Madagascar Development

A cartoonist has prepared a story of four young holiday makers travelling around the country and finding themselves in various scenarios that illustrate different aspects of their country's constitution. Madagascar's constitution was last altered juts a few months ago, but with political leaders there still arguing about the formation of a transitional government following a coup in March, there is talk that the constitution could be altered again by the end of next year. For many people these changes go unnoticed - perhaps because the matter seems too technical or too complex. A project to use cartoons to illustrate the constitution seeks to change that. From Antananarivo, Christina Corbett reports. A comic book has been penned in Madagascar to make it easier to get to grips with the constitution.

Lagos — Nigeria dropped nine places to 130th position out of the 180 countries ranked on the global Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2009 by Transparency International (TI), a global anti-corruption watchdog. The survey measures domestic public sector corruption in selected countries and is conducted by TI, which is based in Berlin, Germany. In terms of level of perceived corruption, Nigeria, which had moved up 27 places to rank 121 out of 180 countries in 2008, placed 10th out of the 16 West African countries. However, according to TI, no region of the world is immune to the perils of corruption, as the world economy begins to register a tentative recovery and some nations continue to wrestle with ongoing conflict and insecurity. The newly released Corruption Perceptions Index is different from the Global Corruption Report (GCR), which was released by last September. In the GCR report, Nigeria's banking sector was lambasted for its perceived corruption, which was described as pa