Last week, Royal Dutch Shell agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle with the plaintiffs in a case charging Shell with severe human rights abuses in collusion with the Nigerian military. The case was brought by members of the Ogoni tribe, most notably the son of Ken...
June 2, 2009 The persistence and the complication of wars in Africa are partially due to small arms proliferation. The consequences of small arms on African people due to international conflicts within Africa, rebel group activities, mercenary groups, and...
Africa is a vast continent with many valuable resources, particularly arable land. Unfortunately, this fact is not a secret. Many nations outside of Africa recognize the potential that currently underutilized (or perceived as underutilized) land holds, and several...
This month, the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change is launching a unique and unprecedented initiative, A Catholic Climate Covenant and the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor. This ambitious project is in response to a growing desire by the Catholic...
Last week, AFJN joined dozens of organizations in thanking Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) for his work in appropriating more money to the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Senator Leahy pushed...
Nearly 700 participants will come together at Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD) this weekend in Alexandria, VA to discuss the relationship between climate change, migration, and poverty. AFJN has helped formulate the Africa Program at EAD for many years, and we are...
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has become somewhat infamous as one of the most well-funded failures of Western attempts at development. On the continent of Africa, the rather unsuccessful IMF policies of the past have included damaging structural...
Vulture funds, often called “Distressed Debt Funds” are predatory hedge funds that siphon off newly freed resources from poor-country debt cancellation efforts. They do this by buying up a poor country’s debt in default for pennies on the dollar and then engaging...
Through an accident of birth, most of us enjoy an extravagant lifestyle. We have the basics—food, clothing, housing, and health care—and then some—education, stable communities, good jobs, freedom to travel and to speak without fear of reprisal. Africa Faith and...
This article was originally posted on January 27th, 2009 during AFJN’s trip to Burundi and Uganda. It appeared on the blog justicegreatlakes.blogspot.com. Reposted on April 14th, 2009. The Kamenge Center sits in the middle of the northern neighborhoods...
