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Eric Joyce MP, Chair
WELCOME to the website of The UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region of Africa. This is a political website, but not party political: we are all passionate about the development of a region so vital to the future of Africa. The point of politics isn’t to get elected for its own sake – it’s to drive and influence change for the better. Most people agree that the government is doing a pretty good job on development, but people across the spectrum feel equally strongly about the desperate need for progress in the Great Lakes region. There’s a lot all of us can do to keep pressing for more resources and more development assistance - something that starts with raising awareness of the region as widely as possible in the UK. We try to do that by producing our own reports on the region, by convening working groups like the one below on corporate responsibility, by flagging up latest developments and reports, by lobbying ministers to help effect change.
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Read more...
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APPG releases report on delegation visit to the DRC |
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Written by APPG Administrator
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Monday, 21 November 2011 00:16 |
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In May 2011, the APPG organised a visit to the DRC by a cross-party delegation led by APPG Vice-Chair Lord Chidgey and also comprising APPG Vice-Chair Nicola Blackwood MP and APPG member Stephen Twigg MP. The delegation discussed challenges and concerns relating to the organisation of the upcoming presidential and legislative elections, concerns which were confirmed by repeated outbreaks of election-related violence in the country since September. The delegation also discussed reform of the natural resource sector, refugee return and the repatriation of the former combatants, and sexual and gender-based violence.
The report of the visit can be found here. |
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Last Updated on Monday, 21 November 2011 00:27 |
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APPG hosts screening of film on sexual and gender-based violence |
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Written by APPG Administrator
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Monday, 21 November 2011 01:03 |
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On 26th October, the APPG hosted a screening of ‘Field of Hope’, a film produced and directed by award-winning producer and director Fiona Lloyd-Davies. 'Field of Hope' addresses the issue of sexual and gender-based violence in the DRC through the experience of Masika Katsuva, a Congolese woman who has set up a community programme that has helped more than 6,000 victims to overcome their trauma.
After the screening, which was preceded by a keynote speech by Minister for Equalities and International Violence Against Women Champion Lynne Featherstone MP, Fiona Lloyd-Davies, Senior Researcher for the DRC at Human Rights Watch Anneke van Woudenberg, and Marie-Claire Faray from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom discussed the responses to be made to the ongoing scourge and outlined recommendations to the UK government. |
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Last Updated on Monday, 21 November 2011 01:14 |
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APPG co-hosts roundtable meeting with delegation from the Uganda Parliamentary Commission |
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Written by APPG Administrator
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Monday, 21 November 2011 00:59 |
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In cooperation with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the APPG hosted a roundtable bringing together members of parliament and a bi-partisan delegation from the Uganda Parliamentary Commission on 26th October. The delegation included Hon. Nathan Nandala-Mafabi, Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Dr. Chris Baryomunsi, Backbench Commissioner, Hon. Dombo Emmanuel Lumala, Backbench Commissioner, Hon. Bintu Jalia Lukumu N. Abwooli, Backbench Commissioner and Hon. Elijah Okupa, Backbench Commissioner for the opposition.
The meeting discussed the post-electoral political environment in Uganda, marked by ongoing protests over economic difficulties and what observers have described as a governmental clampdown on the opposition. The roundtable also offered an opportunity to address the role of parliament in promoting transparency and combating corruption. |
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Last Updated on Monday, 21 November 2011 01:01 |
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APPG hosts meeting on the Lord’s Resistance Army |
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Written by APPG Administrator
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Monday, 21 November 2011 00:51 |
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On 24th October the APPG hosted a meeting with the organisation Conciliation Resources to discuss regional responses to the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the DRC, the Central African Republic and South Sudan. Teresa Dumasy from the People Peace-Making Perspective Project, Pastor Mark Kumbonyaki Soro, Assistant Bishop of Western Equatoria State, and Kennedy Tumutegyereize from Conciliation Resources discussed the challenges that national governments have faced in responding to the LRA threat and called for greater cross-national cooperation and civil society involvement to promote security in the region.
