Benin to get new polls, plus a budget to hold them

When Beninois voted April 20, election monitors noted serious technical and organization flaws: Polling places ran out of ballots in some areas, in others the ballots were improper. Things were so bad that people in six southern and central arrondissements didn’t vote at all.

The election commission – and the country’s president – all saw it coming, they say. It was the first time the country held two elections – town and village councilors – on the same day.

Thus, new elections will be held in the six areas, and the Independent Electoral Commission will receive a budget to do so.

What can Africa learn from Brazil’s resource management techniques?

File this under: Peripheral issues of rising food costs. In Brazil, where we’ve long heard tales of falling Amazon trees to make room for lumbering, gassy cows, but now environmental groups are teaming up with farmers and rancher types to create certification systems for eco-sponsible soy and beef production. The argument: If farmers can make money becoming eco-friendly, they’ll have more incentive to be eco-friendly.

There’s a long-standing debate within environmental groups on how much voice to give business interests. In this story, however, the argument goes that giving ranchers a seat at the table will insure that environmental laws could be better followed.

The same goes for logging companies. One of the issues facing Brazil is that many of its forests are privately owned, making environmental laws difficult to enforce. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva offered land concessions to timber companies promising to practice proper forest management on the country’s still substantial public forests. It’s an important – and forward thinking – step because world timber demand is projected to remain high, making the depth and breadth of the Amazon basin looking increasingly attractive for timber concerns everywhere. Setting the foundation for proper forest management could make things easier in the long run.

Similar issues are affecting Benin. (See, I told you.) The World Rainforest Movement – viewpoint: “Community-Based Forest Management is not Only Possible it is Essential” – argues the country’s growing population has driven up demand for arable land. One village sitting within the lgbodja region has made available 5,000 hectares to initiate forest management. That, along with hedgehog breeding and bee keeping, may provide alternative economic activities that will keep villagers from cutting down more trees to plant crops. The plan is to move to other villages in the area. Another worry is that non-local farmers have been encroaching on the forest land, cutting trees to plant. As tenants, these roving farmers cannot plant trees. Conflict could be alleviated if the tenants are also given a stake in matters.

In Cameroon, we can see the counter-factual. (What happens when nothing is done?) Rapid forest degradation can be blamed on industrial logging without any national or local oversight. Environmental groups blame the government which looks the other way as industrial logging companies use a free hand over the land. The end result: Cameroon is Africa’s leading timber exporter with little affect seen in the country’s GDP.

Not so fast, says a World Bank report. Slash-and-burn agriculture and fuel wood demand could be responsible for up to 90 percent of the country’s deforestation. But really, the report goes on to say, they are secondary effects of tropical timber harvesting. The issue is that timber industry activities are closely linked to happenings in the agriculture sector – which must deal with growing population and low productivity – and the political economy: namely, a lack of commitment to reform from the government, especially the executive branch; opposition to reform from key actors – foreign logging companies and Parliament – and, taking these issues into account, failure by actors to devise a compatible forest strategy outside of “give it all away for whiskey and prostitutes.” (I made that last part up.)

Questions linger after Benin’s local elections

Doubts have been cast on Benin’s local and municipal elections, held Sunday, where voters attempted to cast ballots for more than 26,000 candidates.

Claiming the polls suffered from “inadequate practical or organizational preparation,” ECOWAS monitors have called voting to take place in five southern localities where people could not cast ballots. In other areas, monitors reported that ballots ran out in some polling stations and party symbols and names were missing from others.

Voice of America reported Sunday that many of the 5,000 polls opened late.

A Beninois journalist told VOA that issues stemmed from “complications” from the autonomous election board, which was attempted to hold two elections – ministerial councils and local councils – were held the same day. That sentiment backed up by President Boni Yayi, who spoke Sunday night.

