NAIROBI, 20 July 2007 (IRIN) - CONTENTS:

CONGO: Government responds to population growth concerns CONGO: Men called on to support reproductive health issues

CONGO: Government bid to prevent flooding in Mossaka DRC: Displacement leaves 650,000 people needing aid in North Kivu UGANDA: Juba talks paying off as IDPs return home TANZANIA: Plans to raise education standards widely commended KENYA-TANZANIA: Seismic "swarm" close to active volcano

ALSO SEE:

KENYA: Clashes, elections and land - church keeps watch in Molo

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73319

KENYA: Innovate to reduce poverty - UN http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73323

CONGO: Government responds to population growth concerns

Congolese officials have outlined plans to deal with overcrowding in urban areas after a UN Population Fund (UNFPA) report said the capital's population could double in the next 14 years.

Minister of Justice Aime Emmanuel Yocka said: "This obliges us to take up many challenges to enable the people of our cities to live and work in better conditions. This growth is accompanied by a degradation of the environment, which inhibits the development of cities."

According to UNFPA, Congo's urban population growth has been estimated at 6 percent a year. "We will without doubt have to boost our initiatives at a national level to clean up the environment, provide drinking water to every person in Congo, increase access to health centres, create jobs to reduce poverty and improve education standards," said Yocka.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73251

CONGO: Men called on to support reproductive health issues

Congolese men have been urged to step up their role in improving maternal health in a country where the maternal mortality rate is above the African average.

The Minister of Health, Social Affairs and Family, Emilienne Raoul, said: "Men have to get involved and participate in promoting reproductive health. To do so, we have to make information available and create sufficient awareness on the subject."

Full report

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73267

CONGO: Government bid to prevent flooding in Mossaka

More than 8,000 people will benefit from new flood prevention measures planned for Mossaka, in the northern Cuvette region of Congo, officials have said.

The Government has sent a delegation of experts from the Ministry of Public Works to the flood-prone area, 450km from Brazzaville, to devise plans for further flood protection at the intersection of the Likouala, Sangha and Congo rivers.

Mossaka sub-prefect Félix Ondziel Ona said the project was commissioned by President Denis Sassou Nguesso several months ago.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73284

DRC: Displacement leaves 650,000 people needing aid in North Kivu

Insecurity in North Kivu province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has led to the displacement of an estimated 650,000 civilians, the largest number of people to have fled their homes because of conflict in the region in the past three years, a spokesman for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said.

"The province has witnessed the worst IDP [internally displaced persons] situation in three years, with 163,000 more IDPs having been displaced since January," Jens Hesemann, spokesman for UNHCR, told IRIN on 16 July.

Full report

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73269

UGANDA: Juba talks paying off as IDPs return home

The year-long talks between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army may not have reached a conclusion, but the relative peace across northern Uganda during this period has encouraged hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to return home, officials said.

Walter Ochora, district commissioner in Acholi, said the local population, which had borne the brunt of the conflict, was still anxious about security but many had indeed returned home. The Acholi sub-region has been the epicentre of the conflict.

According to the UN Refugee Agency about 55,000 IDPs have returned to their villages in Acholi, in addition to 431,000 who have gone back home to the Lango sub-region. Of those still in camps in Acholi, 359,000 people had by June moved to new sites, leaving 698,000 in former camps, compared with only 35,000 in camps in Lango by June, said Robertta Russo, UNHCR spokesperson in Uganda.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73248

TANZANIA: Plans to raise education standards widely commended

Education experts have welcomed the Tanzanian government's pledge to hire more teachers in the 2007-2008 financial year to improve the quality of education in the country.

"Many will agree that the most important thing in education is the interaction between motivated, competent teachers and their students," Suleiman Sumra, a retired professor of education and researcher with Hakielimu, an NGO dealing with educational issues, told IRIN.

The government allocated 18 percent of this year's budget to education and announced plans to hire more teachers in June.

Full report

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73283

KENYA-TANZANIA: Seismic "swarm" close to active volcano

A series of earth tremors centred in northern Tanzania has caused alarm in Kenya and Tanzania. The most powerful quake, on the afternoon of 17 July, was estimated at 5.9 by the US Geological Survey (USGS) on the Richter scale.

The USGS reported that the 'swarm' of earthquakes was close to the Ol Doinyo Lengai mountain, an active volcano on the floor of the Rift Valley in northeastern Tanzania, close to the Kenyan border. However, the agency stated that information so far available was "not sufficient to determine if the current Tanzania swarm activity reflects a geologic process that might lead to a change in the eruptive behavior of Ol Doinyo Lengai". The last major eruption was in 1966.

Full report http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73293

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org

IRIN news