Back Issues

The future of aid

Yash Tandon

2008-08-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/50185

The following is an excerpt from the concluding chapter of Yash Tandon's new book, Ending Aid Dependence, published by Fahamu Books, September 2008. For more information please visit, http://www.fahamu.org/publications.

For far too long the debate on development aid has been constrained by conceptual traps and the limitations of the definitions provided by the donors. If the recipients or beneficiaries of aid are to own the process, as present trends in the development literature suggest, then the conceptual reframing of the issues must itself change its location from the North to the South.

The conceptual starting point is not aid but development. The horse of development must be put before the cart of aid. Growth, admittedly, is an important aspect of development, and indeed there is no need to labour the point (as some orthodox economists and the World Bank attempt to do defensively). But growth is not the same as development. In this [book], we have defined development, following in the footsteps of Julius Nyerere, the founding president of Tanzania and the first chairman of the South Centre, as ‘a long democratic process, that starts “from within”, where people participate in the decisions that affect their lives, without imperial interference from outside, and aimed at improving the lives of the people and realisation of the potential for self support, free from fear of want and political, economic and social exploitation’. We put it as a formula: Development = SF + DF – IF, where SF is the social factor – the essential well-being of the people; DF is the democratic factor – the right of the people to participate in decision-making that affects their lives; and IF is the imperial factor – the right of nations to self-determination and liberation from imperial domination.

This is in sharp contrast to the mainstream orthodox economists’ definition as Development = Growth + Wealth accumulation, where Growth = Open markets + Foreign investments + Good governance (as defined by the West), and the wealth accumulation by the rich is assumed to ‘filter through’ to the poor by market- driven forces.

The most critical aspect of our definition of development is its political economy and historical context. The developing countries have gained their political independence, but in most cases they are still trapped in an asymmetrical economic, power and knowledge relationship with the former colonial powers that con- tinue to dominate the process of globalisation, and the institutions of global governance (the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, WIPO, WCO, OECD, EU Commission, etc). The developing countries are making heroic efforts to disengage from this lock-in situation (demanding policy space, for example). Some of them (the so- called newly emerging industrialised countries of the South) have indeed succeeded or partly succeeded, but the bulk of the devel- oping countries are still trapped in the shackles of history. Africa, especially, is identified as a continent that has not fared well. From this trap, Africa and others can liberate themselves only if they take matters of development into their own hands – and do not leave it to aid and its delimiting and colonising conditionalities, such as the structural adjustment programmes of the IMF and the World Bank, and now the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

In other words, the national project, the project for self-determination, is still on the agenda of political action for developing countries. Its counter, the imperial project, is also still alive, but gradually weakening. Its ideology – the Washington consensus and globalisation – crafted after the dominant paradigm of free market liberalism and Western systems of governance, democracy and the rule of law, has lost credibility and legitimacy. This is not to undervalue the importance of democracy or the rule of law. Without these there would be anarchy and oppression. But these values cannot be imposed on the developing countries from outside, and certainly not loaded on to the wagon called ‘development aid’, followed by sanctions against those who fall short of Western donor expectations. The experience of Zimbabwe, tragic in its consequences, is an example of the curse of Red Aid, swallowed by a government and a people who had sacrificed so much to win their political independence. It is for this reason that the case of Zimbabwe has been analysed in detail in this monograph.

The fundamental reason why the relationship between ‘aid’ and ‘development’ is not fully understood is because of the way both terms are defined in the OECD-DAC vocabulary, definitions which have also been adopted by the United Nations. These are self-serving, West-centric, value-loaded and arbitrary definitions. It is argued here, for example, that there is no good reason for excluding what I call Yellow Aid (or military and political aid) from the definition. This kind of arbitrary exclusion ignores the military and political assistance provided by countries in the South too, for example, the liberation of Southern Africa. Worse still, it places military aid under the carpet, outside of a rational discourse within its political and ethical context.

In this context, it is argued that the 0.7 per cent has acquired a ‘mythical’ status. It carries an ethical-moral dimension, and provokes a lot of passion, particularly among civil society and in the North. This is an understandable reaction from NGOs and civil society organisations that have a strong affinity with the South on grounds of solidarity, but they have an imperfect understanding of the structural problems with the aid architecture. For the developing countries, the 0.7 per cent is a weapon to hold the North to their promises, even when the last 40 years’ experience should have made them wiser. An extended and expanded version of the 0.7 per cent model is the ‘booster’ model of aid. This is based on the assumption that the resource gap in developing countries (in particular, Africa) should be filled by a massive dose of aid over a number of years until the countries take off, like an aeroplane. The proponents of both the 0.7 per cent and the booster models need to question the resource gap theory. They will then understand that the developing countries do not have a resource gap. It is a gap unwittingly or deliberately created, directly as a result of the activities of global corporations and the misdirected policies of the IMF and World Bank. The irony is that the booster aid is still packaged within the framework of the very conditionalities that are part of the problem and not the solution.

This monograph provides a new taxonomy for development aid – in five hues – in a more rational and comprehensive classification. Development aid is placed along a continuum from Purple Aid (based on solidarity) on the extreme left and Red Aid (ideological aid) on the extreme right. In between are Orange Aid (which is really not aid at all, and should simply be called commercial transactions); Yellow Aid (already explained above); and Green/Blue Aid (whose three components – the provision of global public goods, non-tied humanitarian and emergency aid, and compensatory finance – are segments of the totality of financial and technical and technological assistance that are genuinely developmental. These are part of the global good not only from the national (recipient) country’s perspective, but also from the global perspective. One implication of this classification, for example, is that global civil society in the North as well in the South might find they have more affinity with Purple Aid, and perhaps also with Green/Blue Aid, than with aid of the other three colours.

The body of the book consists of the seven steps that the developing countries need to take in order to exit aid dependence. The most difficult is the first step – the psychology of aid dependence. The dependence psychology has not only occupied the minds of leaders in many (if not most) developing countries, but it has also taken roots in mass psychology. It is not necessary to attempt to summarise the seven steps. Much more can be written on the subject than is contained in this monograph. The important point is that the process has to begin somewhere and very soon. It is an agenda that has to be captured by the people themselves at community and grassroots level. However, it also requires an enlightened and visionary leadership at national, regional, and continental levels.

It is argued here that the present aid and development architecture at the international level is an obstacle to the realisation of the national project. Three power asymmetries – economic power, political power and knowledge power – are deeply embedded in the existing structures. It is a continuing battle for the developing countries to try and secure policy space within the constraints imposed by these asymmetrical structures.

The present debate on the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (PDAE) is located in this larger context to explain the circumstances in which the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and the World Bank and IMF are trying to retain their relevancy and legitimacy, both of which have been severely eroded as a result of the changing geopolitical and economic realities of the last decade or so. If the OECD, the World Bank and the IMF do not achieve what they hope for at the Accra conference on aid effectiveness (September 2008) and the Doha Monterrey Review Process (November–December 2008), then they could face oblivion within the next decade. For the DAC its oblivion is a historical necessity in any event. At best, it should remain as a body to coordinate policies for OECD member countries. As for the World Bank and the IMF, they can salvage themselves if they pull out of Red Aid, withdraw to their original missions, and give voice to those who have suffered most from the developmental failure of their policies and the financial volatility of the last two decades.

In this broad historical and political perspective, the Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) of the UN and the fast evolving South–South relationship can play a very positive role. However, it faces many challenges, and its future is still largely uncertain.

At the end of the day, we need a truly heterogeneous, pluralistic global society that is based on the shared values of our civilisation, and the shared fruits of the historical development of the productive forces of science, technology and human ingenuity. Only on this basis can we build a global society that is free from want, exploitation, insecurity and injustice.

*Yash Tandon is the executive director of the South Centre, Geneva, an intergovernmental think tank of the developing countries. Dr Tandon’s long career in national and international development spans time as a policymaker, a political activist, a professor and a public intellectual. He has written over 100 scholarly articles and has authored and edited books on wide-ranging subjects from African politics to peace and security, trade and the WTO, international economics, South–South cooperation and human rights. He has also served on several advisory committees.

*Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Aid: Rethinking old concepts

Benjamin W. Mkapa

2008-08-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/50184

The following is the foreword to Yash Tandon's new book, Ending Aid Dependence, published by Fahamu Books, September 2008. For more information please visit, http://www.fahamu.org/publications.

The primary and long-term objective of this monograph is to initiate a debate on development aid, and to lay out a doable strategy for ending aid dependence. An exit strategy from aid dependence requires a radical shift both in the mindset and in the development strategy of countries dependent on aid, and a deeper and direct involvement of people in their own development. It also requires a radical and fundamental restructuring of the institutional aid architecture at the global level.

A more immediate objective is to start a dialogue with the OECD’s Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, which forms the basis of a high level meeting in September 2008 in Accra, and to caution the developing countries against endorsing the Accra Action Agenda (the ‘Triple A’) offered by the OECD. If adopted, it could subject the recipients to a discipline of collective control by the donors right down to the village level. And this will especially affect the present donor-dependent countries, in particular the poorer and more vulnerable countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. A simple schema (Table 1) at the end of this Foreword illustrates the differences between the strategy of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the South Centre’s aid exit strategy. Beyond the Paris Declaration, there is still the question: What then? There has to be a strategy for ending aid dependence, to exit from it.

There are countries in the South that have more or less graduated out of aid, such as India, China, Brazil and Malaysia, and there are others which will soon self-propel themselves out of aid dependence. In fact, aid was never a strong component in the development of either India or China. They have been reliant on their own domestic savings and the development of a domes- tic market through the protection of local enterprises and local innovation. They have opened themselves up in recent years to the challenge of globalisation and foreign competition only after ensuring that their own markets were strong enough. Brazil, on the other hand, was an aid-dependent country until only recently. Both Brazil and Malaysia have succeeded in ending their aid dependence through strong nationally oriented investment and trade policies. These included supporting and protecting the domestic market and export promotion, as well as the currency, fiscal and monetary policies that go with them.

In an earlier period, during the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called tiger economies of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan-China and Hong Kong ended their aid dependence mainly in the context of the Cold War. These countries were able to use the opportunity provided by the Cold War not only to draw substantial capital from the West, mainly the US, but also to build their production, infra- structural facilities (banking, finance, transport, communications, etc) and export capacity. They took advantage of the relatively open US market to export the products of their early manufacturing growth. They benefited from the fact that the US needed them to fight communism in that part of the world. This enabled them to initiate state-supported industrialisation without having to account to institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, to import technology without having to pay huge fees for intellectual property rights, and to build strong reserve funds.

This book is not about them, although valuable lessons can be learnt from them. We are now living in a different period of history. This book is about countries that were neither able to take advantage of the Cold War period, nor had the benefit of a large domestic market and entrepreneurial class to develop an endogenous development strategy. We are therefore talking largely about the hundred or so countries that fall within the classification of least developed countries (LDCs), the middle-income countries that are not LDCs but are still struggling to become economically independent from foreign aid, and the vulnerable, small and island economies. Geographically, these countries occupy the huge land mass of Africa, large parts of Asia and Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific islands.

The message of this book needs to be seriously considered and debated by all those that are interested in the development of the countries of the South. If this means the rethinking of old concepts and methods of work, then let it be so.

*Benjamin W. Mkapa, President of Tanzania 1995-2005 was President of Tanzania 1995-2005.

*Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Aid effectiveness: the question of mutual accountability

Charles Mutasa

2008-09-03

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50254

The issue of development cooperation especially aid can be traced back to the United Nations resolution 2626 of 1970 on the international development strategy for the second United Nations development decade where rich countries pledged to give 0.7% of their gross national products as development assistance after recognising the role that aid could play in fostering development in developing countries. The next 30 years that followed saw aid being manipulated and used to meet political ends such as recruiting and rewarding southern allies during the Cold War. The question of aid for development seems to have taken a lull in this period and only surfaced again after the signing of the Millennium Declaration.

The financing for development conference held in Monterrey in 2002 that followed sought to examine the internationally agreed development goals adopted during the past development decade, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that originated from the 2000 Millennium declaration, for their financial implications and to indicate ways of mobilising the financial resources needed to achieve them. The outcome of the conference on financing for development was a turning point in international economic cooperation. The adoption of the Monterrey consensus at the summit level on 22 March 2002 not only signalled a new partnership in international economic relations but also reaffirmed the advantages of the new approach toward consensus building taken by the international community.

In February 2003, leaders of the major multilateral development banks and international and bilateral organisations, donor and recipient country representatives gathered in Rome for the high level forum on harmonisation. They committed to take action to improve the management and effectiveness of aid and to take stock of concrete progress, before meeting again in early 2005. The high level forum concluding statement, the Rome declaration on harmonisation, sets out an ambitious programme of activities, which includes among other things agreements to streamline donor procedures and practices, ensure that donor assistance is aligned with the development recipient's priorities and most importantly to implement the good practices principles and standards formulated by the development community as the foundation for harmonisation.

The Paris Declaration of March 2005 represents a landmark achievement that brings together a number of key principles and commitments in a coherent way. It also includes a framework for mutual accountability, and identifies a number of indicators for tracking progress. There is a general recognition that the Paris declaration is a crucial component of a larger aid effectiveness agenda that could engage parliament, gender groups, civil society actors, new lenders, global funds and foundations in a more direct manner. In the Paris declaration, donors and partners committed themselves to monitoring their progress in improving aid effectiveness against 56 specific actions, from which 12 indicators were established and targets set for 2010 (OECD 2007).

Although the international post Paris process has represented a significant amount of work (in terms of surveys, analysis, consultation process, evaluation of the Paris declaration etc), there still remains the need to ensure that the Accra agenda for action is more ambitious, securing strong input and impact, reaffirming the Paris commitments, reflect on the midterm review of the Paris commitments, and include guidance on areas where further progress is needed.

THE PARIS DECLARATION

The purpose of the 2005 Paris declaration on aid effectiveness is to improve aid delivery in a way that best supports the achievement of the MDGs by 2015.
It highlighted the importance of predictable, well aligned, programmed, and coordinated aid to achieve results. See Paris declaration on aid effectiveness, ownership, harmonisation, alignment, results and mutual accountability. One of its five key principles is mutual accountability in which donors and developing countries pledged that they would hold each other mutually accountable for development based on the other four principles of ownership, alignment, harmonisation, and management for results. The Paris declaration emphasises accountability in relation to parliament and other domestic stakeholders, which can only be feasible with effective structures for dialogue (Tjonneland 2006). Although these commitments build on the content of previous agreements, notably that which is expressed in the Rome declaration of February 2003, the Paris declaration is more comprehensive and reflects a broader consensus.

The Paris Declaration flags CSOs (civil society organisations) as potential participants in the identification of priorities and the monitoring of development programmes. However, it does not recognise CSOs as development actors in their own right, with their own priorities, programmes, and partnership arrangements. By taking a narrow view of CSOs’ roles, the Paris declaration fails to take into account the rich diversity of social interveners in a democratic society and fails to recognise the full range of roles played by CSOs as development actors and change agents. CSOs are often particularly effective at reaching the poor and socially excluded, mobilising community efforts, speaking up for human rights and gender equality, and helping to empower particular constituencies. Their strength lies not in their representation of society as a whole, but in their very diversity and capacity for innovation, and in the different perspectives that they bring to the issues when engaging in policy dialogue (OECD 2008). CSOs operate on the basis of shared values, beliefs, and objectives with the people they serve or represent.

This responsiveness to different primary constituencies explains the extensive diversity of CSOs in terms of values, goals, activities, and structure. It also explains the particular emphasis on human rights and social justice, including women’s, children’s, and indigenous people’s rights, which many CSOs take as a starting point for their development work. As the commission of European communities (2008) noted civil society were the ‘missing link’ of the Paris declaration. Civil society is a fully fledged player in development. It has to be included in the process and supported in its efforts to define its own principles of aid effectiveness. The same applies to parliament, local authorities, gender groups and others who are increasingly vocal in their wish to become stakeholders and actors in development.

Overall, human rights principles and standards should be upheld and promoted through results achieved and strategies used to achieve Paris declaration targets and indicators. Synergies between the human rights and aid effectiveness agendas should be sought and further developed in the ongoing roll-out of ‘Paris’ if other cross cutting policy issues such as gender equality and environmental sustainability are to be considered at the Accra third high level forum on aid effectiveness (OECD 2006). There is much potential for the international human rights framework and the Paris declaration to reinforce and benefit from each other. The application of the principles and partnership commitments of the declaration can help advance human rights in a changing context of more aligned and harmonised aid and new aid modalities.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND AID EFFECTIVENESS

Accountability is now a buzzword in contemporary development discourse. When accountability works, citizens are able to make demands on powerful institutions and ensure that those demands are met. [IDS (2006) ‘Making accountability count’ IDS policy briefing No. 33] The concept of accountability describes the rights and responsibilities that exist between people and the institutions that affect their lives, including governments, civil society and market actors. International financial institutions and donors have been consistently criticised for using aid to further their own interests. The current patterns of accountability in which donor agencies hold recipients accountable, and are in turn accountable to their own taxpayers must change. Donors continue to use unfair, undemocratic and inappropriate policy conditionality, in a way that skews recipient accountability away from the citizens of poor countries. The civil society message has been loud and clear that this 'one way' accountability should be replaced by a system of genuine mutual accountability, which balances the legitimate interests of donors, recipients and, most importantly, poor people. In this regard, civil society continues to monitor whether international financial institutions and donors use aid for their own purposes or for primarily reducing poverty and promoting development.

