NIGERIA is to exit the London Club of Creditors next month if the offer of $220 per oil warrant is accepted by the holders, in a fresh push to complete the last leg of deals to free Nigeria of all major foreign debts before the end of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

Only two weeks ago, the Federal Government successfully negotiated a legal freedom from the $512 million promissory notes debt. There are 1.786 million outstanding units of oil warrants.
Officials of the Debt Management Office (DMO) said, yesterday, in Abuja that holders of the warrants had been invited to tender their warrants for cash at a minimum clearing price of $220 per warrant. They have up till March 29, 2007 to respond.

The Central Bank (CBN) is directly involved in the deal. Barring any major price modification by the CBN, clearing the oil warrants could cost Nigeria in the region of $400 million (or about N50 billion).

Officials said government through the CBN had taken steps to buy back the oil warrants from the holders as part of the efforts to pay off the London Club debt.

Under the oil warrant agreement, the amount paid yearly increases as oil prices go up. With the current international crude oil price level, the nation could be paying $52 million per year to creditors and this could continue to 2020 when the warrants mature, if the deal doesn’t sail through.

Minister of Finance, Mrs. Nenadi Usman, had said the present administration wanted to bequeath a virtually debt-free nation to its successors, at least, with regard to foreign debts. The only exception would be the International Development Agency (IDA) interest-free credit facilities of the World Bank.

In May, Algeria will inaugurate a reserve around a small oasis in the south-west where plants and animals will be protected in the service of a broader goal. Hopes are that the Taghit National Park will help stop the advance of the Sahara Desert, which already stretches across almost all of this North African country.

The project was initiated by the Friends of the Sahara Association — a founder member of the National Committee of Algerian NGOs Against Desertification — and the National Agency for the Conservation of Nature (Agence nationale pour la conservation de la nature, ANCN).
“The Taghit National Park covers a surface area of 250,000 hectares, which could be extended to 500,000 hectares with the inclusion of the neighboring Guir region,” said Amina Fellous, an engineer at ANCN, which is tasked with leading the project.

The reserve is to include areas isolated from human activity, as well as perimeter zones where various pursuits — even for light and medium-sized industries will be permitted on condition that they do not pollute, Fellous explained to IPS.

“In Taghit, any socio-economic activity having negative effects on water resources will not be allowed,” she noted.

The project will seek to protect grasslands and restore palm groves, renew the planting of acacias, and reforest denuded land with indigenous species for the benefit of migratory species. Water points will be established in the park, and efforts made to develop the region’s plant genetic resources.

The list of mammals to be protected makes mention of about 33 species, including the threatened sand dune cat, fennec (a small fox), Barbary sheep and three types of gazelle. (The term Barbary derives from the Berber people, and was formerly used by Europeans to refer to North Africa.)

To date, no less than 107 species of birds have been documented in the area — but an exhaustive list has yet to be compiled during different seasons, so as to include migratory birds.

About twenty birds feature on the list of protected species of Algeria. Some, like the houbara bustard, have become the subject of international conservation efforts.

Sixteen bird species that congregate around the Taghit oasis are considered endemic to North Africa and the Middle East, notably the Barbary partridge, houbara bustard and lanner falcon.
Furthermore, the Taghit park will aim to protect and promote the archaeological heritage of the area — and to develop tourist facilities that are in harmony with their surroundings.

Conservation will also support agricultural activity, says Malik Raheb: an agricultural engineer involved in conservation of forests at Ghardaïa, south of the capital — Algiers.

“The creation of the Taghit National Park, aside from its role of being a barrier to the desert, will also allow a still greater response to the agricultural needs of people in the region, as is already evidenced by the production of tomatoes and potatoes.”

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor today named a Sudanese minister and a militia commander as the first suspects he wants tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s conflict-wracked Darfur region.

