IN THIS NEWSLETTER

By Lena Vind-Andersen, Information Officer

Lobby and advocacy issues are in focus with MS Partners at the moment: The Zambia Council for Social Development have launched a new NGO forum to deal with issues of laws and funding affecting civil society, the Zambia Land Alliance have lobbied for setting up a high-level Commission to deal with border disputes between chiefs, Saccord have founded a new action group in Itezhi-tezhi to advocate for better cooperation between decentralization groups among ministries and grassroots and Chipata DFA have managed to gain a seat on the District Development Coordination Committee, to push for getting farmers views included in district planning.

In Itezhi-tezhi the Community Based Natural Resource Management project is coming to an end, but it leaves behind a lot of satisfied people with improved incomes, among them several beekeepers. And another project, the community radio, is just beginning to make real progress, getting ready to inaugurate the new radio station soon and promote local democracy in the rural districts.

Does Aid work? Programme Officer Nachilala Nkombo attended an international conference on the effectiveness of Development Aid, which reached some interesting conclusions on whether aid works.

Read about all this and more in the June/July newsletter. Please do not hesitate to send in contributions and ideas for the next edition, which is due in August 2008. Deadline for contributions will be August 8th.

MS-ZAMBIA

MS PARTNER NEWS

Civil Society ready for fight
On July 15th, Zambia Council for Social Development (ZCSD) launched a NGO Insaka – a network of national umbrella NGO's – to strengthen the cooperation and mutual support of Zambian Civil Society Organizations. First on the agenda is the upcoming revised draft NGO bill, which will be presented shortly, as well as the question of NGO's accessing EU funding.
Together we stand, divided we fall! This is the thinking behind the new NGO Insaka, launched by ZCSD this month. The Insaka is a network of already existing NGO,s which will be addressing and tackling common concerns of civil society organizations by providing a platform for discussion and experience sharing. “During last years fight for the NGO bill, civil society was caught unaware and it was difficult for us to come together and present a common stand,” says Rev. Malawo Matyola, Executive Secretary of ZCSD. “At the time, ZCSD was asked to take the lead in mobilizing Zambian civil society and the Insaka is the outcome of this process,”he explains.
Read more about the Insaka and the issues they will be tackling.

Dreaming of radio
Service announcements about load shedding, vaccination dates and the water supply. Exposure of traditional customs and songs. Warnings of floods and educational radio programs. Unity to the community. The wishes for what the new radio in Itezhi-tezhi will do, once it starts broadcasting, are many. But now the building is about to be finished.
The board members of the radio believe that the original plans for the construction of the radio perhaps underestimated the amount of time and money that needed to be spent. But now they are back on track. And despite constructional difficulties like pieces that don't quite fit in size and changes to the previous roof plans, the radio construction is progressing. It is expected to be finished by September. Read more

Turning honey into money
Honey badgers, ants and bee stings are some of the dangers faced by beekeepers in Itezhi- tezhi district of Zambia’s Southern province. But this is still better than meeting snakes and lions in the wild and having to cut down a lot of trees to get to the honeycombs.
Half a thousand of the beekeepers in the district of Itezhi tezhi owe their existence to the Community Based Natural Resource Management Project (CBNRM). The project will be phased out at the end of 2008, but the beekeepers and many other beneficiaries are ready to carry on the struggle to continue the work they have started – they have learned that it is both easier and more profitable, to use the natural resources in a sustainable way. Read more

ZLA tackles chief’s land disputes
Disputes over land by local chief’s has been a recurring issue in the Zambian press in the past months. Most notably government recently had to intervene in the dispute between chief Shakumbila and chieftainess Nkomeshya in Southern Province, who were both threatening each other with bloodshed, over a land boundary. Responding to this and other similar disputes, ZLA issued a press statement on 18th of June, calling on the President to set-up a high-level Commission to address these national problems.
“This is a wide-spread, nation-wide problem,” said Joseph Mbinji, Acting Executive Director for ZLA. “For example these boundary disputes are visible in Gwembe, Monze, Kazungula, Chipata, Petauke and in the Copperbelt, among many other places.”
ZLA feels the root cause of this problem is the lack of physical demarcation of the land in dispute as well as the fact that these boundaries have not been negotiated for years. Most boundaries were imposed by the colonial government back in 1958 and some show overlapping boundaries between chiefdoms. Read more