If donors are serious about promoting accountability, dialogue and making an effective contribution to the fight against poverty they must radically improve the quality of their aid. Failure to target aid at the poorest countries, runaway spending on overpriced technical assistance from international consultants, tying aid to purchases from donor country's own firms, cumbersome and ill coordinated planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting requirements, excessive administrative costs, late and partial disbursements, double counting of debt relief, and aid spending on immigration services all deflate the value of aid.

While some tensions remain between the CSO community at large and governments, especially in the South, we are witnessing a steady shift in the attitudes of both the government and civic groups. Each, at long last, is recognising the critical and indeed, legitimate role played by the other in achieving consistent, sustainable long term development. For the sake of accountability and other reasons, there is a growing realisation that civil society needs to engage government officials, donors, politicians and parliamentarians more determinedly. This reduces opposition and increase support and accountability for national, regional and global policies; it works for greater burden sharing of the cost and benefits of policy. For effective aid delivery, ordinary citizens have to be involved not only at implementation stages, but also at the initiating, evaluating, monitoring and institutionalisation stages. Inconsistent and incoherent policies on the part of donors have to a large extent made policy dialogue and accountability difficulty. Conditionalities stressed by donors especially on governance matters cause recipient countries to account to them at the expense of accounting to their citizens - visit Reality of Aid. Too much aid is project based, according to the donor's priorities rather than those of recipients and so on. Aid quantity is insufficient while its ‘quality’ is not good enough and the transaction costs of aid are still too high. Involving reciprocal obligations over the long term as well as monitored relationships and commitments could be a significant new mechanism to improve the effectiveness of aid and give added confidence to the development relationship.

MUTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONDITIONALITY

Mutual accountability is unlikely to function in a way that does not include donors calling governments to account over basic human rights violations. Accountability in aid effectiveness will not work if the framework used is restricted to donor recipient government relations without going further to include other stakeholders at national level (Uvin 2004). Improving transparency and accountability on the use of development resources is also an important objective of the Paris declaration. Partner countries have a big challenge to ensure that information and disaggregated data is accessible and transparently shared with all stakeholders. Capacity building here becomes necessary for aid effectiveness. Strengthening the credibility of the budget as a tool for governing the allocation and use of development resources can not only improve the alignment of donor support, but also permit parliamentary scrutiny of government policies on development, which is key to deepening ownership. Broadening and reinforcing CSOs involvement in aid effectiveness from inception or design stage allows independent assessments of the adherence to the commitments under the Paris declaration. Multi-stakeholders monitoring of progress reinforces accountability. Donors will also need to improve the transparency and predictability of aid flows by sharing timely and accurate information on intended and actual disbursements with budget authorities.

Ownership and conditionality represent the core issues in aid effectiveness – as ownership is the defining issue in development, while donor conditionality poses one of the gravest challenges to country ownership. The process of deepening the understanding of development partnership and advancing aid effectiveness reform requires further interrogation into the issue of ownership and conditionality from the southern context of development as well as taking the circumstances and needs of the poor as the starting point as well as the final destination or goal. While it is clear the policy conditionalities affect ownership negatively, fiduciary conditionalities also need to be reformed to promote national ownership and alignment.

In discussing mutual accountability between development and country partners the problem of conditionality is central. Dealing with conditionality is of the great importance for developing countries and is related to the ability of the various international agencies and institutions to impose political conditions on development assistance that restrict independence of action and limit the right of each country to define and implement the public policies it deems most appropriate to safeguard the rights and well-being of its people and the principle of ‘national ownership’. Many consultations held in developing countries in the last three years pointed out that conditionalities are antithetical to Paris declaration principle of country ownership and accountability (DFID 2005).

In instances of unreformed supply driven technical assistance aid effectiveness have been patchy and piecemeal especially at the national level. This continued policy conditionality through tied aid undermines ownership. It is, therefore, important if development partners are to build effective development partnerships that increase the volume and maximise the poverty reduction impact of ODA (official development assistance) based on the recognition of national leadership and ownership by developing countries to end all donor-imposed policy conditions. Thus the outcomes of both Accra and Doha should interpret the terms of national country ownership as democratic ownership and elaborate on its implications in the context of countries' obligations to international human rights law, core labour standards, and international commitments on gender equality and sustainable development. In line with this it becomes important to consider the creation of an independent monitoring and evaluation system for aid at international, national and local levels. At the international level, new independent institutions will be needed to play this role, in order to hold donors to account for their overall performance.

The emergence of new donors and creditors, public and private, who are contributing to financing for development, has brought in more resources and diversity to the aid architecture. It is estimated that between 2002 and 2006, net disbursements from non-OECD (organization for economic cooperation and development) donors increased by 60 per cent. These resources are both complementary to other resource flows and an important catalyst in achieving poverty reduction goals in developing countries. Non-OECD donors bring unique perspectives and contributions to the development agenda based on their own experience. Without proper management, non- OECD donor resources could prove ineffective at poverty reduction and counterproductive to maintaining the recent improvements in good governance, particularly where institutional and technical capacity is weak.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In line with the discussions above, it is important that regular and systematic spaces be provided for effective parliamentary and civil society participation in policy dialogue on aid and development effectiveness in all stages of the development process, and that this be recognised as standard practice that needs to be actively promoted at all levels. In this regard, it becomes vital to put in place structures, work frames and policies that govern the relations of these stakeholders with government and donors. Much focus must be put on responsibilities and division of labour to avoid duplication and unnecessary conflicts (OECD 2008).

There is growing concerns at the decline in the levels of ODA in recent years. It is, therefore, necessary for Accra to call for the sharp increase in ODA by a number of donor countries, and call upon all donors to honour their ODA commitments and to improve the effectiveness of ODA in support of nationally owned development strategies. Emphasis here is given to the special importance of continued work towards durable solutions to the debt sustainability and management problems of developing countries. Demonstrating tangible changes in sustaining the momentum and achieving progress in the commitment is key and inspirational for both development partners and recipient countries.

Further, there is need for the Accra agenda for action to consider how it brings on board those that are outside its Paris declaration framework. Emerging lenders such as China need to be engaged not only with the view to win them to the OECD framework, but for coherence and consistence in global partnerships and development cooperation. Besides, there are also big donors that need to be part and parcel of the joint assistant strategy at national levels.

Accra and Doha are important steps on the road to enhance development cooperation for the realisation of internationally agreed development goals, including the MDGs, and to promote dialogue and find effective ways to support this process. There is need to put mechanisms and indicators that work for medium to long term results that go further than Accra. The challenge now is to use the momentum of both Accra and Doha to implement the agreed global development partnership, scaling up efforts on the part of developing countries and the international community. Policy guidelines emanating from both Accra and Doha will need to be translated into concrete actions. This is a technical as well as a political task since the policy instruments have to be identified in detail, in an effort to ensure that they can become operational as each country’s circumstances warrants.

* Charles Mutasa is the executive director of the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD).

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/


REFERENCES:

AFRODAD (2002) Reality of Aid: Does Africa Need Aid?, Harare, AFRODAD Publications

AG. OECD (2008) ‘Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness: Synthesis of Findings and Recommendations’, Paris

Court, J. (2006) ‘Governance, Development and Aid Effectiveness: a Quick Guide to Complex Relationships’, ODI briefing paper, London

Commission of European communities (2008) ‘The EU-a global partner for development speeding up progress towards the Millennium Development Goals’, communication from the commission to the European parliament, the council, the European economic and social committee and the committee of the regions, Brussels, 9 April 2008

DESA & UNCTAD (2007) ‘World economic situation and prospects 2008’, New York/Geneva, UN Publications

DFID (2005) ‘Partnership for poverty reduction: rethinking conditionality’, A UK policy paper, London

EURODAD (2008) ‘Turning the tables’, Aid and Accountability under the Paris framework, Brussels

Fleming, S., Cox, M., Sen, K., and Wright-Revolledo, K. (2007) ‘Aid effectiveness making a difference to poor and excluded men and women: the Paris declaration and crosscutting issues’, DFID, London

Foster, M. and T. Killick (2006) ‘What would doubling aid do for macroeconomic management in Africa?’, ODI briefing paper, London

Goldstein, A., N. Pinaud, H. Reisen, and X. Chen (2006) ‘The Rise of China and India: What’s In It for Africa?’, OECD development centre, Paris

Helmut, R. (2007) ‘Is China actually helping improve debt sustainability in Africa?’, G24 policy brief no. 9

ISG 2008 statement, ‘From Paris 2005 to Accra 2008: will aid become more accountable and effective?’, a OECD critical approach to the aid effectiveness agenda, Paris

Johnson, A., Martin, M. and Bargawi, H. (2004) ‘ The effectiveness of aid to Africa since the HIPC initiative: issues, evidence and possible areas for action’ background paper for the commission for Africa

Kydland, F.E. and Prescott E.C. (1977), ‘Rules rather than discretion: the inconsistency of optimal plans’, Journal of Political Economy, vol. 85, No. 3, pp. 473-491

Melville, C. and Owen, O. (2005) ‘China and Africa: a new era of South-South cooperation’, Open Democracy, 8 July

Naidoo, K. (2004) ‘The end of blind faith? Civil society and the challenge of accountability, legitimacy and transparency’, accountability forum (2, Summer): 14-25

NGO statement (2008) ‘Increasing international financial and technical cooperation for development’, informal review session on chapter IV, 15th – 16th April http://www.afrodad.org/downloads/publications/NGO%20statement%20on%20FFD%20chapter%204.pdf

OECD (2006) ‘Integrating human rights into development: donor approaches, experiences and challenges’, Paris

OECD (2007) ‘2006 survey on monitoring the Paris declaration, overview of the Results’, OECD Journal on Development, vol. 8, No.2, Paris

Olukoshi, A. (1996) ‘The impact of recent reform efforts on the state in Africa’, in Havnevik K. and van Arkadie B. (Eds.) (1996), Domination or Dialogue? Experiences and Prospects for African Development Co-operation, Uppsala: NAI

Rogerson, A. (2005) ‘Aid harmonisation and alignment: bridging the gaps between reality and the Paris reform agenda’, development policy review, 23 (5), September: 531-52

The Economist (2006) ‘Never too late to scramble’, 26 October www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8089719>

Tjonneland, E. (2006) ‘SADC and donors-ideals and practices; from Gaborone to Paris and Back’, FOPRISA report 1, BIDPA, Gaborone

Tonder, B. van (2006), ‘The effects of extractive industries in southern Africa’, in Kwaramba O. A. (ed) Osisa, vol. 1, no. 4, www.osisa.org/node/2086

UNCTAD (2008) ‘Draft Accra accord’, twelfth session, TD/L414, Accra, Ghana, 25-30 April

UN Secretary-General (2005) ‘In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all’, New York

UNIFEM (2005) Results-Based Management in UNIFEM: Essential Guide. New York. UNIFEM.

Uvin, P. (2004) Human Rights and Development, Bloomfield, Kumarian Press

WFUNA& NSI (2005) ‘We the peoples; special report to the UN Millennium Declaration and beyond’, p47

World Bank. 2007. Overview and Policy Messages: The Development Potential of Surging Capital Flows in Global Development Finance, Washington. World Bank.

World Bank (2007), ‘Results based national development strategies: assessments and challenges ahead’, Washington

Wright, K., (2008) ‘The road to Accra: implementing the Paris declaration beyond Paris’, ONTRAC no 38, January

Wright, K. (2007) ’Different countries, diverse state-society relations: the implications of implementing the Paris declaration across distinct country settings’

www.intrac.org

www.intrac.org

www.wfuna.org

China and India in Africa: challenging the status quo?

Sanusha Naidu and Hayley Herman

2008-09-03

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50252

‘Equality and mutual benefit’ are reflected today in Chinese leaders’ frequent emphasis on aid as a partnership, not a one way transfer of charity, -quoted in Deborah Brautigam’s, China’s African Aid: Transatlantic Challenges\

India intends to be a partner in Africa’s resurgence- Prime Minister Manmohan Singh address to the Nigerian National Assembly in 2007


The rise of China and India has indeed created a new set of impulses in the international system. Not only are these two emerging giants making notable waves in the way that international finance, trade and investments are being shaped but also in the way that the rules, which govern the global governance regime are being influenced. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of the international architecture on aid effectiveness. While the debate rages on around whether China and India are new or reemerging donors in the world today, their behaviour as development partners is certainly changing the global aid picture and most importantly in Africa.

Over the past several years, the politics of aid has been an overarching issue in Africa’s development debate. Since 2000 the Group of Eight industrialised rich states (G8) have been promising to double aid to Africa. Unfortunately these promises have largely been unfulfilled with the G8 countries opining that aid money has been misused by African recipients, or that African governments are not conforming to the conditionality of good governance and democratic reform. From the African side the prescriptive nature of the aid policy of traditional donors, their inertia and shifting of the goal posts around what constitutes this doubling of aid has been equally frustrating.

While the G8 and the DAC members are stumbling to find practical ways to ensure that aid is being effectively used to promote sustainable development across the continent, subtle changes are beginning to show with the increasing and deepening footprint of China and India across the continent. Their use of soft power coupled with generous financial packages, and notwithstanding the rhetoric of South-South cooperation has found traction amongst African leaders. But what really makes China and India attractive as development partners for many African governments is the parochial view that Beijing and New Delhi understand Africa’s development needs and are not preoccupied with setting high governance benchmarks that could undermine the delivery of aid, prolong the implementation of projects and emasculate development.
Welcomed by African governments as alternate sources of development finance and for their less cumbersome procedures, these two Asian partners have modelled their development finance on a framework of concessional loans and aid for resource security and infrastructure reconstruction. China’s development assistance to Africa best illustrates this.

China’s increasing penetration of the African market and role as an alternate development partner has raised significant issues regarding the impact this will have for Africa. Will it see new forms of aid dependency? Or does Beijing engender a more inclusive and cooperative engagement with its African partners? What dynamics underpin China’s development assistance to Africa and are African governments more pragmatic in their aid relations with China, drawing on their experience with traditional donors? Fundamentally is China’s use of development assistance entrenching Africa’s indebtedness, leading to a new form of debt risk for African governments? Finally is Chinese aid meeting the expectations of improving the livelihoods of Africa’s people?

Balancing China’s role in Africa is the increasing presence of India in the continent. Similar questions are being asked of India’s development assistance. But perhaps a more significant question is: who will be the better development partner for Africa?

Seemingly then China and India as Africa’s ‘new donors’ has certainly sparked a debate amongst western and African commentators alike. Much of the debate focuses around whether China and India disburse their aid differently and what implications this has for existing western donors in Africa. This is obviously motivated by the fact that China and India are non-DAC donors and somehow represent a challenge to the status quo. Indeed China and India have become significant development partners to most African countries, but their development assistance still remains a negligible portion to that of the DAC and multilateral donors who remain Africa’s main development partners.

DEFINING CHINA AND INDIA’S DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

At the very outset it must be stressed that by not being DAC members, it is complex and perhaps cheeky to measure China and India’s aid through the lens of the DAC definition of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) with its main objectives of promoting economic development and welfare at concessional financial terms, and loans including a minimum grant element of 25 per cent. But since no other structure exists by which to gauge China and India’s behaviour as donors or until such time both formalise their own evaluation frameworks, China and India will be measured against the DAC consensus. In so doing there maybe certain overlaps with the DAC definition of ODA, but for purposes of clarity and distinction we define China and India’s aid as development assistance mainly because of the controversy and sensitivities that surround this topic and in keeping with how both countries perceive their behaviour.

What makes China and India interesting developing partners is that both of them have until fairly recently been recipients of large ODA disbursements. In the last three to four years this situation has altered with a significant decline in their inward aid flows as a percentage of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), which has been offset by their concomitant rise as development partners. [Between 1990 and 2003, China’s aid as a percentage of GDP declined from 0.6 per cent to 0.1 per cent. During the same period India’s aid decreased from 0.4 per cent to 0.2 per cent. See Manning, R. (2006): ‘Will “Emerging Donors” change the face of International Cooperation’, Development Policy Review, 24(4), pp. 371-85] But this does not suggest that ODA flows have dried up altogether. Instead China and India continue to receive limited multilateral and bilateral aid simply because their rising global economic status, middle income profile and transition from aid recipients to aid donors has raised the bar around whether China and India continue to qualify for further international development assistance. To this end western donors are reviewing their country assistance programmes to both countries (Davies 2007, p. 33). And this is becoming more explicit in the Chinese case. The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) China office recently had their programmes assessed in London to determine their success and set out what the next stage of their engagement with Beijing should be as China transitions into a fully fledged aid donor. Similarly, Japan, which is currently China’s largest bilateral donor, has indicated that they will be scaling down their aid programme to Beijing by the end of 2008.

In India the situation appears more complex. New Delhi seems to have taken on a more aggressive engagement with its donor partners by asserting that it wants to exert more control over its aid flows. An early announcement in 2003 and following the 2004 Asian Tsunami disaster where India refused humanitarian assistance but instead provided disaster relief to its neighbours signalled New Delhi’s intentions to be independent and manage its own domestic affairs without interference from western donors. While there remains some donor activity, it would appear that the Indian government chose this symbolic gesture to demonstrate to its development partners that it still remains a sovereign state that must be respected (Price 2004, Jobelius 2007).

Both China and India have very similar aid strategies. It is a mixture of both monetary and non-monetary forms of assistance. According to McCormick:

‘Monetary aid includes grants and concessionary loans. Non monetary aid includes debt relief, ‘free’ or low cost technical assistance, access to scholarships or training programmes, tariff exemptions and outright gifts of buildings, equipment, or other capital goods (2008, p.79).’

