E-CONFERENCE ON ‘IMPROVING THE TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT FOR DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA’ WELCOME TO THE E-CONFERENCE The conference will last for some 6 months. It will be in session from the end of December 2003 through to the end of June 2004 . REGISTRATION is FREE : Sign up to start participating   Discussion is organised under 2 main themes: Exploration and discussion of weaknesses: A) In donors’ approach to aid engagement and delivery B) In developing ‘partners’ engagement, take-up and benefit of donor aid. Contributions should seek to offer credible and workable solutions to the problems/issues identified. The collected and edited version of the contributions will be used as a first step in making a case for practical interventions similar to those discussed around the need for the formation of WACEST or a workable version of it. [WACEST – West African Centre for Social and Economic Transformation] Contributors should please provide a short biographical note. Background This conference started as an idea in 2001 at a conference for key public sector officials and senior politicians who were preparing themselves to provide guidance and leadership of governance reform programme in their countries. The main spark for the idea of a conference was the apparent lack of local consultants involved in significant aspects of delivery of reform programmes; other observations put forward by participants in 2001 included the lack of planned support for progressive thinkers in a dynamic sense. It was conceded that local input in terms of local consultants and local politicians was weak, and that there was no planned or systematic way for supporting the development of local consultants or supporting such local input. The conference is expected to maintain the spirit of those earlier sessions in wanting to find practical solutions to identified weaknesses in aid engagement and delivery as opposed to long expositions of fancy theoretical perspectives. These discussions at Abuja led to observations about the insignificant involvement of the local ‘partners’ in the intellectual architecture and design of such aid programmes. It was also felt that, the deficiencies did not end in the design but that the maintenance and support of the programmes generally failed to rectify matters. A striking picture of development effort being to a significant extent about developed countries was painted – one participant pointed out that in England - there were more ‘development institutes in the relatively small area covered by Reading - Norwich –Brighton than in the whole of West Africa stretching from Senegal to the ‘Horn’ of Africa. Another participant also pointed out that if …’these development services were to be delivered in their home countries by the donors, the recipients/consumers would have made their dissatisfaction very clear via well-known channels at their disposal [ the media, pressure groups, local member of parliament etc.] … The problem with aid delivery in far away places is that not only are there no votes in these places for donors but the key actors/planners in the partner countries have little or no moral ground to demand better development services .’   WACEST An emerging theme at these initial discussions was the need for the formation of a ‘West Africa Centre for Social and Economic Transformation’[WACEST] to address some of the weaknesses of development engagement that were discussed. It was also agreed to hold an e conference to collect together the arguments and insights from the sessions as first step towards the formation of WACEST. [An abridged version of the WACEST proposal is attached as a background paper] Images of Development Effort a) Paul Theroux It is easy to be critical of the weaknesses in development efforts but to make progress these weaknesses need to be confronted. Paul Theroux provides such an example ----In his latest book ‘Dark Star Safari – Overland from Cairo to Cape Town’; 2002- he writes:[p.63]… “ … Rae would be in Sudan for a year or two, dealing with landmines. At the moment he was in a top floor room at the Acropole, surrounded by pictures of his family. He was not alone in his charitable work. Duncan from Save the Children was in the hotel, and so was Issa from UNICEF, and Rick (microfinance, small business loans), and the stout Ugandan from UNESCO, and the Dutch team who could usually be seen conferring over maps, and the Bangladeshi (‘But I’m an American now’) who was supervising some UN projects.’ They were all aid experts, and they ranged from selfless idealists to the laziest boon-dogglers cashing in on a crisis. At an earlier time they would have been businessmen or soldiers or visiting politicians or academics. But this was the era of charity in Africa, where the business of philanthropy was paramount, studied as closely as the coffee harvest or a hydroelectric scheme. Now a complex infrastructure was devoted to what had become ineradicable miseries: famine, displacement, poverty, illiteracy, AIDS, the ravages of war. Name an African problem and there was an agency or a charity to deal with it, but that did not mean a solution was produced. Charities and aid programmes seemed to turn African problems into permanent conditions that were bigger and messier……..” Further on ,….