The Security Council referred the Darfur issue, along with the names of 51 suspected perpetrators, to the ICC in March 2005, after a UN inquiry into whether genocide occurred in Darfur found the Government responsible for crimes under international law and strongly recommended referring the dossier to the Court.
ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo presented evidence showing that Ahmad Muhammad Harun, former Sudanese Minister of State for the Interior, and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, “jointly committed crimes against the civilian population in Darfur,” according to an ICC press release.

“Based on evidence collected during the last 20 months, the Prosecution has concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe that Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb, (also known as Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman) bear criminal responsibility in relation to 51 counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes,” it stated.

The crimes were allegedly committed during attacks on the villages and towns of Kodoom, Bindisi, Mukjar and Arawala in west Darfur between August 2003 and March 2004.

In early 2003, Mr. Harun was appointed head of the “Darfur Security desk,” where his main task was to manage and personally recruit, fund and arm the Janjaweed militia - forces that would ultimately number in the tens of thousands. He is currently Sudan’s state humanitarian affairs minister.

According to the ICC, Mr. Harun said during a public meeting that as the head of the “Darfur Security desk,” he had been given “all the power and authority to kill or forgive whoever in Darfur for the sake of peace and security.”

Mr. Kushayb, an “Aqid al Oqada” (”colonel of colonels”) in west Darfur, was commanding thousands of Janjaweed militia by mid-2003 and the prosecution’s evidence shows that he issued orders to the militia and armed forces to victimize the civilian populations through mass rape and other sexual offences, killings, torture, inhumane acts, pillaging and looting of residences and marketplaces, the displacement of the resident community and other alleged criminal acts.

ICC judges will now review the evidence and decide whether the two individuals committed the alleged crimes and, if so, how best to ensure their appearance in court.

Today’s announcement comes amid increasing international efforts to stop the daily bloodshed in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2 million others forced to flee their homes since 2003. In total, some 4 million civilians need assistance to survive in the region, which is roughly the size of France and situated in the west of Sudan.

On Sunday, the UN’s top emergency official in Sudan visited several sites in north Darfur, along with representatives from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
 
The Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator, Manuel Aranda da Silva, found in particular that water and health were the most pressing needs as he went to Deribat and Rowatta, where he also highlighted the increasing insecurity faced by humanitarian workers in the region.

The group also met field commanders of rebel groups, who said they were committed to securing the safety of humanitarian operations.

Separately, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said today that over 100 people have been killed since 10 February in Kass in southern Darfur, because of fighting between tribal groups, which has also forced over 900 families of mainly women and children to flee for safety. Last month alone violence throughout Darfur forced around 46,000 more people to flee their homes, OCHA.

THE Hoodia gordonni, an indigenous plant found in certain areas of southern Africa, has the potential to boost Namibia’s socio-economic growth, says Environment Minister Willem Konjore.

“Because of the enormity of the international market demands, Hoodia has the potential to contribute to the Namibian economic development in general and rural development in particular,” Konjore said.
He made these remarks at the opening of a two-day workshop for Hoodia growers at Keetmanshoop yesterday.

The workshop’s aim is to develop guidelines for the development of a sustainable Hoodia industry.

Hoodia gordonii is no beauty, but this humble plant is Africa’s latest cash crop, priced almost like a narcotic at $40 an ounce. The plant, which grows wild in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, was once used by indigenous tribes to suppress hunger and thirst when hunting. Now it’s such a darling of the international dieting industry that doing an Internet search on the plant’s name returns about 14 million responses.
The resulting demand is so hot, wild supplies have been severely compromised, smuggling is rife and farmers in southern Africa are trying to get in on the game.

“You start doing the sums; it’s too good to be true. You want to throw your calculator away. It’s an impossible phenomenon,” said hoodia farmer Dougal Bassingthwaighte.

Bassingthwaighte, 65, who is farming hoodia with his son, Kirk, has 130,000 seedlings from his nursery, where they begin as tiny green sprouts, being planted in his fields. In about two years, when he plans to harvest them, each is likely to weigh about 4 pounds. He hopes to have a million plants next year.

With international giant Unilever licensed to commercialize hoodia and international demand far outstripping supply, there’s a mad race on to get plants to the market.

