Highlights

• New government appointed, a month after the Inclusive Political Dialogue (IPD)
• Agricultural fair at Bozoum for the fifth year in a row – almost 20 million FCFA raised
• Permanent Rep. for Belgium at U.N. and Specific Commission chair of the Peace Consolidation Commission Jan Grauls visits CAR.

Background and security

New government installed a month after IPD

Tuesday 20 Jan: President François Bozizé approves a new government for CAR, a month after the conclusion of the Inclusive Political Dialogue (IPD) held in the capital last month. 32 members of parliament, will be led by Premier Minister Faustin Archange Touadéra, and include 4 Ministers of State, 21 Ministers and 7 Delegate Ministers.

Mr Touadéra was appointed Prime Minister in January 2008 and retains this post as head of government. As regards his cabinet, General Antoine Gambi takes over from Dieudonné Kombo-Yaya at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Bernard-Jules Ouandé takes the portfolio of the former Interior Minister Raymond Paul Ndougou. Laurent Gon Baba replaces Maleyombo Thierry Savonarole takes up the reins at the Justice Ministry and Besse Albert moves into the Finance Ministry to replace Emmanuel Bizot.

A number of ministerial portfolios such as Environment were handed to the ‘Popular Army for Restoration and Democracy’ (APRD). The Housing Ministry has gone to the ‘Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR).

Current events

Bozoum Agricultural Fair

Caritas Bouar organised an agricultural fair with the support of NGO Solidarités on the 17th and 18th of January. 145 groups from Bozoum, Bossemptélé, Bocaranga, Ngaundaye, Ndim, Bouar and Paoua, took part, displaying and selling their agricultural produce (peanuts, rice, meal, maize, beans, manioc, vegetables etc). 21 farmers brought their livestock including cows, pigs, goats and chickens.
Sales were up almost 100 % on last year, from 11 million CFCA to more than 20 million this year (almost € 30,000).

This is the fifth year the fair has been held, the theme this year was ‘Agricultural Pride’ and the fair came about as a result of the hard work and monitoring that Caritas has been carrying out since 2004, focusing on education in many areas (legal issues, organisational structures), seed provision as well as short term micro-credit.

Ouham-Pende sent 320 groups, Nana Mambere 97 – in total that adds up to almost 12,000 members.

Present were: the National Executive Secretary of Caritas, the Minister for Rural Development, Equipment and Commerce as well as representatives of NGOS such as Coopi, Première Urgence and the Danish Refugee Council (DRC),

The fair also offered three prizes – for stall holders, for vegetable gardeners and for livestock farmers. The winners received ploughs, mills, wheelbarrows and other farm equipment.

For more information: gazzera.aurelio@gmail.com

Ambassador Jan Grauls on mission to Bangui

His Excellency Jan Grauls, permanent representative for Belgium at the U.N. and Specific Commission chair for CAR at the Commission for Peace Consolidation has been on his second visit to CAR.

The aim of his trip, Ambassador Grauls explained, is to assist the CAR government and other partners to expand on the inclusive strategy for peace construction in CAR. He pointed out that this commitment needs to be finalised in a document by the end of February 2009 at the latest, when it will be presented to the Security Council in New York.

Ambassador Jan Grauls also called attention to the DDR programme (Disarmament, Demobilisation and Re-integration) which he puts at top priority. In his view, if the DDR programme fails, the results of CAR’s Inclusive Political Dialogue will be compromised.

Lastly, the DDR programme set three priorities for CAR – reform of the security sector, good governance and development sectors

Coordination

New interim Resident Representative at UNDP

Steven Ursino, an American national, arrived on the 22nd of January to take up the post of interim Resident Representative for UNDP in CAR.

Mr Ursino has extensive experience in development and will boost UNDP’s efforts to meet the challenges of working in CAR.

The aims of his mission are: strengthening relations and partnership with the CAR government in the post-IPD context, along with peace, security and development. He will also be working to improve UNDP Bangui office output, in collaboration with the United Nations Office in Central Africa (BONUCA) and other United Nations agencies.

Training of trainers in Human Rights

Between 23rd and 29th of January, at OCHA Bangui, Marc Forget and Maimouna Tankoano from BONUCA led a ‘training of trainers’ workshop based around human rights education.
Participants were drawn from the ranks of UN’s High Commission for Refugees (HCR), Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), BONUCA, United Nations Fund for Children (UNICEF), the Norwegian Refugee Committee, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and local press.

The aim of the workshop is to train the participants in the development of human rights training sessions from start to finish – from the identification of target audiences to the facilitation of a training session.

The aim of the workshop is to strengthen co-operation between UN agencies when it comes to human rights education, all UN agencies involved supported the initiative.
Marc Forget is from Equitas, the International Centre for Human Rights Education based in Canada. Equitas’ approach to education is participatory and promotes transformation learning as the most effective way to carry out human rights education.

Contact Us:
Gisèle Willybiro | willybiro@un.org | +236 75 54 90 31

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News Bulletin 93 – English (PDF) – 137kb