God is green

Having woken-up in the early hours of this morning I grabbed our mp3 player and, thanks to restored internet connection at the office and the wonders of BBC downloads, listened to Radio 4’s Start the week. After listening to Wangari Maathai, the environmentalist and creator of the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya, talk about her new autobiography Unbowed: My Autobiography, I heard about a Channel 4 programme called God is green (to be broadcast at 8pm on Monday 12th Feb). In this programme broadcaster Mark Dowd speaks to religious leaders about why there isn’t a clearer message on the environment and climate change coming from the world’s religions? The interviews with the environment spokesperson for the Vatican suggested he didn’t know what he was talking about, the Bishop of London commits to not flying for a year, and, perhaps surprisingly, the programme finds that ‘US fundamentalist Christians’ are providing more of a lead in picking up the environmental debate than anyone else. Anyway sounded like an interesting programme for those with access to Channel 4 on Monday.

Another guest on Start the week, Michael Portillo, went on to argue that the environment is nt a ‘religious issue, but a political one. I couldn’t disagree with him more – not only do most religions believe in a creator God, the Bible clearly calls followers of Jesus to be good stewards of the earth which, at times, will need us to ‘get political’. Politicians alone will never be able to respond adequately to the predicted rate of climate change, as revealed in the recent UN IPCC report findings, without ‘religious’ people, and the wider electorate, taking up the issue and their responsibility in it.

That gave me pause for reflection as I gave up trying to get to sleep and instead opted to listen to the Zambian dawn chorus and the sounds of Ndola coming back to life.

Election results

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa was today sworn in following the disputed elections of last week. The elections themselves went peacefully – but the count led to some violence on the streets of Lusaka on Sunday after Mwanawasa’s nearest rival, Michael Sata, found himself in third place. At the final count Mr Mwanawasa got 43% of the vote, while Mr Sata finally came in second with 29%, and the other main candidate, Haikande Hichilima, won 25% to come third.

As he was sworn in President Mwanawasa said: “This is not the time to settle scores. Let us all be united to build Zambia,” whilst Michael Sata has claimed that there was election fraud and he will make life difficult for Mr Mwanawasa both “inside parliament and outside parliament”. The BBC News website has more.

Elections

This Thursday will see Zambians going to the polls to elect a President, MPs and Councillors. There are five candidates running for President, including Mwanawasa the current President. Zambia has a good track record in peaceful elections and this one looks set to be no different.

All the candidates for MP in Mapalo have now signed up to the community’s memorandum of understanding, so no matter who gets elected on Thursday the new MP has already agreed to helping the community to meet their agreed needs within three years – which is a great start for the community of Mapalo as they look to the future.

Candidates sign memorandum of understanding

Those of you that read our recent newsletter will know that one of the communities Jubilee Centre works with in Ndola, called Mapalo, has been drawing up a memorandum of understanding in preparation for Zambia’s elections later this month. This memorandum basically identifies the needs of the community – and the idea is that each candidate standing for Councillor and MP is asked to sign up to supporting these needs if successfully elected.

Last weekend the community held a meeting for the candidates to publicly sign-up to the community’s stated needs – and 1,000 people from the community attended the meeting, and all of the candidates for counsellor and four candidates for MP (covering all the main parties) signed it! Photos were taken of each of the candidates while they were signing in solidarity with the community, and a national radio station also picked up the story on the day.

This is a great step forward for the community – helping to give it a long-term voice for change.

Zambia: Condemned to debt

“Zambia’s textile and clothing industry used to employ 34,000 people. Then it was forced to open up to free trade. Without protection Zambia’s clothing manufacturers could not compete in the global market and cheap imports flooded in. The industry collapsed and now it employs just 4000 people.”

I recently came across this report – Zambia: Condemned to debt – from the World Development Movement. It looks at the effects World Bank and IMF trade liberlisation and privatisation policies upon the economy of Zambia. Interesting reading – with a good introductory summary.

“Despite the disadvantage of being land-locked, Zambia was once one of the wealthiest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This began to change in the early 1970s. After the oil crisis (increasing the price of imports) and relative commodity price collapse (reducing the revenue from exports), Zambia had to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank for assistance. So began some thirty years of Bank and Fund intervention in the Zambian economy. In return for loans, Zambia was required to implement Bank and Fund endorsed economic policies over three decades. Unfortunately, this period is a sad story of increasing debt, economic stagnation or collapse, and social crisis.”

Read more at: Zambia: Condemned to debt