Africa: UN Committed to Help Nations Pursue Peace, Security, Development - Ban
25 May 2009
Spotlighting some of the major challenges facing African nations today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has reaffirmed the commitment of the United Nations to supporting the people of the continent in building durable peace, security and sustainable development.
Mr. Ban made the pledge in a message for Africa Day, which marks the founding in 1963 of the Organization of African Unity, now known as the African Union (AU). The annual event serves as an opportunity to highlight Africa's achievements as well as take stock of remaining challenges.
Drawing attention to the devastating effect of the ongoing economic downturn on the continent, the Secretary-General urged the international community not to step back from its commitments.
"At the very time when Africa has achieved several years of sustained economic growth and improved stability, the global economic crisis is having a severe impact. We must protect the continent's poorest and most vulnerable people," he stated.
Another threat to Africa's development is climate change, he said, emphasizing the importance of countries to "seal a deal" and reach agreement in Copenhagen this December on a new global pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"If we work hard, and agree on deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, we can avoid some of the worst consequences - but not all of them," said Mr. Ban. "That is why we must also support adaptation, especially for the poor, who will suffer first - and worst.�
The UN chief also pointed to what he described as "a troubling re-emergence of unconstitutional changes of government" on the continent.
"This reminds us not only of the need to support democratization, but to strengthen Africa's capacity to maintain peace and security," he stressed.
Toward that goal, he said, the UN Security Council is building a closer working relationship with the AU Peace and Security Council. The world body is also moving ahead with the UN Ten-Year Capacity-Building Programme in support of the AU, especially in providing technical support for AU peacekeeping.
Africa: Powering Up the Continent's Economies
Africa Renewal (United Nations)
4 November 2008
Posted to the web 6 November 2008
Mary Kimani
A poor neighbourhood in Cape Town, South Africa, in the shadow of a high-tension power line: Africa's poor need access to affordable, reliable electricity to improve their lives.
People in Zanzibar danced in the streets in June to celebrate the resumption of power after a month-long blackout. Zanzibar, part of the United Republic of Tanzania, gets its electricity from the grid on the Tanzanian mainland, through underwater cables. The blackout occurred after cable lines supplying Zanzibar failed following a surge in demand. For a month, residents paid about $10 daily to fuel diesel generators for power. Small businesses requiring refrigeration or welding had to close because they could not afford the extra cost.
While Zanzibar has suffered the most prolonged recent blackout, its plight is not unique. In April 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that some 30 of the 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have "suffered acute energy crises" in recent years.
But solutions exist. Beyond building up basic generating capacity, countries are moving towards "power pooling." Regional systems of power generation and distribution allow countries with high production capacity to transmit their excess electricity to countries with deficits. The larger market that a regional power pool could potentially serve is also more attractive for investors and donor organizations, compared to small national electricity grids that serve smaller populations. By connecting with neighbours, countries can also benefit from regional investments, instead of struggling to finance their own small and often inefficient power sectors.
Such regional solutions, notes Mr. Ram Babu, the chief power engineer at the African Development Bank (ADB), are "in the spirit" of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the continent's blueprint for economic, social and political progress adopted by African leaders in 2001.
Faster growth, lagging capacity
According to Mr. Babu, recent power blackouts happen because the continent's power infrastructure is poorly maintained, prone to collapse and unable to keep up with surging demand. Until recently, he told Africa Renewal, governments invested little in power utilities, but demanded that the utilities supply electricity to the public at low rates. As a result, he explains, "Many utilities are heavily indebted. They are selling power at a cost sometimes lower than that of production. So they are making losses and have hardly any resources with which to maintain their current infrastructure."
The situation has been worsened by increasing demand, Mr. Babu adds, driven by Africa's growing population, especially in urban settlements. "Unfortunately the power supply has not kept up."
An electricity sub-station in Kenya: Much of Africa's existing power generating capacity is aging and needs to be upgraded.