Clearly Beijing and Delhi apply both types of aid in their development assistance packages to Africa. Based on this it can be concluded that there are some broad correlations with the DAC ODA definition, particularly where the promotion of economic development and welfare are the main objectives at concessional financial terms. To this end China and India concur that their development assistance to the developing world is precisely aimed at creating conducive conditions for economic self-sustainability and social development. In Africa this seems to be the official rhetoric for disbursing development assistance.

While there may be some broad overlaps with the DAC definition as applied by the traditional donors, there are some grey areas as well. In 2007/2008 the Centre for Chinese Studies based in South Africa conducted an assessment of China’s aid policy and practice to Africa where it became abundantly clear that no one approach can best encapsulate China’s aid policy or for that matter if there is an official aid policy (Davies, Edinger, Tay and Naidu 2008, p. 2). According to the authors:

‘In order to interpret China’s aid policy, one can take various different approaches. One approach assumes that the Chinese government defines aid according to two different formats: “co-operation” and “ODA”. One respondent differentiated between them by suggesting that “cooperation” refers to foreign direct investments and contracts with Chinese companies, while “ODA” refers to concessionary loans, debt relief and grants. Trade concessions may also fall into this category. However, there were conflicting views from other respondents, who identified only the transfer of funds between governments (including the funds involved in donations of aid in kind), as constituting “aid”. These conflicting definitions offered by both Chinese government and well positioned academic sources reflect the ambiguity in Chinese foreign aid policy circles. There is clearly no official definition of aid at present’.

On the other hand, India’s development assistance involves a cross sectoral provision of capacity building, skills development, credit lines and scholarships. While Delhi’s aid policy encompasses a broader range of aid distribution, it is also more limited in scope as it does not look to provide grants in aid (Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Division, 2006) as traditional definitions would indicate. Rather it opts for development of human resources and education, which again results in complexities surrounding the conceptualisation of India’s aid policy.

In sum then, the provision of aid by China and India appear to align more closely to their rising global status, endowed by their historical experiences and underscored by the act of benevolence. [For a concise understanding of China’s aid system see Deborah Brautigam, op cit.] This is captured by the emerging logic of China and India’s involvement in the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) and the idea that as Beijing and Delhi become prosperous they will be able to give back to the poorer countries by assisting them to develop (Snow 1988, Glosny 2006). Nevertheless trying to pigeon hole or compartmentalise the aid policies of each country into neatly defined boxes proves difficult, particularly as China and India’s donor activities in Africa are often inextricably viewed together with their commercial interests and investment projects. Therefore, to develop some synergy with regard to how China and India interpret their development assistance and to make the distinctions less complex, especially in relation to the DAC ODA definition, McCormick’s paradigm of monetary and non monetary forms of aid is probably better suited in assessing China and India’s development assistance activities across Africa.

* Sanusha Naidu is the Research Director of the China in Africa Programme based with Fahamu in South Africa.

* Hayley Herman is the Research Manager at the Centre for Chinese Studies, based at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

REFERENCES:

Africa-Asia Confidential (2008) ‘Delhi reaches out’, vol. 1, no. 4

Agrawal, S. (2007) ‘Emerging donors in international development assistance: the India case’, IDRC, Canada

Beck, L. (2007) ‘China factors changes rules of Africa aid game’, Mail and Guardian, May 18.

Bombay Chartered Accounts Society Newsletter (2006) http://www.bcasonline.org/webadmin/ContentType/attachedfiles/NlJuly06.pdf, accessed 10 July 2008.

Brautigam, D. (2008) ‘China’s African aid: transatlantic challenges’, The German Marshall Fund (GMF) of the United States, Washington (www.gmfus.org).

Broadman, H. (2007) ‘Africa’s silk road: China and India’s new economic frontier’, World Bank, Washington

Davies, M., Edinger, H., Tay, N. and Naidu, S. (2008) ‘How China delivers development assistance to Africa’, Centre for Chinese studies, Stellenbosch

Davies, P. (2007) ‘China and the end of poverty in Africa – towards mutual benefit?’, Diakonia, Sweden

Domain-B (2005) ‘Exim Bank extends $30-million LoC to Burkina Faso’, 15 October, http://www.domainb.com/finance/banks/exim_bank/20051015_extends.html, accessed 10 July 2008.

Ellis, J.L. (2007) ‘China EXIM Bank in Africa’, China environment forum, Washington, Woodrow Wilson centre for scholars

Engineering News (2008) ‘China leads new financiers in Africa – World Bank’, Reuters, 11 July

Foster, V., Butterfield, W., Chen, C. and Pushak, N. (2008) ‘Building bridges: China’s growing role as infrastructure financier for sub-Saharan Africa’, trends and policy option no. 5, World Bank and PPIAF, Washington

Engineering Export Promotion Council, http://www.eepcindia.org/exim-bank.asp, accessed 10 July 2008

Exim Bank of India annual report 2005-2006, http://www.eximbankindia.com/ar06.pdf ,accessed 10 July 2008

Exim Bank of India website http://www.eximbankindia.com/press040707, accessed 10 July 2008

Exim Bank of India press release archive, http://www.eximbankindia.com/old/whatsnew-main.html , accessed 10 July 2008

Eximius: Export Advantage, http://www.eximbankindia.com/exp-adv-mar08.pdf , accessed 10 July 2008

Glosny, M.A. (2006) ‘Meeting the development challenge in the 21st century: American and Chinese perspectives on foreign aid’, China Policy Series, national committee on United States-China relations, no. 21.

Indian ministry of external Affairs, http://www.meaindia.nic.in/ , accessed 10 July 2008.

Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Division (2006), ‘A note on Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC)’, New Delhi ministry of external Affairs, http://itec.nic.in/about.htm accessed 12 July 2008

InfoDrive India, http://www.infodriveindia.com/Notifications/Exim-Bank-s-Line-of-17475.aspx, accessed 8 July 2008

Jobelius, M. (2007) ‘New powers for global change? Challenges for the international development cooperation: the case of India’, FES briefing paper five

Manning, R. (2006) ‘Will “emerging donors” change the face of international cooperation?’, in Development Policy Review, vol. 24, no.4, pp. 371-385

McCormick, D. (2008) ‘China and India as Africa’s new donors: The impact of aid on development’ in Review of African Political Economy. vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 73-92

Naidu, S. (2008): ‘India’s growing African strategy’, Review of African Political Economy, vol. 35, no. 115, pp. 116-128

Nigerian Exim Bank, http://www.neximbank.com.ng/NEXIM%20Bank%20and%20Exim%20Bank%20India%20Sign%20Line%20of%20Credit.htm, accessed 10 July 2008

OECD website, http://www.oecd.org/home/0,2987,en_2649_201185_1_1_1_1_1,00.html, accessed 10 July 2008

Price, G. (2004) ‘India’s aid dynamics: from recipient to donor?, Asia programme working paper, Chatham House

Reserve Bank of India, http://www.rbi.org.in/home.aspx, accessed 10 July 2008

Snow, P. (1988) The Start Raft: China’s Encounter with Africa, Great Britain, Weidenfeld & Nicholson Ltd

The Hindu (2008) ‘Involve more nations in DCA’, 21 June, http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/21/stories/2007062151151700.htm, accessed 10 July 2008

The Hindu (2007) ‘India provides line of credit to Gabon’, 5 July, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/07/06/stories/2007070652741000.htm, accessed 11 July 2008

The Hindu (2006) ‘Exim Bank’s line of credit to Cote d’Ivoire’, 7 January, http://www.hindu.com/2006/01/07/stories/2006010704141603.htm, accessed 10 July 2008

The Hindu (2005) ‘Exim Bank to extend $26.8 m LoC to Mali, Ivory Coast’, 15 September, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/09/16/stories/2005091602150600.htm , accessed 10 July 2008

The Hindu (2005) ’Exim Bank extends $15-m LoC to Equatorial Guinea’, 11 September, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/09/12/stories/2005091202611200.htm , accessed 10 July 2008

The Hindu (2003) ‘Exim Bank extends line of credit to Djibouti bank’, 25 July, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2003/07/26/stories/2003072601261000.htm , accessed 10 July 2008

The Somaliland Times (2007) ‘India gives $20million funding for Djibouti cement plant’, 26 April, http://www.somalilandtimes.net/sl/2007/275/4.shtml , accessed 8 July 2008

Wang, J.E (2007) ‘What drives China’s growing role in Africa?’, IMF working paper WP/07/211, August

Lost in a haystack: gender equality in aid effectiveness

Florence E. Etta

2008-08-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50181

Early in September 2008 the world will hold another one of its mega gatherings in Accra Ghana - the third high level forum on aid effectiveness. World leaders will convene to append their priceless signatures to a document now popularly called the triple A, which stands for the Accra Agenda for Action. The triple A, an outcome document ostensibly from the three days of intense discussions and lobbying is actually a prepackaged condensation from evaluations of the implementation of the Paris declaration and consultations about them conducted between 2006 and 2008 in all the regions of the world. It includes promises to expand and include more of the actors/agents of development such as the civil society organisations (CSOs) who were sidelined in the earlier rendition of the Paris declaration. It charts the broad actions that will no doubt occupy many development actors between now and December 2011 when the fourth high level forum on aid effectiveness takes place.

This paper attempts to show how and why the text of the triple A had to be different from the Paris declaration. The custodians of the Paris declaration insistently make the point that the triple A does not overtake, override nor overwrite the Paris declaration. The former only reasserts the latter.
BACKGROUND

For over three decades assertive programming in human rights, social justice and in particular women's rights have generated and expanded the literature and instruments, created a number of global and local institutions and, above all, popularised the notion and language of (universal and attainable) human rights. The investments have been massive and in many instances the gains have been significant. But the results cannot be said to be equivalent to the value of investments.

Despite being on the international development agenda as a programmatic commitment for over 30 years and with a good number of multilateral, bilateral and private development institutions in addition to many international non governmental organisations pursuing the cause, gender equality and women's empowerment has still not been fully achieved in most parts of the world as in Africa. This is despite the multiplicity of signed, ratified and even domesticated legal instruments designed to protect (and assure) these rights. It would seem that development aid has failed women and the cause for gender equality. Clearly a paradigm shift is required to assure aid effectiveness. Has this come in the form of the Paris declaration?

The global aid architecture has undergone significant changes since the turn of the century. Spurred by development failures in many developing nations, rising donor disenchantment with the reach, depth and sustainability of NGOs (non governmental organisations) led and inspired transformation coupled with their generally weak governance, many donors renewed their commitment to working directly with and through developing country governments. On the other hand, calls for good governance and participation in public policymaking were growing louder and louder. Beginning with the Millennium Declaration in 2000, which gave birth to the contemporary global development framework - the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), a number of significant high level meetings led to the charting and adoption of a number of landmark declarations. The Monterrey consensus in 2002 together with the Marrakech roundtable in 2004 led to the crystallisation and juxtaposition of the notions of ownership, alignment, harmonisation, and managing for results in relation to aid effectiveness. In March 2005 a declaration was signed in Paris now popularly called the Paris declaration, which has become the lighthouse document for aid effectiveness currently shaping the contours, architecture and discourses of global aid. The Paris declaration consolidated commitment among a sizeable number of donors and their development partner countries and actors to implement changes in the planning, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of aid.

Major reviews of the Paris declaration suggest that the narrow focus of the Paris declaration on efficiency and structural reforms of aid delivery mechanisms has limited positive impact on development or aid effectiveness in general and gender equality in particular.

AID EFFECTIVENESS

The European network on debt and development suggests that aid is effective if it is helping to tackle global inequality and poverty. The advisory group on civil society and aid effectiveness states in a concept paper of 2007 that ‘Aid effectiveness means the extent to which aid resources succeed in producing sustainable development results for poor people’. According to the advisory group on civil society, aid effectiveness is important because it:

- draws attention to the big picture, to ensure that the ultimate objectives of the aid system as a whole are being met;

- can help to ensure that the international aid system remains true to its primary purpose in the face of competing interests of a political or bureaucratic nature, institutional imperatives, foreign policy goals, or commercial objectives;

- provides a framework for enquiring into broad lessons of good practice and establishing a consensus on how aid could be improved’, (Paragraph 46).

From a gender equality perspective aid would be considered to be effective if it reaches and sustainably transforms the lives of poor women and men, if women and men equally contribute to and benefit from the investments and from the fruits of development. Aid is thus said to be effective if it delivers on development, reduces poverty, brings about gender equality, the advancement of women and the protection of their human rights and national growth.

THE PARIS DECLARATION

The Paris declaration is currently the guiding framework for aid effectiveness. This three year old declaration with targets for the year 2010 is shaping the contours, architecture and discourses of global aid. As the lighthouse document for aid effectiveness, it has been described by the organisation for economic cooperation and development (OECD, 2007) as:

‘An ambitious attempt to increase the impact of aid on development by promoting more mature partnerships between donors and partner countries. It also seeks to enhance partner countries’ ability to manage all development resources more effectively; and enable their citizens, and parliaments, to hold governments accountable on its use. As well as committing all parties to the Declaration to a clearly specified set of actions and behavioural changes, it also calls for periodic monitoring at the country level, so that the governments of developing countries and their external partners are increasingly accountable to each other for the progress being made’ (OECD, 2007,Chap 3).

The Paris declaration is laid out in three sections namely the statement of resolve, partnership commitments and indicators of progress. Much of the discussions and contentions to date have revolved around the five principles that underlie the partnership commitments: ownership, alignment harmonisation, managing for results, and mutual accountability.

The statement of resolve highlights the raison d'être of the declaration as the scaling up of aid, identifying the management and implementation processes of the new approach, including the adaptability to differing country situations, the specification of targets and their timelines. It also suggests a monitoring and evaluation schema. Two monitoring and evaluation exercises have been conducted to date in 2006 and 2008.

The second section, of the Paris declaration contains 50 partnership commitments in relation to the five principles of ownership, alignment, harmonisation, managing for results, and mutual accountability. The commitments are partner specific so that the responsibilities are clear.

The third and final section of the Paris declaration is the table of 12 indicators and targets to be achieved by the year 2010. Each of the five principles has one or a set of measurable indicators: ownership has one indicator, alignment has seven indicators, harmonisation two indicators, managing for results one indicator and mutual accountability also has one indicator. It has been suggested, on account of the heavy emphasis on the principle of alignment, as shown by the number of indicators attached to it, that the Paris declaration is principally an instrument to improve the efficiency of aid not necessarily its effectiveness.

The new aid agenda dominated by the Paris declaration is seen as attempting to perform two related functions:

1. increasing the resources for doing development, and;

2. better management of aid in order for it to more effectively deliver development and poverty reduction.

To this extent the declaration of principles and commitments attempts to shape (change) the conduct of both aid-givers and aid-takers to ensure that aid does indeed lead to genuine development and the transformation of lived realities. Yet the Paris declaration is silent about the most disadvantaged poor, many of who are the world’s women. There is one mention of the words ‘gender equality’ in the entire Paris declaration. Many of the major reviews of the Paris declaration to date suggest that the narrow focus of the Paris declaration on efficiency and structural reforms of aid mechanisms will have a limited positive impact on development effectiveness in general and gender equality in particular (DCD/DAC, 6-2006, 7).

Gender equality is a fundamental human right, an issue of social justice critical for growth and poverty reduction. No global instrument or mechanism purporting to be at the service of transformatory development can be insensitive to dimensions of poverty, which is itself sensitive to gender, social exclusion, illiteracy etc. To be effective therefore aid in any modality must necessarily support gender equality, the advancement of women and the protection of human rights.

As the Paris declaration moves from formulation through implementation to monitoring, and to the target year of 2010 there is an urgent need for activism around its accountability for gender equality. One practical way to do this is to engender the Paris declaration.

ENGENDERING THE PARIS DECLARATION

On account of the global reach and critical importance that the signatories, the participating countries and organisations ascribe to the Paris declaration, it is imperative that all development workers treat it with weighty seriousness. Thus if a critical dimension such as gender equality is left out or is given treatment that does not correspond to its important role in development effectiveness, it must not be left unchallenged and unheeded. The words gender equality appear in paragraph 42 of the Paris declaration as follows: ‘similar harmonisation efforts are also needed on other cross-cutting issues such as gender equality and other thematic issues including those by dedicated funds.’ Although the Paris declaration provides the framework and principles that could support gender equality and women’s empowerment, the inescapable conclusion is that in its current or original form, the Paris declaration is gender blind.

It is this paradox of gender insensitivity on the one hand, and the great potential to foster gender equality and the empowerment of women on the other, that has captured the attention of gender equality advocates, activists and researchers. Globally, gender equality enthusiasts, women’s rights activists have been working to make this potential lodged in the Paris declaration evident and overt. Organisations such as UNIFEM, Association for Women’s Rights in Development, the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Network on gender equality, to mention a few, have supported the engendering of the Paris declaration and this work is still ongoing.

Although all the sections of the Paris declaration require revision to make them gender sensitive, much of the engendering to date has centred on the commitments, their underlying principles and the indicators. The DAC network on gender equality suggests that the donor community ‘use the implementation of the Paris declaration’s principles and commitments to:

- harmonise approaches to support for gender equality;

- implement concrete actions, focussed on results and impacts;

- be responsible and accountable for … gender equality and women’s empowerment’.