[p.202] …….”Mine is not a complaint, merely an observation, because hearing horror stories about uneducated starving Africans, most Americans or Europeans become indignant and say, Why doesn’t someone do something about it ? But much was apparently being done- more than I had ever imagined. Since the Kenyan government cared so little about the well-being of its people, concerns such as health and education had been taken up by sympathetic foreigners. The charities were well established. …… These organisations had grown out of disaster relief agencies but had become national institutions, permanent fixtures of welfare and services. I wondered - seriously wondered – why all this was a foreign effort, why Africans were not involved in helping themselves. And also, since I had been a volunteer teacher myself, why after forty years, had so little progress being made? An entire library of worthy books describe at best the uselessness, at worst the harm, brought about by aid agencies.” ………. b) Elliot Berg - in Preface to ‘Twenty Years of Aid to the Sahel – Finding Problems to fit the Solutions’ – Jean-David Naudet …..” Something certainly is wrong. Virtually everybody agrees that aid has to be made more effective. And everybody’s list for the sparsity of results includes many common items: for example the donor driven character of most aid, the lack of recipient ownership, poor donor coordination and weak host country management, unfavourable policy environments, use of inappropriate instruments.”……..   c) Extracts from ‘Foreign Aid, Debt and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa’ by Prof. Samuel M. Wangwe. ………” Aid programmes are more likely to be successful when the recipient government has the capacity to identify and articulate its own priorities and programmes, and the ability to implement, monitor, and evaluate the resulting programmes in the context of its own planning and budgeting. In the absence of state management capacity among recipients, donors try to fill the gap. For example, they resort to a host of parallel aid management systems to perform the tasks they do not believe available state structures are capable of undertaking. Over time, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for donors, as capacities and resources are in fact transferred to these parallel structures, which come to attract the most skilled and ambitious local technocrats…….. “ d) Excerpt from “Reversing Africa’s ‘brain drain’: New initiatives to tap skills of African expatriates. [From ‘Africa Recovery, Vol. 17 # 2, July 2003 – by Gumisai Mutume] ……..” African diaspora groups have generally relied on ad-hoc, disparate and small scale programmes to assist in the development of the continent. Despite this, many have been able to help build schools, hospitals, and roads, run training programmes, supply books and computers to deprived schools and establish scholarships to assist students. But they operate outside the sphere of mainstream development agencies, even though they may be working towards the same ends. ‘Africa must develop a collective strategy for engaging the diaspora,’ noted the former US Ambassador to Nigeria – Howard Jeter. He says there have been no meaningful attempts to engage the diaspora and no institutional connections exist.” Another excerpt from the same source: …….” Sometimes trained professionals are frustrated by donor policies that have the unintended effect of overemphasizing reliance on foreign technical experts at the expense of trained nationals. In a 1993 report on the effectiveness of technical cooperation, UNDP noted growing concern among African development experts about the persistent reliance on expatriate technical personnel decades after independence and despite major efforts to train nationals. In Burkina Faso, UNDP noted 800 foreigners with university degrees were employed in the country in 1990, while an equivalent number of Burkinabe nationals with university degrees were jobless. African governments and donors are at times ‘too quick to bring outside expertise without exploring the capabilities available at home or that could be attracted to return,’ UNDP reported.” ………… e) Except from the foreword to: ‘The private sector- the missing link in African development strategies?’ [Alpha Konare, Meles Zenawi, Ketumile Masire, Frene Ginwala, Eveline Herfkens, Maria Minna, Clare Short.] – Annual Report- 2001/2002 of the Global Coalition for Africa. …….” It is apparent that without a broad and diverse private sector, African countries will face further difficulties in meeting their goals of poverty reduction and sustained economic growth. In other regions of the world the private sector has provided the bulk of the investment that has spurred growth, employment, and the means of integrating into the global economy. We believe, given an appropriate environment, that the private sector can do the same in African countries.”