Vijay Modi, an engineering professor at Columbia University in New York, cited another factor. "African economies," he noted in an interview with Africa Renewal, "have been growing rapidly in the last couple of years." That growth, however, has come after a long period of economic stagnation during which there was little new demand for power and thus little incentive to maintain existing infrastructure, let alone to create new means of generating electricity. "It is critical that just as economic growth rates pick up in Africa, energy access and supply does not become one of the bottlenecks," Mr. Modi says.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), South Africa, the continent's largest economy, accounts for 46 per cent of Africa's power-generating capacity, North Africa for 34 per cent and the rest of Africa for only 20 per cent. Moreover, a quarter of sub-Saharan Africa's power plants are not in operating condition and existing infrastructure rarely extends beyond the main cities. All of sub-Saharan Africa's generating capacity combined does not exceed that of Spain.
Southern Africa hard-hit
Southern Africa, one of Africa's most productive regions, has been hit especially hard. In January, South Africa experienced rolling blackouts that literally brought cities to a standstill as traffic lights went dark. Small businesses suffered and mining companies were asked to cut down their power use.
To meet internal demand, Eskom, South Africa's state-owned power-generating utility, reduced power exports in January and early February, causing regional blackouts. This affected Botswana and Namibia in particular, since they import more than 50 per cent of their power needs from Eskom. Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland were also hit.
The blackouts were hardly unexpected. As early as 1998, the South African government acknowledged that it had to invest in electricity infrastructure or face a shortage by 2007. To address the issue, the government hoped to privatize Eskom to bring in new capital and make it more efficient. But parliamentary deputies opposed privatization, preferring to keep Eskom as a government-owned utility. With the question of privatization pending, no funds for expanding capacity were allotted in government budgets. By January 2008, the utility was unable to cope with demand.
Similarly, in January 2008, Joseph Raleru, then acting chief executive officer of the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC), revealed that while the authorities had anticipated the possibility of power shortages because of increased economic growth, they had seriously underestimated power requirements. "When we re-looked at the demand in 2006, it had increased significantly because of new mines, due to the high demand for copper on the world market," Mr. Raleru said. "This rate of growth did not only take Botswana by surprise, but countries like Zambia also saw an increase in copper mining."
Zambian Secretary to the Treasury Evans Chibiliti confirmed that assessment. He told the media that his country now faces "a serious power deficit, which poses a major risk to the sustainability and acceleration of recent gains made in the economy."
According to the World Bank, the demand for power in Southern Africa is growing at about 4 per cent a year. To meet this growth, utilities in the region must not only maintain current capacity, but expand supply rapidly if they want to avoid holding back economic growth.
Huge investments needed
Expanding power production will not come cheap. The South African government estimates that just keeping up with growing demand from industries and the population will require doubling its generating capacity by 2025 at a cost of $171 bn. Of that amount, $45 bn will be needed before 2013.
To raise some of those funds, the government has approved power rate hikes of about 27.5 per cent since 2007. Further hikes of about 20-25 per cent are expected over the next three years. The increases have stirred alarm and protests from the powerful trade unions, which fear the impact on the poor and worry that mines and industries will have to cut power use, thus jeopardizing production and jobs.
Botswana currently imports most of its electricity from Eskom, through a contract that expires in 2012. While it has been cheaper for Botswana to import power than to produce it locally, the government is now supporting construction of an ambitious coal power station in Mmamabula, an area in the country with an estimated 3 bn tonnes of unused coal resources. The project will include two 2,500-megawatt power stations, a coal export unit and a coal-to-methane plant that is being developed by CIC Energy, a consortium of private investors.
But there have been problems. Securing an agreement with regional power suppliers to buy the extra production has taken time, pushing back the anticipated start of operations by two years, to 2013. Costs for the first phase also jumped from $5.5 bn to $9.5 bn. Nevertheless, Botswana's image as a stable democracy with relative economic success has been vital in securing the private sector's commitment to the project. When done, the $28 bn Mmamabula facility will be one of the largest independent power projects ever built. If successful, it would turn Botswana from a net importer into a power-exporting country.
The IEA estimates that overall, Africa needs about $344 bn to create additional electricity capacity, upgrade installed equipment and extend transmission and distribution networks to households and factories.
The massive scale of required investment has prompted governments to ask for assistance. At a meeting with officials of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) in February, Kenneth Konga, Zambia's water and development minister, asked donor agencies to help the region meet the gap in financing power generation. "Zambia and the region are going through a challenging period," Mr. Konga said. The deficit can only be resolved "if all the stakeholders come together and pull in the same direction."