They offer specific suggestions as do many other women organisations about how some, each or all of the commitments, can be made more gender sensitive so as to respond to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Work supported by UNIFEM in Africa and undertaken by a six member expert group on new aid modalities, along with the African gender and development evaluators network, resulted in the generation of 29 gender sensitive indicators to correspond to each of the 12 Paris declaration indicators. It cannot, therefore, any longer be said that measurements and assessments cannot be made of the gender equality and women’s empowerment dimensions of aid effectiveness because there are no indicators.

In addition to the twenty nine gender sensitive Paris declaration indicator set now available as a global public resource, many commentators have suggested that the performance assessment frameworks that include gender equality indicators be used as one way to go.

The clamour for good governance and accountability has popularised results oriented management and/or managing for results in development evaluation. These approaches deploy frameworks that are based on the logic model. Since it has been observed that none of the current assessment frameworks of the Paris declaration explicitly incorporate the monitoring of gender and social equity, one model was generated by Florence Etta working with and as a member of the UNIFEM new aid modalities expert group since 2006.

GENDER EQUALITY ASSESSMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY FRAMEWORK

Gender equality assessment and accountability framework is a results oriented assessment framework, which can be used for any monitoring or evaluation exercise sensitive to the issues of gender equality and women’s rights. The framework matrix (7x4) identifies the monitoring and evaluation dimensions/issues at four levels (rows in the matrix) of input, output, outcome and impact. Each row has an identified and corresponding expected or desired result as well as their indicators. These in addition to other desirable/common dimensions of a monitoring or evaluation plan such as sources of information/data; methods of collection etc constitute the columns. Aid flows constitute the input or first level/row. At this level the desired result is high aid volumes for the ‘right’ programmes, sectors, projects or institutions, which target women and girls, their empowerment and or gender equality.

The entire Paris declaration with its 12 indicators along with the corresponding or complementary gendered indicator set, are regarded as output indicators. The expected results at this level are aid efficiency and effective aid management.

Full scale support for gender equality otherwise known as gender mainstreaming is treated in this framework as fitting at the third or outcome level. The desired results would be gender mainstreaming in all sectors, projects, programmes receiving aid irrespective of their nature where there is routine use and application of gendered tools and techniques in project implementation and in the monitoring and evaluation of results and impacts.

At the fourth and highest level of impact, the transformation of gender relations, more equitable sharing and control of and benefits from resources (and development) would be the expected result. At the lower first and second levels the place and role of aid is very visible but at the higher third and fourth levels the fact that aid is effective ought to translate into more global development outcomes so much so that the direct contribution and thus attributions of change from the effects of aid and of growth become increasing difficult to disentangle. It is for this reason that the indicators at this level appear less and less tied to aid. We however acknowledge that aid by itself will not lead to development.

The programme logic/model subsumed by the framework can be represented as follows: aid flows (input) → efficiency and effective management of aid effectiveness (Paris declaration) (output) → gender mainstreaming in all in aid interventions (outcome) → gender equality and women’s human rights upheld globally (impact).

CONCLUSION

Aid can be no more effective than the Paris declaration is blind. So perhaps it is just as well that the text (of the Paris declaration) cannot be changed as the custodians tell us. For lost in its power and beauty is gender equality and women’s empowerment. The triple A however shows great promise for in its embrace of multilevel consultations and changeability a rich harvest for aid effectiveness is possible.

On account of this we are hopeful. Hopeful and encouraged to use the opportunities offered by the new aid modalities and the tools that have been and continue to be developed in a new way to generate pictures of aid effectiveness that are not partial but whole in the hope that a future we envisage of genuine, sustainable and equitable development can be reached.

History, however teaches that hope alone never delivers justice. Gender equality and women’s rights activists, programmers, supporters and all who fervently desire a world rid of gender based injustice should continue the militancy that has accompanied the preparation for the Accra high level forum well beyond September 2008. As this work moves forward it will be informed and guided by strategies, approaches, tools and techniques that are suited to the task in hand. Never before has this convergence happened.

* Florence E. Etta is currently an independent research, monitoring and evaluation consultant in the fields of Information and Communication Technology Policy, Information and Communication Technologies for Development, Education, Environment, Gender and Development.

* This article is an extract from a longer paper which will be included as a chapter in the forthcoming "African Perspectives on Aid in Africa" book published by AFRODAD and Fahamu

*Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/


REFERENCES: Accra Agenda for Action, Second Draft, June 2008

Civil Society and Aid effectiveness- concept paper (draft of September 17 2007) http://sitesources.worldbank.org/ACCRAEXT/Resources attached 4/7/08

Etta, F, Reference Guidelines for Integrating Gender Equality in the Aid effectiveness Agenda, Final Report of paper commissioned by UNIFEM NY, June 2007.

Eurodad, Turning the tables Aid & Accountability under the Paris Framework, 2008 April

FEMNET, Recommendations of the International Consultation of Women’s Organisations and Networks and Aid effectiveness, Communiqué at a Regional Consultations On Aid effectiveness 26th & 27th May 2008

OECD, DAC Network on Gender Equality: Paris declaration Commitments and Implications for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, July 2006

OECD, Regional Workshops on the Paris Declaration, Emerging Common Themes and Key Messages, November 2006

OECD, Working Party on Aid effectiveness and Donor Practices, Consultation with Civil Society Organizations, February 2007

OECD, Working Party on Aid effectiveness and Donor Practices, Draft Concept Note for the Accra High Level Forum on Aid effectiveness’ March 2007. OECD- Development Co-operation Directorate, Development Assistance Committee, Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment and aid effectiveness, DAC, April 2008

Payne L. & S. Neville, Aid Instruments, Social Exclusion and Gender, Background Paper for DFID’s internal guidance on Aid Instruments, March 2006,

UNIFEM, NY, National Ownership and Gender Equality key to Development Effectiveness, April 2008

United Nations, Trends and Progress in international development cooperation, Secretary General, New York July 2008

Wikipedia http://er.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aid-effectiveness

Mozambique experience on aid effectiveness

Marta Cumbi

2008-08-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50182

African countries and donors share the belief that aid has the potential to contribute to economic growth, reduce poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, the way both donors and recipient countries are performing for delivery and use of aid undermine this potential. Some of the conditionalities imposed to aid recipient countries to access aid reduce the extent to which it can contribute to poverty reduction and achievement of the MDGs by forcing governments to implement policies that lead to unemployment, bad quality of public services and reduced capacity by citizens to access basic services. Privatisations, cuts in government expenditures in public services such as education and health and adjustment of prices of essential goods like water, electricity and transport to reflect market prices result in unemployment, shortage and lack of motivation of civil servants as well as incapacity of poor people to access these essential services are some examples of such conditions.

On the other hand, recipient countries still face challenges in ensuring good governance, adequate institutional capacity and coordination of activities at different levels. Corruption practices without an appropriate mechanism of imputing responsibilities, lack of coordination across sectors and weak institutions and systems combined with the absence or weak donors’ coordination and harmonisation practices undermine the full potential of aid.
BACKGROUND

The Mozambican government has been putting in place policies and strategies aimed to promote economic growth, reduce poverty and reach Millennium Development Goals. Over the last 17 years the country has embarked on structural adjustment programmes to reinvigorate the economy and reduce poverty. Development partners have been instrumental in providing resources to finance government development efforts given that internal resources are insufficient to respond to growing needs. Thus, Mozambique has been an aid dependent country for a long time. Over the last years overseas development assistance has remained strong constituting 29 per cent of gross domestic product in 2000 and 16 per cent in 2005. In absolute terms grants and loans to Mozambique excluding IMF (International Monetary Fund) and highly indebted poor countries grants amounted to $724million and $926million for 2000 and 2005, respectively (GMD 2007). In 2007, aid covered more than 50 per cent of the state budget.

Despite this level of development assistance flow and impressive economic growth averaging 8 per cent over the last 5 years, Mozambique continues to be highly dependent on foreign aid. Moreover, 54 per cent of the population still lives in absolute poverty meaning that the government will continue to seek external assistance to pursue its development agenda in line with its five year development plan, poverty reduction strategy programme/plan of action for the reduction of absolute poverty (PRSP/PARPA) and MDGs. Hence, Mozambique needs to engage its development partners in a permanent dialogue to improve the quality of aid in line with the present aid effectiveness agenda.

AID EFFECTIVENESS

The ultimate goal of aid is to support governments in their efforts towards the development of countries, institutions and the people. Looking at aid flow overtime and development indicators one can conclude that the achievements have been lower than desired. It is within this context that donors, governments, civil society organisations and other development actors started seeking ways to make aid more effective. Several gatherings have been taking place with the view to defining strategies and actions to promote aid effectiveness. The Monterrey consensus of 2002, the Amsterdam high level meeting, the first high level forum on aid harmonisation held in Rome in 2003 and the second high level forum held in Paris in 2005 all made commitments related to aid effectiveness, in which donors and partner countries shared responsibilities in making aid work. In particular the Paris declaration set five guiding principles to monitor the course of actions to be undertaken by donors and partner countries namely:

(1) Ownership: partner countries exercise effective leadership over development policies and strategies and coordinate development outcomes;

(2) alignment: donors base their overall support on partner countries’ national development strategies, institutions and procedures;

(3) harmonisation: donors’ actions are more harmonised, transparent and collectively effective;

(4) managing for results: managing resources and improving decision-making for results and;

(5) mutual accountability: donors and partner countries are accountable for development results (high level forum, 2005 ‘Paris declaration on aid effectiveness’.)

It is against this background that this paper seeks to explore the Mozambique experience on aid effectiveness in terms of mutual accountability and donors’ alignment to national programmes and harmonisation and assess the implementation of policies to advance the country’s and peoples’ agenda setting regarding the delivery of aid.

OWNERSHIP OF DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES

Ownership implies that partner countries exercise effective leadership over development policies and strategies and coordinate development outcomes. It means that governments play a leading role in the definition of the development agenda and strategies, ensuring the participation of all stakeholders, namely civil society, private sector, the parliament and the public at large and taking responsibility for development outcomes.

In Mozambique the development agenda has been spelled out through different instruments:

(1) agenda 2025: a long-term vision that sets development objectives for a 25 year horizon. It was formulated by a group of counsellors composed of reputable citizens from different political parties, private sector, academia and civil society;

(2) the government five year plan which is inspired by the agenda 2025 and sets development objectives and strategies for five years. This plan is formulated by the government with the participation of government officials;

(3) PRSP/PARPA: a medium term plan that sets objectives and strategies for poverty reduction over a five year period; and;

(4) medium term expenditure framework: a fundamental tool for the construction of plans and macroeconomic frameworks for short and long-term, aims to indicate the amount of financial resources needed to implement activities over a three year horizon, to respond to policies defined within the five year plan and PARPA.

The implementation of the five-year plan and PRSP is done through annual plans termed plano económico e social (economic and social plans) and their monitoring is ensured by Balanço do plano económico e eocial.

By definition, PRSP is formulated in a participatory manner involving all stakeholders ranging from government officials to civil society organisations, private sector, individual citizens and donors. From a simple consultation in the first PRSP, the second generation was characterised by increased civil society and private sector participation in the planning process as well as in the production of contents, excluding the macroeconomic framework. A similar structure was created at the provincial level to allow for more citizen participation in this exercise. Parliamentarians, though, did not take part in the process.

Although the PRSP exercise is considered satisfactory, it faced some constraints that require due attention. Unlike donors that have policy experts, both government and civil society organisations faced capacity challenges in terms of human resources and/or expertise to meet the needs of this complex exercise. This has resulted in external influence to the process. The formulation of medium term expenditure framework with its subordination to macroeconomic framework set by the IMF leaves little room for the government to expand its budget to respond to felt national needs. On the other hand, the fact that the government has to comply with commitments set within multilateral and bilateral agreements make national programmes underpinned to external agendas. Thus, there is a need to strengthen the capacity of national actors to promote a true ownership and reduce the conditions that undermine national leadership. On the other hand, parliamentarians should exercise an oversight role in the definition of development agendas to safeguard national interests.

DONORS ALIGNMENT TO NATIONAL PROGRAMMES

According to the Paris declaration, donors should base their overall support on partner countries’ national development strategies, institutions and procedures. In Mozambique donors have been channelling their resources through different mechanisms implying different types of alignment with their respective conditionalities. These are general budget support, sector wider approach and project support. Through the general budget support mechanism donors channel their resources to the state budget. To coordinate their activities regarding the delivery of aid through general budget support and sector wider approaches, development partners came together to constitute parceiros de apoio programático (partners for programmatic support), presently composed of 19 bilateral and multilateral donors. This is indeed a space where these development partners seek to join efforts to honour their commitment to support the national agenda in a transparent manner.

It is estimated that 30 per cent of total partners for programmatic support portfolio representing 80 per cent of the overall aid flow to the country goes to direct budget support, the rest being channelled to sector programmes through sector wider approaches (GMD 2007). Direct budget support funds are aligned to national programmes as their allocation depends on government priorities. However, some conditionalities are attached to them in the sense that access to these funds relies on broad agreements and acknowledgement that appropriate development policies are in place. For all direct support funds the government uses its own systems to allocate funds to different projects and programmes and implement related activities.

Since 2004 the conditionalities have been expressed in terms of memorandum of understanding through performance assessment framework in which the government and its development partners commit to underlying principles for the delivery and use of aid. Thus, the government commits to peace and democratic political processes, the rule of law and human rights, good governance and probity in public life, combating poverty in line with PARPA and sound macroeconomic policies. Development partners on other hand commit to: alignment on government systems, predicable funding, transparent conditions, harmonisation and capacity building.

Sector wide approaches consist of sector budget support and common basket funds in which partners for programmatic support and non-partners for programmatic support participate. Different conditions and procedures as well as transaction costs are associated with these funds. Whereas in the sector budget support there is no interference in terms of definition of priorities and external auditing, in common basket funds there is a significant rigidity in both. In Mozambique five main sector wide approaches can be identified namely for education (FASE) funded by seven donors with $57million commitment for 2007; health (PROSAUDE) supported by 14 donors with $120million committed for 2007; agriculture (PROAGRI) funded by seven donors with $30million committed for 2007; HIV/Aids with $12million committed for 2007 and public finances (UTRAFE) with $8million committed for 2007(GMD 2007). An example of common basket funding is the funds for drugs and medicine estimated at $14million for 2004.

Partners for programmatic support memorandum of understanding are playing an important role in the alignment of aid for both direct budget support and sector wide approaches because it has also been influencing donors through sector memorandum of understanding to base their priorities on PARPA, promote transparency and plan and execute capacity enhancement. As a result, the agriculture and education sector have new and improved memorandum of understanding and for the health sector a new memorandum of understanding is in preparation.

Off budgets constitute a big proportion of aid in Mozambique. Although the real extent of the funding is unknown, it was estimated that more than 30 per cent of external funding for 2003 was off budget. This affects the efficient and effective government role in planning, budgeting and executing this proportion of aid. On the other hand, the endless processes for complying with a variety of donors’ procedures rise transaction costs and bring a burden to government capacity.

An independent evaluation carried out to monitor partners for programmatic support performance for 2006 showed that donors are using the public management systems and are also increasing their overall budget support, although it remains below the target level.

Despite the improvements stated above, some constraints still face the delivery of aid in Mozambique: lack of common understanding about the meaning of quality of aid, ideal amounts to be allocated to different sectors and the role of the government. On the other hand, there is a high proportion of off budgets. There is also weak coordination, which is reflected in the high portion of sector aid as opposed to direct budget support. In addition, there is a big concentration of donors in few sectors such as education and health and overlaps due mainly by the donors’ rules and policies from their own countries and constituencies as well the nature of the sector. Moreover, sectors requiring big amounts of resources do not attract funding from small donors. Bureaucracy from donor countries is also a factor that makes aid ineffective, as they have to go through lengthy procedures before disbursing the funds. Finally, technical assistance that is not demand driven and therefore not aligned to national priorities and the requirement of co-funding of ten to 15 per cent of project costs reduce the impact of aid by increasing the cost of aid with non priority cost and delays in the disbursement of funds when the government is unable to present its share in project costs and therefore, being penalised for non compliance with commitments.

HARMONISATION OF DONORS’ PROCEDURES

Within the Paris declaration principles harmonisation means that donors’ actions are more harmonised, transparent and collectively effective to ensure that transaction costs are kept at acceptable levels and that the burden of multiple reporting is reduced. To this end, in 2000 the partners for programmatic support came up with a formal coordination framework designated joint donor programme for macro financial support. In 2004 this mechanism was replaced by a memorandum of understanding between the partners for programmatic support and the government of Mozambique in which they outlined commitments for the improvement of quality and effectiveness of programme aid and built a partnership based assistance approach under the poverty reduction strategy. One of the immediate partners for programmatic support goals and condition for signing the memorandum of understanding was the improvement of direct budget support. In addition, the partners for programmatic support committed themselves to work in six areas namely align assistance to government policies and systems, reduce transaction costs, increase predictability of aid flows, eradicate bilateral conditionality, promote transparency and enhance government’s capacity. Monitoring was to be implemented through the performance assessment framework mentioned in the previous section.

Despite these commitments there are still major constraints regarding donor harmonisation: single practices and procedures, sometimes including less consensual indicators; bureaucracy in the process of funds disbursements, single and independent evaluations, etc. Examples of these practices are World Bank’s reluctance to use government procurement in some of its programmes and the millennium challenge account individual practices. These behaviours bring serious strain to government capacity and can discourage other donors currently committed with harmonisation procedures and conditionality reform. In addition, failure to meet those differentiated indicators can result in the interruption of funding. Another constraint is the reluctance of some donors to support value added tax on aid in kind. Whereas United Nations Development Programme is currently paying this expense other donors like the African Development Bank and the European Commission do not.

MUTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Mutual accountability means that donors and partner countries are accountable for development results. To meet this objective, they clearly define their roles and responsibilities and install a system through which an evaluation of performance is carried out. As mentioned in the previous section, the Mozambican government and the partners for programmatic support designed a performance assessment framework that monitor progress in the implementation of the poverty reduction strategy programme against the commitments made in the memorandum of understanding. The performance assessment framework defined by donors and the government is based on the matrix of indicators that are part and parcel of PARPA. The government and partners for programmatic support also created two important spaces for dialogue and mutual accountability: the joint review and the development observatory.

Joint review is an exercise carried out twice a year (April and September) to monitor progress towards compliance with commitments set out in the memorandum of understanding. The April joint review makes an evaluation of the implementation of the economic and social plan and determines the allocation of resources by donors according to their satisfaction with government performance. The September joint review discusses donors’ pledges to the state budget. This space was originally for donors and the government but since 2007 it was expanded to include civil society.

Development observatory is a forum in which the government, donors and civil society organisations meet to evaluate progress made regarding the implementation of PARPA and takes place once a year. This forum has also been replicated in the provinces and it is supposed to bring subsidies to the national development observatory and joint reviews. To take advantage of this space, civil society organisations have produced annual reports reflecting citizens and civil society organisations perceptions about government’s performance towards poverty reduction and what they can or have done to contribute to such efforts. These reports and their respective recommendations are presented at development observatory for consideration.

While the joint review is a decisive forum in terms of donors’ aid commitments, the development observatory is a dialogue platform without binding consequences regarding the decisions made that are seen more as recommendations.

Overall there is a positive evaluation regarding the creation and pertinence of these two spaces because they allow for a systematic monitoring of both government and donors’ performance within the framework of commitments set out in the memorandum of understanding. Joint review in particular can be seen as a platform where the government and civil society can influence the agenda for aid delivery. However, there are also some constraints and challenges facing the effective use of these spaces.

1. Whereas lack of government compliance with its commitments result in cuts in disbursements, there is no mechanism to force donors to comply with theirs;

2. Performance assessment framework indicators are quantitative and do not reflect civil society concerns with qualitative evaluations;

3. The realisation of development observatory is not aligned with the joint review and planning cycle at central and provincial levels. Joint review being a decision-making point regarding funding, this should be preceded by both provincial and national development observatory and these should take into account the planning cycle at district, provincial and central levels, to accommodate input from these levels;

4. Government lacks adequate capacity (human and technical) to cope with the joint review exercise, which requires qualified people to be active in different working groups;

5. There is a power imbalance between donors and government in this process, with the government in a weaker position;

6. There is no clear definition of civil society role in the joint review and no feedback mechanism on its recommendations to the development observatory;

7. Civil society does not participate in the true negotiation forum under joint review in which heads of cooperation and high level government officials make decisions around aid issues;

8. The government is more accountable to donors than to its people;

In addition, the government has been strengthening its internal systems: introduction of medium term expenditure framework, roll out of e-SISTAFE – an electronic system for the management of public finances, improvement of the procurement system and setting up of anti-corruption units.

Despite these achievements the government has to improve its capacity at central, provincial and district levels, especially regarding costing of its activities and monitoring; strengthen coordination of activities among ministries; improve governance regarding the rule of law and use of public goods; improve democracy and further reduce poverty through equitable distribution of income, reduction of regional disparities and provision of support to national entrepreneurs. Above all, the Mozambican people have to set their genuine development agenda in an inclusive manner on which all aid efforts should go.

CONCLUSION

Mozambique has been an aid dependent country for a long time, which poses some constraints in terms of the definition of its own development agenda. Some conditionalities attached to aid have reduced its impact making the government less accountable to its people and by excluding some segments of the populations that aid is supposed to serve.

In order to reverse this situation, the Mozambican government and its development partners have been putting in place some mechanisms and procedures to make aid more effective. The establishment of partners for programmatic support forum and formulation of memorandum of understanding and performance assessment framework, the creation of joint reviews and development observatories are all efforts aimed at improving the effectiveness of aid.

As a result of these efforts donors have been trying to improve their performance through increased alignment of their aid to national programmes, using some government procedures and systems, taking steps to harmonise their procedures and engaging in mutual accountability exercise. On its part, the government has been putting in place improved systems and procedures to manage public resources, ensure good governance and combat poverty.

Despite these positive actions, some challenges still face both government and donors to make aid more effective. National programmes are still influenced by external agendas weakening the government leadership role. Although with a decreasing trend, donors still put money where they have vested interest not necessarily where government priorities are. Donors are also using their own procedures and systems for part of their funding resulting in high transaction costs and strained government capacity. The government on the other hand needs to further improve its capacity for coordination and planning and institute more reliable systems and procedures. It also needs to further improve governance and reduce poverty.

The space created by joint review and development observatory should be better utilised to making it a truly democratic arena in which the government and civil society can influence the aid agenda while ensuring equal accountability criteria for both government and donors. The government should also use this space to get leverage from civil society and other national actors for better dialogue and negotiation with donors.

Finally, the government, donors and civil society organisations should reflect on whether aid is being channelled to a development agenda that truly reflects the development needs of the people of Mozambique and if aid effectiveness efforts are being directed towards the right development path.


* Marta Luis Cumbi is the Director for Cooperation and Advocacy at the Foundation for Community Development in Mozambique. She is a member of governing boards of the Mozambican Debt Gorup, Mozambican Education Network, Forum for African Women Educationalists - Mozambique chapter, Southern African Network against Child Abuse and G20 (a national civil society platform advocating for poverty erradication). She is also a vice coordinator of SADC National Commission for Human Development and Special Programmes Committee. She is a board member of CIVICUS and FAWE Prominent Educationalist.

* This article is an extract from a longer paper which will be included as a chapter in the forthcoming "African Perspectives on Aid in Africa" book published by AFRODAD and Fahamu.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/


REFERENCES:

AFRODAD (2007) ‘Critical assessment of aid management and donor harmonisation, the case of Mozambique’

GMD (2007) ‘Aid delivery and country’s progress, the case of Mozambique’ High Level Forum (2005) ‘The Paris declaration on aid effectiveness’

República de Moçambique (2007) ‘Balanço do plano económico e social 2006’ República de Moçambique (2006) ‘Plano de acção para a redução da pobreza absoluta’

Republic of Mozambique and IMF (2007) ‘Letter of intent, memorandum of economic and financial policies and technical memorandum of understanding’

Post 9/11 aid, security agenda and the African state

Shastry Njeru

2008-08-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50183

The nexus between aid, security and development is now beyond doubt. In fact, security is a precondition for development. The often cited ‘no development without security, no security without development’ captures this interconnectivity (Dochas 2007). Iraq, despite huge avalanche of aid for reconstruction, is a good example of the importance of security. Sadly, aid has become one of the casualties in the ‘war on terror’. It has been rapidly securitised. Self-interest and political motives determine the priorities of aid. Since the start of the ‘war on terror’, when United States (US) President Bush claimed that anybody was either a friend or an enemy, aid has become one of the weapons in their arsenal. War on terror has brought back the state as the sole referent in security. International aid as known today originated during the Cold War at a time when the US felt that the whole continent of Europe would be converted into a socialist camp and pumped billions of dollars through the Marshal Plan to jumpstart the war damaged economies. Enter 9/11, the good intentions of aid were set aside for the political priorities and self-interest.

US President George Bush said on 20 September 2001: ‘We will direct every resource at our command to the disruption of the global terror network’. Relief became a reward for useful intelligence information. Aid was not only a weapon on the battlefield but also used in diplomatic negotiations with poor countries. In 2003, the US threatened poor UN Security Council members like Angola, Cameroon and Guinea with a reduction of international aid. In the post 9/11 era Africa continued to need security and aid as much as before to overcome its ‘tremendous economic, social and political’ (Mohiddin 2007) challenges. Yet Africa did not have ‘capable and intelligent states’ (Kauzya 2007) able to provide much needed security which is a precondition for development and peace. Any form of aid creates an asymmetrical relationship between the donor and the recipients vitiating the spirit and letter of the Paris Declaration. This relationship fosters ineffective aid. In fact, it does harm by feeding into existing conflicts thereby perpetuating conditions of insecurity that hinder meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
SECURITY

Before the Cold War, security was interpreted in militaristic terms as defence of the state involving structured violence manifest in state warfare (Fourie and Schonteich 2004). Security was the ability of the state to defend national interests against both national and external enemies (AFRODAD 2005). This traditional notion of security was concerned with ‘security of territory from external aggression, or as protection of national interests in foreign policy…’ (UNDP 1994). Because it concentrated on nation-state and attached ‘disproportionate attention to security of the state’ (Regehr and Whelan 2004), ‘legitimate concerns of ordinary people who sought security in their daily lives’ (UNDP 1994) were overlooked.

But at the end of the Cold War non military threats became conspicuous confusing and muddling the adversary (Elizabeth 2004). In this regard the concept of deterrence ceased to apply. The Westphalian concepts of the state security and statism were sublimed by globalisation creating what is called ‘networked governance’, ‘new multilateralism’, ‘decentred governance’ or ‘polycentrism’ (Scholte 2004) outside the realm of the traditional state authority. As the world entered into the ‘twilight of sovereignty’ (Wriston 1992) or ‘beyond sovereignty’ (Soroos 1986), the irrelevance of the state as the sole referent in security matters brought to the fore the human person as academics and organisations withdrew from definitions which ignored the individual and other forms of security, which are very vital for peace (AFRODAD 2005).

The 1994 human development report of the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) officially coined the human security concept. It says the intention of human security is ‘… to capture the post Cold War peace dividend and redirect those resources towards the development agenda’ (Axworthy 1999, p. 2). With the hindsight, the global community increasingly focused on the fate of humans in conflict situations: victims, women, children, child soldiers, refugees, epidemics, etc. Human security has become a call on nation states to remember that sovereignty should not be viewed as control, but responsibility to ‘protect individuals and provide their welfare’ so that they have ‘secure existence in life and dignity’ (Wallensteen 2007). Despite US’s attempt to recapture the concept of security back to the state security after 9/11, for now the vogue definition of security is human security. This definition captures what they may view as legitimate threats to their lives, ‘disease, hunger, unemployment, crime, social conflicts, political repression, and environmental hazards’ (UNDP 1994). In the extended form, such security includes widening of range of people’s choices and ability for people to exercise these choices freely and safely. The UNDP report provides a schema of values of security which are summed up as economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security (UNDP 1994). Any failure to meet these needs may lead to security problems.

SECURITY THREATS

A cursory view of the checklist of the African security items forming the continent’s agenda reveals a variety of threats ranging from climate change, HIV and Aids, small arms and criminality, trafficking of human cargo, to civil wars. The threat of external aggression has significantly diminished with the end of the cold war. Even the terrorist threat is well at the bottom of the agenda list save for the countries which stood in the path of international terrorism so to speak or deemed by the US to be breeding ground for terrorists. For the majority of African states the terrorist threat remains a speculative issue, strategically remote and linked to particular grievances and conflicts (Regehr and Whelan 2004). The immediate and attending threats are those affecting the human person-the human security threats.

One of the profound security threats in Africa is climate change. The phenomenon has been viewed as ‘driver of human conflict’ (Brown, Hammil and Mcleman 2007). Since global warming is a ‘threat to international peace and security’ (Brown et al 2007) it cannot be ignored. As such climate change has been regarded as the mother of all security problems threatening water, food security and increasing forced migration, triggering conflicts. The enormity of the threat forced the Pentagon to institute scenario studies to consider the abrupt implications of climate change on international security implications. Further, the British government has branded climate change as the greatest threat than international terrorism to the extent that foreign secretary Margaret Beckett made ‘climate security’ as a central plank to Britain foreign policy.

In spite of the threat of terrorism, the US has conceived climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’ making existing food insecurity and water scarcity more complex and intractable. Making a presentation at the African Union summit in 2007, the Ugandan President Museveni regarded climate change as ‘an act of aggression’ by developing world and demanded compensation and Kaire Mbuende resonated the same when he said that the greenhouse emission tantamount ‘to low intensity biological and chemical warfare’. Even the UN Security Council has come to accept the threat paused by climate change and agreed that even Darfur crisis was a product of climate change and environmental degradation.

HIV and AIDS are real security threats to Africa (Elizabeth 2004). Hadingham (2000) argues, in terms of the post Cold War human security regime, HIV/Aids poses a ‘pervasive and non violent threat to the existence of individuals, as the virus significantly shortens life expectancy’. HIV /Aids has direct and indirect human security implications, ‘so immense that they do not constitute one human security issue among many, but rank amongst the gravest human security challenges the twenty first century confronts’ (Elbe 2006). The pandemic causes ‘at the simplest level premature and unnecessary loss of life’ becoming ‘perhaps the greatest insecurity of human life’. In numerical terms, the Aids pandemic is amongst the worst to have ever threatened humankind (Elbe 2006). It has become indirect threat to human security affecting the economic security, food security, personal security, political security, political security and healthy security (Elbe 2006). Using the threats posed by the global Aids pandemic as a case study, the analytical breadth of the human security concept ‘emerges not so much as a liability, but on the contrary, as a distinctive asset over the narrower conception of national security’ (Elbe 2006).

Connected to the climate change and HIV/Aids is the problem of food security. Climate change affects the productivity of land as aridity affects crops due to depletion of water budgets. HIV/Aids can not only affect the production of agricultural goods, but can further skew the access of certain individuals and groups to food – as often food security is a challenge of ‘access’ rather than a matter of physical availability. Coupled with these twin problems of climate change and HIV/Aids is the use of cereals for the production of biofuels leading to the artificial food shortages worldwide. Debate and research are still on this matter, but the practice has been challenged for diverting food availability from the table.

Drugs consumption and trafficking have not been ranked as critical threats to Africa. The market for these drugs is not yet grown to the western proportions. To this end drugs still rank low on the security agenda of the sub-Saharan Africa. However, money laundering, gun running, and human trafficking are slowly picking up in intensity and as security threats.

THE AFRICAN STATE

The African state is unable to meet the ever changing needs of its people who have either resorted to arms of war or voting by their feet into diaspora to claim their dues. The state has failed to adopt or adapt to scientific or technological changes, new ideas, organisational and management principles, experiences and relevant best practices. In some cases constitutionalism has been blocked and rule of law made anathemas. Democracy and social justice, accountability and transparency, inclusiveness and empowerment of people so that they can participate fully in public affairs have been unacceptable in some African states. The virus of brutality of big governments has destroyed sensitivity of good governance.

The African state is facing twin challenges affecting its capacity to manage aid and offer security to its citizens. These challenges are domestic and global. Mohiddin (2007) notes several capacity challenges that have weaken the state. He says African state is unable to promote ‘sustainable human development including meeting MDGs, promotion of peace, security and stability, combating HIV/Aids pandemic, malaria, sustaining popular electoral participatory democracy, and ensuring thriving private sector’ on the domestic front and unable to ‘promote regional economic and political integration’ on the global front. The lack of capacity inhibits ‘continuous supply of appropriate legal, institutional, human and material resources’ necessary to meet the ever changing challenges’.

9/11 has had varying impacts on the security, official development aid and the relationship between African states and their western counterparts. The incident has led to the redefinition of aid at least from the western perspectives. The US, Sweden and the United Kingdom have stood clear on the nature and course their official assistance was to follow. US President George W. Bush stated on 20 September 2001: ‘We will direct every resource at our command to the disruption of the global terror network’. Aid was included in their arsenal to fight terrorism. United Kingdom reframed their aid policy and foreign policy toward fighting terrorism in earnest. This syndrome caught up with the rest of Europe including the Scandinavian countries, which in the past had supported many African states in their bid to fight poverty and underdevelopment.

By overtaking ODA with nation-state security and counter terrorism agenda and orienting ODA toward the security interests of the donor rather than the development interests of the recipient states, the basic development and poverty eradication objectives were lost. The little aid that trickled into Africa was constrained by ODA spending targets, which were easily achieved through increased security spending (Regehr and Whelan 2004) rather than development and poverty eradication spending. While terrorism is not generally caused by underdevelopment, conditions of economic underdevelopment are a soil in which terrorists are likely to take root. Bonn international centre for conversion (2003) concurs that terrorists are ‘often motivated by, and justify their actions with reference to economic injustice and exploitation’. Reduced ODA in Africa progressed the continent toward its vulnerability and attending conflicts.

To address the pressing problems in sub-Saharan Africa of peace and security and control of aid there are several avenues that can be taken. First Africa needs to improve on its capacity. Secondly, the continent needs to reconceptualise its security. Thirdly, there is need to democratise governance systems. Finally, the Africa state needs to work as part of a regional architecture not in the disparate form.

CONCLUSION

The 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA led to drastic policy change in the western world which has had an impact on the sub-Saharan Africa security envelope. The change of policy has left sub-Saharan Africa exposed to security challenges it has no capacity to manage as a result of historical, domestic and global structural issues. Unless the capacity is addressed in Africa there will be continued vulnerability since the continent cannot control the ODA that it receives nor demand the strict observance of the 1994 Paris declaration on the operation of aid. In search of that capacity, sub-Saharan Africa needs to deliberately redefine its security and raise the moral plank to address the threats that are affecting its citizens in an era of diminished external aggression. Sub-Saharan Africa needs to be persuaded by the virtues of human security rather than state security. This paper proposes democratisation, regionalism and capacity development as key to the attainment of security-human security, among others. When all these are achieved, even the redefinition of ODA will have little impact on the focused and united African continent and the goals for the continent will remain in full view.

