Shot in Arm for Private Health Promoted by World Bank

Shot in Arm for Private Health

The East African (Nairobi)
NEWS
28 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008

By Francis Ayieko

THE WORLD BANK AND ITS Partners are to mobilise up to $1 billion over the next five years to strengthen the private healthcare sector in Africa.

The move is part of the Bank’s new strategy for addressing Africa’s health challenges and recognises the continent’s private sector as a key player in alleviating health problems.

The African Development Bank has declared its support for the initiative and agreed to collaborate with the World Bank in establishing the equity investment vehicle to help realise the goal.

According to a new report from IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, sub-Saharan Africa needs between $25 billion and $30 billion to meet healthcare spending, which is expected to double over the next 10 years.

Entitled, The Business of Health in Africa: Partnering with the Private Sector to Improve People’s Lives, the report says the private sector already plays a significant role in delivering and financing healthcare for the region’s people. On average, the private sector delivers 50 per cent of healthcare goods and services.

The report is the product of a study jointly funded by IFC and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study the role and impact of Africa’s private health sector. The $1 billion will be used for investment and advisory services geared at boosting “socially responsible healthcare,” according to the report.

“This is a chance to increase access to healthcare for millions of Africans,” says Lars Thunell, IFC chief executive. “If we can get all the critical players – governments, donors, investors and providers – to leverage the private health sector and integrate it effectively with public systems, we can also greatly improve the quality of care.”

NOTING THAT THE PRIVATE Sector already provides about half of healthcare goods and services in the region, Mr Thunell adds, “A poor woman in Africa today is as likely to take her sick child to a private hospital or clinic as to a public facility.”

It is estimated that Africa’s healthcare expenditure is likely to reach $35 billion by 2016, up from $17 billion in 2005. The report says that people in sub-Saharan Africa have the worst healthcare on average in the world. The region, according to the report, has 11 per cent of the world’s population but carries 24 per cent of the global disease burden.

With less than one per cent of global health expenditure and only three per cent of the world’s health workers, Africa accounts for almost half of the world’s deaths of children under five, has the highest maternal mortality rate, and bears a heavy toll of HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.

The IFC report is said to be the most comprehensive analysis to date of the private health sector in sub-Saharan Africa.

IFC’s new funding strategy has been hailed as reflecting important first steps to act on the report’s findings. A more encouraging aspect about the IFC project is that the African Development Bank was one of the first development financial institutions that supported the initiative and agreed to collaborate with the World Bank.

AFRICA’s Power Crisis demands action NOW!!

Power Crunch – Southern Africa Must ‘Run While Others Walk’

The Herald (Harare)
NEWS
28 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008

By Munetsi Madakufamba
Harare
AS southern Africa enters its second year of crippling energy shortages as accurately predicted by the Southern African Power Pool about four years ago, massive short-term projects of close to US$8 billion will need to be fast tracked over the next couple of years to get the region out of the present situation.

Electricity shortages have in recent weeks severely affected some Southern African Development Community member states leading to scheduled and, in some cases, unscheduled power cuts. From last year, load shedding has been introduced in countries such as Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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Faced by mounting pressure from industry and domestic consumers, South Africa’s power utility Eskom announced mid-January that it will discontinue electricity exports to neighbouring countries to meet local demand.

The Sunday Independent quoted Andrew Etzinger, Eskom’s chief of demand side management as saying South Africa’s electricity reserves had dropped during the past year from seven percent to minus 17 percent due to a decline in generation performance.

Etzinger said it would take at least another seven years before the situation could get back to normal. “The fact is in this country, for a long time we have had a surplus of electricity at a cheap price — far cheaper than in other industrial nations. “So it has made sense for the giant investors, whose plant needs massive amounts of electricity, to invest here,” Etzinger said.

“All that’s happened now is that we have to manage the resource differently. “It is simply going to cost investors more — this does not mean that they have to halt their future projects,” he added. South African industrialists say the power shortages are costing them billions of Rand, especially the mines and smelters, which consume most of the country’s electricity.

Southern African countries, which relied on South Africa for their energy sources have had to turn to other sources in the region.

For example, Swaziland which imports 80 percent of its electricity from South Africa is currently in talks with Mozambique.

In a major development for the southern African region, Mozambique recently took over ownership of the giant Cahora Bassa Dam and the hydroelectric power company from former colonial power, Portugal.

Sadc member states agreed last year to fast track short-term generation projects, which will add 6 700 megawatts by 2010 to the regional power grid at a cost of US$7,88 billion.

SAPP, which administers the regional power network, predicted that beginning 2007, the combined power generation reserve capacity in the region would be lower than the peak demand.

In response, Sadc member states have initiated a number of short, medium to long term generation projects as well as some rehabilitation projects that will guarantee the region the much-needed energy security.

Current installed capacity in the region is 53 000 MW of which dependable capacity is only about 41 000 MW against demand of 42 000 MW.

The region requires a reserve margin of 10 percent if its economies are to operate smoothly.

With some of Africa’s fasted growing economies, Sadc’s electricity generation capacity has not increased in tandem with the growth in demand.

Available statistics show that power growth demand in the region has averaged three percent a year over the past decade on the back of economic expansion of around five percent.

With the region having already run out of surplus capacity, SAPP says the problem would likely be overcome by 2010 if planned projects are implemented and commissioned on schedule.

Energy security becomes more pertinent given that the Sadc Free Trade Area, which takes effect this year, is set to spur even more growth in the region. Sadc would also be seeking to enhance its preparedness ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

If the current situation is to be brought under control, southern African countries may need to take heed of a famous statement by the visionary Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.

Mwalimu once said of the continent’s development, “Africa needs to run while others walk”.

That is perhaps what southern Africa needs to avoid dampening investor confidence generated by the Free Trade Area and the 2010 World Cup. Power pooling is at the core of regional socio-economic development.

SAPP, which manages the Southern African Energy Grid connecting most of the landlocked Sadc member states, has developed a roadmap which seeks to address current challenges.

The SAPP roadmap seeks to boost southern Africa’s electricity generation capacity, with almost 50 short- and long-term projects underway or planned for future development.

The long-term generation projects alone are expected to add 32 000 MW to the regional grid at a cost of US$32 billion.

The plan is to double the region’s generation capacity over the next 20 years through new plants and transmission inter-connectors.

Since 2004, SAPP member utilities have also commissioned rehabilitation projects that have contributed 1140 MW to the regional grid.