…………………… f) Except from ‘Notes on Consultancy and Research in Africa’ – CDR Working Paper 98.13., November 1998 – Thandika Mkandawire……….” The consultancy industry is a peculiar one. It is one industry where the supplier and buyer are the same: donor countries both supply and demand consultancy services. Much consultancy work is carried out to inform donors. Consultancy services are also generally supply driven, with donors ensuring that they themselves or the recipient demand the services. …. Few cases can be cited where African governments have devoted funds from their regular budget to fund consultancies and where they have, it is doubtful they chose expensive external consultants. In any case, African governments have been priced out of consultancy markets by the high fees paid for by donor-funded consultancies. The best local experts are simply too expensive for national governments. Furthermore, African bureaucrats rarely demand consultancy services which they consider too time consuming. Indeed, they are usually quite contemptuous of the conclusions reached by costly consultants. This is particularly the case when they have participated in the charade: first, by feigning ignorance (and thus the desperate need for consultants); then by serving as informants or moonlighting sub-consultants who provide all the necessary information; and finally by participating in seminars at which the “new” knowledge is imparted to them by consultants.” ……………… Possible questions arising out of the foregoing images of development effort. In the narrower area of enriching the development engagement and development outcomes, what practical support can be given to local consultants/’local inputs’ on an ongoing/institutional basis? Has the essential relationship of the developed countries’ ‘adventure/visits/support’ to Africa changed over the years? Why are development partners from Sub-Saharan Africa rarely involved in the design and the intellectual architecture of development programmes? What institutional connections are there for tapping into the contribution that people in the diaspora can make to development outcomes? Are there lessons to be learnt from the private sector in this regard by development institutions? Kingsley Fossu November 2003 {..Disclaimer... The views expressed here are strictly personal and not that of my employers or any other organization.}

Stemming the brain-drain tide The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) recently launched a major new season of special radio programme exploring the Brain Drain phenomenon on the African continent. Ordinarily, this initiative should be seen as a most welcome development, laudable in concept as it addresses a fundamental problem, which has in the past two decades robbed Africa of its best brains in science, technology, medicine, commerce and industry. Given the harsh and intolerable socio-economic climate of many African countries, gripped under the jackboots of military despotism in the eighties, coupled with the open disdain for the academia, it was little surprising that many of the continent’s intelligentsia opted to parlay their immense talents beyond our shores. With the dynamics of demand and supply at full play, those who found their sound footing in Europe and America prefer to remain there and earn their honest living rather than return to their home countries, which are still bogged down by excruciating poverty, social misery, illiteracy and diseases. That is, despite the return of democracy, which unfortunately has not made the desired impact on the lives of the citizenry. What the BBC World Service Education Brain Drain programme called the African Universities Project (AUP) sets out to do is to find out why Africans are choosing to study abroad and stay put thereafter and identify the inherent problems within Africa’s institutions of higher learning. The BBC Arabic, French, Hausa, Somali and Swahili services will jointly explore these issues through documentaries, discussions and phone-in programmes. And because brain drain hurts the continent both socially and economically, as most Africans who study abroad choose to work and live in their country of study, the BBC initiative aims to reverse this ugly trend. Good enough. What with a recent report that Nigerians in the United Kingdom alone are worth over N94 billion. That amounts to more than five times the nation’s external debt put at over $30 billion. The Wimbley, Middlesex-based Trade and Investment centre’s study, which covered 700,000 Nigerians of the average working age group between the ages of 35 and 50 as its base, revealed that about two million Nigerians live in the United Kingdom. A particular Nigerian is said to own about 100 choice properties in England, each with an average rise in rating from 120,000 pounds some five years ago to 200,000 pounds today. Early in the year, another British-based research study revealed that about 70 per cent of Nigeria’s abundant wealth is stashed in foreign vaults. What all these amount to is that Nigeria, nay Africa is being denied the best of its economic and intellectual resources, as a direct result of bad governance on the continent. When sanity was restored to Ghana’s polity in the late eighties the emigrants retraced their steps to be active partners in the rebuilding process. The same scenario can be re-enacted on the continent if political leaders and policy makers bring to bear frameworks to institutionalise sustainable democracy and deliver the dividends to the people, including strengthening, infrastructural facilities at tertiary institutions. It is hoped that BBC’s initiative is not a subtle way of discouraging Africans from seeking the golden fleece in foreign lands. Against this backdrop, the DAILY TIMES urges the BBC to go beyond the research on the brain drain phenomenon. It should also seek to find solutions to the free fall of our local currencies and trade imbalance between the continent and the developed world.That Nigeria can boast of world class brilliant minds in the mould of Professor Philip Emeagwali (one of the fathers of the Internet) and Professor Gabriel Oyibo (the first African to be nominated for the Nobel prize in Physics and discoverer of the Grand Unified Theorem) who are both based outside the country, is an eloquent testimony to the damage brain-drain has wrought on continent. An the enabling environment must be entrenched in Africa to discover and nurture more of such geniuses. A reversal would entail a more holistic approach, embracing good governance, sincerity of purpose by the developed world and a good dose of patriotism. Published Mar 18, 2004 - 04:44 PM

