As the French military operation in Mali – Operation Serval – winds down, and the UN’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) prepares to take over in the coming weeks, the future of Mali and its democracy are slowly coming into focus.

The French military operation has been successful in restoring territorial integrity and returning control of rebel-held areas to the Malian government and armed forces. Nevertheless, some key areas, like Kidal, a Touareg-held city in the northeastern part of the county, remain under rebel control. As the international community continues to help shepherd the process of returning to a democratic, peaceful state, Mali still faces some major challenges on the political, humanitarian and security fronts.

The international community is united in its desire to see Mali hold presidential elections this coming July. The $4.2 billion pledged in Brussels last week for the reconstruction of Mali are contingent upon a return to democracy, and the holding of elections. Since the outgoing president was toppled in the spring of 2012, Mali has had a leadership vacuum, due to a lack of popular support and trust in Malian political and military leaders. After more than a year of intense conflict and the near destruction of the Malian state, the country needs to be revitalized by a strong and committed leadership – something which the international community and the Malian public are hoping will emerge from the July presidential elections.

One of the issues that needs to be resolved prior to an election schedule being finalized is how the Tuareg minority is to be represented and engaged in the elections and in a newly formed government, and how citizens living in the area of Kidal – currently held by Tuareg rebels – can participate in the electoral process. The prevailing Western view – that the Tuareg minority should be given some degree of autonomy and representation in the Malian government – differs from the Malian point of view, which holds that all Malians – including those living in Kidal – should participate in the upcoming elections, but only once control of Kidal is in the hands of the Malian government. The French armed forces are not confronting the rebels in Kidal, and holding back Malian efforts to do so. Instead, France is insisting Mali address the long-standing demands for Tuareg autonomy – one of the central reasons for which a Tuareg rebellion has existed for years in Northern Mali, and a key factor in the destabilization of Mali last spring. Diplomats say that “secret” talks in Burkina Faso are currently underway to try and resolve this particular issue.

In addition to finding a solution to the issue of Tuareg representation, Mali also has to contend with some logistical challenges ahead of the elections. Vivian Lowery Derrick, who leads the US-based civil society group Mali Watch, points to issues related to “inaccurate voter lists; limited transportation; inadequate protection for the security of ballots, ballot boxes and other election-related materials; limited stability in the North; limited civic education; large numbers of displaced voters; and doubts about the military’s ability to provide security.  The weather also may not cooperate, as roads become impassable, plus it is planting season from May to July.” These are not insignificant obstacles, and with an 8-week time frame, Malian authorities and election officials will need as much support as possible – both politically and logistically – to carry out free, fair and transparent elections. Anything short of that standard could potentially lead to further destabilization.

The sooner Mali can restore a democratic, representative government, the sooner it can address the humanitarian needs of its citizens. Nearly half a million individuals have been displaced by the conflict since last year, and the government estimates that 660,000 children under the age of five are in danger of being chronically malnourished. While schools, roads and other infrastructure needs to be rebuilt in areas affected by the conflict, and as the Malian armed forces continue to receive training and support from the international community, one of the key elements of the successful restoration of peace and democracy in Mali will be to find a way to rebuild – and, in some cases, create – a level of social cohesion that can strengthen the country. There are myriad social and ethnic groups in Mali, including Tuareg minorities, which need to be part of a genuinely inclusive political process – that challenge, however, is not one that will be easily solved by international donor money.

Ed note. This is a special guest post from Kolleen Bouchane, Director of ACTION. 

Collective inaction on nutrition globally has led to the deaths and squandered the potential of millions of the world’s citizens. Perhaps there was a time when we thought we were doing enough but that time has surely passed.

We have tried to tackle the crisis of hunger. Many countries are generous in providing food to hungry people. But those iconic sacks of grain from the evening news are not enough. There is, as we are learning as we struggle to meet the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, a massive chasm between food and nutrition. And in this gap are the underlying causes of at least a third of all child deaths.