Once implemented, the current short-term projects are expected to clear the current 1 000 MW shortfall while creating a regional generation surplus of 5 000 MW or 10 percent by 2013.

The major proposed power plants include the Inga III in the Democratic Republic of Congo with a capacity of 3600 MW, the Kudu Gas Plant in Namibia with a capacity of 800 MW and the Kafue Lower with a capacity of 600 MW.

Notable inter-connectors include the Westcor inter-connector extending from the Inga III in DRC to Angola, Namibia, Botswana and onward to South Africa.

Regional energy cooperation also seeks to facilitate the development of other energy resources such as biomass and biofuels, to augment the power sector capacity.

There is also potential for the region to strengthen self-sufficiency in petroleum and gas resources by undertaking joint regional exploration and development.

Will New (Green) Project Worsen Poverty?

New Project Will Worsen Poverty

The Herald (Harare)
OPINION
28 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008

By Sifelani Tsiko
Harare
The introduction of the new Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa will have serious social, economic and agricultural implications on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers who are the majority in Africa, development experts have warned.

Agronomists, agro-ecologists, environmentalists and development experts who met in Mali at a conference on Climate Change, Agriculture, Fisheries and Pastoralism in Africa, urged African governments to reject this project which got US$150 million funding from its main handlers — the Rockerfeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to improve African seed and distribution over the next five years.

“AGRA ignores the many successful agro-ecological and non-corporate approaches to agricultural development,” said Eric Holt-Gimenez of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, commonly known as Food First.

“AGRA will undermine Africa’s food sovereignty and kill its cultural diversity and agriculture.”

AGRA was unveiled on September 12, 2006, by the Rockefeller and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations to improve seed hybrids, inorganic fertilizers, water management and agricultural extension services in Africa.

The goal of this new agricultural project is to develop 100 new varieties in 5 years focusing on at least 10 different staple crops, which include maize, cassava, sorghum and millet.

AGRA’s programmes are administered through the Programs for a Green Revolution in Africa which got an initial grant of close to US$30 million for selected countries in East, Southern and West Africa.

Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biosafety said the officers of AGRA and ProGRA will initially be key senior staff from the Rockefeller Foundation who will be based in Nairobi, Kenya.

The first major initiative of ProGRA, she said, is the Programme for Africa’s Seed System intended to operate in 20 African countries. PASS will focus primarily on improvement and distribution of copy varieties, training of a new generation of plant breeders, seed distribution through seed companies, public community seed systems and public extension.

Provision of credit and training for small “middle men” agro-dealers for distribution of seeds, chemical and fertilizers will also be done.

Agricultural experts say a “green revolution” merely includes efforts aimed at increasing productivity of major food crops by incorporating scientific advances in plant breeding, development or expansion of supportive technologies and implementation of various reforms.

They say large-scale investment in irrigation, application of chemical fertilizers and other inputs and farm equipment all make up a “green revolution.”

Proponents of AGRA say Africa “missed the first Green Revolution” and hence the need to embrace this new alliance project. They feel strongly that Africa missed out on the Green Revolutions that took place in Asia and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.

They suggest that efforts aimed at improving food crop varieties through the use of fertilizers, irrigation and farm equipment failed in Africa hence it is important for the continent to support this project to fight hunger and poverty.

AGRA is joining other multilateral institutions, G8 and other donor countries, international foundations and multinationals to invest in African agriculture.

African scientists, agricultural specialists, farmers’ organization and civil society activists are calling for a total rejection of AGRA as they cite several key concerns.

They argue that the growing influence of powerful multinationals such as Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont, Dow Chemical Company, BASF and Syngenta will lead to an extensive investment in genetically modified hybrids and “suicide” seeds, which make farmers lose their indigenous and affordable seeds.

Monsanto, for example, controls 88 percent of global transgenic seed production. “There is not any other reality,” said Holt-Gimenez.

“This new Green Revolution is meant to perpetuate slavery and dependence on the major US seed companies. A new AGRA project in Africa means a new market for their seed.”

“These multinationals are only speaking about profits and poisons. They are not speaking about the culture and needs of the Global South farmers,” he said. “The wisdom of all farmers in the Global South and indigenous communities is not taken into account. They are promoting mono-cropping at the expense of promoting agro-biodiversity,” he added.

Added Renato T Salazar, a South East Asia Regional Initiative for Community Empowerment senior fellow: “We must come out strongly and inform the political side and farmers about the badness of AGRA in Africa. The Green Revolutions that were implemented in Asia in the 1960s and 1970s had disastrous effects.”

“Prescription from AGRA will not work. The simplest solution to this project is to reject it,” said Dr Regassa Feyissa, a veteran Ethiopian plant researcher.

Opponents say, beyond the yield gains from Green Revolution projects, there are many costs — economic, agricultural and social. The use of large amounts of water, fertilizers and chemicals impoverishes the soil, leaving it less fertile and heavily polluted. Apart from health hazards, there are also human health implications.

The biodiversity kept by farmers for ages is lost and this forces farmers to depend heavily on pesticides and seed supplied by multinationals.

“The profound cultural and economic changes wrought by the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s produced a massive rural exodus and with it, a profound loss of traditional knowledge and skills,” Grain, a Food First publication reported.

“The Green Revolution is based on a scientific reductionism, which has resulted in monocultures, the use of chemicals, fertilizers and inappropriate mechanization. This is alien to Africa’s peasant farming systems which pursues a more holistic approach to agriculture in which crops are combined with livestock, organic manure is used, soils are looked after and there is a deep respect for the wider environment.”

There are so many questions that need to be asked. How will AGRA address the lessons learned from the last Green Revolution in Asia in the 1960s and 1970s? Who sets the agenda for AGRA? Is accountable to African farmers and does it place their interest first? Will this project benefit African farmers or big multinationals, who will benefit most?

“The Green Revolution is a serious threat to the continent’s peasants, seeds and livelihoods,” said Diamantino Nhampossa of Mozambique’s National Peasants Union and Via Campensina in Africa. “Instead of recognising the rich knowledge that peasant women and men have managed for millennia, the introduction of hybrid seeds and technological packages will further damage the peasants own production systems.”

The winner of the Green Revolution projects from 1970-1990 is the US, which got revenue amounting to US$10,2 billion through seed and chemical sales by its multinationals.

Opponents say the biggest loser was the environment.

