April 17, 2014
From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Motshabi Hoaeane.
Making headlines:

UN agency pleads for financial help in Central African Republic.

Free Market Foundation Luminary Award winner Richard Maponya says entrepreneurship could eradicate poverty.

And, a food security research centre is launched at the University of the Western Cape.
 

Inter-communal violence is tearing Central African Republic apart but the conflict is not getting the attention or aid,needed to save huge numbers of lives, the head of the UN refugee agency (or UNHCR) said on Wednesday.

Almost 200 000 people have fled the country since December, and a further 160 000 are expected to this year. The UNHCR says it is spending cash there three times as fast as new funds are coming in, putting its mission in jeopardy.

"Indeed, we are in trouble," UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres told diplomats as he launched a $274-million appeal.

Central African Republic is only one crisis among many demanding UN funds stretched by humanitarian needs in South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, as well as natural disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and, above all, Syria.

The Free Market Foundation (or FMF) on Wednesday presented its sixth Luminary Award for individuals that inspire others in a particular sphere of life to South African entrepreneur Dr Richard Maponya.

The award was given to Maponya in recognition of his “outstanding entrepreneurial achievement and leadership as a self-made [businessperson] under the almost impossible conditions of apartheid and being a beacon of hope for aspiring young South African entrepreneurs,” the FMF said.

Accepting the award, Maponya said entrepreneurship created new business, turned poorly performing companies around and fuelled growth and job creation.

He reiterated that entrepreneurship was an efficient tool that South Africa could use to address poverty; however, currently, many of the unemployed youth that aspired to get into business for themselves were being frustrated by the rules and regulations that deny them the opportunity to start their own businesses.

Maponya said that if aspirant South African entrepreneurs were to succeed, government would have to change its laws.
 

South Africa's drive to create a competitive and food-secure nation was boosted this week with the launch of the Centre of Excellence in Food Security, at the University of the Western Cape. It would bring together a cohort of experts and researchers from 19 South African and international institutions to research the drivers of food insecurity.

This came as recent studies by Statistics South Africa revealed that some 45% of the population lived below the poverty line and about one in ten households experienced “some form of hunger” every month.

The centre, which was one of a number of such partnerships as a result of a collaboration between the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation, would look to identify how global and national food systems were changing and how this affected the sustainability, availability, access and attributes of food, as well as identifying the “food insecure”.
 

Also making headlines:

Officials say former Egyptian finance minister Youssef Boutros Ghali was released following his arrest in Paris on an international warrant over corruption charges from his time in Hosni Mubarak's government.
 

Burundi accused the United Nations on Wednesday of spreading rumours about planned constitutional changes that critics say could upset the country's delicate ethnic power balance and possibly lead to civil war.
 

And, South Africans, who wish to apply for special votes for the upcoming general election, have until 5pm on Thursday, 17 April, to do so.
 

That's a roundup of news making headlines today.