Female farmers unite
Women in the Kanyanja area of Chipata district have realized the great potential when women unite to present their issues and concerns in a unified voice.
23 women groups have come together to form an umbrella body, Kwada, which is very vocal in demanding better service delivery from government as well as NGO's. This is good news for MS partner CDFA, who now have another platform for reaching female farmers. Read more

Helping decentralization along
The South African Center for Constructive Resolution of Disputes (Saccord) has founded a new focal group in Itezhi-Tezhi, the K uyovwana Action Group. Kuyovwana means 'helping one another'. And that is exactly what the members of the Saccord Kuyovwana group intend to promote among all the different stakeholders working with decentralization in the district.
The purpose is to improve networks and coordination between those working at grass root level and those working in line ministries. Ideally, the group aims to strengthen the grass root levels to enable them to make a stronger stand for themselves, when dealing with the council. It also hopes that the ministries will begin sharing more information between themselves as well as with the community organizations. “Coordination is crucial, if we want decentralization to be effective. Otherwise we'll end up duplicating our efforts and wasting peoples time,” explains the group. Read more

Chipata DFA gains seat on DDCC
After many months of lobbying, Chipata District Farmers Association is finally represented in the District Development Coordinating Committee (DDCC). This will see farmers’ views presented and included during planning of development activities in the district.
CDFA is now represented in DDCC by the District Organizational Coordinator, Mr. Malambo, who together with the associations members has been lobbying tirelessly for a seat on the DDCC. Mr. Malambo is keen on presenting issues from small scale farmers. His key concerns are on farmer exclusion in development planning and the lack of community monitoring of development projects.

MS GLOBAL NEWS

MS Tanzania: Matching workloads with awareness raising
If you want to raise awareness among women you also have to give them time to participate. Most women in rural Tanzania have heavy workloads. But time planning and new working methods can ease the burdens.
It is very down to earth, but it can make a great difference, if co-wives learn to plan and divide the work so they have time to go to village meetings’, says Gender Programme Officer, Seela Sainyeye from CORDS, one of MS Tanzanias partners. Read more

MS Kenya: Council called to account in Marsabit
On 26th June, 2008 at Catholic Mission Hall in Marsabit, MS Kenya partner MWADO mobilized members of the public to listen to the budget day speech delivered by the longest serving Civic Leader, Councilor Denge Wario.
This is the second time in history that the council presented her budget to the public but this is the first time over 123 people came to listen and above all to question the rationale for the allocation. Read more

MS-ZAMBIA NEWS

News from the director
By Finn Petersen, Country Director, MS-Zambia

Pia Norgaard, the MS Zambia Administrator, is leaving MS-Zambia after a little longer than a year - being pulled back to Denmark for family purposes. Pia will be truly missed by MS Zambia staff and partners for her committed, supportive and hardworking mentality. She would always go that extra mile to ensure that things were done properly and were reaching her high professional standards as well as research thoroughly to make informed decisions. Pia has a great sense of humor and put people at ease in her company. She will continue her professional carrier in a private company and I'm sure she will excel there as she did here, after a number of years in the NGO sector. Should she decide to go back to the NGO sector, I expect that she will introduce some aspect from the private sector to supplement the NGO’s sectors administrative procedures.

The undersigned is in Denmark right now to interview potential candidates to replace Pia.. After 1st interview round it looks quite promising that MS-Zambia will get a good Administrator at the end of it. We hope that the candidate we will pick, can take up the position relatively fast and can maybe get a overlap with Pia, before she leaves. The CO wish Pia all the best in her future endeavors.