They say two-thirds of agricultural land worldwide has been affected by soil erosion, the green revolution has led to the salification of 70 million acres of land and the creation of Dead Zones in the Gulf of Mexico and Israel and other parts of the world.

Salazar said in Asia, the negative effects of the Green Revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s included the loss of indigenous rice landraces, dependence on external inputs, loss of control of indigenous agricultural science and technology, increased pests resistance, loss of genetic diversity and loss of farmers’ innovation using indigenous knowledge systems passed on from one generation to the other.

“We need to learn from each other. The learning process is the one that empowers and can help us to promote and rehabilitate alternative approaches which farmers in the Global South have,” he said. Renowned Ethiopian geneticist Dr Melaku Worede said: “There’s so much potential with seeds in Africa that is not being explored. It’s being undermined by outside solutions. Rather than the industrial agriculture model, we should support more holistic approaches to agriculture. Farmer-led programmes tend to look at more than just yields. There are about raising productivity without losing biodiversity.”

Opponents of AGRA say African farmers have sophisticated crop and livestock breeding and ecosystem technologies and their own research networks. They argue that only farmer-led agricultural and rural development initiatives that build upon existing working systems can lead to real improvement. In the end, the issue is not so much about what can be introduced into Africa but about what needs to be done to strengthen the continent’s resilient food production and ecosystem methods. Money, resources, new technologies and new imported projects alone cannot be a panacea to hunger and poverty in Africa.

There is a complex interaction of various factors that have to be taken into account to improve food security and food sovereignty in Africa.

And as Dr Melaku Worede rightly puts says: “We need to build from the strengths of the farmers. Our work shows that farmers are the best breeders and the best judges of new agricultural projects.”

Speech by Stephen Lewis to Harvard Medical School

Speech by Stephen Lewis to Harvard Medical School

AIDS-Free World (Gloucester)
DOCUMENT
28 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008
Boston
Excerpt of a speech by Stephen Lewis, Co-Director, AIDS-Free World, to the Third Annual Student AIDS Conference, Harvard Medical School, Boston

Recently, there has been a spate of news stories in which scientists and academics claim that too much money is going for AIDS, leaving crumbs from the donor table for other international health imperatives. Those of us at AIDS-Free World think they’re dead wrong. And they do a great disservice to the legitimate, insistent clamour for more foreign aid.

The argument has been sharpened because of UNAIDS’ revision of the numbers of people living with the virus from nearly 40 million in the last estimate to 33 million today. Thank you UNAIDS. This embarrassing correction of epidemiological miscalculation has predictably given dissenters a hook on which to challenge the money being spent for AIDS. And when UNAIDS soon revises the financial requirements downwards — as they must, if there are between six and seven million fewer cases — then we’ll get yet another burst of controversy over what should be allocated for HIV/AIDS versus all the pressing health priorities.

But the argument is really straightforward. On the basis of the former estimate of the number of people infected, UNAIDS calculated that we’d need $41 billion annually by 2010 to reach full universal access to treatment, prevention and care (including orphans and program costs and a pittance for violence against women) and $52 billion by 2015, coincident with the Millennium Development Goals. If you make a straight reduction in those figures to reflect the percentage reduction in the number of cases, you’d need roughly $34 billion in 2010and $43 billion in 2015. (Those are the real and accurate figures with which I fully agree. But there were other scenarios presented to water down total costs so as not to scare off the donors. We reject them utterly. It’s time to stop bargaining over human life because donors betray their promises).

Last year, 2007, we spent, overall, a little more than $10 billion on HIV/AIDS worldwide. The shortfall this year will be enormous … in the billions. So, too, 2009; so, too, 2010; so, too, every year thereafter. The struggle for AIDS funding remains a monumental challenge. The people who beat the drums about too much for AIDS and not enough for other health priorities; who suggest reapportioning AIDS monies to other health concerns are unwittingly compromising the lives of millions.

What they should be saying is “Where is the additional money for everything from water to sanitation to nutrition to education to health systems to human resources to neglected diseases to everything that is needed to ameliorate the human condition?”

The American contribution to foreign AID for developing countries remains abysmal. The Administration spends, conservatively, up to $108 billion a year on the war in Iraq, and perhaps $5 billion in an entire year on HIV/AIDS. Those priorities are so skewed as to be obscene. And now that the United States is in economic crisis, you can be sure that foreign aid will again emerge the beggar when future appropriations are made.

We should never forget that as a percentage of GNP, the United States occupies virtually the bottom rung of the ladder amongst all the industrial nations, let alone the G8. In 2006, the last year for which figures are available, the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD reported that only Greece was below the United States of the 23 countries listed. Greece spends 0.17% of GNP on foreign aid; the United States spends 0.18%. The average for all countries is 0.31% of GNP … virtually double the expenditure of the United States. The target, of course, is 0.7%, almost quadruple the US current contribution.

The scientists and academics who argue for redistribution of HIV/AIDS monies simply capitulate, ignobly, to the dreadful levels of ODA (official development assistance). They rationalize this position by arguing that we must be pragmatic: there’s no more money forthcoming or available. Of course, that’s a counsel of despair. We don’t need detractors; we need advocates who will hammer away at government until the pendulum swings and the resources are extracted.

To make HIV/AIDS pay the price for governmental negligence is the ultimate irony. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul. Peter and Paul are both in life and death struggles. Those who would sacrifice one on the altar of the other have been reading Milton Friedman, not the Bible.

African Leaders Have ‘Elusive’ Visions

African Leaders Have ‘Elusive’ Visions

New Era (Windhoek)
NEWS
28 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008

By Frederick Philander
Windhoek
The acquiring of entrepreneurial skills development doesn’t only mean how to start a business alone, but also to take chances and absorb accompanying risks.

So said the executive director of the Unisa Graduate School of Business Leadership, Dr David Abdulai, on Thursday. He was the guest speaker at the opening of the 2008 academic year of the Polytechnic of Namibia.

“In essence entrepreneurs are critical thinkers, risk takers, creative problem solvers, self-confident and innovative thinkers. These people by and large take initiatives and are ready to take on any business venture successfully because of their positive approaches to business,” Abdulai said.

A large number of lecturers and students attended the 2-hour paper on the campus in which he accused African leaders of having elusive development visions.

“Most of the African Heads of State have these elusive developmental visions that normally lead to nothing because of their integral cultural mindsets.