The participants put forward four central recommendations: the adoption of a holistic approach encompassing military, peacebuilding and governance measures to resolve the LRA problem; the prioritisation of civilian protection by national governments in the region and the planned AU Regional Intervention Force (RIF); a greater recognition of the important role civil society can play in understanding and resolving the conflict; the development of a coherent regional framework for the return and reintegration of LRA abductees.
A summary of Conciliation Resources report on the LRA can be found here. |
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Last Updated on Monday, 21 November 2011 00:58 |
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Page 1 of 8 |
APPG Delegation Visit DRC Report
Oral Parliamentary Questions and Debates July 2011
The OECD Guidelines and the DRC cases
JOHANNESBURG 03 February 2012 (IRIN) - The belief that the end is nigh for Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) - a small but ruthless transnational armed group operating in four African states - underestimates its resilience and overestimates the unity and capability of the forces ranged against it, say analysts. 
NAIROBI/KINSHASA 02 February 2012 (IRIN) - The lives of thousands of HIV-positive people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are at risk as the country faces declining donor funding and a severe shortage of HIV treatment, according to Médecins Sans Frontières. 
BUJUMBURA 27 January 2012 (IRIN) - There are fears of a looming food shortage in Burundi after heavy rains damaged two successive harvests, say officials. 
NAIROBI 28 December 2011 (IRIN) - Launched in 2004, IRIN’s film unit has won numerous awards for its productions, several of which have been aired by prominent international broadcasters. Here is a list of the unit’s most-watched films in 2011. 
KAMPALA 02 December 2011 (IRIN) - Brandishing a plea for developed countries to make good their promises to reduce carbon emissions, 300 farmers, youths and activists took the scenic route to the COP17 conference in Durban, travelling more than 7,000km from Burundi in 17 days, through 10 eastern and southern African countries, aboard a convoy of buses draped in various national flags. 
POINTE NOIRE 25 January 2012 (IRIN) - Forced child labour remains rampant in Central Africa, where poverty fuels the trafficking of children from poorer countries to oil-rich states such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo, according to experts. 
LONDON 26 January 2012 (IRIN) - Breast cancer continues to be misunderstood, under-diagnosed and fatal, particularly in developing countries, say researchers, despite more than one million official annual diagnoses and almost half a million recorded deaths annually. 
KIGALI 09 January 2012 (IRIN) - This will be a busy year for Rwanda's health centres as the country attempts to reach its goal of medically circumcising 50 percent of men by June 2013 as part of HIV prevention efforts. 
JUBA/KAMPALA 30 January 2012 (IRIN) - Petty traders from Uganda, South Sudan's largest trading partner, crowd into Konyo Konyo market in Juba selling used clothes, vegetables and household wares. Lacking economic prospects at home, they come in the hope of finding better opportunities in Juba's booming post-war economy. 
BUNDIMASOLI 26 January 2012 (IRIN) - The marginalized western Ugandan Basua community is fighting extinction; forcibly removed from their forest home two decades ago, they have struggled to cope with modern life and have been ravaged by health crises, including HIV. 
ISIOLO, 3 February 2012 (IRIN) - Politically motivated violence in the northern Kenyan town of Moyale, which has left dozens dead and tens of thousands displaced in recent weeks, shows little sign of abating and there are fears that the clashes could continue until elections are held for new local government positions. 
LAGOS, 3 February 2012 (IRIN) - A month after an angry public launched protests across Nigeria over skyrocketing fuel prices due to the removal of a government subsidy, a measure of calm has returned and people seem to have settled into accepting a compromise. 
HARARE, 3 February 2012 (IRIN) - With global funding for HIV/AIDS on the decline, Zimbabwe's innovative AIDS levy - a 3 percent tax on income - has become a promising source of funding for the country, with a dramatic increase in revenue collected in the past two years. 