Sustainable Development: Recent Economic Developments in Africa Recent Economic Developments in Africa Of the 53 countries in Africa, only 5 achieved the 7% growth rate in 2002 required to meet the Millennium Development Goals, 43 had growth below 7%, and 5 registered negative growth (table 1.2 and figure 1.4). For the region as a whole, real GDP grew 3.2% in 2002, compared with 4.3% in 2001. Growth slows in regional powerhouses The slowdown in regional growth is due to slower growth in four of the five largest economies in the region of which only Nigeria is from sub-sahara South Africa, which accounts for about 35% of the GDP of the five largest economies in Africa, grew 3% in 2002, up from 2.5% in 2001. This weak performance despite recent increases in the prices of its export commodities, particularly gold, is due in part to sluggish growth in the euro area. In addition, the appreciation of the rand against the dollar in the second and third quarters reduced the competitiveness of South African exports. And the South African Reserve Bank tightened monetary policy on a number of occasions to reduce inflationary pressures. Southern Africa grew faster than the other subregions With the exception of Southern Africa, growth slipped in all subregions—by 3 percentage points in the north, 0.4 in the west, 0.5 in the east, and 1.5 in the centre (figure 1.5). In West Africa the decline is due in part to slower growth in Nigeria—the largest economy in the subregion—from 4% in 2001 to 2.6% in 2002. Reductions in the pace of economic activity in Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Senegal, and Sierra Leone also contributed. • In East Africa a 3.5% decline in Madagascar, coupled with modest declines in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania, contributed to the slowdown. • In Central Africa the slowdown is due largely to declines in Equatorial Guinea (from 66.1% to 24.4%), Congo (from 2.9% to 1.7%), and Cameroon (from 5.2% to 4.9%). For the second year in a row, Equatorial Guinea is the fastest growing economy in Africa, thanks to oil and gas. • In Southern Africa growth increased from 2.4% in 2001 to 3.3% in 2002, largely reflecting improvements in South Africa, Angola, Lesotho, and Namibia. Medium-term prospects—mixed In the near term, growth prospects for African countries will depend mainly on the strength of the recovery in global economic activity, the outlook for commodity prices, the progress in reducing political and armed conflicts, and the commitment of African leaders to macroeconomic stability and the principles of good governance. Published Mar 18, 2004 - 04:27 PM

Sustainable Development: African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979-1999 African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979-1999 by Nicolas van de Walle (Author) This book explains why African countries have remained mired in a disastrous economic crisis since the late 1970s. It shows that dynamics internal to African state structures largely explain this failure to overcome economic difficulties rather than external pressures on these same structures as is often argued. Far from being prevented from undertaking reforms by societal interest and pressure groups, clientelism within the state elite, ideological factors and low state capacity have resulted in some limited reform, but much prevarication and manipulation of the reform process, by governments that do not really believe that reform will be effective.   Published Mar 13, 2004 - 02:41 PM

Women in Development: African Future May Depend On Women PONDOLAND, South Africa (NNPA) - Half the buttons on Nophiwa Sinquina's skirt have fallen off, and despite the long distances she walks, her shoes are only floppy sneakers. But Sinquina, 24, has something many young people here, especially young women, envy: a job. A few times a month, the quiet, young woman leads visitors along South Africa's eastern shore as part of a community-run tourism project. Visitors around the world come to see the area's rugged beauty, but for the people of Pondoland - named for the rural Xhosa-speaking Pondo people who live here - life here is hard. Ten years after the end of apartheid, many villages still have no running water or electricity. Jobs are scarce, families are large and AIDS is running rampant. With few prospects at home, many young people still leave for the big cities in search of work, leaving behind households of old people and children. At play in Pondoland are a number of demographic trends - a youth bulge, urban migration and scarcity of land and water - that researchers at the Washington-based Population Action International say may contribute to future civil conflict. A report released by the group last month, "The Security Demographic: Population and Civil Conflict after the Cold War," argues that much of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as