Category: APO-OPA

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — MEDIA ADVISORY
WHAT: Town Hall meeting on Ending Child Marriage in Africa. The meeting will take place ahead of the launching of the Continental Campaign to End Child M…

MOGADISHU, Somalia, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Gender Unit of the African Union Mission in collaboration with the Somali Ministry of Gender and Human Rights and the Ministry of Information today conducted an awareness workshop on the Somali Draft National Gender Policy and Gender Based Violence for Somali media practitioners

Speaking on behalf of the African Union Special Representative for Somalia (SRCC) Ambassador Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the Deputy SRCC, Mrs. Lydia Wanyoto Mutende in her opening remarks urged the participants to take this opportunity to identify challenges and translate them into strategies to report violence against women and children and tackle gender stereotypes.

“Today’s awareness event can have a great impact in shifting attitude towards gender stereotypes and take initiatives such as gender-sensitive language guidelines for editors and reporters to decrease gender disparities and gender based violence,” she added.

During the forum, the participant’s identified key opportunities, challenges and strengths allowing them to develop a deeper understanding of the role the media can play in raising public awareness on gender issues and the fight against gender based violence to give a voice to the people who most need it.

The event ended with a common declaration from the Media industry in disseminating the Gender Policy, joining the fight against GBV and using this forum as an entry point to develop a media strategy for a gender editorial policy to be developed and implemented.

The Africa Union Mission in Somalia is engaged in strategic gender mainstreaming in all area of operations as it continues to support the Federal Government of Somalia achieve sustainable peace and stability.

PARIS, France, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — After the success of the last challenge in 2013, using the technical data of the mobile network of Orange in Ivory Coast, the next Data for Development (D4D) Challenge (http://www.d4d.orange.com) will use data sets from Senegal. It will reward the best research projects aimed at promoting development and improving the well-being of people in Senegal.

Logo: http://www.photos.apo-opa.com/plog-content/images/apo/logos/orange-logo.jpg

The main goal of the challenge, which is aligned with Sonatel and Orange’s development policy, is to contribute to the development and well-being of the local population. Five priority areas have been defined, and needs in each area have been expressed with the help of the relevant Ministries and partner institutions. The five priorities are healthcare, agriculture, transportation and infrastructure, energy and producing national statistics.

The challenge also aims to contribute towards achieving a more technical goal by rewarding the best work on improving algorithms for anonymisation, data mining, and data visualisation and cross-matching.

The organisers want to get local and regional theoretical and applied researchers involved in order to guarantee results in terms of education and economic development, particularly for the business ecosystem and local start-ups.

Teams can enter the competition until the of end of December 2014, and in April 2015 a jury of representatives from 13 partner institutions* will vote on the best projects. Ten prizes will be awarded in two categories:

 development and improvements to the well-being of the Senegalese people

 methods for promoting scientific or creative work

The competitors will be supplied with a set of technical data from Orange Senegal’s mobile network, and a set of “synthetic data” based on a very detailed model of the network which simulates the activity of fictional customers whose behaviour is statistically similar to that of the real population. For more information on the challenge, go to: http://www.d4d.orange.com.

The challenge illustrates Orange’s open innovation strategy and its corporate social responsibility policy, which focuses on using digital technology to promote development and progress for everyone, individuals, regions and communities alike.

* UCAD, UGB, UCL, UC Santa Barbara University in California, MIT, World Economic Forum, Global Pulse, Orange, Sonatel, PARIS21, GSMA, Gates Foundation and Mrs Marie-Claude Sance-Plouchart, Research Engineer, INRIA

Distributed by APO (African Press Organization) on behalf of Orange.

Press contacts:

Vanessa Clarke, +44 7818848848, vanessa.clarke@orange.com

Bassirou Ndiaye +221 77 638 98 77, bassirou.ndiaye@orange-sonatel.com

about Orange

Orange (http://www.orange.com) is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with sales of 41 billion euros in 2013 and has 164,000 employees worldwide at 31 March 2014, including 101,000 employees in France. Present in 30 countries, the Group has a total customer base of more than 239 million customers at 31 March 2014, including 182 million mobile customers and 16 million fixed broadband customers worldwide. Orange is also a leading provider of global IT and telecommunication services to multinational companies, under the brand Orange Business Services.

Orange is listed on the NYSE Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).