Africa cannot excel in business unless we free our minds from the myths of ‘I cannot do this or that, I will fail.’ We have to break out of such a mindset if we want to compete with the rest of the world,” he warned.

According to Abdulai, who hails from Ghana, Africans are too complacent and lack a driving force in business.

“We need to be resourceful and self-reliant, be diligent and creative and take chances and initiatives. We are not poor in Africa, we just lack initiatives and are afraid of the consequences of failure.

“At the same time we do not want to accept positive change and embrace it. Also, we need to learn to accept suggestions and critique in a positive manner, otherwise we will never grow strong,” the learned academic said.

He also said that Africans must learn to think outside their own comfort zones.

“A good entrepreneur is a person who literally can see with his or her eyes closed. They are analytical, have foresight and are by nature optimists. They go where there is no path and leave a trail for others to follow. True entrepreneurs are slowed down by obstacles, but they never stop in achieving their goals,” he said encouragingly.

The academic year at the Polytechnic starts on February 4.

African Continent in the Dark

Continent in the Dark

The Monitor (Kampala)
NEWS
29 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008
Kampala
THE signing of a 92 million euro ($136 million) loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB), last week, to finance the construction of the 250 megawatt Bujagali hydro-electric power project is a shot in the arm for Uganda’s efforts to attract increased direct foreign investments.

This project, slated for completion in 2011, gives Uganda an edge over Africa’s economic powerhouse, South Africa, which is reeling from continued daily power cuts following generation and other operational problems at Eskom, the country’s power company. Eskom generates 95 per cent of the electricity used in South Africa.

(shortage of) power to neighbouring countries because of acute domestic shortages. Zimbabwe, which imports about 40 per cent of its electricity from South Africa, and Mozambique are the worst affected.

Eskom Enterprises has operations on the African continent with its head office being located in Johannesburg, South Africa, and other offices in Uganda, Nigeria and Mali.

Although the power cuts have affected the whole country, the commercial capital, Johannesburg, has been worst hit and Eskom says it would be foolhardy to attract major industrial projects until the situation has been resolved by the middle of next decade.

Eskom’s finance director, Bongani Nqwababa, was quoted by Business Day last week as saying “it is a question of supply and demand. It would be irresponsible now to aggressively pursue energy-intensive businesses.”

Investments

Though these may not be the kind of businesses that the Ugandan Investment Authority (UIA) is gunning for at the present stage of the country’s industrial development, there can be little doubt that there are plenty of other related investments that UIA can pick up as a result of the crisis in South Africa.

Small and Medium sized businesses (SMEs) have been hit hardest by the power cuts with dozens forced to shut and more closures expected if the crisis continues, says South Africa’s black business umbrella body, the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NAFCOC).

Nafcoc President Buhie Mthethwa says the body, which has 300000 members, will approach the government soon with requests for compensation for small enterprises which had lost perishable goods during the blackouts and cannot afford to buy generators to protect their remaining stocks.

Dozens of Nafcoc members, who represent black, coloured and Indian enterprises, are forced out of business by the chronic power outages which add to problems they already face from rising interest rates and restricted access to credit.

Growth in the economy has steadily accelerated since democracy was introduced in 1994 and the government wants to boost the pace to a sustainable rate of 6 per cent from 5.4 per cent in 2006 -a 25-year peak. It also aims to halve unemployment and poverty by 2014.

But now, there is mounting concern that power shortages will put more constraints on a growth rate hampered by a global slow-down as well as higher interest rates.

Credit Guarantee economist Luke Doig says the impact of the power cuts will lead to an escalation in liquidations and debt insolvencies. It will hit Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) hard as they didn’t have many resources.

Jeff Osborne, the chief executive officer of Retail Motor Industry Organisation, says power shortages were hitting used car dealers, petrol stations, motor mechanics and panel beaters, which were mainly SME).

These are the same mid-term, long-term knock-on problems Uganda is attempting to avoid or mitigate with the construction of the Bujagali power project; problems that its detractors seem oblivious to.

According to an economic and financial evaluation study carried out three years ago by an independent consulting firm Power Planning Associates Limited (UK), Uganda’s electricity demand is expected to grow by 7.6 per cent per year on average between 2005 and 2020.

To help meet this demand, between 2006 and 2010, Uganda is expected to lease and commission 150 MW of oil fueled power generation as well as some generation from bagasse, a sugar-cane derivative used for renewable power generation, and from small hydro-power plants.

Private generation

Last week’s announcement that Electro- Maxx, an indigenous private power company, will start producing 10 megawatts (MW) of thermal power by June this year is part of the planned exercise to add capacity to Uganda’s power sector.

Electro-Maxx was granted a power generating licence from the Uganda Electricity Authority (ERA). ERA’s decision was communicated in a letter to the company dated January 21 following public hearings last December in Tororo where local leaders and the community gave the project the go ahead.

The $32 million project to be erected at the Tororo power substation will use Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO). And is expected to feed into the national grid.

A power purchase agreement has been executed between Electro-Maxx and the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company to supply power for 18 hours daily.

According to ERA, heavy-fuel oil is much cheaper than light diesel oil and Electro-Maxx will not require additional subsidies.

The government currently pays out billions of shillings in subsidizing expensive power to consumers.

Uganda’s current power demand is estimated at 380 MW while the maximum supply capacity stands at 251MW leaving a gap of about 129 MW.

“The 10 MW heavy-fuel project by Electro-Maxx is therefore highly needed to contribute towards reduction of the current deficit,” ERA said.

Currently, Uganda has a thermal installed capacity of 100 MW but it’s all generated through burning of diesel whose price has continued to rise.

Electro-Maxx chairman Patrick Bitature said the company would later apply to double or triple its capacity.

The plant was originally planned to be built in Mbarara but was shifted to Tororo to lower the cost of fuel transportation through Kenya.

Bujagali

The power supply generated from Bujagali would also enable 50-100 MW of expensive oil fueled thermal generation capacity to be retired. It is also expected that the commissioning of Bujagali in 2011 would help reduce the average cost of supply to end-users by up to 10 per cent compared to prevailing prices in constant terms.

The study found that the commissioning of Bujagali will have a small but positive impact on economic growth, balance of payments and the fiscal balance.

Uganda’s workforce is expected to double over the next 15 years, making the creation of jobs through expanded industry, tourism, and commercial services critical.