parts of the Middle East and Asia, are at high risk for future civil conflict. The report, which found a high correlation between demographics and conflict in the 1990s, also identifies the increasing toll of HIV/AIDS as a factor that will likely make some states more vulnerable to civil conflict in the future. Researchers at Population Action International argue that the best way to mitigate these factors is to improve women's access to education, family planning and economic opportunities. Programs such as the European Union-supported Wild Coast Trails Community Tourism Initiative that provide jobs for young women such as Sinquina can help reduce birth rates, slow urban migration and ultimately reduce the risk of civil conflict in high-risk countries such as South Africa. Whether single by choice or circumstance, Sinquina's unmarried state would make her a prime candidate to be sent to the cities to find employment, most likely as a domestic worker, where she would be more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and AIDS. Sinquina said her job as a tourist guide - which gives her just a few dollars a few times a month - provides enough income for basic needs such as clothes and soap and to contribute to her family. And, although it is not discussed in conservative areas such as the Eastern Cape, the income also makes her less vulnerable to AIDS by reducing the chance that she will trade sex for food or clothes, a major cause of the virus' spread. The second of 10 children, Sinquina is the only one of her grown sisters who is not married and the only one without children. Like her sisters, Sinquina did not finish high school - scarce money to pay school fees often get used up on boys - but spent enough time in school to become literate and speak some English. Both are remarkable skills in a region that has among the country's highest poverty rates and lowest adult literacy. Like most families here, the Sinquinas live between the modern and traditional economies. They keep cattle and grow corn, providing for themselves much of what they need. But pensions and remittances from family members working in the city and mines provide cash income to pay for school fees, housing improvements and smaller items such as cooking oil and soap they cannot make themselves. The average monthly household income in this area of more than 1 million is less than $150. "Girls here marry young, sometimes at 15 or 16," Sinquina said, her English still quiet and unsure, as she walked through the sunset past clusters of traditional houses. South African development researchers Zolile Ntshona and Edward Lahiff, who have studied the community tourism projects in Pondoland, say the five-year-old Wild Coast Trails Community Tourism Initiative is a successful example of pro-poor tourism, which relies primarily on natural assets, like the Wild Coast's beauty, and labor. Pro-poor tourism, they say, aims to spread the economic benefits of tourism widely, particularly to women. In the Wild Coast project, women serve as guides, but also cook food for guests and maintain and clean the houses where visitors stay. The European Union is helping the small program expand further up the coast and hopes its success will serve as a model for similar programs elsewhere. "I've had visitors from Norway, Japan and the United Kingdom," said Lorraine Ludude, a widowed mother of eight, who makes $30 or $40 a month hosting visitors in her home. "The money helps me improve my house and send my childrento school." The Eastern Cape province where the Pondo live has the highest poverty rate in South Africa. The nearest high school to Ludude's village is more than 20 miles away, so she must maintain a second household for children during the school term. A high school graduate herself, she values her children's education. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, political fighting between two rival parties hoping to gain power after the end of apartheid threw parts of South Africa - though not Pondoland - into turmoil. Although the violence has since died down, many of the factors that the report's authors believe contributed to it, such as migrant labor and a large population of young people, remain. Indeed, South Africa today - like Africa as a whole - has an incredibly high number of young people. More than 44 percent of the adult population is between 15 and 29. With few economic opportunities in rural areas, flight to the cities is high and conflicts over land, the best of which remains in a few White hands, is on the increase. Back in Pondoland, young employees say the Wild Coast Trials and similar programs keep them at home and dampen the despair of unemployment. Ultimately, however, such programs are only a part of the solution for areas like Pondoland, mired in poverty and underdevelopment. People here say the money from the trails helps, but ultimately they want things like jobs and services that only the government can provide. "The government said it would give us running water and electricity," said Ludude. "But still, nothing." Published Mar 07, 2004 - 11:21 AM