For more information on the internet and on your mobile: www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.livetv.orange.com or to follow us on Twitter: @orangegrouppr.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trademarks of Orange or Orange Brand Services Limited.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The African Union (AU) Commissioner for Peace and Security, Ambassador Smail Chergui, today received, at the AU Headquarters, Mr. Abdoulaye Diop, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Afr…

BERLIN, Germany, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — German Ambassador Albrecht Conze is to become the first head of the EU civilian mission in Mali (EUCAP Sahel Mali). His appointment underlines the Federal Government’s continued engage…

GENEVA, Switzerland, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — IOM and UNHCR yesterday hosted a meeting with key stakeholders to discuss the national response to mixed migration challenges in Mozambique. The meeting was part of the preparations for the 2014 regional Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa (MIDSA) conference, which will focus on mixed and irregular migration.

At the meeting, which was funded by the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugees (PRM), government, non-government and UN partners came together to assess the progress of implementation of the regional action plan developed by South African Development Community (SADC) member states in Dar-es-Salaam in 2010.

The meeting was opened by Maria Lavinia M. Hamede, Deputy National Director of Mozambique’s Immigration Department, who pointed to the increasing trend in movement of people globally, and especially along the Mozambican transport corridors to South Africa. At the same time rapid economic growth in Mozambique is also attracting significant numbers of regular and irregular migrant workers, she noted.

IOM Mozambique Chief of Mission for Stuart Simpson said that it was crucial for the response to mixed migration to be informed by concerns for the human rights, safety and dignity of migrants.

“Frontline officials have to work in a more coordinated way in screening new arrivals and ensuring that they have access to the correct immigration procedures and assistance when necessary,” he said.

Research conducted in 2012-2013 found that migrants transit Mozambique trying to reach South Africa. They include refugees and economic migrants from the Horn of Africa, notably Ethiopians and Somalis, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The study found that migrants travelling through Mozambique face major health risks, including physical violence from individual attacks, detention and poor conditions in various police holding cells, which resulted in the death of at least one migrant in 2012.

Meeting participants agreed to work towards a coordinated regional response which would benefit society, migrants, and respect migrants’ dignity and their contribution to development. The government of Mozambique will bring the issues and challenges raised in the discussion to the MIDSA, which will take place in Malawi in June 30th – July 2nd.

GENEVA, Switzerland, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — IOM will conduct a two-day diaspora engagement training for Lesotho government officials and partners from 27th to 28th May 2014 in Maseru, Lesotho. The training will be opened today by Lesotho Minister of Home Affairs Joang Molapo.

The training is aimed at cultivating strong diaspora engagement and management knowledge for participants to ensure smooth implementation of a recently launched project: “Mobilizing Medical Diaspora Resources for Lesotho”.

The project aims to attract and mobilize health professionals in South Africa, the UK and the US to fill critical labour shortages in Lesotho’s health sector.

Lesotho, with a population of only 2.1 million, suffers from brain drain with Basotho professionals frequently seeking better job opportunities across the border in South Africa.

About 135,000 Basotho citizens or 14 per cent of Lesotho’s total population have migrated to South Africa, according to the ACP Observatory on Migration.

Professionals, including teachers, doctors, nurses and engineers continue to relocate and take up South African citizenship, and Lesotho’s health sector has been particularly badly affected.

The health personnel to population ratio in Lesotho, with 5 physicians and 62 nurses per 100,000 people, does not even come close to the minimum threshold level of a density of 2.5 health workers per 1,000 population that the UN Millennium Development Goals consider as adequate coverage.

Basotho doctors and nurses usually work in South Africa, the US or the UK, citing better pay and working conditions.

The two-day training will bring together officials from the National Consultative Committee (NCC) for Migration and Development, as well as high-level officials from the Ministries of Health, Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs, the private sector, relevant professional bodies, and local representatives of Basotho diaspora associations.

They will discuss migration and development, developing roadmaps for effective and sustainable diaspora engagement, diaspora skills transfer mechanisms, diaspora tourism, diaspora remittances and essential elements of a diaspora policy.

“This training will help us to lay a solid foundation for an effective, long-term and sustainable national diaspora engagement programmes in Lesotho,” says Dr. Erick Ventura, IOM South Africa Chief of Mission.

IOM has carried out several diaspora mapping exercises worldwide. In the Southern African region, it assisted the Government of Mauritius in mapping their diaspora and in developing an overseas employment and diaspora mobilization strategy in 2007. IOM has also supported mapping exercises involving the Zambian and Zimbabwean diaspora in South Africa, the UK, the sub-Saharan region and Canada.