World Leaders Issue Call to Action on the Millennium Development Goals

World Leaders Issue Call to Action on the Millennium Development Goals at the Annual Meeting 2008

World Economic Forum (Geneva)
PRESS RELEASE
25 January 2008
Posted to the web 25 January 2008
Davos
World leaders have issued a joint statement at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos vowing to make 2008 a turning point in the fight against poverty. The world is facing a “development emergency”, they said. “We pledge to work together to help the world get back on track to meet the MDGs.”

Leaders spearheading the call to action include Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations, New York; Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, President of Nigeria; Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and Member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum; William H. Gates III, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation, USA; Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum; Bono, Musician, DATA (DEBT, AIDS, TRADE, AFRICA), United Kingdom; and John T. Chambers, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cisco, USA.

“We are here to say one thing loud and clear: Not on our watch!” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“I speak to those who are most vulnerable to climate change and those who suffer the most grinding poverty. Let 2008 be the year of the bottom billion,” he said.

“We all agree that it is time to move from promise to performance …. Let us put our promises back on track for all the world’s children,” said Queen Rania.

“This is a moral compact, not a legal contract. To take a concrete step forward, we must take this from a moral compact to legally binding contracts,” Bono told a packed press conference. “Thanks to African leadership and debt cancellation, 29 million children are now in school,” he said.

“For us in Africa, the achievement of the MDGs is our sacred duty,” said Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. “One of the major challenges in Africa is the infrastructure gap that is one of the key enablers of the achievement of the MDGs. I welcome this initiative from the global community.”

“It is right that, here in Davos, we tell the truth that there is a development emergency and that we must summon everyone in a call to action to take measures to meet the MDGs by 2015,” said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“This [call to action] fits in with the idea of creative capitalism,” said Gates. “We can make more progress and it is important to be part of this endeavour,” he said. “I want to challenge the business community” to join the renewed efforts of governments and NGOs, said Chambers. “It’s the power of collaborative innovation that makes a difference,” he said.

The joint statement said:

“At the Millennium Summit in 2000 the international community – every world leader, every international body, almost every country – vowed to spare no effort to achieve the seven key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Halfway to 2015 we have made some vital progress:

* 3 million more children survive every year

* 2 million people now receive AIDs treatment

* There are 41 million more children in school

* 2 million lives are saved every year by immunization

* Polio, leprosy and neonatal tetanus are on the verge of elimination

* African economies have been growing at 6% for the past three years, and are set to grow faster in the years ahead

This progress inspires us all to do more. We know we can make a difference. But we still face an enormous challenge – a development emergency:

* 72 million children are still not in school and many who are receive a very poor quality education.

* Half of the developing world lack basic sanitation. If current trends continue, the world is likely to miss the MDG sanitation target by almost 600 million people.

* Over half a million women still die each year from treatable and preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth.

* Over 33 million people are living with HIV, and more than 1 million people die of malaria every year, including one child every 30 seconds.

* 980 million people still live on less than US$ 1 a day.

So without an extraordinary effort we will fail to achieve the MDGs. 2008 is a critical year. If we don’t begin to get back on track we will fail. Today in Davos we – the undersigned – commit to work to make 2008 a turning point in the fight against poverty. We are pleased to join the 19 countries and 21 private sector companies that are now signed up to the MDG Call to Action. And we pledge to work together to help the world get back on track to meet the MDGs.

We know we will only succeed if governments, the private sector, faith groups, civil society and NGOs work together.

And to catalyse, inspire and focus activity within this broad coalition – and to measure progress towards the 2015 pledges – today we agree that the world community should set some 2010 milestones towards our 2015 goals, including:

* 75 million more people lifted out of extreme poverty in Africa

* 25 million more children in school

* 4 million more children’s lives saved

* 35 million more births need to be attended by skilled health personnel between now and 2010

* 70 million more people given improved access to water

A series of international meetings throughout 2008 will identify what more we all need to do to meet these goals and agree concrete action plans:

* In the spring, the private sector will meet and announce new measures to help achieve the MDGs.

* In June, European leaders will set out what more the EU can do to accelerate progress towards the MDGs.

* In July, the Japan G8 Summit will focus on development and climate change.

* In September, at the UN – and for the first time ever – governments, businesses, civil society organizations, NGOs and faith groups will all convene to mark the halfway point to the MDGs, take stock of progress and agree additional steps the international community will take to accelerate action.

* And the Italians have agreed to take this forward into 2008 with their G8.

* The world is witnessing a development emergency, and we need a worldwide effort to get back on track to meet the MDGs. We commit to join and redouble our efforts.”

More than 2,500 participants from 88 countries are in Davos, Switzerland, including 27 heads of state or government, 113 cabinet ministers, along with religious leaders, media leaders and heads of non-governmental organizations. Around 60% of the participants are business leaders drawn principally from the Forum’s members – 1,000 of the foremost companies from around the world and across all economic sectors.

The Co-Chairs of the Meeting are:

• Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997-2007); Member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008
• James Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co., USA; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008
• K.V. Kamath, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, ICICI Bank, India; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008
• Henry Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates, USA; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008
• Indra K. Nooyi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo, USA; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008
• David J. O’Reilly, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Chevron, USA; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008
• Wang Jianzhou, Chairman and Chief Executive, China Mobile Communications Corporation, People’s Republic of China; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008

All participants of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008 can watch the responses to The Davos Question and are encouraged to reply directly to questions from the wider public in the first YouTube video booth set up for this purpose in the Congress Centre in Davos. Some of the best contributions will be used in key sessions in the programme.

EU Stands to Increase Market Share in Africa With EPAs

EU Stands to Increase Market Share in Africa With EPAs

Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
NEWS
26 January 2008
Posted to the web 26 January 2008

By Julio Godoy
Paris
While the real impact of the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) on the economies of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries will be “small”, the pace of negotiations and of the liberalisation of their markets is too fast and will damage their economies, according to numerous French economists and development experts.

“The main problem with the EPAs is that the European Union wants to go too fast with the negotiations, too fast with the regional integration in the ACP group, and too fast with the market liberalisation in there,” says Bénédicte Hermelin, research director at GRET, a Paris-based umbrella organisation of international cooperation groups.

The EPAs, supposed to take effect as of January 1, 2008, propose to create a free trade area between Europe and the 79 ACP signatories of the Lomé Convention. The convention goes back to the 1970s.