Sustainable Development: UN Development Official Calls for Expanding Credit Ratings in Africa to Boost Investment A senior United Nations development official today called for greater inclusion of African nations in international financial markets through the continued expansion in the continent of sovereign risk ratings - which place countries on the investor map and allow them access to international capital markets. "The investment potential in Africa is huge," the Associate Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Zephirin Diabre, told a conference in New York on capital flows to Africa, organized by the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA). "Through our credit rating initiative, we intend to support countries in their efforts to mobilize resources from private capital markets." Mr. Diabre said better access to financing should help African countries tackle a broad range of poverty alleviation issues and provide an incentive to achieve the Millennium Development Goals set by the UN Summit of 2000, which aim among other things to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. Over the past year several African countries received ratings under UNDP's credit rating initiative with Standard and Poor's. In September, Ghana became the first country to benefit from the initiative and was assigned a 'B+' long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating. In November, Cameroon received a 'B' long-term and 'B' short-term sovereign credit ratings and, in December, Benin was assigned a 'B+' long-term and 'B' long-term sovereign credit ratings. More sub-Saharan African countries, including Burkina Faso, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali and Mozambique, are expected to receive ratings in 2004. The CCA represents more than 200 companies dedicated to strengthening commercial ties between the United States and Africa. Mr. Diabre noted that helping countries define and implement policies that can create an enabling environment for investment is a top priority for UNDP as part of its support for the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The conference seeks to demonstrate that African markets can be profitable, highlighting key viable financing opportunities and providing a platform for financiers to meet sponsors of projects in Africa. Attendees include representatives from major United States financial institutions, business, and government and African financial institutions and companies. The conference programme is set to explore best practices for investing and analyze current trends in accessing liquidity through African capital markets. Participants will review effective mechanisms for public and private debt flows and examine case studies of high yield investments. United Nations (New York) February 26, 2004 Published Mar 07, 2004 - 11:01 AM

Sustainable Development: High Population Poses Challeges to Waste Disposal I think the site would be interested in an news item from the The East African Standard (Nairobi) March 1, 2004 The high increase in urban population, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, has had an effect on how cities intend to manage their waste. Waste management is an increasing modern urban problem that requires concerted efforts from both the public and private sectors. In the coming years, the success or failure of local government authorities will fundamentally rest on how best they manage their waste. Rapid urbanisation coupled with soaring urban population has naturally led to a population explosion in cities and urban centers all over the world, but more so, in the developing countries. In less than 20 years, half of the entire African population is expected to live in cities and urban centers. Hence, in sub-Saharan Africa alone, urban population is expected to rise to 50 per cent, in 2025, an increase of 14 per cent from 36 per cent in 2000. In Nairobi, for instance, waste management is such a severe problem that the local authorities stopped, a long time ago, pretending they could do something about it. Nairobi is currently home to an estimated three million people. By 2020, the city population is expected to approximate 10 million plus people. If the current solid waste generation in Nairobi is about 2,000 tons per day, the expected tonnage, in the next 16 years, then can only be mind boggling. Thus, the natural question that follows is, are our local governments and the relevant city/towns authorities prepared to cope with the mounting and humongous waste products that will quadruple in the coming future? Suffice to say, the quantity of urban solid waste increases in inverse proportions with every rural-urban migration - which is expected to continue rising dramatically - economic development, changing socio-economic incomes and not least, consumption habits. Increased waste products are also a function of rise in the relative proportion of paper, glass and plastics produced in any given environment. In Nairobi, most of the solid waste products are from households, industrial plants, (educational and social) institutions, markets, and waste dumped in the city streets - a phenomenon that seems to be worsening by the day and which seems too, to have overwhelmed the City Council. Unfortunately, for the Nairobi city, only an estimated 40 per cent of the total generated solid waste is collected and disposed. The remaining waste is left unmanaged, leading to the unattended eye sore that is the garbage heaps sites that are found in the city streets and residential areas. The composition of solid waste generated in the city leaves no doubt that although 60 per cent of the solid waste is biodegradable, plastics, which of course is non-bio-degradable and which currently stands at 13 per cent, will be