Zambia is estimated to need $2 bn to raise power output to meet its expanding demand. The country has sometimes been obliged to ration power to households and smaller industries to maintain supply to the copper and cobalt mines, the economy's mainstay.
Africa's paradox
According to David Donaldson, the IFC's infrastructure manager for Africa, the problem is not that investors and donors are not willing to put money into the sector. On the contrary, the power sector "is an interesting sector for investors, banks, the private sector and even institutions such as the IFC."
But some problems make investors hesitate, Mr. Donaldson told Africa Renewal. "The high figures that an investor would have to put in, the poor financial state of the utilities, their continued ownership or management by governments, the heavily controlled tariffs and lack of guarantees that the law would protect investments - all these make the risk of investing very high."
Although the lack of funds limits the ability of utilities to expand supply, poor management is an even bigger issue, Eddy Njoroge, managing director of one of Kenya's power companies, KenGen, said at a June meeting in Nairobi of African power utilities. Nearly three-quarters of African countries have experimented with privatizing management of their power infrastructure, and about two-thirds have formed independent corporations. Over half have appointed regulators to monitor how the sector works.
But few such reforms have been properly implemented, Mr. Njoroge argues. African governments continue to award contracts and to appoint people to head utilities not on the basis of merit, but because of political and personal connections. "Leadership and good governance have come short of expectations." African governments, he added, have "refused to let go the management of these firms and continue to appoint people they can control and manipulate to give contracts and reward cronies."
Nor are these the only challenges to attracting investors. Grand Inga, the huge hydropower dam first proposed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the late 1980s, would have a projected capacity of 39,000 megawatts. But getting the project off the ground has been difficult. Beyond the vast sums of money needed - an estimated $80 bn - investors are hesitant because of the DRC's political instability.
According to the IMF, it is one of Africa's paradoxes that while endowed with huge resources for power generation, the continent is often unable to benefit. So while the DRC accounts for about 40 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa's hydroelectric potential and Ethiopia another 20 per cent, both countries lack the needed investments to make that capacity a reality.
Sharing power
"This is why we are thinking in terms of regional integration," says Mr. Babu of the African Development Bank. "In the spirit of NEPAD, regional integration helps to open up resources and markets."
In the energy sector, he adds, "regional integration is best expressed in electricity power pooling." Under such systems, governments commit themselves to regional projects based in countries with the highest potential for producing power. The power is then exported to the rest of the pool members at affordable costs.
Regional pooling would also help countries that lack hydropower generation or coal resources. These countries have suffered particular hardships in recent years because they rely on expensive thermal production methods - burning diesel or heavy fuel - to produce electricity. It currently costs Uganda $0.25 per unit to buy emergency power from British Aggreko, a private company operating one of Uganda's older plants. A new plant, fuelled with cheaper heavy oil, is to start operations in September 2008, at $0.14 per unit.
But with rising world fuel prices, such national solutions may only be of temporary relief. Niger, Senegal and Nigeria have all seen their electricity production costs triple. However, "Pooling power at the regional level is economically rational, permitting savings estimated at $3-5 bn over 20 years," states a joint report by the UN Industrial Development Organization and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
The West African Power Pool (WAPP) is made up of 14 countries. WAPP is hoping to build a power sharing and trading network at an estimated cost of $4.6 bn. Towards that goal, the ADB signed an agreement in June 2008 for a $28.2 mn loan to finance some of the first pool projects, a power connection between Togo and Ghana and a transmission line from Benin via Togo to the Volta substation in Ghana. WAPP has also contracted the Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) to build and operate for 20 years a power station in Benin. The project will likewise expand existing national infrastructure and increase power transmission capacity between Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana.
Such a system will enable countries to trade electricity, making power supply more reliable and reducing costs, says Mandla Gantsho, the ADB's vice-president for infrastructure and private sector development. The West African pool, he explains, will "allow for the movement of power from countries with the potential to produce cheap hydropower to other countries, which currently depend on thermal power stations running on expensive imported petroleum for their electricity supply."
East African countries are also integrating their transmission networks. Kenya is already connected to Uganda and the two countries have traded electricity for several years. Kenya and Ethiopia began building a similar connection in April 2008. Ethiopia has the capacity to produce 1,875 megawatts of electricity, far above its current demand for 400 megawatts, and is building three hydropower dams to add another 1,155 megawatts of capacity production by 2010.