But the explosion of interest has not only put enormous pressure on the rare plant - listed as an endangered species by international treaty - it also puts intense pressure on an embryonic market that could be a boon for Africans if it could grow at a natural and sustainable pace.
Konjore was quick to warn Hoodia growers that the skyrocketing demand poses negative consequences for the survival of the species in its natural range.

“Populations of this rare natural resource are being negatively impacted by the high demand,” he said.

According to Konjore, the growing demand resulted in numerous incidents of illegal harvesting and attempts to illegally export large amounts of Hoodia material to European markets.

“We need to find a way to address the root causes of Hoodia’s decline before the situation becomes dire,” he said.

The cactus-like plant, known as !Khowab to the Nama community, is sought after across Europe and America for its appetite-suppressant qualities.

Pharmaceutical companies are currently processing these plants into a powder form which can be added directly to liquids or taken as a capsule.

The bitter-tasting, prickly plant has been classified as a protected species in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), to prevent its exploitation through wild harvesting and over-utilisation.

Currently, no export of Hoodia material is authorised in Namibia but illegal trade is rife, with seeds and plant shoots being smuggled out of the country for cultivation and production purposes.

“This smuggling is a huge concern because it’s undermining the whole industry,” Bassingthwaighte said. “They were coming across and smuggling hoodia before we woke up to it. When our local indigenous people realized this thing was of value, they started ripping the plants up in the wild.”

Some in Namibia hope that if the market is brought under control, the hoodia craze could benefit the country’s poor. Others fear that commercial farmers and giants such as Unilever could clean up while poor communities are paid a pittance for manual labor on hoodia farms.

“We do see it as a very real opportunity to give a source of income to some of the poorest people in Namibia,” said Steve Carr, coordinator of a succulent cultivation project being carried out by Namibia’s National Botanical Research Institute, which is part of a working group helping indigenous people farm hoodia.

“It’s an irony. It could be a way for people who feel they are overweight to help people who face a daily struggle to put something in their stomachs.”

Bassingthwaighte set up the Namibia Hoodia Growers’ Association to protect farmers’ interests and get other farmers on board, in order to try to meet public demand with a quality product before the hoodia craze evaporates.

Bassingthwaighte hopes to get an export license and believes he will be able to sell about 4,800 pounds of dried hoodia powder a year. So far, his operation is small. But gazing tenderly over his tiny seedlings, he dreams of a day when hoodia plants stretch in every direction toward the horizon, the strange plants tilting their horns at the bright Kalahari sky.

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
Johannesburg

Large international donor agencies have become major players in Africa’s response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Despite talk of ‘partnering’ with their recipients, they have usually called the shots.

Unsurprisingly, considering the millions of dollars in play, the donors have insisted on high levels of transparency and accountability from recipients and have punished perceived corruption or mismanagement by hasty withdrawals of funds.
But after several breaking news stories in recent months, the conduct and accountability of donors themselves has come under similar scrutiny.

Reports in late 2006 said a USAID audit of President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) had brought to light shoddy record-keeping, in which large numbers of beneficiaries were miscounted.

Next came revelations by the Los Angeles Times that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had invested heavily in the pharmaceutical companies responsible for pricing life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs out of reach of most Africans.

In February 2007 it was the turn of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, when The Boston Globe newspaper revealed that an internal investigation had found the Fund’s outgoing executive director, Richard Feacham, guilty of making extravagant use of his business expense account.

These stories may signal that the days of donor agency impunity are numbered. The Washington-based Centre for Global Development is researching HIV/AIDS funding in a project called the ‘HIV/AIDS Monitor’, which is investigating the widely varying practices of three major donor agencies: the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Global Fund and the World Bank’s Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Program (MAP). Local researchers in four countries receiving aid - Ethiopia, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia - will look at how programmes are designed and implemented, funds are delivered and managed, and what impact they have on local health systems.

“Donors have really been stringent about how their money is used, but what’s interesting is that we know very little about whether donors [agencies] are using money effectively,” said project director Nandini Oomman. “Part of our goal is to make donors more accountable and more open.”