the city authorities' and environmentalists' future waste management nightmare. The traditional waste disposal, that of dumping it in ostensibly vacant lands or open dumping designated areas has apparently failed - what with increased population and stricter environmental controls. The result of this had been the doubling of the cost of waste controlled services. In retrospect, many local authorities have developed coping mechanisms to deal with the mounting waste. Most of these measures are at the informal level and have not been institutionalised within the respective cleansing and waste disposal department of the local authorities. Other measures have included the incorporation of the private sector to assist in collection and disposal of waste. Needless to say, the involvement of the private sector and more significantly the Community Based Organizations (CBOs) is a telling testimony that the local authorities have been unable to cope with the management of solid wastes. This is despite the fact that on average, waste management absorbs between 30 and 50 per cent of the operating budgets of the local authorities. Published Mar 07, 2004 - 10:29 AM

Conference News: UN to stop funding NGOs in sub-Saharan Aids fight The UN agencies that sponsor Aids programmes say they will no longer direct funds to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in some sub-Saharan states because they lacked accountability. NGOs today called the move retrogressive, saying it would harm efforts to fight the epidemic in a region where some 26.6 million people are estimated to be infected with the deadly HIV virus or have full-blown Aids. Koichiro Matsuura, who chairs the funding committee for UNAids, the UN agency that leads the fight against the epidemic, said the UN agencies endorsed yesterday a proposal by Zambia and Zimbabwe to stop channelling Aids funds to NGOs because they lacked accountability. "Aids money will no longer be given to NGOs. This is what the countries have proposed and it has been endorsed. The money will only be channelled through the governments' central authorities dealing with Aids," said Matsuura, after a two-day ministerial conference on how to accelerate the campaign against Aids in Africa in the Zambian town of Livingstone. Published Mar 07, 2004 - 10:28 AM

Manufacturing development: Undergarments: Africa's only important export item Accra, March 3, GNA - The 2003 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Report has singled out the manufacturing of undergarments as the only important export item in Africa among manufacturers in world trade. "Even then, its share in total African exports is only 1.7 per cent with Mauritius and Swaziland accounting for over 85 per cent of the total exports of this product." The Report, which was jointly launched recently by the Third World Network (TWN) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), painted a rather bleak picture for the continent, saying even though Africa had remained commodity-dependent, it has fallen behind other regions in the world in exports of non-fuel primary commodities. It noted that 17 of the 20 most important export items of Africa were primary commodities and resource-based manufacturers. The Report said while the structure of developing country exports had changed significantly over the past two decades, Africa has hardly benefited from the boom of manufactured exports. Africa's share in world merchandise, according to the Report, fell from 6.3 per cent in 1980 to 2.5 in 2,000 in value terms. "Similarly, its share of total developing country merchandise exports fell to almost eight per cent in 2,000, while its share in manufacture remained at below one per cent," it said. By comparison, Asia's share of global merchandise exports increased from 18 per cent in 1980 to 22 per cent in 2000, while its share of total developing country merchandise exports increased from almost 60 per cent to 72 per cent over the same period. Asia's global manufactured goods trade increased threefold, reaching 21.5 per cent in 2000. Published Mar 07, 2004 - 10:28 AM

Conference News: Prime Minister Tony Blair has just launched a Commission for Africa[26 Feb. 2004]. Prime Minister Tony Blair has just launched a Commission for Africa[26 Feb. 2004]. The task of the Commission .. "will be a comprehensive assessment of thesituation in Africa and policies toward Africa - what has worked, what has not worked and what more can be done".... The initiative is expected to cover areas such as: education, economic issues, conflict resolution, health, the environment, governance, HIV/Aids and culture.  The Prime Minister added that he will chair the meetings of the Commission and expects each Commissioner to consult widely. The Commissioners include: the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown [UK]; Michel Camdessus, the former director of the IMF[France]; Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker[USA];Trevor Manuel, the South African minister of finance; Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for International Development [UK]; Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minster of Ethiopia; K Y Amoako Secretary to the Economic Commission for Africa and Bob Geldof of Live Aid fame. What are the likely prospects from the work of such a Commission o­n development engagement in Africa and some of the issues we are raising at this conference? Published Mar 07, 2004 - 10:00 AM