Food is necessary to ensure good nutrition, but it is not sufficient. The diet of poor children often consists of starches like rice, with very little protein and inadequate vitamins and minerals. Beyond the children we have lost, chronic undernutrition causes stunting – irreversibly impeding a child’s cognitive and physical development. When young children are malnourished, they are also far more susceptible to serious illness – 9.5 times more likely to die from diarrhea and 6.4 times more likely to die from pneumonia. These lost children and this enormous lost potential is a drag on entire economies and can cost as much as 2-3 percent of GDP.

Now, 16 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia have created fully-costed plans to tackle nutrition as part of the Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) movement. These countries are paving the way. Led by Brazil and the United Kingdom, they are now asking the world to come together and invest in ending the undernutrition crisis.

This is the world’s next big opportunity.

On the eve of the G8 Summit in London, governments, international agencies, and private industry will meet at the Nutrition for Growth summit. It’s a ‘money on the table’ event that has the potential to accelerate progress on global nutrition by encouraging investment in these country plans and a more serious focus on shared long-term solutions to the silent tragedy of chronic under-nutrition.

We know what these solutions are. Ensuring women and children can access essential vitamins and nutrients during the 1,000 days from the start of a woman’s pregnancy until her child’s 2nd birthday ensures that child can grow up healthy. The solutions are basic and cost-effective – providing micronutrients to children was found to be the most cost-effective development investment.

Advocacy organizations around the world including ACTION’s partners in the UK, Canada, and France have developed realistic, ambitious, targets for their governments to meet. In the US, organizations including RESULTS are calling on the Obama Administration to pledge $1.35 billion to nutrition efforts over the next three years – a number representing just a fraction of U.S. investment in overseas aid.

But this isn’t about aid anymore. It’s about the world we collectively have the ability to create. Where children do not die from solutions we understand and resources we have.

Kolleen Bouchane is Director of ACTION, a global partnership of health advocacy organizations working to influence policy and mobilize resources to fight diseases of poverty and improve equitable access to health services, based at RESULTS Educational Fund. Follow her @bouchane and @ACTION_Tweets.

Top stories from DAWNS Digest

Suicide Bombing Comes to Niger

A military base and a French uranium mining complex were the targets of simultaneous suicide attacks which killed at least 26 people. “The timing of the attacks, which occurred at the same moment more than 100 miles apart, and the fact that the bombers were able to penetrate both a well-guarded military installation and a sensitive, foreign-operated uranium mine, highlight the growing reach and sophistication of the Islamic extremists based in neighboring Mali. Both attacks were claimed by a spinoff of al-Qaida, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, which earlier vowed to avenge the four-month-old French-led military intervention which ousted them from town’s in Mali’s north.” (AP http://yhoo.it/10P9jzI)

Obama Offers Shift on Drone Policy and Guantanamo

Big speech from President Obama yesterday. “Mr. Obama proposed the creation of a secret court or some other independent body that would have to sign off on strikes in the future. He also called on Congress to revise the authorization of force it passed in the aftermath of Sept. 11 to reflect the changing nature of the war on terrorism. And he renewed his moribund effort to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by saying that he would lift a moratorium on transferring scores of detainees to Yemen. Taken together, the president’s words and deeds added up to an effort to move the country away from the perpetual war on terrorism envisioned by his predecessor, George W. Bush, toward a more limited campaign against particular groups that would eventually be curtailed even if the threat of terrorism could never be eliminated.” (NYTimes http://nyti.ms/Z3KnIe)

Bukavu, South Kivu, DRC – UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon arrived in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), yesterday. It was a visit planned as part of a UN brokered framework agreement between the Congolese government and rebels in the eastern part of the country, though it coincided with fresh clashes between them. This is the first significant fighting since the rebel movement, known as M23, took and then withdrew from the provincial capital of North Kivu, Goma, in late 2012.