In Southern Africa, Zambia and Malawi have created a joint project through which Zambia can connect to the Malawian grid. The link will supply power to the town of Chama, which is currently not electrified, but holds large deposits of untapped oil and copper. While none of these efforts to pool resources is yet fully operational, says Mr. Babu, they represent one of Africa's best options for resolving its power shortfall.
'Smart subsidies' can help the poor plug in
Shortages of electricity do not only affect economic productivity. They also reduce people's quality of life and hinder achievement of many Millennium Development Goals. Without power, "clinics cannot deliver babies safely at night, children cannot study longer, businesses close at sunset and vaccines cannot be reliably refrigerated," observes Vijay Modi, a researcher on alternative fuels for Africa at Columbia University in New York.
Despite decades in which African governments heavily subsidized power rates and promoted rural electrification campaigns, some 550 million people, or almost 75 per cent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, still do not have access to electricity. In 2004 in East Africa, less than 3 per cent of rural people and 32 per cent of urban residents were connected to their national grids. According to the World Bank, only Côte d'Ivoire and Zimbabwe exceed 70 per cent coverage.
If connection rates are so dismal, what happened to all the pro-poor and rural electrification campaigns? The answer, says Mr. Ram Babu, a power specialist at the African Development Bank, is that governments' efforts to expand access have relied mostly on capping the amount of money the power utilities can charge. But that "doesn't help the people who need the power most," he points out. Rural people and other poor consumers whose homes are not yet linked to the power grid face very high connection costs. In cities where grids exist, the cost of connection may start at $200. Where there are none, construction and connection costs can exceed $1,500. As a result, "poor people in rural areas are simply not connected to the grid," Mr. Babu told Africa Renewal.
To expand access for the poor, a change in approach is needed, Mr. Babu argues. "What are needed are smart subsidies, to facilitate connection to the grid and for those with lower levels of consumption." Most Africans, except the very poor, are willing to pay for electricity, he notes, since they already pay for candles, kerosene, firewood and other sources of power. Expanding access will thus mean reducing the costs of connection, while ensuring that the better off pay more for their electricity use. That would provide utilities with the resources to maintain their systems.
Small businesses are often willing to pay a little more than the current rate, if that would enable utilities to maintain power and avoid periodic blackouts, which can inflict serious losses on business activities. So instead of keeping electricity prices artificially low, Mr. Babu argues, governments would be better advised to use a tiered system of charges.
Kenya is already experimenting with such an approach. Poorer sectors of the community that consume less pay a lower rate than middle-income sectors that consume more. Industries and large businesses pay rates that increase steadily with their level of usage. These power revenues enable the government to subsidize grid connection fees.
In addition, the Kenyan government has opened the generation of electricity to private companies, which compete to sell power to the government-run transmission utility. That has increased the power supply and ended the blackouts that were common in the late 1990s. The government has also sold shares in its transmission company and main power producer, increasing public scrutiny and pressure for better performance.
In South Africa, the government supplies free basic electricity services to the poor in selected areas. Those not connected to the electricity grid, but who use alternative fuels, such as solar power, are granted about $6 a month to help defray the costs of maintaining and operating such systems. But these subsidies do not come cheap. They cost the government nearly $78 mn a year, raising questions about their sustainability.
Cleaner power for Africa's development
Sub-Saharan Africa's energy crisis comes at a time when the world is grappling with climate change. The region therefore needs to adopt solutions that move in the direction of cleaner energy. Currently, the bulk of Africa's electricity is produced from thermal stations, such as coal plants in Southern Africa and oil-fired generators in Nigeria and North Africa. Coal and oil generation contribute to carbon emissions, environmental degradation and global warming. "We need to look at these issues," says Mr. Ram Babu of the African Development Bank (ADB).
Africa exploits only 8 per cent of its potential for hydroelectric power, one of the cleanest forms of energy available. The Democratic Republic of the Congo alone has the third largest hydroelectric potential in the world, after China and Russia, but less than 6 per cent of its population has access to electricity.
Yet developing more hydropower will be of limited use in areas where climate change and increasing drought have reduced the flow of rivers and waterfalls. There are other options, according to the International Energy Agency, such as harnessing the natural gas now burned off as waste in Nigeria and the rest of the Gulf of Guinea, which could meet a substantial share of Africa's power needs.
