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The report examines the investment climate in Kenya from the perspective of South African firms, highlighting Kenya's role as a strategic hub for East Africa. While South African companies are attracted by Kenya's skilled workforce and strategic location, they face significant hurdles including poor infrastructure, high electricity costs, corruption, and local resentment toward perceived South African economic dominance. The document analyzes the socio-economic landscape of Kenya, the trade imbalance between South Africa and Kenya, and the specific operational difficulties encountered by investors, such as red tape and insecurity. It concludes that while South African firms can be successful through local partnerships and sensitivity to Kenyan business culture, the Kenyan government must implement structural reforms in infrastructure and governance to sustain foreign direct investment.

The document examines the barriers to 'Mode 4' trade in services—the temporary movement of natural persons—within the SADC region. It highlights that while the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) provides a multilateral framework, it is often ineffective due to national security concerns and fears of permanent migration. The report details specific visa and work permit restrictions across SADC member states and discusses regional efforts to ease these barriers through various protocols, including the Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons and the Protocol on the Development of Tourism. It concludes that SADC should adopt a 'migration management' approach to harness skilled labour as a development resource rather than treating it as a threat.

The document assesses how water management impacts poverty in Africa, highlighting a significant gap between political rhetoric and actual investment. It argues that current trends will leave millions of Africans without safe water and sanitation by 2015. The authors propose a conceptual framework focusing on four dimensions of poverty reduction: enhancing livelihood security, reducing health risks, reducing vulnerability, and promoting pro-poor economic growth. The report emphasizes the importance of 'green water' (soil moisture) alongside 'blue water' (rivers and lakes) and calls for Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) that places poverty at its center. Key recommendations include public sector reform, stimulating internal capital investment, and adapting to climate change, which is projected to increase water stress for 75 to 250 million Africans by 2020.

The document argues that the World Bank's energy investment framework is a continuation of 'more of the same', failing to transition from fossil fuels to renewables. It highlights a contradiction where the Bank acts as a major carbon trader while continuing to fund projects that emit massive amounts of greenhouse gases. The report criticizes the Bank's promotion of 'clean coal', nuclear energy, and large dams, asserting these technologies cause significant environmental and social harm. It calls for a redirection of public finance from the North to the South toward decentralized renewable energy and energy efficiency to meet the needs of the world's poor.

The document details a discussion on South Africa's trade strategy amidst the suspension of WTO Doha Round negotiations and regional pressures. Panelists debated whether trade policy should be driven by domestic economic needs through unilateral reform or by strategic industrial policy and negotiated agreements. Key discussions covered the gridlock over agricultural subsidies in the WTO, the limited scope of existing free trade agreements (FTAs), and the complexities of achieving a SADC Customs Union by 2010.

The report examines services trade in the SADC region, focusing on core infrastructure (transport, energy, telecommunications, and finance), tourism, and the movement of natural persons (Mode 4). It argues that inadequacies in these services constrain economic growth and international competitiveness. While regional cooperation exists through various protocols, the report finds that actual liberalisation is slow, often hampered by state monopolies, inadequate regulatory frameworks, and restrictive immigration policies. It recommends increasing private sector participation, harmonising regional policies, and ratifying the Protocol on the Facilitation of the Movement of Persons to enhance regional integration and economic development.

The report examines South Africa's role as an economic hegemon in Southern Africa, analyzing how its global trade agenda and corporate expansion affect SADC integration. It finds that while South African FDI often provides developmental benefits like job creation and infrastructure, the country's pursuit of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) with non-SADC partners may undermine regional producers. Quantitative analysis suggests that SADC trade liberalization has led to significant trade diversion, where imports from SADC partners replace more efficient global sources, resulting in a net welfare loss for South African consumers. The report also highlights restrictive rules of origin and infrastructure deficits as major barriers to meaningful regional trade expansion.

The document lists the signature, ratification, and deposit dates for 53 African entities regarding the AU Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism. As of 23 June 2006, 48 countries had signed the convention, while 36 had completed ratification or accession and deposited their instruments.

The report analyzes the bidirectional relationship between biodiversity conservation and conflict in the Albertine Rift. It distinguishes between local-level conflicts directly caused by conservation interventions—such as restricted resource access and unequal benefit sharing—and regional armed conflicts driven by deep-rooted socio-economic and political factors. The document reviews several conflict-analysis methodologies, including 'Do No Harm' and 'Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment', to propose a multi-step framework for making conservation projects more conflict-sensitive throughout their project cycle.

EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson outlines the trade relationship between the EU and South Africa, noting a 46% increase in South African exports since 2000. He calls for a 'big agenda' to expand trade into services, investment, and procurement, while urging South Africa to submit a services offer in the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and lead other developing nations in reducing South-South trade barriers.