* Shastry Njeru is based at the Midlands State University, Gweru, Zimbabwe.

* This article is an extract from a longer paper which will be included as a chapter in the forthcoming "African Perspectives on Aid in Africa" book published by AFRODAD and Fahamu.

*Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/


REFERENCES:

AFRODAD (2005) ‘ Reality of Aid’, in Focus on Conflict, Security & Development in Africa, AFRODAD, Harare

Axworthy L. (1999) ‘Human security: safety for people in a changing world’, Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ottawa

Bajpai K. (2000) ‘Human security: concept and measurement’ Kroc Institute occasional paper, no. 19, 1 August Ballentine K. and Nitzsche H. (2005) ‘The political economy of civil war and economic transformation’, in Fischer M. and Schmelzle B. (eds) Transforming War Economies: Dilemmas and Strategies, the Berghof Handbook Dialogue Series, http://www.berghof-handbook.net

Brown O., Hammil A. and Mcleman R. (2007) ‘Climate change as the new security threat: implications for Africa’, in International Affairs, vol. 83 no.6, pp.1141-1154

Center for defence information (2003) ‘Security after 9/11:strategies, choices and budgets tradeoffs’, briefing book, Washington

Dochas (2007) ‘What happened to human security?’, a discussion paper document about Dochas, the EU and the Human Security Concept, Ireland, April

Elbe S. (2006) ‘HIV/AIDS: a human security challenge for the 21st century’, in The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, Winter/Spring

Fourie P. and Schonteich (2004) ‘Die, the beloved countries: human security and HIV/AIDS in Africa’

Galbraith J.K. (1995) ‘The outline of an emerging world’, in Year in Review Encyclopedia Britannica

Hadingham D. (2000) ‘Human security: safety for people in a changing world’, paper presented at a regional conference on the Management of African Security in the 21st Century, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, 23-24 June

Kauzya J.M. (2007) ‘The Role of the state and Africa’s development challenges’, in Africa Governance Review: Forging the Capable state in Africa, UNECA

Mohoddin A. (2007) ‘Reinforcing capacity towards building the capable state: concept paper’, in Africa Governance Review: Forging the Capable state in Africa, UNECA

Muloongo K., Kibasomba R. and Kariri J.N. (Eds) (2005) ‘The many faces of human security: case studies of seven countries in southern Africa’, Institute of security studies, Pretoria

Regehr E. and Whelan P. (2004) ‘Reshaping the security envelope: defence Policy in human security context’, project Ploughshare working paper, vol. 4

Scholte J.A. (2004) ‘Globalisation and governance: from statism to polycentrism’, Centre for the study of globalisation and regionalisation, University of Warwick, working paper no. 130/04, www.csgr.org

UNDP (1994) Human Development Report 1994, New York, Oxford University Press

United Nations Development Programme (1994) ‘Redefining security: the human dimension’, in Current History, vol. 94, pp. 229-236

Wallensteen P. (2007) ‘Human security and the challenge of the armed conflict’, for the ASAN Foundation international conference on human security, June 22

European Development Fund: The illusion of assistance

Mouhamet Lamine Ndiaye

2008-09-03

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/50253

Equitable and sustainable structural transformation of African economies is a prerequisite for improving livelihoods across the continent. Despite decades of reform often led under structural adjustment programmes, and a very high level of openness, most sub-Saharan African countries remain highly dependent on a narrow range of mineral and agricultural commodities, with low levels of value-addition and low potential for job creation. Africa’s share of world trade has declined from 5.5 per cent in 1980 to 2 per cent in 2003, and of this trade there is an overwhelming dependency on trade with the EU (European Union). Stimulating growth that enhances welfare, creates quality employment, and fulfils social and economic rights requires holistic economic policies and the political space and financial means to implement them - at national and continental levels. These policies need to reflect the aspirations and values of all sectors of society and to further regional integration and a process of sustainable agricultural reform and industrialisation. As one of Africa’s leading economic partners, in terms of trade and investment, as well as wider financial support through aid finance, the EU could play an important and significant role in supporting holistic and equitable economic transformation across Africa.

REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS

Trade policies have a critical role to play in supporting economic development across Africa. These policies are increasingly set through agreements in international arenas. Whilst the World Trade Organisation has set trade rules that have implications for African countries, it is a new generation of bilateral/regional trade and investment agreements that will critically determine the types of trade and wider economic policies that governments can use to support development. The ongoing negotiation of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the EU will have a decisive impact on the trade and economic policies of African countries. For most African countries, the EU is the single most important trade partner and thus any agreement with the EU will have substantial implications. The EU’s current EPAs’ proposal are in danger of undermining the very policies that African countries require to promote regional integration and transformation of their economies. There are widespread and justified fears that the configuration of the EPA negotiating blocs will undermine rather than promote aid effectiveness.
Furthermore, the trade in goods component of the agreements requires the liberalisation of tariffs, which threatens the viability and livelihoods of existing rural producers and industry and has sombre implications for government budgets. Moreover, the current proposals would entail African governments freezing all remaining tariffs at zero, effectively relinquishing the right to use tariff policy as an instrument for development. The EU proposes that these agreements should include rules on services, investment, competition, intellectual property and government procurement. As such, these proposed agreements are far more than trade agreements, and enter into areas of domestic economic policy that have not even been discussed in many African countries, let alone agreed at a regional or continental level.

Whilst rules in all these areas are needed for development, it is imperative that such rules reflect the changing needs and priorities of the countries concerned. Despite the EU’s insistence on including these issues in any agreement, it is not clear what African countries would gain and the costs could be high. Yet, agreeing to these rules would require countries to consult the EU when they needed to change them thus undermining national and regional policy flexibility.

Implementing an EPA will clearly be costly for ACP countries in terms of losses in tariff revenue and employment. In addition, impact assessment studies show that for ACP countries to reap any benefits from increased market access provided under EPAs, [1] they first need to address the major supply side constraints that impede competitive production. One study estimates conservatively that total ‘adjustment costs’ such as compensation for loss of tariff revenue, employment, production, and support for export development for ACP countries could be about €9.2billion. [C. Milner ‘An assessment of the overall implementation and adjustment costs for the ACP countries of Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU’, in Grynberg, R. and A. Clarke (2006) ‘The European Development Fund and Economic Partnership Agreements’, Commonwealth secretariat economic affairs division]

THE ILLUSION OF AID

The EU has a history of providing substantial development assistance to ACP countries, covering areas such as health, education, water and sanitation, and roads. This support is channelled through the European Development Fund (EDF) and disbursed in five year cycles. In response to ACP concerns about the costs of EPAs, the EC (European Commission) has pledged to increase the amount pledged under the next EDF funding cycle (2008–13) to €22.7billion [At Port Moresby ACP Council of Ministers, May 2006]. At first glance this would seem to be sufficient to meet the EPA adjustment costs, but deeper scrutiny suggests that this assistance may be more illusion than reality.

The EC suggests that funds to compensate ACP countries for the costs of implementing EPAs would come from the tenth EDF funding cycle (2008-13), for which a total of €22.7billion has been pledged. Yet, even before EPAs came onto the scene, it was estimated that €21.3billion would be needed for the tenth EDF funding cycle, merely to fund the costs of the EU’s existing aid portfolio and maintain EU contributions at 0.38 per cent of the EU’s gross national income (GNI). [R. Grynberg and A. Clarke (2006) ‘The European Development Fund and Economic Partnership Agreements’, Commonwealth secretariat, economic affairs division] If this is the case, the tenth EDF is merely business as usual. Rather than provide new funds for EPAs, the EC will cover EPA adjustment costs from its existing aid budget diverting money away from other areas, such as health, education, and rural development.

Even if ACP countries decide to use existing aid money for EPA adjustment costs, it might be very slow in arriving. During the last five year cycle (2001–06), the EU promised €15billion in aid to ACP countries. By the end of the cycle, only 28 per cent of this money had been disbursed. The record for the previous cycle was even worse. For 1995–2000, a promise of €14.6billion was made. Funds only started to be disbursed in the third year, and by the end of the five years only 20 per cent had been paid out. Since ACP countries will quickly feel the impact of EPAs on their economies, the EU’s disbursement mechanisms clearly need a major overhaul if EU assistance is really to make a difference. ACP governments are wary of the EC’s smoke and mirrors approach to development assistance and have called for a separate and additional EPA financing facility, [Nairobi declaration on Economic Partnership Agreements, African Union conference of ministers of trade, April 2006] so that the EC can be held to its promises and funds can be clearly tracked. To date, this has not been agreed and the promise of assistance remains a mirage.

AID QUANTITY AND QUALITY

In 2005, 15 European member states agreed to increase their aid to 0.7 per cent of GNI by 2015. As part of this agreement they set a series of interim aid targets in 2006 and 2010. Official figures released by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) this year, showed that the EU15 are on track and have met their collective aid target in 2006. However, almost one third of EU aid - €13.5billion - was artificially inflated due to EU member states including debt cancellation and spending within Europe on refugees and foreign students’ education as aid. If these non aid items are deducted from official figures, EU member states missed their collective 2006 target of giving 0.39 per cent of GNI as aid, providing only 0.31 per cent. If EU member states continue to significantly inflate their aid figures with these items, by 2010 poor countries will have received nearly €50billion less than what they have been promised.

In order to fight poverty, the EU not only needs to provide more aid, it also needs to provide better quality aid. The EU has made some welcome commitments towards improving aid effectiveness which must be met, including agreeing to meet the Paris aid effectiveness targets and setting its own targets on joint analyses and multi-annual strategic planning. In addition the EU must also ensure a greater percentage of aid goes to Least Developed Countries (LDCs) which need it most. It should also provide more aid on a long term and predictable basis.

AID FOR TRADE

Much broader than simple technical assistance or training of trade negotiators, ‘aid for trade’ describes several categories of trade related assistance to African countries. Its objectives include enhancing worker skills, modernising custom systems, building roads and ports, and improving agricultural productivity and export diversification. Aid for trade aim to help African countries to adapt to the global trading environment. However, aid has rarely been a simple transfer of resources from developed countries to aid recipient countries. Often, aid comes to African countries attached to a development ‘toolkit’ in the form of aid conditionality. This toolkit involves trade policy prescriptions in the form of structural adjustment programmes that are often a conceptual expression of the political and economic ideology of the donors rather than the development priorities of the receiving countries.

The World Bank and the IMF, in response to request from the G7 finance ministers and the G8 in Gleneagles, jointly proposed an aid for trade package. [‘Doha development agenda and aid for trade’, prepared by staffs of the IMF and the World Bank, 9 September 2005 (DC2005-0016)] The package is a proposal for provisions of financial and technical assistance to developing countries for two related objectives. Firstly, to address supply side constraints in developing countries (‘maximisation of benefit’) and secondly to assist them in coping with the adjustment cost of trade liberalization, which is assume to be transitional (‘minimisation of the cost’). The 33 African LDCs, according to the World Bank and IMF, have not been able to take full advantage of the benefits of the multilateral trade liberalisation because of limitation that invade on their trading capacity or supply side constraints. The maintenance of high unbound tariffs that, says the Bank, create ‘disincentives to enter international markets’. The two Bretton Woods institutions entertain the idea that trade liberalisation could be realised if such limitations are mitigated through increased financial and technical assistance.

LDCs have been granted quota free and duty free market access to EU’s market. In the context of low productive capacity, poor infrastructure, limited access to research and technology, and inadequate financial markets, liberalised markets will not stimulate economic growth nor address the structural issues of development.

To genuinely assist poor countries, aid for trade must not only be additional to development aid and meet standards of aid effectiveness, such as those outlined in the Cotonou agreement, but they should also complement a prodevelopmental round of trade negotiations that puts receiving countries’ interests at the core of the negotiations. Fundamentally, aid for trade should not be used as a ‘bargaining sword’ in exchange for a one size fits all trade liberalisation package.

IMPROVING AID

Further, the European commission and the EU member states need to provide, when and where appropriated, aid directly to African countries national budgets, either centrally supporting a government or supporting a particular sector such as health and education. The European commission has already signed up to providing 50 per cent of its aid via budget support. However, over 90 per cent of the additional EU aid flows will come via member states bilateral aid. It is therefore important that EU member states also make the commitment to provide 50 per cent of their bilateral aid via budget or sector support.

The EC and the EU member states should also move towards providing more of their aid on a long term basis and should stop the current practice of attaching economic policy conditions to their aid. With this regard, the EC’s proposal for ‘MDG (Millennium Development Goal) contracts’, which would provide six year budget support and come with a reduced number of conditions set around the attainment of the MDGs, should be supported by member states and put in place immediately. Member states should also move towards providing more long term aid (over six to ten years) and phasing out attaching economic policy conditions to their aid.

Tying aid to the purchase of goods and services from donor countries continues to be a serious problem affecting the quality of EU aid. Most European governments still tie their aid. This practice results in an increase in the cost of purchasing goods and services, meaning that poor countries can afford to buy significantly less. It also acts as an expensive subsidy to donor country industries and jobs, and can potentially damage poor country markets. Untying aid would increase the value of aid by up to 30 per cent.

Despite the rhetoric and repeated commitments, policy coherence for development is in practice missing in many areas of EU policy. Even where EU policy is indeed coherent with development objectives, the implementation of those policies frequently lacks coherence with those objectives.

Furthermore, there continue to be institutional divisions within the commission, which cause significant problems to the coherence and consistency of aid programmes. These revolve around the split of development aid regional policy and programming between the EC’s directorates general for development (ACP) and for external relations (ALA, MEDA etc), with EuropeAid undertaking the contract issuing and management of the implementation of the commission's aid programmes. This division of responsibilities within the Commission and the gap between development policy formulation and implementation prompts considerable concern about the possibility of achieving a consistent and coherent development policy.

CONCLUSION

African countries do not need to be apologetic or even feel guilty about needing aid to better benefit from trade. All developed countries have benefited from aid and heavy investment to increase production and trade capacity before engaging fully in international trade. Aid for trade is not charity.

Besides, implementing an EPA will clearly be costly for ACP countries. One study estimates conservatively that total ‘adjustment costs’ such as compensation for loss of tariff revenue, employment, production, and support for export development for ACP countries could be about €9.2billion. This conservative estimate clearly shows that the €2billion extra, which the EU has pledged to provide for trade-related assistance (of which a ‘substantial amount’, but not all, would be devoted to ACP countries) would not be enough. And there are legitimate concerns about how speedily any funds could be made available to ACP countries, given the problems with delays in EDF disbursements.

Hence, ACP countries are correct to ask for clarity on what level of funds will be available for trade related assistance and EPA related adjustment costs. Each ACP country already faces challenges to meet the MDGs, for which current aid levels are already insufficient. So they are also correct to demand that these aids for trade funds must be additional to existing development assistance. The EU should urgently provide clarity on how much additional funding ACP countries can expect to receive, for what specific activities, and how – and when – it will be made available to them. Also these additional funds should not be conditional on signing an EPA, nor should they be linked to progress in the EPA negotiations.


* Mouhamet Lamine Ndiaye is the Pan-Africa Head of Economic Justice (OI) at Oxfam GB, West Africa Regional Management Centre in Dakar, Senegal.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

African Blog Review – September 3, 2008

Dibussi Tande

2008-09-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/50290

Here is a review of some of the issues that were discussed in the African blogosphere during the break.

Zimreview
http://zimreview.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/levy-mwanawasa-rip/
Zimreview comments on concerns that President Mwanawasa did not select a successor:
“African presidents have often justifiably been accused of corrupting the essence of democracy in various ways. It is therefore ironic when those who most frequently point this finger then go on to write, “Mwanawasa did not groom a successor.” In a democracy individuals should come and go without the system collapsing. No matter how good somebody is, when he or she goes, no matter how unexpectedly, the laid down process of succession should be able to produce a successor from among the political ranks.
That is what is going to happen in Zambia as politicians fight it out for the top job in the election to be held in the next 90 days, as is stipulated by the country’s constitution in the event of a sudden vacancy of the office of president such as has just happened. And that is how it should be…
Mwanawasa represented the beginnings of southern Africa’s move away from being beholden to liberation-era ‘founding fathers,’ as if we were slaves who owed something to new masters.”

African Aspects
http://africanaspects.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/remembering-mwanawasa/

African Aspects writes that the late president was one of those leaders who was very difficult to label:
“In a continent full of enigmatic heads of state and government, it is not surprising that his is a profile difficult to define. Anti-corruption crusader, darling of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), critic of the Zimbabwean government, father of six, the brunt of jokes (his intelligence was often challenged in the press), high profile lawyer, Chiluba’s nemesis - the list is as wide as it is endless.
President Mwanawasa’s unassuming persona and soft-spoken nature, were two traits about him that even his foes cannot dispute in retrospect. These characteristics were often mistakenly perceived as signs of weakness. It was with this backdrop that his firm stance against political events in Harare came almost as a surprise to non-Zambians. Many of us had assumed he was yet another African leader unwilling to express a divergent view on Zimbabwe. It is ironic that his death came at a time when his voice was increasingly gaining gravitas beyond Zambia’s borders…
Ultimately, my search continues - I am still looking for a box to package Mwanawasa’s place in history. For now, Africa mourns the loss of yet another son. Differences are cast aside as we allow his family to grieve.”

Another burning issue this week was Nigeria’s hand-over f the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsular to Cameroon.