Projects such as the Mmamabula coal project in Botswana are potentially large sources of carbon emissions, but CIC Energy, the company behind the project, intends to produce gas from coal, including methanol. "Methanol can be used as a cheaper and cleaner fuel substitute for small diesel-fired power plants in Africa," says a company statement. The plant will also look at ways of converting the heat produced during production into steam power.
In East Africa, geothermal energy (produced from volcanic heat) is a potential source of clean and reliable power. Kenya, the first African country to build a geothermal plant, is revamping the facility and adding wells to raise geothermal production to 25 per cent of the country's total current power output.
Alternative sources of power would be especially useful in areas where there is no electricity grid. But they are not cheap. A joint report by the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) found that $4 bn would be needed annually to raise household access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa to 35 per cent by 2015 through methods, such as solar power, that do not require connection to a grid.
Mr. Babu notes that the ADB is trying to raise funds to help countries research and install alternative forms of energy, including solar. But such alternatives will be insufficient on their own, argue UNIDO and ECA. They estimate that even if Africa could spend $4 bn annually until 2030, that would only achieve an overall household electrification rate of 47 per cent. Getting to self-sufficiency in power, with clean energy, says Mr. Babu, will require a combination of donor aid, private investment, greater regional integration and more reforms in the management of power utilities
Africa: New Governance Index Should Poll Public Opinion
allAfrica.com
GUEST COLUMN
22 October 2008
Posted to the web 22 October 2008
George Katito
While the new Ibrahim index assessing governance in Africa is remarkably comprehensive, it fails to poll citizens on their perceptions of how well they are ruled, writes George Katito of the South African Institute of International Affairs.
Few would discount the assertion that Africa is one of the most ranked, scored and measured of regions. The past two weeks alone have brought a flurry of reports and indices measuring the performance of African countries on aspects ranging from good governance to openness to business, from organisations as diverse as Transparency International, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) and the United Nations. Relatively new to the list is the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which recently released the 2008 edition of its governance index.
On the credit side, the index assesses governance in a large number of African countries – 48 in all – based on a rigorous data-collection methodology. Where possible, it incorporates year-on-year data to track the progress of countries. Most impressively, the index is remarkably comprehensive – measuring governance on 57 criteria. Whereas many assessments of governance tend to focus on a few specific areas – corruption, gender equality and so forth – the Ibrahim index explores governance across a broad set of indicators ranging from safety and security to government performance in assisting citizens achieve health, wealth and wisdom.
Unsurprisingly, Mauritius tops the index, with Cape Verde, Botswana, the Seychelles and South Africa making up the rest of a predictable top five. Liberia receives special mention for improving the most, while Zimbabwe snatches 33rd position out of 48 based on data collected in 2006. The rest of the extremely well-thought out index offers few surprises.
Yet, for all its strengths, the index fails to poll African people on their opinion of the quality of governance in their respective countries. This is an unfortunate oversight – given that strictly formal measurements of government performance can at best give a limited diagnosis of the true state of governance in any given country.
The challenge of attaining good governance is often at its core a struggle to win over the minds and hearts of disaffected but influential population groups – be they ethnic, religious or otherwise. Some of the index’s poorest performers – the Central African Republic, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (CAR) and Somalia – demonstrate that some of the most formidable challenges that African governments face in trying to deliver good governance cannot be sufficiently measured by a set of formal indices and indicators.
The CAR – ranked five places from last – has battled to create conditions for good governance, as is evidenced by a string of violent riots and a noteworthy 11 coup attempts in the last decade alone. This is in large part due to extremely fragmented public political opinion and deep fissures among the CAR’s 80 ethnic groups; while various French governments as well as economic and other factors have played a role in bringing about persistently poor governance in the country, perceptions and other informal dynamics have been equally potent forces in maintaining a remarkably high level of political volatility in the CAR.
Similarly, Somalia – unflatteringly dubbed the “world’s most utterly failed state” in a recent edition of The Economist – owes its unwelcome status largely to deep-seated hostilities among Somalia’s complex social system of clans and sub-clans and the absence of a common vision of the nation’s future direction.