Benin is generally ranked favorably by Political- and Human-Rights organizations. Freedom House, from the United States, which concentrates mostly on political freedom and civil liberties, terms the country “free.” Using indicators like safety and security, economic opportunity, rule of law and transparency, the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance ranked the country 13 (out of 48) sub-Saharan African governments.

A White Year for Benin? Teacher strikes near third month

Governments will call an Année Blanche – a white year – when students have missed too much class time due to strikes or other issues. An Année Blanche basically nullifies all learning that took place until the disruption of classes began and forces everyone to repeat the year again. It may be the one weapon administrators have against long strikes, but from what I know, the threat never appears to work.

From IRIN:

Primary and secondary school teachers in Benin who have been striking since 8 January warn they will not back down, even though their actions threaten the possibility for thousands of children of completing the school year.

“There are no negotiations happening at the moment to end this strike,” said Raouf Affagnon, secretary general of the national teachers union.

The union’s demands include improvements in the salaries and benefits given to them by the government, and more secure contracts.

Benin’s powerful unions are a legacy of the 1972-1989 period when Marxism-Leninism was adapted as the national ideology.

...

According to the UN children’s agency (UNICEF), less than 60 percent of school age children ever attend school. Of those who begin attending in first grade, only half will complete primary school.

The shortage of trained teachers, especially women, and the lack of adequate school facilities are the biggest problems facing Benin’s educational system, UNICEF says.

“Teachers strikes have disrupted efforts to enroll and retain students,” the agency notes in a Benin information document.

Let them eat palm oil

Comparing the tax structure of modern-day Benin with those in the pre-colonial kingdom of Dahomey.

Is corruption gaining of foothold in Benin?

Beninese political parties and the customs services are the country’s most corrupt sectors, according to a survey jointly carried out by the government and the World Bank, the Journal Chretien reported.

“Out of the 971 persons questioned in the households, 80% felt that the political parties are the most corrupt sector, followed by customs services (79%), tax administration (70%), traffic control police officers (62%) », the survey reveals.

According to the survey released on Monday in Cotonou which also targeted 28 state services, 55% of the people questioned felt that « the Beninese customs are corrupt ».

The other corrupt services include the justice system (45%), the highway police, the dues and taxes, the criminal investigation police, the electricity and water services, the public works, and the education and health services.

The survey disclosed that "the corruption is a worrying issue in Benin" because it biases the stability and security of social actions and sullies the democratic values. Such drawbacks are likely to compromise the socio-economic development and law and order.

To fight this plague, the government issued a bill to prevent and crack down on corruption and similar offences, an official source said.

Of course, this survey looked at perceptions of corruption within Benin. When compared to other states, the country has a pretty good track record. According to the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, Benin does favorably well compared to other governments on the continent. Overall, the country ranks 13 of 47, but does score low in “Rule of law, transparency and corruption.”

Transparency International ranks Benin 118 out of 179 countries in its Corruption Perceptions Index, placing it below other West African states like Ghana, on par with states like Mali, and well above states like Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea.

Benin: Rising sea waters threaten property and jobs

“Huge breakers constantly battering Benin's coast - and the rest of the shoreline on the Gulf of Guinea - are starting to take their toll,” writes South Africa’s IOL. “Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo and Nigeria are also fighting to stop the sea from gulping up chunks of land.”

The erosion to Benin’s coastline is staggering. East of Cotonou, since the country’s independence from France in 1960, the beach has retreated some 400 meters, claims a member of the UN Environmental Program. The encroachment of water affects properties along the beach in obvious physical ways, but subtle effects are now seen. For example, fishermen now experience problems getting their boats through the incoming rush of tide.

The story refers to a study from Columbia University (which I can’t find) that estimates sea water levels could rise nearly 50 centimeters by the end of the century. Newly minted Nobel Peace laureates, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says sea levels could rise between 20 and 60 cm in that time period.