Larry Backer
http://lcbackerblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/international-law-as-principles-of.html

Larry Backer uses the Bakassi issue to argue that modern African states are still victims of past colonial policies and present-day Eurocentric international law which are generally not in line with their national interests:

“This has all the stuff of politics, law, culture and economics. The territory is inhabited mostly by ethnic Nigerians, and it sits atop a vast amount of potential energy wealth. But the borders were never defined by reference to either characteristic, but by the desires of European princes in the 19th century. Those desires, it seems, have been inherited by the new rulers of the region...

Yet the most interesting aspect of this was the shadow of the old imperial order that hung over the whole affair. From start to finish, the decision was a European one--using European institutions, law, and the dead hand power of European imperial agreements. The Africans remained both passive, and passive-aggressive users of old colonial breadcrumbs and its institutions in new clothing. For at the end of the day, the issues in its legal, and political context were managed by the international community in a way in which the African states had little to say other than to stand in for the European powers in their now centuries old dispute. Overseen by the community of Nations in the form of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, the resolution of this dispute evidences both the power of management as law in international relations, and on the depth of the dependency in which Africa still finds itself.”


Reinventing Africa
http://reinventingafrica.blogspot.com/2008/08/bakassi-conflict-for-land-and-identity.html
Reinventing Africa uses the Bakassi crisis to analyze identity formation in modern African states:
“The situation in Bakassi Peninsula goes beyond that of land allocation, conflict over resources, or even development. It is clearly an issue of the effects that governance has on national identity...many residents of Bakassi are adamant about retaining their Nigerian citizenship. To the point that many of them have moved to overcrowded transit camps in Nigeria, abandoning their homes and businesses in Bakassi...
Ultimately, it is amazing how the creation of the nation state has developed identities- though officially controlled by its current inhabitants for less than 50 years- that are powerful enough to trump individuals' loyalty to land and history. During colonialism borders were so fluid and often changed without notice to the actual inhabitants. But today, we see country after country battling to rewrite borders that didn’t exist during their initial inhabitance and were drawn by foreigners who no longer (and maybe never) inhabited it!”

Sami Ben Gharbia’s Blog
http://www.kitab.nl/2008/08/20/silencing-online-speech-in-tunisia/

Tunisian blogger Sami Ben Gharbia writes a detailed article on ongoing attempts by Tunisian authorities to silence online speech that country. He also publishes a list of 22 blogs that have been blocked in Tunisia:

“Three more blogs have been blocked in Tunisia this week. These blogs, Mochagheb (Disturber), Ennaqed (The Critic) and Place Mohamed Ali have all been particularly active in providing news of the struggle of The Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), and especially about the latest social unrest in the southwestern phosphate mining region of Gafsa, where two people have been killed.…

As is the case of China, creating a strong atmosphere of fear and a climate of intimidation has led Tunisian citizen to in general adopt a low profile vis-à-vis freedom of expression. During the last 7 years, most internet users and bloggers were censoring themselves by avoiding to raise their voices to address political topics or write freely bypassing the strict state censorship. Only a handful of activists, cyber dissidents and bloggers, usually the same men, are leading the free speech movement on the Internet, going well beyond these limits and even organizing an online anti-propaganda machine to the official one.”


Scribbles from the Den
http://www.dibussi.com/2008/09/cameroon-rapid.html

Scribbles from the Den reprints an article by IRIN about Cameroon's special rapid intervention battalion (BIR) which was originally created to fight armed robbers operating on the eastern and northern borders, but which is now used to quell political protest:

"...in February 2008 in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé the BIR was called on to crack down on rioters protesting against the high cost of living. Jean Bertin Kemayou, leader of human rights organisation Freedom Services, claims up to 100 people died in these protests, most of them unarmed civilians at the hands of the BIR. 'The number of deaths in the riots was very high mainly because of the brutal repression of the protests by the BIR. People are now too afraid to speak out against anything because of the repression of those demonstrations"...

For some, diverting the BIR to cities means it is unable to carry out its original mandate…. In the meantime on the borders the bandit attacks continue. In June 2008 bandits killed 10 hostages of the 15 they had abducted in May, on the Chad border. In a separate incident that same month a group attacked a transport vehicle, killing a policeman."

* Dibussi Tande, a writer and activist from Cameroon, produces the blog Scribbles from the Den

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org/

A Guide to China’s Overseas Dam Industry

2008-09-05

http://www.internationalrivers.org/node/3160

Chinese dam companies and financial institutions are outpacing their competitors in overseas dam contracts. China's overseas dam industry is building hundreds of dams around the world, particularly in Southeast Asia and Africa, but also in countries like Pakistan and Albania. What can communities impacted by these projects do to protect their rights and advocate for rivers targeted for dams built by China? This new guide provides useful information for groups concerned about dam projects in which Chinese companies and financiers are involved, including:

China vows to build 100 primary schools, 13 hospitals

2008-09-05

http://theinquirer.com.lr/news_details.php?recordID=5294

The government of the Peoples’ Republic of China says it has resolved to build 100 primary schools across Africa, with Liberia considered as one of the favorites to benefit from the gesture. The special envoy on African Affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mr. Liu Guijin, said in addition to the construction of these schools, his government has planned to build 13 hospitals across the continent to assist with the medical needs of the countries that would benefit.

Opposition has 'lost faith in talks'

2008-09-05

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=19470

Zimbabwe's main opposition party has lost faith in power-sharing talks with President Robert Mugabe and will leave him to form a government alone rather than be forced into a deal, a party official has said. The official, who asked not to be named, said the Movement for Democratic Change no longer had confidence in the mediation of South African President Thabo Mbeki and wanted the United Nations and African Union to rescue the process.

Trial of Chikurubi 14 postponed

2008-09-04

http://wozazimbabwe.org/?p=248

Fourteen members appeared on 26th August, before Magistrate Doris Shomwe in Harare Magistrate’s Court. They had been arrested near the Zambian Embassy in Harare on 28 May 2008, where they were to hand over a petition to the SADC chair calling for an end to post-election violence.

Government lifts aid agency ban

2008-09-04

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2bf1dacc-75f0-11dd-99ce-0000779fd18c.html

Zimbabwe has lifted a ban on aid agencies that was imposed ahead of the June 27 presidential run-off over accusations that some were siding with the opposition. “The government has with immediate effect lifted the suspension of operations of private voluntary organisations and NGOs,” said a social welfare ministry statement.

Mugabe gives deal deadline to MDC

2008-09-05

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7597493.stm

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has said the opposition MDC has until Thursday to agree a power-sharing deal, or he will form his own government. "We feel frozen at the moment [without a government]," he told state media. The MDC has rejected the ultimatum and says it will not be "bullied" into signing a deal.

MDC 'will not be bullied into deal'

2008-09-05

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news040908/mdcnotbebullied040908.htm

Zimbabwe’s power sharing talks looked set to completely collapse on Thursday after Mugabe issued an ultimatum to the MDC to join a proposed unity government or be left out. The ZANU PF leader threatened to appoint a new cabinet if the MDC did not sign up. “If after tomorrow (Thursday), Tsvangirai does not want to sign, we will certainly put together a cabinet. We feel frozen at the moment,” Mugabe told the state owned Herald newspaper.

Aid and Trade in Africa

Weekly Roundup: Issue 149,2008

2008-09-04

http://www.aumonitor.org

The third high level forum (HLF3) on aid effectiveness will be held between the 2nd and 4th of September in Accra to discuss the implementation of the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness since 2005. Prior to the HLF3, civil society representatives expressed concern that the 'HLF could represent a step backwards in efforts to improve aid effectiveness'. Meanwhile, African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and their counterparts in Central and Latin America to ‘put an end to the long drawn so called banana war'. ‘After failing to strike a deal at the last WTO negotiations in Geneva, ACP countries want to reiterate their position on the decision of the European Union, the major consumers of Latin American banana to gradually reduce the EU’s tariff of 176 Euros per tonne to 116 Euros by 2015’. Also in trade-related news, the United States and the East African Community (EAC) signed a new trade agreement that will see the deepening of relations and bilateral trade, valued at about $1.2 billion last year. While, analysis of the growing involvement of Russia in Africa has come under the US radar of concern given ‘Africa’s increasingly recognised geopolitical significance as well as the strategic importance of its natural resources to the security of the United States’.

Also, this week, there remains uncertainty about whether Uganda will join the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) customs union, that is soon to make the regional bloc a free trade area and guarantee preferential rates to members’ exports. Uganda’s reticence to embrace the free trade area stems from national protectionists and the manufacturing lobby who regard the union as a threat to its nascent industry. Similarly, during the second round of negotiations on the protocol for a common market for the EAC, Tanzania expressed concern with respect to provisions on the free movement of persons and labour.

Following the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) is investigating the appropriate steps towards full integration into the AU architecture. Also this week, a committee of experts on gender held a two-day meeting in preparation for the session of African ministers in charge of gender and women's affairs due to discuss and adopt the AU’s gender policy. In South Africa, the ten permanent committees of the Pan African Parliament held new round of sittings from 25 to 29 August in preparation of the forthcoming ordinary session of the Parliament to be convened between 27 October and 7 November this year.

In peace and security related news, the AU commission chairman, Jean Ping, visited Mauritania to talk with the junta that seized power on 6 August, along with other political stakeholders and civil society in an effort to find a solution to the constitutional crisis ensuing from the military coup. Though the AU has strongly condemned the putsch, a majority in the Mauritanian parliament has pledged loyalty to the new military regime. In other news, the AU commission chairman has welcomed the signing of the agreement between Somalia's Transitional Federal Government and the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia and added that his institution would do all that is necessary for the effective implementation of the deal. Ping also announced that the AU would work closely with the United Nations to ensure the early deployment of a UN peacekeeping operation in Somalia and called on the international community to provide the necessary support to sustain the current political momentum in Somalia. However, the AU and chief negotiator in the Zimbabwe conflict, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, were unsuccessful in reaching a deal between the two main rivals at the recently concluded Heads of State and Government summit of Southern African Development Community (SADC). In their final communiqué, SADC leaders 'reaffirmed their commitment to work with the people of Zimbabwe in order to overcome the challenges that they are facing'. Activists, trade unionists and other human rights organisations strongly condemned SADC leaders for failing to include in their communiqué the global demands to have the ban on humanitarian food aid in Zimbabwe lifted accusing them of not being geared to handle the crises in Zimbabwe. Though some analysts decry the ‘nauseating power sharing gimmick in which the ‘paradox of Africa’s fledgling democracies is just a starting point for negotiations’. Also regarding southern Africa, AU commission chairperson Jean Ping sent his condolences to the family and the people of Zambia following the passing of President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, which has spurred speculation about political unrest in Zambia.

In other news, Ms Maria Netto, United Nations Development Programme's climate change policy advisor noted that developing countries may not achieve their Millennium Development Goals targets by 2015 unless they addressed climate change concerns. Further, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation will organise, in October, a six-day seminar in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to analyse the implications of global climate change for sustainable agricultural production in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

Southern Africa: The costs of marital rape

2008-09-05

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/08/18/zambia19649.htm

For years now, women’s groups in Southern Africa have campaigned tirelessly to ensure that the Southern African Development Community adopt the Protocol on Gender and Development. Yesterday, the SADC finally took that historic step. Member states will be obliged to amend their laws to ensure equal rights for women across a wide range of issues, from provisions that require member states to enshrine equality in their constitutions, to firm commitments to reduce maternal mortality by 75 per cent.

Africa: Aid effectiveness and gender equality

West African women's statement

2008-09-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/50294

We women from 15 West African countries and Mauritania, representing 33 organisations and networks of the sub region, at the West African Women’s Consultative Meeting on Aid Effectiveness and Gender Equality, organised in Lome, Togo from 25th to 27th June 2008 by Women in Law and Development in Africa, (WiLDAF) with financial support from UNIFEM Regional Office for West Africa and OSIWA (Open Society Institute for West Africa);...
WEST AFRICAN WOMEN’S STATEMENT ON AID EFFECTIVENESS AND GENDER EQUALITY

We women from 15 West African countries and Mauritania, representing 33 organisations and networks of the sub region, at the West African Women’s Consultative Meeting on Aid Effectiveness and Gender Equality, organised in Lome, Togo from 25th to 27th June 2008 by Women in Law and Development in Africa, (WiLDAF) with financial support from UNIFEM Regional Office for West Africa and OSIWA (Open Society Institute for West Africa);
Having analysed the principles of the Paris Declaration and the draft Accra Agenda for Action (AAA);

Noting the endemic poverty of African women who represent more than 50 percent of the population, the role and place of women in the socio-economic development of our countries, and their voicelessness in decision-making;

Yet acknowledging their commitments to poverty eradication and development
Recalling States’ commitments through international instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, (CEDAW), Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPFA), and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); regional instruments including the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women and the African Union Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality; and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance;

Recognize that the review of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness offers opportunities to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment;
Affirming that Aid cannot be effective when it does not lead to sustainable development which implies, the centrality of human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, social justice and environmental sustainability.

Also affirming that progress in the areas of gender equality, environmental sustainability respect for human’s rights and good governance, that the draft Accra Agenda for Action recognises as “essential to obtain tangible results in development” can be accelerated through the Paris Declaration implementation, only if they are treated as sectors coming with progress indicators and specific resources allocated in national budgets.

Yet deplore that the Paris Declaration has not taken into account human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment leading to an absence of gender indicators to measure progress in line with international instruments.

Fully support the different positions from women rights activists and gender experts at the Consultation of Women’s Organisations and Networks and Aid Effectiveness in Toronto, Canada in January 2008; from African women at the African Women’s Regional Consultation on Gender Equality and Aid Effectiveness in Nairobi in May 2008, and from UNIFEM;

Do hereby make the following recommendations to partner countries especially from West Africa, and donors, at the Third High Level Forum on Paris Declaration in Accra in September 2008;
On Ownership
The principle of ownership must be understood as meaning democratic ownership to include, states partners as well as citizens, parliamentarians and civil society organisations in particular women’s rights groups. States partners and donors must, to this end:
1. Recognise civil society and especially women’s organisations as full partners in their own right and as partners in the development process. Governments and donors must interpret national ownership by elaborating on its implications in the context of international and regional women’s rights and gender equality obligations in CEDAW, Beijing Platform for Action and the African Union Protocol on Women
2. Strengthen the capacity of women’s rights organisations in order that they can influence the development process through integration of gender perspectives into policies, plans, programmes and budgets; and to enable them to play a key role in their implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
3. Strengthen the capacity of national gender mechanisms through adequate resource allocation and capacity building with a view to bringing their contributions to planning and budgeting as well as coordination, monitoring and evaluation of gender equality and women’s empowerment mainstreaming in this aid effectiveness process.

On Alignment
There is a risk that gender equality and women’s empowerment may be excluded from the development agenda if it does not constitute a priority clearly expressed in national policies. National programmes should reflect the felt needs of women and men and not imposed as national priorities
We consequently require that:
4. Gender budgeting must be promoted as a tool combined with general budget support and the sector wide approach.
5. The capacities of the ministries of planning and finance be strengthened in gender mainstreaming, and gender sensitive budgeting.
6. Development assistance must also be seen to be channelled to addressing gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights concerns in our government systems, procedures and institutions. This should be reflected in budgetary allocations from the Ministry of Finance and in sector budgets.
7. Civil Society groups must track the money that has been used to implement gender equality and women’s empowerment programmes within public financial management and procurement systems. Civil society organisations must measure the percent of aid directed towards gender equality, women’s rights and human rights programming.

On Harmonisation
It is generally agreed that dialogue ensures that decisions taken meet the need of the different groups. To this end:
8. Joint donor working strategies must incorporate gender expertise to strengthen support for addressing gender equality and giving voice to the poor;
9. Within harmonization action plans, both partner governments and developing partners should agree to commit to address gender equality and women’s empowerment in all sectors they fund;
10. Developing partners should do a gender analysis of countries in the West Africa sub-region; analyze
the challenges that will prevent the sub-region from attaining the MDGs; and come to common agreements on how they will work with each other to address these issues and establish priorities that they will fund within the national development strategies and within sector programmes;
11. Joint missions and country analytical work should include gender advocates, experts and representatives of women’s machineries.

On managing for results
Implementation of the Paris Declaration is monitored through a set of targets and indicators which assess public management systems, rather than impact of aid on development. Consequently:
12. We call on state parties to adopt new indicators that will allow monitoring and evaluation of the principles of ownership, managing for results and accountability from civil society.
13. The production of sex-disaggregated data must be planned and done on regular basis to serve as support for policy adoption, planning and budgeting as well as evaluation of the impact of policies and budget, which are implemented in the partner countries.
14. The Paris Declaration monitoring system be improved by adding social and gender indicators already adopted in international agreements to assess gender equality and women’s empowerment programming and financing.

On mutual responsibility
Openness and transparency from donors and partner countries, and multistakeholder mechanisms for holding donors and governments to account is necessary.

To this end -
15. We call for the creation of an effective and relevant independent monitoring and evaluation system for the Paris Declaration and its impact on development outcomes.
16. We call on partner countries and donors to jointly account for gender equality issues to women, as the Paris Declaration is supposed to make aid effective in delivering the MDGS
17. Gender issues must be raised during sector, national development strategy and joint government and donor reviews.
18. Donors and partners countries need to direct resources towards strengthening capacity (of government, donors, CSO, women’s organizations, parliaments) for enhancing mutual accountability for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
19. Measure outcomes of gender mainstreaming and gender specific actions such as – access to health and education; changes in female employment and income; incidence of gender based violence and right to reparation; right to inheritance, property, land use; women’s representation and participation in decision making

Fragile states
20. Special attention should be given to fragile states (states coming out of conflict, at war or post-conflict situations) regarding channelling specific aid to women’s organisations to improve the lives of affected women.