M23 insists that the government instigated the renewed fighting, though other reports indicate that M23 attacked government positions first. Allegations have surfaced that the government is collaborating with another militia, the FDLR, in its opposition to them. The renewed clashes also coincide with the deployment of an intervention brigade of some 3,000 authorized by the UN, the first of its kind in that it has an offensive mandate to “neutralize” rebel militias. This includes the M23, but also other militias such as the various Mai Mai “local defense” groups active in eastern Congo.

If the Congolese government really is aligning itself with the FDLR, a Congolese militia (but also a social and political movement) opposed to the regime of President Kagame in neighboring Rwanda and with roots in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in that country, it poses serious problems for MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC. It would not, especially in 2013, be accurate to categorize the FDLR as exclusively anti-Tutsi genocidaires or the M23 as exclusively anti-Hutu Kagame supporters. Generally speaking, though, the two camps are in political opposition to each other within the context of local power struggles in eastern Congo, and both are non-state militia movements that are theoretically subject to being “neutralized” by the intervention force. The Congolese government has a history of switching allegiances and playing upon differences between these groups. At the same time, the deployment of the intervention brigade does appear to be primarily in response to the M23 movement, even if its mandate refers more vaguely to rebel groups in general.

The role of MONUSCO has become increasingly controversial over the past few years over its perceived inability to protect civilians and to stop rebels from taking Goma in November 2012. The renewed fighting of the past few days indicates that the aggressive mandate of the brigade, which has been deployed to support MONUSCO and which M23 has declared an act of war by the UN, has further politicized the mission’s presence in the country. The renewed fighting also suggests that M23 feels particularly targeted by the brigade’s deployment, while the government feels particularly emboldened by it.

Reports circulated on Wednesday that the government army attacked a camp for internally displaced persons near Goma. This has played well for M23, whose supporters quickly spread the word on Twitter.

The M23 movement was born in April 2012 when Congolese troops, former CNDP rebels that had been integrated into the national army in 2009, mutinied. They claimed that the government did not live up to their end of the March 23, 2009 agreement under which they were integrated into the army. The UN Group of Experts on DRC and human rights watchdogs such as Human Rights Watch believe M23 to be supported by the Rwandan military.

On Thursday morning, M23 announced a ceasefire ahead of Secretary General Ban’s visit to Goma.

This shows the potential positive influence such high level diplomatic involvement can have. Whether you think this is just a PR move on the part of M23 or a genuine sign of goodwill, they still declared a ceasefire. This could be a good time for Ban to use that influence to get the government and rebels talking again; though the deployment of the intervention brigade, with its aggressive mandate, could actually complicate such an effort.

Top stories from DAWNS Digest

UN: 300,000 Displaced in Darfur in the Past Year

A surge in fighting is causing new misery in the region. “The figure is higher than the combined number of displaced people for the past three years. Violence is down from a peak in 2004-2005 but fighting between the army, rebels and rival tribes has increased significantly since January. “Here in the hot sun in summer they’ve got almost nothing. They still have to walk for water,” U.N. humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos said during a visit to an area outside El Fasher in North Darfur where 18,000 refugees live in tents.” (Reuters http://yhoo.it/16ORGs2)

Fighting Reaches Goma Ahead of Ban Ki Moon Visit to DRC

A mortar landed in Goma, a spillover from several days of heavy fighting–the first such fighting since the Security Council approved a beefed up “intervention brigade” for the fledgling peacekeeping mission. “Wednesday marked the third day of fighting between the rebels and government forces just north of Goma after a nearly six-month lull, officials said. Last November, the M23 rebels, who are allegedly supported and equipped by neighboring Rwanda, seized Goma before retreating from the provincial capital fewer than two weeks later under intense international pressure.” (ABC http://abcn.ws/186mDIE)

You probably know him as “The Muslim Guy.”