But these predictions due to Global Warming are not the only problem exacerbating issues facing West Africa’s coast. Local human activities can also be blamed. The construction of two massive dams, one in Benin and one in Ghana, on rivers near the coasts send discharge far into the ocean that is usually meant to stabilize the shoreline. People make cement by using beach sand – more than one million cubic meters each year in Benin alone, according to IRIN. We must also take into account all the land lost from dredging the coastline to build the region’s major ports in Abidjan, Tema, Ghana, Lomé, Togo and Cotonou.

Who knows how much this has affected places like Grand Popo, a small town near Togo’s border with Benin, that now rests largely underwater. Could a big urban area like Cotonou find itself submerged?

From the IOL story:

A number of other studies have underscored just how quickly most of Cotonou, Benin's commercial capital, could disappear under the waves.

One by the French firm SOGREAH-Laboratoire DEFT said: "If nothing is done before 2025, the coastline will lie 950 metres farther inland than it did in 1963."

Hardest hit would be the section of Cotonou known as Les Ambassadeurs, which the French study said would be swallowed up completely, as would the road that links the administrative capital Porto Novo to Lagos in Nigeria. Other districts of Cotonou could follow pretty quickly, it warned.

But it was only in September that the government banned local construction companies from pumping sand from the seacoast and told them to use sand from rivers instead.

Benin's next big plan is to build dikes to protect its 125-kilometre coastline. The €50-million project financed partially by the World Bank is set to start in first half 2008.

"Our first goal, stopping the extraction of sea sand, has been achieved. We are now going to build dikes in two directions starting from Cotonou channel: towards the Togolese border and towards the Nigerian border," Urban Planning Minister Francois Noudegbessi told AFP.

UNEP experts, however, said that only a full regional dike would be beneficial, stretching at least along the five countries from Ivory Coast east to Nigeria.

Economic considerations
Its coastline brings in a good portion of Benin’s GDP. Continuing sea level rises could easily destabilize the country’s socio-economic-environmental balance: Great financial resources may have to be diverted to build dikes and other water control systems; those who rely on the water for work, like fishermen, may struggle to keep up with the great changes in their occupations; coastal villages may be forced to move inland, possibly creating land tenure issues; the loss of coastal wetlands may affect the availability of clean drinking water.

This study tries to take that all into account. By reviewing land height and population density, researchers predict that if West African coastlines rise by one meter over the next 90 years, 2.3 million people could be directly affected, costing economies as much as $3.6 billion when compared to GDP. If water levels increase by five meters, it will affect 3.3 million people and total $4.9 billion in GDP.

Bird flu found in Benin; Worries abound for voodoo practitioners

Officials in Benin have confirmed the presence of the H5N1 avian flu virus on two poultry farms.

VOA reports:

Agriculture Minister Roger Dovonou says tests from a laboratory in Italy confirmed the virus has struck one farm in the city of Cotonou and another in the town of Adjarra, outside the capital Porto Novo.

Benin reported its first suspected cases of bird flu on December 7th. Workers slaughtered several hundred chickens at the two farms as a precautionary measure, and also disinfected the sites.

H5N1 mainly affects birds but is capable of infecting humans. The virus has killed more than 200 people around the world, mostly in Asia, since 2003.

The country has banned all poultry imports and limited poultry movement around the infected areas.

The voodoo problem
The lead in the Reuters story mentions that Benin is home of the “ritual voodoo sacrifice,” which seemed an odd announcement. But, there’s a reason for the notice. On to Reuters!

Health experts have said they fear Benin's Voodoo priests could be particularly at risk because of their practice of tearing out the throats of live chickens in ritual sacrifices.

Voodoo "convents" are found across Benin and the ancient religion was also carried to the Caribbean, especially Haiti, by slaves shipped to the Americas by European captains and traders.

According to one source, 60 percent of Benin's population practice a form of this indigenous religion, generally called Vodoun. (The CIA claims less than one in five people are adherents.) Regardless, the government officially recognizes its practice and the country celebrates Voodoo Day on January 10.

Here is a link to a story on last year's Voodoo festival.