Swaziland: Bibliography 1990-2000

Source: H-Net, H-Africa

 'Publications on Swaziland held in the Harvard Library system publishedbetween 1990 and 2000′. Compiled by Chris Lowe.

Access the bibliography here 

SWAZILAND: THE MYTH OF SUSTAINABLE PLANTATIONS

Source: ELDIS

SWAZILAND: THE MYTH OF SUSTAINABLE PLANTATIONS
http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=35384&type=Document

Swaziland’s timber plantations have been held up as a model of
sustainable forestry management, where other plantations around the
world are considered to have had negative environmental and social
impacts. However, the authors of this report argue that these
plantations are sustainable in the narrowest sense of the term, that
of ‘long-term productivity’ rather than ’sustainability’ as it is
understood in a development context.

Read the full report 

SWAZILAND: New health policy gets mixed response

Seen on IRIN NEWS:

SWAZILAND: New health policy gets mixed response

MBABANE, 15 August (IRIN) - Swaziland’s healthcare system is in critical condition, but the hopeful reaction to government’s new National Health Policy is tempered by concern over whether the promised improvements will actually be implemented.

Health officials are emphasising the importance of a finalised National Health Policy, unveiled last week, but other observers have been less enthusiastic: “If Swaziland’s policies were to be turned into food, no one would cry hunger in this country,” said Senator Mbho Shongwe.

Despite being pleased to have contributed to the policy, health non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and grassroots healthcare workers, like nurses and home-based care providers, are doubtful that their contributions will see a practical result.

“It all comes down to money, doesn’t it? Everything in the health policy has a price tag. Is government going to meet its promises and obligations to put more into national health?” wondered Samuel Khumalo, an HIV voluntary testing and counselling officer.

The Times of Swaziland, an independent daily newspaper, lashed out at government in a commentary on Wednesday for immediately being able to produce large sums of money to help people displaced by the recent bush fires, instead of using the money to assist dying patients at the main hospital in Mbabane, the capital.

The National Emergency Council on HIV/AIDS, which distributes money from the UN Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis to HIV/AIDS groups, has been critical of what it considers government under-spending on health services.

Promises

Health minister Njabulo Mabuza said the failure to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS and the deterioration of health services could be blamed on the absence of a National Health Policy.

Prime Minister Themba Dlamini urged the health sector to work in a coordinated manner to implement the new plan’s guidelines, and promised that essential materials and personnel would be imported as a matter of urgency.

“All the necessary tools like computers, additional staff and facilities are coming by the end of next month. If we lack any skills, government is prepared to go and buy them,” said the premier.
If we lack any skills, government is prepared to go and buy them

He surprised critics who have complained of a lack of urgency in the face of a national health emergency by setting the end of September as the deadline for delivery.

The new national policy establishes the World Health Organisation’s Essential Drugs List as the benchmark for all drug dispensers in the country.

Patient policy is defined in human rights terms: “In the provision of health services, all professionals shall observe and protect the basic rights of clients as provided by the Bill of Rights in the Constitution.” However, the document acknowledges limitations in service delivery, and sets 2015 as the target for significantly improved healthcare in Swaziland.

Negative perceptions of the country’s health services come from a daily drumbeat of media stories depicting understaffed and disintegrating clinics and hospitals, where patients lie on the floor, terminal patients are discharged into the care of their families without receiving treatment, endless queues of patients await drugs that are in short supply or nonexistent, and demoralised nurses fail to cope with exploding case loads brought on by worsening poverty and an expanding AIDS epidemic.

Samantha Dube, a healthcare worker in the main commercial town, Manzini, was one of hundreds who contributed to the development of the policy. “It is essential, but it is still a lifeless document until we bring it to life,” she pointed out.

“What is important is that so many groups contributed. The policy calls for a decentralisation of health services from the command of the Ministry of Health in Mbabane, and that is good, because the central government bureaucracy has proved so incapable.”

Swaziland: Thesis - “The Legal Abolition of Racial Discrimination and its Aftermath: The Case of Swaziland, 1945 - 1973

Nhlanhla Dlamini. “The Legal Abolition of Racial Discrimination and its
Aftermath: The Case of Swaziland, 1945 - 1973.”

Department of History, Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate School, Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2007.

Copyright by Nhlanhla Dlamini 2007

Abstract

Despite abundant evidence that race has been a significant factor in informing historical processes in Swaziland there is presently no major study that focusses on the theme. The main aim of the current thesis is to examine the impact of discriminatory policies and practices in the country by analyzing the reaction of different sections of the society to formal and informal discrimination. While focussing on the period between 1945 and 1973 the thesis traces the evolution of Swaziland’s racial history dating back to the 1840s. The thesis also shows how the conditions created by the intervention of the colonial state as well as competing white interests between 1903 and 1944 deepened political and economic inequality in the country. In parallel, the thesis explores Swazi agency as was manifested through the reactions and initiatives of the monarchy when it stood up to challenge discriminatory policies and practices which were being applied to blacks. This was strongly indicated from the 1930s when a revived cultural nationalism was embraced by the Swazi monarchy to articulate Swazi grievances. To highlight contradictions in Swaziland’s racial patterns Coloured identity is discussed extensively. The thesis also explores the manner in which the Swazi educated elite confronted racial discrimination and argues that their approach was inadequate in alleviating racial injustices as they were experienced by most Swazis in different places. The central argument of the thesis, therefore, is that the formal abolition of discrimination in Swaziland in 1961 is to be understood against the anti-colonial politics in the post- World War II era. The thesis contends that the abolition of racial discrimination by the Swaziland colonial administration was largely a diplomatic gesture necessitated by the local and contemporary political climate as well as changing international relations of the 1960s including developments in the Union/Republic of South Africa. Finally, the thesis observes that since the outlawing of discrimination did reflect the government’s political commitment to confronting racism the post-abolition period was not a fundamental departure from the pre-abolition era. Discriminatory attitudes and practices persisted in covert as well as overt, but, subtle forms in most spheres of Swazi society and particularly at the work place. This thesis also observes that the lack of holistic strategies to curb racially inspired practices led to unabated manifestations of discrimination in the country.