In the same vein, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remain frequently cited governance trouble spots due to irreconcilable public opinion and perceptions regarding politics, ethnicity and race. In Sudan’s case, precarious race relations and an extremely dim view of the Sudanese government have arguably fuelled the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region that has claimed close to 200,000 lives and displaced 250,000 people in the past five years.
Likewise, the DRC, which hosted noteworthy democratic elections in 2006 and 2007 and pieced together new democratic institutions after protracted conflict, has struggled to win the allegiance of disaffected and armed segments of the population who perceive the new order as exclusionary and unjust.
Granted, perceptions may be an unscientific means of assessing governance, as they can be at odds with reality on the ground. Developers of the index, a team of Harvard professors, point out that while 83 percent of Ivoirians are optimistic that their upcoming elections will be free and fair, according to a New York Times/Pew Global Attitudes Poll such optimism is hardly justifiable.
Yet an argument can be made that an important ingredient to the success of the index’s top country performers is that public perceptions about politics and governance in these countries are remarkably coherent and compatible. South Africa certainly benefits from the fact that most of its people share similar views on politics and governance. The same can be said of Mauritius, where the population’s political views are represented by two broad coalition parties, and Botswana, where a pacifistic political culture prevails and public opinion is almost homogenous.
Perceptions remain an extremely powerful force in the day-to-day workings of African politics and the overall quality of governance in Africa. By excluding them from its otherwise noteworthy assessment, the Ibrahim index misses an opportunity to set itself apart from a growing pool of peers.
George Katito is a researcher on the Governance and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs based in Johannesburg.
Africa: Continent May Escape Worst Economic Shocks - IMF
The Nation (Nairobi)
9 October 2008
Posted to the web 9 October 2008
Costantine Sebastian
Washington, DC
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Wednesday that the world is facing a major economic downturn in the face of the worst financial shock since the 1930s but African economies will not be hit very hard.
Its experts said the continent will be spared the worst shocks largely because of limited integration in global financial and capital markets. Aid agencies have, however, cautioned that any cut in donor assistance to poor countries will have a devastating impact in the provision of social services and overall efforts to eradicate poverty.
"The world economy has entered a major downturn after being hit by two very large shocks: a surge in oil and commodity prices and the expanding financial crisis," IMF economic counsellor and research director Olivier Blanchard told journalists during the World Economic Outlook (WEO) report briefing.
He said the financial crisis has gotten worse, and no country will be fully immune from the effects on the real economy. The official said strong and coordinated policies can help to avoid worse scenarios noting that emerging countries will suffer from lower exports to advanced economies, expensive foreign credit and sudden reversal of capital flows.
"Those with high reserves and strong fiscal positions will be able to weather the storm," he noted.
Global growth
The WEO report projects global growth year on year will slow sharply to 3.9 per cent this year from five per cent in 2007, and continue slowing to three per cent next year. IMF experts said growth in Africa will be lower than previously predicted averaging about six per cent during 2008/09.
Responding to a question from The Citizen on how Africa will be affected and the impact of the downturn on efforts to eradicate poverty, IMF expert Jorg Decressin said the major challenge facing African countries are high food prices and limited global supply of grains.
He said African countries that will face difficult times are those whose economies are highly integrated into global financial and capital markets.
The whole continent, he noted, will however mostly feel the pinch of weakening commodity prices that are a major component of foreign exchange earnings.
"The major challenge we see for Africa is dealing with high food prices which might jeopardise hard won macroeconomic gains and provision of vital social services," the official said.
He said growth in Africa will not weaken very much during the turmoil period that is forecast to begin a modest recovery in the second half of next year. Mr Decressin called on donors to continue supporting African countries during the hard times for their assistance is vital in supporting national budgets.
Reacting to the WEO report, Oxfam International said donors must not make overseas aid the first victim of the economic crisis. It said in a statement that developing countries need the necessary support to ride out any shock they face for the problem has been caused by rich countries and poor people must not pay the price.
"The 50 developing countries that have less than three months of fiscal reserves left because of the food and fuel crises are the very ones who are going to be worst hit by the financial crisis," its spokesperson Marita Hutjes said.
"This is a dangerous cocktail for them to swallow," she noted in the statement. The agency said there have been increases in public sector spending on health and education in poor countries recently.
"Any IMF or World Bank response to the financial crisis must not eat into this progress, meaning children not going to school," it warned.
