The Great Debate UK

from Africa News blog:

Is Sudan’s Darfur crisis getting too much attention?

 
Activists often say that the world is not paying enough attention to Sudan's Darfur crisis. But could the opposite be true -- that Darfur is actually getting too much attention, from too many organisations, all at the same time?

A rough count shows at least 10 international and local initiatives searching for a solution to the region's festering conflict. Many of them are at least nominally coordinated by the United Nation and the African Union. But with so many parallel programmes in play, the opportunities for duplication, competition and confusion are legion.

Top of the bill on the international stage is the double act between the United Nations and the African Union. Their joint Darfur mediator -- Burkina Faso's low-profile former security minister Djibril Bassole -- spends much of his time shuttling between capitals, holding closed-session discussions with rebels, regional powers, Darfuri intellectuals and civilian groups.

The most high-profile initiative is a project launched at the Arab League for peace talks between Sudan's government and rebels hosted in Qatar. Those talks, currently stalled, are hosted "in coordination" with Bassole but their have their own separate identity -- Qatar has made its own statements and has held its own meetings with rebels.

from Africa News blog:

Are African leaders too bad to win the Ibrahim prize?

An expectant crowd packed the room on the 11th floor of London's City Hall, which has a spectacular view over Tower Bridge, for the announcement of the winner of this year's $5 million Ibrahim prize for achievement in African leadership.

The prize committee, including Mary Robinson, former U.N. high commissioner for human rights, and Salim Ahmed Salim, one-time secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity, files in.