EPAs are part of the Cotonou agreement — a much wider agreement signed between the European Union (EU) and the ACP countries in June 2000 in the capital of Benin. It covers aid, trade and political cooperation between the two groups of countries.

The Cotonou agreement replaced the Lomé convention, which gave ACP countries special access to sell certain products in European markets.

EU officials defend the EPAs as trade and development tools, as Peter Mandelson, EU commissioner for trade, has put it. In a speech on January 20, 2005, Mandelson described the EPAs as “potentially a crucial, hugely positive contribution that Europe can and must make to trade and development” in Africa.

The EPAs’ “purpose is the successful integration of the ACP economies in the global economy — and by that I mean putting the ACP on a ladder of prosperity that ends the grinding poverty which is the daily experience of so many ACP citizens,” Mandelson said.

But numerous ACP governments and European non-governmental organisations oppose the EPAs, for they consider them an instrument of “European economic neo-colonialism”, which would destroy these low developed economies by forcing ACP countries to open their markets to subsidized agricultural goods from Europe.

However, says Hermelin, at least regarding agriculture, “for Africa, the imports of poultry from Brazil are more dangerous than those from Europe”. Similarly, she says, Africa will need to import milk from Europe “still for a long time, until its milk production can satisfy the local demand”.

Other experts believe that the EPAs will strengthen Europe’s trade position in Africa at the cost of inter-Africa trade.

“If African coastal countries, such as Senegal, completely open their markets to European agricultural products, then the Saharan countries producing livestock will lose their market shares in those neighbouring countries,” Benoit Faivre-Dupaigre, an economics researcher at the French Institute for Research on Development, told IPS.

Like Hermelin, Faivre-Dupaigre denounced the pace of negotiations on the EPAs imposed by the EU. “This fast-track liberalisation contradicts the experience of industrialized countries, which needed decades to build up their domestic markets before they opened them up to international competitors,” he said.

According to a study by the Paris-based Research Centre in International Economics (CEPII, after its French name), the impact of EPAs on ACP economies would be negative, if small.

On the one hand, the liberalisation of trade with the EU would represent a 22 percent growth of imports from Europe. But, if 20 percent of these new imports are blocked by the “sensitive products” clause, that growth would fall to 16 percent, representing some 3.5 billion euros in new imports from Europe.

However, these new imports from Europe would substitute goods the ACP countries presently bring in from the U.S., Brazil, China, Japan and other countries, thus reducing the new trade debit balance for the ACP countries to 1.8 billion euros.

As the CEPII notes, given that the ACP countries imported a total of 102 billion euros in goods and services in 2005, that new deficit is insignificant.

More important is the ACP custom revenues loss due to EPAs, as estimated by the CEPII. These losses could go up 3 billion euros per year for the ACP countries, with individual impacts going on from five to 35 percent of the state budget.

In the cases of the poorest countries, such losses can be of enormous importance for states almost deprived of income, notes the CEPII.

Such data lead Roger Blein, French development advisor for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS, a regional group of fifteen West African countries), to believe that “even if the impact of the EPAs would be modest, it is clear that the EU is trying to expand its market share in the ACP countries.

“When the European Commission says that Europe does not have any economic interest in the EPAs negotiations, it is lying,” Blein added.

In general, French critics of the EPAs recall that while the EU farmers do enjoy of massive subsidies — some 50 billion euros in 2005 — small agricultural producers in the ACP do not.

The French group ATTAC, for instance, argues that these subsidies for European agricultural goods already encourage overproduction and, if added to so-called free trade agreements such as the EPAs, will also promote export dumping.

This will lead to the destruction of livelihoods in developing countries, representing a real and palpable menace for those countries’ “food sovereignty”.

ATTAC stands for Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens and opposes neoliberal globalisation in general, from the World Trade Organisation to the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

In a position paper published last December, ATTAC recalls that the production of tomatoes in Ghana was affected by the structural adjustment programmes imposed by the International Monetary Fund in the 1980s and 1990s. “The import of tomatoes skyrocketed, from 3,600 tones to 24,000 tones,” ATTAC says in its paper.

This growth in imports led to “weakening of the Ghanaian farmers, traders and the food processing industry in the country”. EPAs would launch a similar process in the whole of Africa, ATTAC claims.

World Leaders Issue Call to Action on Millennium Development Goals

Personally, I believe this (article listed below)is too little too late… and the basic NEEDS of Africa to meet and even exceed these goals are not congruent with the basic need for infrastructure like a drivable road!! 

World Leaders Issue Call to Action on Millennium Development Goals

World Economic Forum (Geneva)
PRESS RELEASE
28 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008
Davos
World leaders have issued a joint statement at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos vowing to make 2008 a turning point in the fight against poverty.

The world is facing a “development emergency”, they said. “We pledge to work together to help the world get back on track to meet the MDGs.”

Leaders spearheading the call to action include Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations, New York; Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, President of Nigeria; Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and Member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum; William H. Gates III, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation, USA; Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum; Bono, Musician, DATA (DEBT, AIDS, TRADE, AFRICA), United Kingdom; and John T. Chambers, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cisco, USA.

“We are here to say one thing loud and clear: Not on our watch!” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“I speak to those who are most vulnerable to climate change and those who suffer the most grinding poverty. Let 2008 be the year of the bottom billion,” he said.

“We all agree that it is time to move from promise to performance …. Let us put our promises back on track for all the world’s children,” said Queen Rania.

“This is a moral compact, not a legal contract. To take a concrete step forward, we must take this from a moral compact to legally binding contracts,” Bono told a packed press conference. “Thanks to African leadership and debt cancellation, 29 million children are now in school,” he said.

“For us in Africa, the achievement of the MDGs is our sacred duty,” said Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. “One of the major challenges in Africa is the infrastructure gap that is one of the key enablers of the achievement of the MDGs. I welcome this initiative from the global community.”

“It is right that, here in Davos, we tell the truth that there is a development emergency and that we must summon everyone in a call to action to take measures to meet the MDGs by 2015,” said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“This [call to action] fits in with the idea of creative capitalism,” said Gates. “We can make more progress and it is important to be part of this endeavour,” he said. “I want to challenge the business community” to join the renewed efforts of governments and NGOs, said Chambers. “It’s the power of collaborative innovation that makes a difference,” he said.