Such initiatives are vital, not only for informing the American and European pulic about how their tax dollars are being spent, but for raising questions that recipients in Africa are rarely in a position to ask.

Partners or Dictators?

Most African nations depend heavily on donors to respond adequately to HIV/AIDS epidemics that have overwhelmed their own budgets. In Malawi, 55 percent of the health budget comes from donor agencies, most of it earmarked for HIV/AIDS programmes. But a 2005 study of the impact of Global Fund grants on the health system found that the Fund’s focus had not always been in line with national programmes and priorities, and had actually hampered government efforts to decentralise health services.

“Donors claim they’re looking for partnerships with governments but that patently isn’t the case,” said Prof Alan Whiteside, director of the Health Economics & HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. “For governments, it can be a real issue of relative powerlessness, because they’re reliant on donor money.”

The Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit research organisation that concentrates on ethics and public service issues, recently looked at the practices of PEPFAR and concluded that instead of partnering with and empowering local stakeholders, the agency’s overly “simplistic and narrow” framework for dealing with the epidemic had resulted in a prescriptive approach to allocating funds. Investigators cited PEPFAR’s insistence on the ABC (Abstain, Be Faithful, Condomise) approach to prevention, with particular emphasis on A and B.

The US Global AIDS Coordinator, Dr Mark Dybul, responsible for implementing PEFPAR, described the ABC approach as evidence-based, and a continuation of policies in place before PEPFAR came into existence in 2003.
 
 
 
But Dean Peacock, former country director for the South African office of EngenderHealth, a nonprofit agency working to improve the quality of reproductive health and family planning services in developing countries, a recipient of PEPFAR funding, insisted that there was no evidence to support the abstinence approach.

“Part of [donor agency] accountability is not just how resources are used, but how the ideology behind it fits with the context.”

Peacock, now co-director of Sonke Gender Justice, a South Africa-based nongovernmental organisation (NGO) advocating for gender equality to reduce the spread of HIV, shares the view of many experts that the promotion of abstinence and fidelity is often too simplistic in the African context of gender violence and inequity, in which many women are not in a position to negotiate the terms and conditions of sex.
Ideally, organisations should challenge donor agencies when funding came with strings attached that did not match their mandates, but in reality this rarely happened. “If you’re sitting there as a programme director, and you’ve got someone’s salary on the line, it’s very difficult to say ‘no’ to funding,” said Peacock.

“There is a sense of being held to ransom,” agreed Denise Hunt, executive director of the AIDS Consortium, an umbrella organisation of South African AIDS service organisations. “People are wary to speak out because they’re reliant on those funds.”

More Money than Capacity

Part of the apparent reluctance of donors to partner with local organisations and governments stems from the very real lack of capacity in many countries to manage large sums of donated cash.

“There’s more money committed to the AIDS response than there is capacity to disperse it in Botswana,” commented Daniel Motsatsing, executive director of the Botswana Network of AIDS Service Organisations (BONASO).

The same is true in many countries, where weak health systems often cannot expand at the same pace as donor-inflated budgets.

A 2005 report on the potential for corruption in the HIV/AIDS sector by anti-corruption organisation Transparency International, noted that the “performance” of a grant is often assessed by how rapidly it is disbursed, providing an incentive to donors and recipients to allocate money carelessly, or even to siphon off significant amounts without anyone noticing.

Many donors had tried to solve the problem by running costly parallel systems that either imported ‘experts’ or recruited scarce local talent.

The Global Fund broke new ground by setting up ‘Country Coordinating Mechanisms’ (CCMs) of local stakeholders to oversee its grants, but after evidence of corruption surfaced in Uganda and Chad, and of poor performance in Nigeria, the Fund has had to rethink its ‘hands-off’ approach and invest more in strengthening the capacity of the CCMs. “I think it was a rather idealistic approach to take - there wasn’t an organised network of technical and managerial assistance available,” said spokesperson Jon Liden.

