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| West Africa Advocacy Page |
PEACE PROCESS IN LIBERIA
See Walking with Liberia website at:
http://www.elca.org/liberia/
FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS
The US and other industrialized nations are moving forward
aggressively on international trade agreements that work to the
detriment of Africa. In particular, African efforts to protect
community rights and traditional practices against the strategy of
multinationals to patent life forms need to be supported, and we
seek to partner with African civil society efforts to have their
governments adopt draft legislation that counters the dominance of
intellectual property rights over justice and human need.
For information on North American church’s views on trade
agreements, see the Declaration made by members of Church World
Service at
http://www.churchworldservice.org/pdf_files/trade/Declaration-JustTradeAgreements.pdf
For action packet on trade, see:
http://www.woaafrica.org/Trade1.htm
To take action, see:
http://www.e alliance.ch/keyresources.jsp
DEBT CANCELLATION
In 1999 many wealthy nations agreed to cancel the debts of
countries that met the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC)
Initiative criteria. This was controversial and fell far short of
complete debt cancellation. The burden of debt remains quite
heavy.
Many sub-Saharan African governments still spend more on debt
repayments than on health care and education combined. Obviously
the effect has severe repercussions on Africa’s human development.
In particular the debt burden has undermined the efforts of
African nations to deal with the AIDS pandemic.
For information with suggested actions, see:
http://churchworldwservice.org/FactsHaveFaces/africafact.html
For more information on what you can do to help contact:
Lutheran World Relief,
www.lwr.org or
Jubilee USA Network,
www.jubileeusa.org
HIV/AIDS
Increased funding to address the AIDS pandemic in Africa, is
needed, minimally $1 billion annually, and advocacy for US trade
policy that accepts the need of African nations to obtain
affordable medicines for both AIDS and opportunistic infections.
For ELCA information, see:
http://www.elca.org/dcs/aidsin.html#topofpage
For additional information, see:
http://www.lwr.org/advocacy/africa/aids.asp
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/mission/ehaia-e.html
For information from Church World Service, see:
http://www.churchworldservice.org/pdf_files/CWS Policy
Threads1.pdf
For action packets, see:
http://www.aidsalliance.org/ngosupport/
http://www.woaafrica.org/AIDS30.htm
For recent articles on HIV/AIDS in Africa, see:
http://www.africafiles.org/aids.asp
To take action, see:
http://www.e alliance.ch/hivaids.jsp
CONFLICT DIAMONDS
Meaningful legislation and enforcement of controls preventing the
marketing of diamonds whose sale funds conflicts throughout Sierra
Leone, Angola and the Congo is needed to reverse the history of
diamonds bringing corruption, strife, destruction and violence and
to establish transparent and just diamond production and marketing
systems which are so rewarding that smuggling will become a thing
of the past as diamonds begin to feed real economic growth and
social empowerment.
For information, see:
http://www.africaaction.org/docs00/sl001.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/africa-diamonds.htm
For action packet on diamond conflict, see
http://www.woaafrica.org/DiamondEdMaterials.htm
For action, see:
http://www.peacediamonds.org/
For information on advocacy issues regarding other natural
resources, see:
http://pacweb.org/e/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=55
For news about Africa, see:
http://allafrica.com/
For information on advocacy on issues related to Africa, see:
http://www.woaafrica.org
For information about Stand with Africa, see:
http://www.standwithafrica.org/homepage.html
For Stand with Africa projects, see:
http://www.standwithafrica.org/hiv_aids/index.php
For information on contact with Congress, see:
http://www.elca.org/advocacy/federal
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