The joint statement said:

“At the Millennium Summit in 2000 the international community – every world leader, every international body, almost every country – vowed to spare no effort to achieve the seven key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Halfway to 2015 we have made some vital progress:

• 3 million more children survive every year
• 2 million people now receive AIDs treatment
• There are 41 million more children in school
• 2 million lives are saved every year by immunization
• Polio, leprosy and neonatal tetanus are on the verge of elimination
• African economies have been growing at 6% for the past three years, and are set to grow faster in the years ahead

This progress inspires us all to do more. We know we can make a difference. But we still face an enormous challenge – a development emergency:

• 72 million children are still not in school and many who are receive a very poor quality education.Half of the developing world lack basic sanitation.
• If current trends continue, the world is likely to miss the MDG sanitation target by almost 600 million people.
• Over half a million women still die each year from treatable and preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
• Over 33 million people are living with HIV, and more than 1 million people die of malaria every year, including one child every 30 seconds.
• 980 million people still live on less than US$ 1 a day.

So without an extraordinary effort we will fail to achieve the MDGs. 2008 is a critical year. If we don’t begin to get back on track we will fail. Today in Davos we – the undersigned – commit to work to make 2008 a turning point in the fight against poverty. We are pleased to join the 19 countries and 21 private sector companies that are now signed up to the MDG Call to Action. And we pledge to work together to help the world get back on track to meet the MDGs.

We know we will only succeed if governments, the private sector, faith groups, civil society and NGOs work together.

And to catalyse, inspire and focus activity within this broad coalition – and to measure progress towards the 2015 pledges – today we agree that the world community should set some 2010 milestones towards our 2015 goals, including:

• 75 million more people lifted out of extreme poverty in Africa
• 25 million more children in school
• 4 million more children’s lives saved
• 35 million more births need to be attended by skilled health personnel between now and 2010
• 70 million more people given improved access to water

A series of international meetings throughout 2008 will identify what more we all need to do to meet these goals and agree concrete action plans:

• In the spring, the private sector will meet and announce new measures to help achieve the MDGs.
• In June, European leaders will set out what more the EU can do to accelerate progress towards the MDGs.
• In July, the Japan G8 Summit will focus on development and climate change.
• In September, at the UN – and for the first time ever – governments, businesses, civil society organizations, NGOs and faith groups will all convene to mark the halfway point to the MDGs, take stock of progress and agree additional steps the international community will take to accelerate action.
• And the Italians have agreed to take this forward into 2008 with their G8.
• The world is witnessing a development emergency, and we need a worldwide effort to get back on track to meet the MDGs. We commit to join and redouble our efforts.”

More than 2,500 participants from 88 countries are in Davos, Switzerland, including 27 heads of state or government, 113 cabinet ministers, along with religious leaders, media leaders and heads of non-governmental organizations. Around 60% of the participants are business leaders drawn principally from the Forum’s members – 1,000 of the foremost companies from around the world and across all economic sectors.

Malnutrition Takes a Heavy Toll On Children

Malnutrition Takes a Heavy Toll On Children

The East African (Nairobi)
NEWS
28 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008

By Zachary Ochieng
Nairobi
DESPITE THE USE OF WHO guidelines in hospitals for the care and management of children with severe malnutrition, many in Africa still continue to die, raising doubts on the efficacy of the world health body’s protocol.

The findings are contained in a new study published in PLoS Medicine, a peer-reviewed open access medical journal of the Public Library of Science.

Titled Children With Severe Malnutrition: Can Those at Highest Risk of Death Be Identified with the WHO Protocol?, the study was jointly conducted by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri), the University of Oxford and the Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, London.

The study was carried out to verify the widely held belief that case fatality rates above 5 per cent were unacceptable and could be attributed to inadequately trained health staff, poor compliance with WHO treatment guidelines, or even faulty practices.

It is worth noting that WHO has developed guidelines for the management of severely malnourished children in hospital. However, death rates among children admitted to hospital with severe malnutrition are still high, mostly 20 per cent, or sometimes even higher. Whereas a number of hospitals have recorded declining death rates following the introduction of the WHO guidelines, the WHO’s acceptable level of 5 per cent has not been achieved.

For purposes of this study, the researchers conducted a retrospective surveillance of 920 severely malnourished children admitted to Kilifi District Hospital in Kenya’s Coast Province for clinical and nutritional rehabilitation.

The hospital serves a rural population of over 230,000. Malnutrition is endemic within the community, with over 40 per cent of children less than 5 years old being malnourished.

The hospital’s paediatric ward admits more than 5,000 children each year, with severe malnutrition being the fourth commonest cause of admission to hospital and second commonest cause of in-hospital fatality. The hospital currently reports a death rate of approximately 19 per cent among children admitted with severe malnutrition, even with the implementation of the WHO guidelines.

According to their findings, the quality of care delivered by this hospital could be considered excellent in terms of its paediatric staff – trained in paediatric emergency triage assessment and treatment, scientific experience, equipment, and laboratory services. However, the hospital still recorded higher fatality rates – about 19 per cent.

THE RESEARCHERS STUDIED all severely malnourished children over three months of age who were admitted to the hospital. The children were treated according to the WHO guidelines, and the research group collected data on the condition of the children after treatment, as well as for relevant clinical signs and symptoms.

They then examined the data to see which characteristics on admission were associated with early death (less than 48 hours) and later deaths. They found that four clinical features, which could be easily ascertained at the bedside on admission, were associated with a large proportion of the early deaths. These four signs were slow heart rate, weak pulse volume, depressed consciousness level and a delayed capillary refilling time.

Of the 920 children in the study, 176 (19 per cent) died, with 59 (33 per cent) deaths occurring within 48 hours of admission. The researchers conclude that there is insufficient evidence to indicate that the practices are faulty

Removal of Trade Tariffs Not Solution for Continent

Removal of Trade Tariffs Not Solution for Continent

New Vision (Kampala)
OPINION
28 January 2008
Posted to the web 29 January 2008

By John Ssempebwa
Kampala
REFERENCE is made to the article titled “African Governments Should Remove Trade Tariffs”, published in The New Vision, January 9. Removing trade tariffs is no solution to Africa’s problems; it cuts government revenue, worsens trade deficits and poverty. In May 2007, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) collected sh228b of which sh122b was from imports.

Without import duties levied, especially on finished goods that are also produced in Uganda and ostentatious goods, how will government fund roads, hospitals, drugs and arms without donors?

Whereas Europe can depend on indirect domestic taxes levied on red light districts, casinos, tobacco and alcohol, Uganda cannot remove import duties because its per capita income is less than $400 meaning that less than 1% of all Ugandans have entered a casino.