Global health commentator Laurie Garrett is among those who have argued that donors should focus on strengthening public health systems instead of “stove-piping” large amounts of aid into HIV/AIDS programmes.

“Stovepiping tends to reflect the interests and concerns of the donors, not the recipients,” wrote Garrett, adding that “efforts to combat HIV/AIDS have so far managed to bring more money to the field, but have not always had much beneficial impact on public health outside their own niche.”

Liden disagreed, arguing that AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria dominate health systems in many African countries, and that tackling them inevitably benefited public health more broadly.

Keeping Promises

Most donors commit to five-year funding cycles, leaving recipients in a constant state of uncertainty about the future of their organisations and beneficiaries. Even when a commitment has been made, it can take several months for the money to arrive.

“Their own inefficiency becomes your crisis,” said Denise Hunt of the AIDS Consortium, noting that it was not uncommon to receive funding late while the deadline for spending it remained the same. “I’m in a situation now where I’m going to have to give a donor some money back because it wasn’t spent by the deadline, but if it had been, it would have been spent recklessly.”

An even bigger problem was donors who failed to honour pledges. In the HIV/AIDS sector, “[the importance of] predictability is huge”, said Whiteside, especially when it came to antiretroviral treatment programmes, which had to be sustained uninterruptedly and indefinitely.
This means ensuring that the amounts received matched commitments, and that administrative fees and other deductions were taken into account.

Peacock said it was common practice for US-based international NGOs receiving PEPFAR funding to charge 30 percent of their grants to overheads, plus 15 percent to administration, thus spending nearly 50 percent of their budgets on ill-defined organisational costs that often included plush offices in New York and Washington.

With “bloated executive salaries, well in excess of what President Mbeki earns, for flying around the world, business class, and dropping in on the developing world to offer prescriptive ‘technical assistance’ devoid of any substantive understanding of local realities”, he added.
According to a US Congressional report, at least two-thirds of US foreign aid never leaves the United States. The money is used to pay for American salaries, American-made vehicles, office expenses and other ‘overheads’.

Dybul conceded that some international NGOs had inappropriately allocated items as US-based overheads and had under-used local expertise and capacity: “We’re now requiring line items to separate out [American] overheads and putting language into grant contracts that requires international organisations to start turning over what they’re doing to local organisations.”

Lack of Coordination

Besides unpredictability and the programme planning challenges this created, donors have different disbursement cycles, and the lack of coordination between them extends to different reporting formats and administrative procedures. The resulting administrative burden takes significant time and resources away from the core business of smaller NGOs, especially when they receive funding from several donors.

Poor communication between donor agencies can also lead to project duplication or even competing programmes. “Donors really need to start talking to each other about coordinating their efforts,” said Oomman. “But the incentives for that are not great.”

Liden agreed: “Everyone wants the kudos of the quick result, so it’s difficult to argue that one donor should do the more visible stuff while another does the back-office stuff.”

Nevertheless, Liden, of the Global Fund, and Dybul, of PEPFAR, both claimed to be working towards greater coordination. “Everyone we know has the same goals,” said Dybul. “In some places the Global Fund is supplying ARV drugs and PEPFAR is supplying the training and infrastructure to deliver them.”

The Global Fund’s highly transparent model of posting details of all of its grants on a publicly accessible website has also reduced the possibility of duplication while increasing accountability. “It is scary to expose your work to the scrutiny of the entire world,” commented Liden. “But it has engendered very constructive debates about how best to use funds for development.”

Recipients are also starting to recognise the need for greater advocacy in their relationships with donors. Hunt advised local NGOs to view such relationships as “a two-way street”, and to be more selective about whom they accepted funds from, “because it can’t come at any cost”.

“In some cases,” agreed Peacock, “we should just say, ‘no, we can’t do this’.”

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
 

The UN Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize an African Union force to help stabilize Somalia
 
The new mission overrides a previous Council-authorized operation led by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional body, which had a more limited mandate. It will provide protection to the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) to help them carry out their functions of government, and security for key infrastructure.