Arsalan Iftikhar is a civil rights lawyer and popular media commentator who fights widespread bigotry facing Muslim Americans. In our conversation we discuss the how the child of immigrants from Pakistan got into this line of work, how the Bush administration officially sanctioned discrimination against Muslim Americans, why Barack Obama refuses to set foot in an American Mosque and much more.

Have a listen now, or download via Itunes.

Previous Episodes

Episode 3: Dodge Billingsley, filmmaker. 

Episode 2: Laura Seay, who you know as @TexasinAfrica 

Episode 1: Heather Hurlburt, National Security Network

GENEVA – In Dadaab, Kenya, the scrubland’s acacia trees stretch largely unbroken. In this dry northeastern part of the country, a refugee camp spreads over 50 kilometers, Home to more than 500,000 refugees, more than 1,000 people a day arrive here seeking shelter; in 2011, it became the largest refugee camp in the world.

It’s here, deep in the Horn of Africa, that a four-month-old baby girl recently developed paralysis. Acute flaccid paralysis can be caused by many things, but World Health Organization officials have just confirmed the case is in fact caused by wild poliovirus. This is the first time in two years polio has been found in Kenya, and two people who’ve had contact with the girl have also tested positive. Polio is often asymptomatic – only one in 100 develop paralysis, which is often the diagnosing symptom – making controlling the spread of the disease difficult.

Already, a second case of “wild” polio, as cases unrelated to vaccination are termed, has been confirmed in nearby Banadir, Somalia. Because of high levels of sustained conflict there are “large-scale population movements” in the region. This extensive refugee population makes any kind of routine immunization program or coordinated epidemic response extremely difficult, and WHO officials consider the risk of this polio outbreak spreading as “very high.”

The last time there was a widespread polio outbreak in Africa was in 2008 and the entire Horn of Africa was affected, ultimately infecting over 700 people. WHO has already begun a vaccination campaign, and a second round is planned for May 26^th. But as Dr. Ariel Pablos-Mendez, head of the Bureau of Global Health at USAID, explains, the main problem with implementation of effective health care is violence. Although Pablos-Mendez insists that the recent murders of WHO vaccinators in Pakistan is not “the main problem with immunization campaigns,” he admits to a “general lack of trust,” in addition to the practical problems of trying to reach a highly mobile population. It’s just these factors that have led to a low rate of vaccinations in the Horn, and now it’s unclear how effective emergency efforts will be to contain the current outbreak.

After over $9.5 billion dollars have been spent to eradicate polio in India – a campaign that has been largely successful – health officials are concerned about losing hard-fought gains in controlling the disease. There are economic arguments for this attention to polio; Bill Gates called having a strong global health system “the rich world’s enlightened self-interest,” and according to a study published in the Lancet, this investment has generated $27 billion of net benefits.

But that also means there’s now a lot on the line, and critics, who thought that the money could have been better spent on more basic concerns, like sanitation efforts, may be vindicated if this outbreak can’t be controlled.

Top stories from DAWNS Digest

AIDS in Africa: Deaths Down and Treatment Up

Excellent new stats from UNAIDS. “The number of people in Africa receiving antiretroviral treatment increased from less than 1 million in 2005 to 7.1 million in 2012, with nearly 1 million added in the last year alone. AIDS-related deaths are also continuing to fall––reducing by 32% from 2005 to 2011 as are the numbers of new HIV infections which have fallen by 33% from 2001 to 2011. The report attributes this success to strong leadership and shared responsibility in Africa and among the global community. It also urges sustained commitment to ensure Africa achieves zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths.” (UNAIDS http://bit.ly/10jDinT)

Rios Montt Genocide Conviction Overturned

Just a few weeks after the former President of Guatemala was found guilty, an appeals court decided otherwise. The overturning of the conviction is related to a number of procedural complaints filed by the defense. The defense had argued that Rios Montt’s rights had been violated when his attorney was expelled early in the trial, and that the head judge should have recused herself. The Constitutional Court decided that the trial should have been suspended while these appeals were in place, instead of pushing forward a conclusion. Rios Montt, 86, had been found guilty of the genocide of more than 1,700 indigenous Ixil Mayans during his 1982-83 rule. (CNN http://bit.ly/10jDB21)

Para inglés, hacer clic aquí.