The paper examines the 'democratic deficit' in international dispute settlement, focusing on the World Trade Organization (WTO) and investor-state arbitration. It argues that these processes often lack transparency and public participation despite their significant impact on domestic public policy, human rights, and the environment. While the WTO has made some progress in publishing reports and accepting amicus curiae briefs, it still maintains confidential submissions and closed hearings. Investor-state arbitration is described as even more secretive, often based on private commercial models where the public may not even know a proceeding has begun. The author calls for reforms to these rules to ensure that decisions affecting the public are subject to public scrutiny.

The document analyzes the intersection of global counter-terrorism efforts and regional instability in the Horn of Africa. It highlights how the US 'war on terror' has been a 'double-edged blade,' providing resources for security but also empowering authoritarian regimes to label political opponents as terrorists. The author details the rise of radical Islamism in the region, the limitations of national and regional legislative responses, and the failures of US strategies in Somalia, specifically the backing of warlords which inadvertently strengthened the Union of Islamic Courts.

The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) operates the Global Classrooms programme in Johannesburg, funded by the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) and Merrill Lynch. The programme uses Model United Nations (MUN) simulations of the UN Security Council to teach students research, negotiation, and diplomacy. Students are paired with tutors from the University of the Witwatersrand for four months of preparation before participating in simulated crises. In 2006, the programme involved 75 schools and addressed hypothetical crises including Mediterranean water quality, nuclear proliferation in Zimbabwe, polio containment in Nigeria, piracy in Somalia, and water rights in Lake Victoria.

The report details a March 2006 workshop in Arusha, Tanzania, involving 48 stakeholders to identify interventions for four EAC energy access targets. The primary findings emphasize the need for decentralized planning at district and municipal levels, increased regional cooperation to share costs, and the development of public-private partnerships. The workshop resulted in 14 recommendations adopted by the EAC Council of Ministers and Heads of State in April 2006, focusing on harmonizing energy policies, mobilizing resources, and mainstreaming energy access into national planning frameworks.

The research argues that EU-mandated reciprocity in EPAs risks splintering SADC by creating divergent trade policies among member states. Analysis shows that products the non-South African members of SACU (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland) would likely wish to exclude from liberalisation are already being liberalised under the TDCA, potentially undermining their ability to set autonomous trade schedules. The authors suggest that expanding SACU, possibly to include Mozambique, could serve as a mechanism to neutralise the anti-regionalism bias of EPAs.

The document examines the transition from authoritarianism to liberal democracy in the SADC region, arguing that while multiparty elections are essential, they do not alone constitute democracy. It critiques the 2004 SADC Principles and Guidelines for being more focused on election observation than management and for lacking legal binding force. The author highlights the failure of SADC to effectively monitor pre-election conditions in Zimbabwe in 2005, attributing this to a combination of Zimbabwean government reluctance and SADC's 'quiet diplomacy'.

The document examines the difficulties the SADC-EPA group faces due to member states belonging to multiple regional trade arrangements, such as SACU, COMESA, and the EAC. It highlights a critical tension for the BLNS countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland), who are constrained by South Africa's existing TDCA with the EU, and the MAT countries (Mozambique, Angola, and Tanzania), who face limited bargaining power as Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The author argues that the goal of a SADC Customs Union by 2010 is unrealistic due to these overlapping memberships and suggests that the SADC-EPA group must present two distinct market access offers to the EU to accommodate these different national and regional constraints.

The SADC Organ, established in 1996 and formalised in 2001, aims to maintain peace and security in Southern Africa through tools like the Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation, the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ (SIPO), and the Mutual Defence Pact. However, it faces significant operational hurdles, including a severe lack of human resource capacity at the SADC Secretariat, which employs only two staff members for security issues compared to 40 at ECOWAS. The Organ must also balance the desire for regional collaboration with the strict maintenance of state sovereignty. Socio-economic crises, particularly the HIV/AIDS pandemic, further strain regional peacekeeping and security capabilities. While the region demonstrates strong political solidarity, its effectiveness is hampered by uneven GDP distribution and a reliance on external donors, whose funding is sometimes conditional on political alignment.

The document examines the gap between Burundi's political progress toward democratic elections and the lagging implementation of socio-economic reconstruction outlined in Protocol IV of the Arusha Accords. It highlights critical failures in land tenure reform, the repatriation of refugees, and the support of internally displaced persons (IDPs). The author argues that extreme poverty, unequal resource distribution, and a reliance on short-term humanitarian aid rather than long-term development create a risk of relapse into conflict. Specific challenges include a crippling external debt burden, gender-based violence, and the potential for 'disaster capitalism' to undermine local land rights during the reconstruction process.

The document evaluates the SADC's integration efforts, highlighting the strategic entry of Madagascar under President Marc Ravalomanana and the exits of Seychelles and Tanzania (from Comesa). It analyzes how external partners like the EU, US, and China both facilitate and hinder regional cohesion. Finally, it reviews the ratification status of 34 legal instruments, arguing for a 'single undertaking' approach to ensure uniform implementation across member states.