In addition, AMISOM, will assist to the extent possible, with carrying out the National Security and Stabilization Plan, particularly as regards the re-establishment and training of all-inclusive Somali security forces. Further, the mission will as requested help foster the necessary security conditions for the provision of humanitarian assistance desperately needed in Somalia, which has been hit by the twin scourges of conflict and natural disasters.

In adopting the resolution, the Council stressed the “need for broad-based and representative institutions reached through an all-inclusive political process in Somalia, as envisaged in the Transitional Federal Charter, in order to consolidate stability, peace and reconciliation in the country and ensure that international assistance is as effective as possible.”

The resolution adopted by the council urges the 53 African nations to contribute troops to the 8,000-strong force and urges other U.N. member states to provide financial support and any needed personnel, equipment and services.

The measure gives the AU force international legitimacy. Most African countries will not deploy troops in any peacekeeping mission without such authorization.

“For the first time in 15 years, the Somali people have a prospect of being governed by representative institutions that will provide them with security and stability,” said Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, the main sponsor of the resolution.

“The international community for its part must lend its support to Somalia’s transitional federal institutions to turn this opportunity into a reality,” he told the council after the vote.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the poverty-stricken nation of seven million people into chaos

The founder of the Black Entertainment Television in America, Mr. Robert Johnson, has announced a US$ 30 million investment to support Liberian entrepreneurship.

The Deputy Press Secretary, Charles Nelson said on Monday, during regular press briefing at the Foreign Affairs Ministry,  the successful holding of the Liberia Private Sector Forum, in Washington DC was geared towards attracting investors to the country.

He said the government and its partners are delighted with the turnout from the Forum and are hopeful that potential investors would explore investment opportunities in the country.

Mr. Nelson also said there is more to do to complete debt relief even though the United States of America, Germany and the United Kingdom have cancelled their respective debts with Liberia, the country still needs to get signals from bilateral partners as well as tackle commercial debts.

Radio journalist Ali Mohammed Omar was brutally killed on Friday, 16th February 2007, around 20:30hrs local time in Baidoa of the Bay region in south-western Somalia.

The journalist, who works for the most influential Independent Radio Station in Baidoa, Warsan Radio, as a newscaster and a technician was attacked by three unidentified assailants in the evening of the Friday as he was on his way to his home. The assailants who shot him at the head told him to stop, but he refused to accept and tried to runaway, according to eyewitness at the scene.

In three consecutive years, journalists were been murdered in Somalia, particularly in the southern party

Radio Warsan, a privately-owned radio station based in Baidoa, was closed several times and resumed operations on Friday, 10th February 2007. The last time the radio was closed is 8th January 2007 . The recent resumption of its operations came out after the management of the radio and the chief of the national security agency of the transitional government in Bay region agreed the recommencement of the broadcasting.

Kenyan authorities have deported more than 420 refugees who fled fighting across the border in Somalia

The refugees fled Islamist militias driven from southern Somalia towards Kenya by Ethiopian and Somali soldiers.

Kenyan soldiers have sealed its border with Somalia and intensified screening to prevent militias arriving.

“No armed individual or group can enter our country or be allowed to compromise its security,” local Kenyan police commander Johnstone Limo told Reuters by telephone. “We shall stop them, arrest them and, if necessary, fight them.”

But the government has not formally declared the borders closed.

View more at Myzine.com

Oprah Winfrey opened a school yesterday for disadvantaged girls, fulfilling a promise she made to former president Nelson Mandela six years ago and giving more than 150 students a chance for a better future.
The $40 million Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in the town of Henley-on-Klip, south of Johannesburg, plucked the girls from poverty to be groomed for power.

“I wanted to give this opportunity to girls who had a light so bright that not even poverty could dim that light,” Winfrey said at a news conference.

Mandela, 88, attended the opening ceremony, other guests on Tuesday, including Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Sidney Poitier and Chris Tucker, were asked to bring a personally inscribed book for the library, which included everything from self-help books to Harry Potter.

Winfrey said she planned to open another school for boys and girls this month in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province.