Myranda Lutempo, MS Zambia MTV Programme Coordinator will be leaving MS-Zambia as well in September 2008 to purse her graduate studies. Myranda has been accepted as Master student for a Development management and Evaluation degree at a university in Antwerp in Belgium. Myranda was among only three candidates offered scholarships out of 500 Zambians, who applied and were examined.. Big congratulations are forwarded from CO on this achievement, even though she will be missed for her many contributions in especially the Community Radio project and in the Medium Term Volunteer (MTV) programme. The CO wish Myranda all the best in her future academic carrier.

Does Aid Work? Can it work better?
The effectiveness of development aid was under discussion at an international conference held in Canada organized by the North South Institute in June.
It was concluded that the international aid architecture needs urgent reform. Instead of focusing on aid effectiveness, donors should focus on development effectiveness and pay attention to the ownership experience of the governments receiving aid. Programme Officer Nachilala Nkombo attended the conference. Read more

Zimbabwe DW's in Lusaka
by Mikkel Rytter Poulsen

The political unrest in Zimbabwe in the weeks prior to the election day 27th of June led to the re-location of all international Development Worker's (DW's) in MS Zimbabwe. Two of them were re-located to MS Zambia.
Violence, intimidation and fear – those have been part of the life of ordinary Zimbabweans for years now. But in the months after the much disputed elections on 29th of March tensions grew to an all time high when the ruling party started 'campaigning' to win the run-off between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai.

MS Zimbabwe had to relocate DW's from rural areas to urban areas in the first months of the year and later all DW's were relocated to Harare. And in June, when the youth militia, the violence and the intimidation started to move into Harare on a significant scale, it was decided to relocate all international DW's, who were still in Zimbabwe, to either their home countries or neighbouring countries.

There were two reasons for doing so. Most of the DW's had not been able to do any work for months – and with partners closing, others hardly operational and seminars and workshops heavily influenced by the anxiety felt by most, there was no immediate need for DW's to actually be in Zimbabwe. Moreover most of the DW's were starting to feel insecure - not only moving around but also in their homes.

So on Wednesday 25th of June and Thursday 26th the DW's were relocated to Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Mikkel Rytter Poulsen, Information Officer at MS Zimbabwe, and Martin Buch Larsen, Resource Centre and Documentation Advisor at ZimRights in Bulawayo, have been the guests of MS Zambia. They returned to Zimbabwe on July 10th.

Changes in Partner Account Handling
Following a reorganization in the accounts department the responsibilities regarding partner accounting has been split between the two Programme accountants: Mwenya & Glory. We would like to inform our partners that this means that all issues regarding grant disbursements, Grant letters and quarterly settlements will be handled by each of them as follows:

People

New faces at MS Zambia
Christian Coff, new fundraising and advocacy advisor, arrives on 22nd of July. He will be based at the Country Office, assisting partners as well as CO. He has two children, Tobias, 7, and Hannah, 10, and is married to Tina Unger.

Ian Mwiinga, new Zambian intern at the country office, has started working on 1st of July. Ian studies Development Studies at the Kimmage Manor in Ireland and is doing research on decentralization. He will assist with programme activities and communication for the next 6 months.

Leaving MS Zambia:
Jonas Olsen, spouse of Carol Sorensen, has gained a position of DW in Forest Management for MS Tanzania. He has left Zambia on 3rd of July.

Administrator Pia Norgaard has terminated her contract pr. 31st of July. She will take up a position for a private company in Denmark.

DW Jesper Elias Lauridsen has terminated his contract pr. 31st of July, but will stop working on the 21st. He will take up the position of Country Director for MS-Kenya in August.

Out of office:
DW Carol Sorensen will be on leave from 3rd of July – 15th of August
DW Anders Lundt Hansen will be on leave from 9th of July – 21st of July
Country Director Finn Petersen will be out of office from 9th of July – 10th of August, combining work and leave in Denmark. In his absence PO Nachilala Nkombo is acting CD.
DW Natalie Cunin will be on leave from 15th of July – 13th of August
DW Sharon Ndlovu will be on leave from 28th of July – 25th of August
Programme Officers James Kasongo and Humphrey Elekani will be out of office on monitoring visits from 9th – 29th of July.

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