Mr Blanchard said the IMF projects growth in advanced countries to be close to zero or even negative until at least the middle of next year. He said world growth will be driven increasingly by growth in emerging and developing countries.
"But we predict that even they will growth at a substantially lower rate than they have in the recent past, seven per cent in 2008, and six per cent in 2009," he noted.
South Africa: Mbeki's Ouster
Daily Trust (Abuja)
EDITORIAL
1 October 2008
Posted to the web 2 October 2008
Thabo Mbeki's recent resignation from South Africa was a major political move that many in Africa did not expect to happen so smoothly and without any attendant backlash.
This is the second time in less than a year that Mbeki's political maturity and respect for rules of the party have been demonstrated. The first time was in December last year when he lost the presidency of the party to arch-rival Jacob Zuma.
In most of Africa, where the common practice is for an incumbent leader to lord it over the party and the nation at large, it is almost unheard of to hear a president obeying a court order or the decision of the party. Former president Mbeki did both at one go when he accepted the decision of the party to sack him, as well as refused to appeal the court ruling that said his government had tampered with the court case against his former deputy Jacob Zuma. He only denied any such involvement in his resignation speech.
As we have all seen in the case of Kenya and Zimbabwe, it took only one wrong move by political leaders to send the masses to the streets, killing and maiming one another. Thabo Mbeki's mature and law-abiding conduct averted what could have been another bloody backlash of an African political crisis. Of course Mbeki's political history wasn't all rosy, as it is the very failure of his leadership style that led to the current crisis which saw him quitting before the end of his second term next year. The clear dissatisfaction with his administration which led the trade unions and the lower elements of the ANC to rally round his rival and former deputy Jacob Zuma demonstrates the fact that he had not succeeded in bringing the much needed gains of democracy that South Africans had hoped to see since the beginning of majority rule 14 years ago. And Mbeki was in a position to make that difference. First, as a powerful vice- president who enjoyed the confidence of his elderly boss, then as an executive president who ruled for nine years. Unfortunately he did not avail himself of the opportunity. The slow pace with which he pursued economic reforms that reversed apartheid era policies were in sharp contrast to the promises the ANC made to black South Africans both before and at the inception of majority rule.
Though a number of educated South Africans have some economic and political gains to show as dividends of majority rule, having been gainfully employed in big multi-national corporations, with some making it to the board of directors, the majority of them still live in apartheid time poverty and squalor. The homelessness and economic deprivation of apartheid days are still very evident in the lives of the urban poor and the rural dwellers of South Africa. Indeed it is the yearning for land reform, Mugabe style that made Thabo Mbeki very unpopular even before his purported political persecution of Zuma became an issue. Certain reports say there are landless South Africans who actually miss apartheid days because then they at least had a roof over their heads. Coupled with what they saw as Mbeki's distant and intellectual personality was the belief that because he was a returnee from exile, he did not suffer the real deprivations of apartheid to make him appreciate the need for a quick and efficient land and wealth distribution among all of South Africa's people, as contained in the ANC Charter. All of this combined with the perceived persecution of Zuma, a very popular, and down to earth underdog, who remained along with them to fight apartheid when Mbeki was safely pursuing his studies and career in exile, led to the groundswell of popular dissatisfaction with the Mbeki administration..
He has obviously left behind a mixed baggage of legacies. But whatever the torrent of popular sentiments against Mr Mbeki, it must be admitted that he was a fine politician in his own way. A great negotiator, as shown by his mediating roles in the Kenya and Zimbabwe crises, a continental mobiliser as shown by the leadership role he played in getting African leaders to subscribe to international initiatives like the New Partnership for African Development NEPAD. And a role model for aspiring leaders of Africa, who should know when to go when they have lost popular support. His historic resignation on September22nd should be seen as the heroic act that it was.
Tunisia: Some Restrictions On Journalists Eased; Online Content Censored
International Freedom of Expression Exchange Clearing House (Toronto)
PRESS RELEASE
3 September 2008
Posted to the web 4 September 2008
After twice being barred from leaving Tunisia, journalist and human rights advocate Sihem Bensedrine was allowed to fly to Vienna on 2 September. IFEX's Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG) reported that international support was likely a factor in the Tunisian government's decision to let her leave.