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Invitation to Joint Government of Kenya-UNEP Press Briefing

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and other High Level Representatives from over 193 UN Member and Observer States, UN Heads of Agencies, Business and Civil Society to attend

Who: Ambassador Martin Kimani, Kenya’s Permanent Representative to UNEP

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director

When: Thursday, 29 May 2014 at 9:30 am

Where: Norfolk Hotel, Nairobi

The First UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) will convene in Nairobi, Kenya, from 23 to 27 June 2014. This marks a historic milestone in UNEP’s 43-year history and is expected to be attended by delegations from over 170 countries.

The UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, the President of the UN General Assembly, Ministers of Environment and Foreign Affairs and Chief Executives of a number of international organisations are set to attend the newly-established UNEA that will bring together over 1200 high-level participants from government, business and civil society.

UNEA is the UN’s highest-level platform for decision making on environment that is tasked to chart a new course in the way the international community addresses environmental sustainability challenges.

At UNEA – under the slogan A Life of Dignity for All – Ministers and international leaders will gather to discuss two key sustainable development and environment topics of current international concern, namely:

• The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Post-2015 Development Agenda as follow-up from Rio+20 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); and

• The illegal trade in wildlife to address the escalation in poaching and surge in related environmental crime.

To complement the Ministerial discussions UNEA will also see the convening of two Symposia that address two key aspects of environmental sustainability, namely:

Firstly, the environmental rule of law through the gathering of key representatives of the international judicial community, including chief justices, attorney generals and judges.

And secondly, the role of finance in the Green Economy by bringing to Nairobi and UNEA the leaders from the world of business, finance and industry.

For Kenya, hosting UNEA will mean that the attention of world’s leading agencies, experts and activists in environmental management will be on Nairobi. As such, the country’s enormous potential to develop a Green Economy will be on show as never before, with global decisions made having concrete consequences for all Kenyans.

Ambassador Martin Kimani, Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Mr. Achim Steiner, will brief journalists about the state of preparations for this landmark event, its significance and the main topics that will be discussed during the assembly.

JUBA, South Sudan, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) cordially invites members of the media to a completion ceremony. Marking the completion of the China-donated Construction Work on t…

KIGALI, Rwanda, May 27, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — An African Union (AU) led Eastern Africa Regional Internet Exchange Point (RIXP) and Regional Internet Carrier (RIC) Workshop was launched today in Kigali, Rwanda with the aim to foster stakeholder discussions on supporting National Internet Exchange Points and Internet Service Providers to grow and become Regional Internet Exchange Points (RIXP) and Regional Internet Carriers (RIC) in order to promote intra-Africa internet traffic to be exchanged within the continent.

Organized by the Department of Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union Commission, in collaboration with the Inter-Governmental Authority (IGAD), East African Community, East African Communications Organization (EACO), Ministry of Youth and ICT and the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA); the event aims to address slow and expensive exchange of intra-African traffic via overseas hubs.

“We are here to make a difference… we know where we want to go, we know how to get there, we only lack the courage to do what we ought to do to reach where we want.

We need to act and address the gaps that Africa suffers from in terms of access and affordability of Internet” said the Hon. Minister for Youth and ICT of Rwanda, Hon. Jean Philibert Nsengimana in his welcoming remarks.

ICT has potential to facilitate regional integration faster than any other initiatives and smart routing of traffic as a key cost component is an area this initiative should support, added the Hon. Minister.

The five (5) day workshop is a strategic follow up to the support provided by the African Internet Exchange System (AXIS) project of the AU to establish National Internet Exchange Points (IXPs). The workshop is expected to adopt policy recommendations to promote local hosting and peering and agree on guiding minimum criteria for selecting national internet exchange points to be supported to grow into regional internet exchange points.

“Africa is contributing more and more to the Internet and digital economy. The African Internet Exchange System Project will contribute to bringing efficiency in the routing of intra-Africa internet traffic and hence a faster and secure exchange of internet traffic” said Mr. Moctar Yedaly, Head of Information Society Division of the AUC in his opening remarks.

Four years ago, EACO embarked on the process of establishing an East African Internet Exchange Point. Recently with the support of ITU, EACO carried out a study which recommended a phased approach to the process of strengthening the national internet exchange points and establishment of the East African Internet Exchange Point.

“I am pleased to note that the African Union Commission under its AXIS project has agreed to collaborate with EACO in building the capacities of our national IXPs and establishment of a regional internet exchange system” said the Executive Secretary of EACO.

The workshop attracted seventy delegates from the Ministries responsible for ICT, Regulators, Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Telecommunication Operators of the following Member States of the Eastern Africa Region of the African Union: Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.