GINEBRA – En Dadaab, Kenia, los matorrales secos de acacias se extienden de forma ininterrumpida. En esta seca parte noreste del país, un campo de refugiados ocupa más de 50 kilómetros. Es el hogar de más de 500,000 refugiados, aquí llegan más de 1,000 personas al día en busca de refugio; en 2011, se convirtió en el mayor campo de refugiados del mundo.

Es aquí, bien adentro en el Cuerno de África, que una bebé de cuatro meses de edad desarrolló una parálisis recientemente. La parálisis flácida aguda puede ser causada por muchas cosas, pero los funcionarios de la Organización Mundial de la Salud acaban de confirmar que el caso está causado, en efecto, por el poliovirus salvaje. Es esta la primera vez en dos años que se han encontrado poliomielitis en Kenia, y dos personas que han tenido contacto con la niña también han dado resultado positivo en los análisis. La polio es a menudo asintomática – sólo uno de cada 100 desarrolla parálisis, que es a menudo el síntoma de diagnóstico – lo cual hace que sea difícil controlar la propagación de la enfermedad.

Un segundo caso de polio “salvaje”, como se denominan los casos no relacionados con la vacunación, se ha confirmado ya en las inmediaciones de Banadir, Somalia. Debido a los altos niveles de conflicto sostenido en la zona,  hay “movimientos de población a gran escala”. Esta gran población de refugiados hace que cualquier tipo de programa rutinario de inmunización, o de respuesta coordinada a la epidemia resulte extremadamente difícil, y los funcionarios de la OMS consideran el riesgo de propagación de este brote de polio como “muy alto”.

La última vez que se produjo un brote de polio generalizado en África fue en 2008 y todo el Cuerno de África se vio afectado, infectando finalmente a más de 700 personas. La OMS ha comenzado ya una campaña de vacunación, y se prevé una segunda ronda para el 26 de mayo. Pero, según explica el Dr. Ariel Pablos-Méndez, jefe de la Oficina de Salud Global de USAID, el principal problema con la implementación efectiva de la atención de salud es la violencia. Aunque Pablos-Méndez insiste en que los recientes asesinatos de vacunadores de la OMS en Pakistán no son “el principal problema de las campañas de vacunación”, admite a una “falta general de confianza”, además de los problemas prácticos para tratar de llegar a una población muy móvil. Son justamente estos factores los que han llevado a una baja tasa de vacunación en la región del Cuerno, y no está claro ahora cuán eficaces serán los esfuerzos de emergencia para contener el brote actual.

Después de haberse gastado más de $9,500 millones de dólares para erradicar la polio en la India – una campaña que ha tenido gran éxito – las autoridades sanitarias están preocupadas por la pérdida de los tensos avances logrados en el control de la enfermedad. Hay argumentos económicos para dicha atención a la enfermedad; Bill Gates denominó el  tener un sistema de salud global fuerte como el “egoísmo ilustrado del mundo rico”, y de acuerdo con un estudio publicado en la revista The Lancet, esta inversión ha generado $27 mil millones de beneficios netos.

Pero eso también significa que ahora hay mucho por delante, y los críticos, que pensaban que el dinero podría haber sido gastado mejor, en preocupaciones más básicas como los esfuerzos sanitarios, podrían ser reivindicados si este brote no puede controlarse.

Warfare is disruptive. The economist Paul Collier likes to call it “development in reverse.” And one of the way that war erases hard fought social and economic development gains is by interrupting children’s schooling.

This video from UNICEF shows the steps that are being taking to minimize the intellectual harm done to children by setting up schools at a refugee camp in Mauritania.