Uganda has an increasing trade deficit of sh$1.4b. Trade deficits cause massive lay offs as imported goods subject domestically produced goods to competition, forcing sub-optimal capacity utilisation and laying off workers.

This malignant tumour in the Ugandan economy is the reason why impressive growth rates have not translated into better welfare for many Ugandans (Gross Domestic Product is an inverse function of the trade deficit).

Removal of import duties will encourage consumption of imports, worsen the trade deficit, jobs will be lost and markets for agro produce will dwindle. Poverty will worsen.

Before import duty is removed, consumers should have sufficient purchasing power to spend and pay indirect taxes without the consumer feeling the tax burden. This requires industrialisation. In fact, Europe’s industrial development was shaped by fierce protectionism called “Fortress Europe” during which Britain levied an average tariff of 32%, France developed its current agricultural protective system, Bismarck dumped the German Free Trade Policy and average industrial tariffs stood at 19% in Europe.

More so, Intra-African trade liberalisation needs a cautious approach since the EU has already signed free trade areas with leading African economies such as South Africa and Egypt.

Removing tariffs on goods from South Africa in the absence of appropriate rules of origin means offering the EU duty free market access to Uganda yet “EU” has no offensive trade interests in Uganda. Why offer a lift to a rich man who has several Rolls Royces?

The principle of asymmetry has to come into play when discussing removal of trade tariffs and any other trade controls in Africa. Some countries are at higher levels of development because of advantages bestowed upon them by European colonial masters. Full and immediate liberalisation of trade with such countries can only mean jobs lost in Uganda.

In lieu of liberalising Africa’s trade, if the EU is interested in enabling Africa to benefit from world trade, the EU must compensate Africa for the damaging effects of liberalisation implied in the Economic Partnership Agreements.

Africa’s true allies will not be those who impose liberalisation but those who help Africa adjust to the liberalisation by solving its supply side constraints, for example, building the big dam in neighbouring Congo (The dam could reduce the cost of power in Central and Eastern Africa by 50%), building an alternative route for Uganda’s imports through Tanzania.

These projects have been identified by Africa and are contained in the development matrix of the Economic Partnership Agreements Negotiations.

It is unfortunate that the EU agrees to the development matrix but hates a detailed one that identifies the costs and exact projects. Africa seems to know its problems better now. Liberalisation is surely not the solution to our problems.

The writer is the Director of Trade at the Private Sector Foundation

Some (NOT me) claim that AfDB Should be Africa’s Premier Development Institution

I am personally NOT convinced that the ADB/AfDB is actually the best… or even that good for African Development. I have spoken to them several times concerning projects and have found them to be… well let me just say indifferent to projects that are not traditional and conservative in their approach Africa not only needs but deserves aggressive lending practices for development… I do NOT find that with this bank… however in difference to fairness to them am posting this article.

AfDB Should be Africa’s Premier Development Institution – Says Panel Report

Accra Mail (Accra)
NEWS
28 January 2008
Posted to the web 28 January 2008
Accra
An Independent High Level Panel has said in a report released on Tuesday in Tunis that given the huge development challenges it faces, Africa, more than any other region, needs a premier continental development bank.

The report, “Investing in Africa’s Future: The ADB in the 21st Century,” says while poverty reduction and promoting growth and economic integration will be the overarching objective of the Bank, it should foster economic integration and, particularly, undertake regional investments in which returns are greater than those for any individual country and which may otherwise not be financed.

It says the AfDB of the 21st Century should provide a range of regional public goods, particularly knowledge and advisory services, to transfer experience and best practice, and to be an African voice on development internationally.

The report says the Bank should also channel development capital efficiently to all African countries on reasonable and predictable terms. The report lists four interlocking priorities for the Bank:

- Investing in infrastructure: Africa will never become competitive, or realize its productive potential, without massive improvements in infrastructure, with needs estimated at US$20-30 billion a year. Infrastructure is a precondition for, and an enabler of growth for private sector development. The report notes that the ADB already has solid experience in infrastructure, adding that the Bank has generally performed well on its mandate from the African Union to implement the infrastructure component of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as well as lead several multi-donor initiatives.

The panel, however, believes that the Bank must be more proactive and take more leadership in defining needs and priorities, designing strategies and action plans, bringing stakeholders together, and coordinating and managing implementation. It should help Africa build infrastructure to effectively mitigate and adapt to climate change through clean energies (hydro and wind power), all-weather transport and irrigation projects. More of the resources available for infrastructure should be channeled through the ADB.

- Building capable states: The report says effective and accountable institutions are essential for sustained economic growth and social progress, explaining that building capable states must be at the heart of the ADB’s work just as engaging in fragile and post-conflict states is an imperative rather than an option.

The Bank should have a leading role in issues of governance but intervene selectively, consistent with its other areas of focus. Its assistance must be flexible, fast, and consistent, well coordinated with other players. Additional financial and human resources will have to be directed accordingly.

- Promoting the private sector: The report asserts that that the private sector will drive growth in Africa noting that it behooves the ADB to help it do so by promoting an enabling environment, by facilitating investment and entrepreneurship. This means listening to the private sector, lending directly to private interests, and helping governments reform their legal and regulatory frameworks to strengthen governance and accountability.

The ADB must better exploit the advantages of its integrated structure, building up country and regional strategies that encompass both the private and public sectors and foster the synergies between them, the report says, noting that the Bank’s direct private sector operations tripled in the last year and should grow further.

- Developing skills: The advisory panel urged the AfDB to help Africa build the skills it needs to be competitive, noting that in 2030 half of Africans will be under 25. The continent will have transitioned to a primarily urban population. Only economic growth can provide Africans with opportunities. However, to grasp these opportunities, they will need the right skills.

The report says that given the heavy involvement of other donors in primary and basic education, the ADB should concentrate on vocational training, higher education, and science and technology. The priorities should be building centers of excellence, providing the necessary infrastructure for education, and developing mutually supportive links with the private sector to promote the use of local skills.

This 13-member Independent High Level Panel on the Bank Group, co-chaired by former Mozambican President Joachim Chissano and former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, and including the Nobel Laureate in economics, Joseph Stiglitz, was established by President Donald Kaberuka as an independent advisory body to provide recommendations on the AfDB’s strategic vision and on the operational strategies needed in the medium to long term.