Because nature is time and time is money
So give us your money and give it to us by the tonne
Put it in my bank account – it’s called the Green Climate Fund!