In other good news, authorities returned the identification card of freelance journalist Slim Boukhdhir, which police confiscated upon his arrest last November. But he has been denied a passport since 2003 despite repeated requests, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports.
Meanwhile, the social networking website Facebook has been made accessible again, after having been blocked since 24 August. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says bloggers had turned to Facebook after their own sites were censored. Two other video-sharing sites, YouTube and Dailymotion, are already blocked. "The authorities want to control online sharing so that dissidents cannot express themselves," says RSF.
RSF says Tunisia represses online free expression more than any other Maghreb country. Email messages are also being filtered, and TOR, a programme that lets users remain anonymous on the Internet, cannot be downloaded in Tunisia.Africa: Globalism, Governance And Growth Critical for Global Progress
Commonwealth News and Information Service (London)
6 August 2008
Posted to the web 6 August 2008
Governance and Growth lie at the heart of the Commonwealth's work, the Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has reaffirmed. He was speaking at the opening of the 54th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 5 August 2008.
The Secretary-General went on to sat that a third 'G' now also forms part of the Commonwealth's vision, that being Globalism, which involves managing globalisation in order to reap positive benefits from the opening up of markets and the move towards a borderless world.
"We are part of a compacting world in which change is unstoppable and so too is the imperative of integration," said the Secretary-General. "The good effects of trade, culture and technology now cross borders as easily as the ill effects of disease, climate change and environmental degradation or terrorism. Global economic phenomena embrace all, whether they are rising energy or food prices, or financial turbulence."
As the Commonwealth straddles the world, Mr Sharma said the association can help to influence and shape globalism. This can be achieved through a globalist outlook by pursuing its goals in alliance with other like-minded organisations and parties.
What is 'globalism'?
'Globalism' is different from 'globalisation': it is an actively pursued mindset, which sees the world as one, and forges collective responses in shared situations. - Kamalesh Sharma
"We can find new partners beyond our membership, in different inter-governmental bodies, in foundations or the private sector. Everything about the world that we live in and the attributes that we ourselves bring to it, decree that we should continue to look outwards and to invest our huge access and authority for even greater causes. We can see our models of best practice used far beyond our own confines."
The interconnectedness of today's global society, Mr Sharma said, has been accelerated by the internet, while the reach of civil and uncivil society has been facilitated through globalisation. He stressed that the challenges of global society require global scrutiny and responses. Hence the importance of global bodies such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in providing a platform for dialogue and action at global fora.
The Secretary-General continued that all Commonwealth leaders had already agreed at their Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala, Uganda in November 2007 on the need for reform of some key international organisations so that they respond better to contemporary global challenges and needs. Mr Sharma explained that a smaller group of 11 Commonwealth leaders had subsequently met in London on 10 June this year to develop a more detailed common position on rethinking and reforming global institutions.
The next step in the Commonwealth's efforts to promote reform of international organisations would entail a further special meeting of the broader group of all Commonwealth leaders in New York on 24 September, the eve of the High-Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The special meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government will discuss reform of international institutions as well as progress towards achieving the MDGs, food security, and the impact of turbulence in the energy and financial markets.
Mr Sharma continued that climate change, poverty and terrorism have little respect for national borders. He said the Commonwealth is unfolding an action plan on climate change in particular with regional and global dimensions. Specifically, the Commonwealth is assisting individual and groups of member countries in their international negotiations for a post-Kyoto deal. The Commonwealth is also mobilizing civil society networks of statisticians, geographers, foresters and meteorologists. Best models for land management and forestation are being examined, as well as the development of initiatives in natural disaster preparedness and management.
The Secretary-General stated that the Commonwealth is developing efforts in mitigating the effects of climate change, particularly on small island developing states, as they face the threat of disappearing from the global map.
"Responses to poverty and the quest for development are also universal. There are different routes to economic growth, but economic transformation is a house built on weak foundations without the corollary of political and social transformation. And transformation is of little value if it's not democratic."
On the issue of diversity in a globalised world, the Secretary-General said the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding, led by Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, produced a report last year called, "Civil Paths to Peace" which examined the sources of division in societies and the factors that bind diverse societies together.
"The report looked at the fault lines, not just of different faiths, ethnicities and languages, but of young and old, urban and rural, rich and poor. In a melding and interconnected world, a triumph or failure is not for one, but for all," Mr Sharma emphasised.