We finally recommend:
21. That there is substantial increase of resources for women’s rights organisations. Alignment should not be an obstacle for access by these organisations, from the smallest to the biggest, to predictable and mutliannual resources allowing them to play their watch dog and lobbying roles; and strengthen their capacities.

Done in Lome, on 26th June 2008

ORGANISATIONS THAT ARE SIGNATORIES TO THE STATEMENT.
1. Women in Law and Development in Africa – West Africa
2. Réseau de Développement et de Communication des Femmes Africaines (FEMNET)
3. Women in Law and Development in Africa – Bénin
4. Women in Law and Development in Africa – Burkina Faso
5. Women in Law and Development in Africa – Côte d’Ivoire
6. Women in Law and Development in Africa - Ghana
7. Women in Law and Development in Africa – Guinée
8. Women in Law and Development in Africa – Mali
9. Women in Law and Development in Africa – Nigeria
10. Women in Law and Development in Africa – Sénégal
11. Women in Law and Development in Africa – Togo
12. Réseau pour l’Intégration des Femmes des ONG et associations Africaines (RIFONGA) – Bénin
13. Associação Caboverdiana de Mulheres Juristas – Cabo Verde
14. Rede de Mulheres Economistas – Cabo Verde
15. Mouvement international des Femmes Démocrates (MIFED) - Côte d’Ivoire
16. Female Lawyers Association (FLAG) - Gambia
17. Network for Women’s Rights (NETRIGHT)– Ghana
18. Coalition Nationale de Guinée pour les droits et la citoyenneté des femmes (CONAG-DCF) - Guinée
19. Association of Female Lawyers (AFELL) - Liberia
20. CAFO - Mali
21. Forum national pour la promotion des droits de la Femme FNPDF- Mauritanie
22. Association Mauritanienne de Lutte contre les Pratiques Néfastes agissant sur la santé de la femme
et de l’Enfant (AMPSFE) - Mauritanie
23. Coordination des ONG et Associations Féminines Nigériennes (CONGAFEN) – Niger
24. ONG Dimol – Niger
25. Women’s consortium of Nigeria (WOCON) – Nigeria
26. Women Advocate Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) - Nigeria
27. Forum for African women educationalists – Sierra Leone
28. Women’s Forum – Sierra Leone
29. Réseau Africain pour le Développement Intégré (RADI) – Sénégal
30. Consortium des Organisations Non Gouvernementales d’Appui au Développement - Sénégal
31. Réseau des Femmes Anciens Ministre et Parlementaires (REFAMP) – Togo
4
32. Groupe de réflexion et d’action Femmes Démocratie et Développement (GF2D) – Togo
33. La Colombe - Togo
MINISTERIES
34. Ministère de l’action sociale, de la promotion de la femme, de la protection de l’enfant et des personnes âgées - Togo
35. Federal Ministry of women Affairs, Abuja – Nigeria

Kenya: Helping women claim their rights

Nelly Njoki

2008-09-05

http://imaginingourselves.imow.org/pb/Story.aspx?id=580&lang=1&g=0

During my studies, I went to one of the local courts to attend a proceeding for the seizure of a widow’s property. Seated in one of the benches was a frail looking woman whom I could tell had been sobbing. When the court house was empty, as the matters for the day had been completed, I passed her on my way out; she did not even noticed my presence until I tapped her shoulder, then without lifting her bowed head she said, “I don’t have anywhere to go; they should have dug a grave for me also.”

South Africa: Rural women and land reform

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/6ea5ed

Pick up the promotional brochure of any government, NGO or corporate social investment programme and you will read that poor women are an important beneficiary group – if not the most important target of social relief and investment programmes. Many millions of Rand are raised and spent in the name of alleviating the plight of poor black women, particularly those living in rural South Africa.

Southern Africa: What will SADC free trade mean for women?

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/69n77a

One of the highlights of the recent Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit 2008 was the launch of the SADC Free Trade Area (FTA). Increased integration could bring a wealth of opportunities for the region, yet for the most vulnerable, especially women, these benefits will largely depend on their access to finance, training, and productive resources needed to participate fully in the regional economy.

Kenya: New report documents the double tragedy of Mt Elgon

2008-09-05

http://www.humanrightshouse.org/dllvis5.asp?id=6780

The Kenyan human rights organisation Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) released its final report today on the gross human rights violations conducted both by the so-called Sabot Land Defence Forces (SLDF) and a joint police and military operation in the Mt Elgon area of Western Kenya. The report documents murder, rape, arbitrary and mass arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, destruction of property, and cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment of civilians.

Cameroon: SCNC Present Case to European Commission

2008-09-05

http://www.thefrontiertelegraph.com/?p=127#more-127

The Southern Cameroons National Council has met with European Commission representatives and raised afresh their concerns over human rights in Cameroon. As the institutions of the European Union begin to prepare themselves for a return to business as usual after the summer months, UNPO was able to bring together members of the Southern Cameroons Nations Council (SCNC) and representatives of the Union’s Development and External Relations sections in a meeting to discuss the current situation in the troubled country of Cameroon.

Egypt: No justice for 49 facing trial

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/6zo545

The trial of 49 people before an emergency court for alleged involvement in the violent protests of 6 April 2008 in the city of Mahalla is due to resume on 6 September. Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Egyptian authorities to stop trying individuals before special emergency courts that flout basic guarantees for fair trial.

DRC: ICC rejects appeal to start trial of militiaman

2008-09-05

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27929

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has dismissed an appeal by prosecutors against its earlier decision to suspend the trial of the Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, accused of recruiting child soldiers to serve in his militia. The court announced the decision in a statement, noting that judges with the ICC’s trial chamber had made the ruling.

Kenya: Cabinet ministers deny responsibility for post-election violence

2008-09-05

http://www.humanrightshouse.org/dllvis5.asp?id=6813

Cabinet ministers accused by the official human rights watchdog of organising or funding the post-election violence have come out angrily protesting their innocence. In a series of interviews with the Daily Nation, the ministers accused the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights of spreading lies and rumours in the report presented to the Commission of Inquiry led by judge Philip Waki.

South Africa: A new twist to the migration debate

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/64lvxw

The May 2008 attacks and the responses they have triggered from both Government and South African civil society could well transform the migration debate much more profoundly than first meets the eye, writes Aurelia Wa Kabwe Segatti.

Sudan: Food riot at Darfur camp kills one, injuries six others

2008-09-05

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27933

One person was killed and six others were injured during a food riot inside a camp that houses Chadian refugees in the Sudanese region of Darfur, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports. The agency said the incident occurred on Tuesday morning at the camp in Um Shalaya, about 70 kilometres southeast of El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state.

Algeria: New penal code criminalises illegal immigration

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5wp79g

Leaving Algeria illegally is now considered a criminal offence. In the new Penal Code, approved Sunday (August 31st) by the Council of Ministers, harragas (illegal immigrants) may receive prison sentences of up to six months. Penalties are harsher for the traffickers who co-ordinate the migration networks, allowing sentences up to ten years in the worst cases.

DRC: Refugees return home

2008-09-05

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/48c14ecd6.html

Growing numbers of Congolese refugees like Kashindi Iddi are opting to head home from Tanzania as the situation eases in their home province of South Kivu across Lake Tanganyika. "In 1998, I fled my home town of Matongo because of the war in South Kivu. Today, I'm returning with my wife and three children," Iddi, holding his two-year-old son by the hand, said as he waited to board a UNHCR-charted ferry at the port of Kigoma.

Somaila: UNHCR helps women find work, security

2008-09-05

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/48bc090c4.html

When Khadra's* husband fell sick, she became the sole breadwinner in her family. As an internally displaced person (IDP) who fled Mogadishu a year ago, work opportunities were few and she had to resort to the risky occupation of collecting firewood."I had to walk 10 kilometres out of town every day with my two young daughters. We would collect firewood and sell it for 30,000 Somali shillings (about $US1)," she told UNHCR in Baidoa, some 230 kilometres north-west of the Somali capital of Mogadishu, adding that this income was not enough to provide for the family.

Global: A governance blueprint for climate refugees

2008-09-05

http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/migration&id=36646&type=Document

Climate change threatens to cause the largest refugee crisis in human history. More than 200 million people, largely in Africa and Asia, might be forced to leave their homes to seek refuge in other places or countries over the course of the century.This paper argues that current institutions, organisations and funding mechanisms are not sufficiently equipped to deal with this looming crisis and advocates a blueprint for global governance for the protection of climate refugees.

Global: How should aid funding respond to African urbanisation?

2008-09-05

http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/migration&id=38797&type=Document

Rapid urbanisation is a fact of life even in the least developed countries where the lion’s share of the population presently lives in rural areas and will continue to do so for decades to come. This paper examines the causes, consequences and policy implications of the ongoing urbanisation in the African less developed countries (LDCs). The authors find that the employment opportunities in either rural or the urban sector are not growing adequately.

Africa: How to improve services and protection for displaced people with disabilities

2008-09-05

http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/migration&id=38174&type=Document

Persons with disabilities remain among the most hidden, neglected and socially excluded of all displaced people today. People with disabilities are often literally and programmatically “invisible” in refugee and internally displaced persons (IDP) assistance programs [adapted from author]. This resource kit provides practical ideas on how to improve services and protection for people with disabilities and enhance their inclusion and participation in community affairs.

South Africa: Is South Africa protecting the rights of non nationals?

2008-09-05

http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/migration&id=38013&type=Document

In South Africa non-nationals, refugees, asylum seekers, and other immigrants are often excluded from the services, welfare, and dignity they are guaranteed by South African law and constitutional commitments. Issued annually in commemoration of World Refugee Day (20 June), this report represents research by members of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA), a national network of service providers and research bodies in South Africa.

Africa: Declaration of African Conference on Participatory Democracy

2008-09-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/50285

As comrades and compatriots, gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, August 14-16, 2008, from all parts of the world, at the African Conference on Participatory Democracy, hosted by the South African Communist Party and the Swedish Left Party under the auspices of the International Left Forum declare the following...
Johannesburg Declaration of African Conference on Participatory Democracy

16 August 2008

As comrades and compatriots, gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, August 14-16, 2008, from all parts of the world, at the African Conference on Participatory Democracy, hosted by the South African Communist Party and the Swedish Left Party under the auspices of the International Left Forum declare the following:.

1. The African continent has been, and continues to be, ravaged by effects of neo-colonialism, the comprador bourgeoisie, and imperialism, devastated by curable diseases- amongst them TB, Malaria, underdevelopment, abject poverty and squalor living conditions affecting the majority of its inhabitants amidst its riches. That, the African continent is a repository of rich minerals - gold, diamond, coal, platinum, plants, water and oxygen resources and others.

2. The capitalist system and imperialist forces continue to plunder these riches at the expense of the majority whilst enriching a small capitalist class and some corrupt African leaders chosen to defeat substantive democracy and perpetuate a neo-liberal democratic outlook that promises rights without substance.

3. Our revolutionary support and commitment to the total liberation of the people of Africa, humanity as a whole, the working class, rural communities and peasants, free from exploitation, capitalist slavery and the commodification of human life remains unwavering.

4. Conference called on progressive forces throughout the continent and world to remain combat ready and immersed as the vanguard of everyday battles of the working class, to free the world from imperialism, neo-colonialism with all its remnants and vestiges.

5. Our passion to destroy capitalism wherever it may be, to free society from crass materialism and consumerism and to advance to a society that is democratic, co-operative and communal remains unwavering.

6. Conference committed to struggle and fight for Socialism, which is the only viable solution to the neo-colonial and capitalist crisis, putting human needs before greed.

7. Conference agreed that Socialism is the future and we must build it NOW!

8. Our unwavering solidarity among the progressive forces of the left, to join hands and strengthen organisational capacity to build a world solidarity movement, more organized and structured, assertive and militant.

9. We pledge our progressive solidarity with the left formations that continue to operate under dangerous conditions of illegality for example in Egypt and Cameroon.

10. We pledge our solidarity and continued focus on hotspots around the world that are currently under extreme violent capitalist oppression and in urgent need of relief and basic democratic rights in particular the people of Western Sahara, Darfur, Palestine, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somali, Burma and so on.

11. We pledge our commitment to the struggle for the total emancipation of women from patriarchy, religious bigotry, capitalism, racial and tribal oppression. Conference condemns the raping of women and girls and all other forms of violence.

12. We condemn in the strongest terms, the practice of child labour and child soldiers; this practice is an abominable true face of capitalism.

13. We resolve to contribute to speeding up the resolution of the land question, especially in Africa, where our people remain landless, homeless and enslaved.

14. We declare that, trade unions are potentially an important component in the struggle for socialism. We pledged to work to build progressive trade unions.

15. We commit to work with progressive forces amongst the working class, women organizations, religious, youth, children, the elderly and so on to end this crisis of capitalism.

16. We commit ourselves to build organizational capacity and leadership to promote popular participatory democracy.

17. We pledge our solidarity with the people of Latin America who are struggling to build an alternative society to the barbarism of capitalism based on human solidarity.

18. We pledge our solidarity and support to the Cuba revolution and call for the end of evil USA economic blockade and demand the unconditional release of the five Cuban heroes detained in the USA.

19. That in all the above struggles, intentions, and plans of action, participatory democracy must not, can not and will not be sacrificed for undemocratic, dogmatic and authoritarian practices, so often destroying our best intentions.

20. We call upon all communists and socialists on the African continent to work to exploit all the available democratic space to advance the cause for socialism and to promote networking among African socialists and progressive forces. The SACP was called upon to promote this regular contacts among African progressives.

We, the participants of the African Conference on Participatory Democracy declare unashamedly, proudly, and with the greatest passion, that history is not complete, until capitalism and all its vestiges come to a shameful end, and the road of the human race is lit with love for one another and with lit with Socialism.

As socialists we pledge to defend democracy, human rights and political pluralism.

Conference expressed its gratitude to the South African Communist Party and the Swedish Left Party for facilitating and hosting this historic conference on the African continent.

Conference also received and acknowledged messages of support from the communists, workers and radical left forces all over the world for which it was very grateful for.

SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE. BUILD IT NOW!

Names of organizations present:

1. Communist Party of Egypt.

2. South African Communist Party

3. Young Communist League of South Africa

4. COSATU

5. ANC

6. Young Left of Sweden

7. Press Freedom Committee of the Post - Zambia

8. Left International Forum

9. Peace and Democracy Project

10. Development Work

11. South African Political Economy Series

12. Communist Party of Sudan

13. Communist Party of Greece

14. United Democratic Forces – Inkingi (Rwanda)

15. Kabale Socialist Club – Uganda

16. Communist Party of Brazil

17. Centre for Multi Party Democracy – Kenya

18. Left Party of Sweden

19. South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union

20. Public Entity

21. People’s United Democratic Movement – Swaziland

22. Centre for Policy Dialogue

23. Polisario Frente

24. Democratic Progressive Party – Malawi

25. Social Demlocratic Party - Kenya

26. Botswana National Front

27. National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa

28. National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union

29. Communist Party of Lesotho

30. Centre for Civil Society – SA

31. Centre for Policy Dialogue – Zambia

32. Khulumani Support Group – SA

33. MSP (Brazil Landless Workers Movement) – Brazil

34. National Union of Mineworkers

35. National Peasant Union – Mozambique

36. SACCOL

37. Sikhulasonke Women on Farms

38. Swaziland Youth Congress

39. Communist Party of Cuba

40. Western Sahara Solidarity Forum

41. New Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)

Kenya: Stop Kibaki and Raila from fleecing us!

2008-09-04

http://blog.marsgroupkenya.org/?p=170

Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and Prime Minister Raila Odinga will spend Kenya shillings 1.2 Billion (100 million shillings per month) on their households and press units this financial year. Considering the economic condition of Kenyans, poverty levels in our country and the country’s substantial development finance needs, can we afford to pump so much into the personal comfort of so few?

South Africa: New partnerships from the margins of society

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5bhbtl

Following the election of the African National Congress to government in South Africa in 1994, there was great hope and expectation that finally the inequalities that had existed for so long along racial lines would be redressed and black people would see marked improvements in their standard of living and better access to public services such as housing, water and electricity.

Angola: Angolans vote in landmark polls

2008-09-05

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7599603.stm

Voting is taking place in Angola in the first parliamentary polls for 16 years. Although 14 parties are taking part, the contest is primarily between long-term rivals, the ruling MPLA party and opposition Unita party.

Zambia: Levy Mwanawasa buried

2008-09-05

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7595149.stm

The late Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has been buried at a sombre ceremony in the capital, Lusaka. There was a 21-gun salute as his body was lowered into the ground in a copper-plated coffin - Zambia is Africa's biggest copper producer.

Kenya: PM's wife rejects state pay

2008-09-05

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7595743.stm

The wife of Kenya's prime minister has turned down a controversial monthly allowance of $6,000 (£3,000) offered to her by the government. Ida Odinga thanked the state for appreciating her role, but said she did not need money for her legacy. The decision to pay hefty salaries to the wives of the prime minister and vice-president provoked public outrage.

Zambia: VP Banda named as presidential candidate

2008-09-05

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN540264.html

Zambia's ruling MMD party chose the country's Vice President Rupiah Banda as its candidate for a presidential election due in November, a party official said on Friday.

Burkina Faso: Cabinet reshuffled

2008-09-05

http://www.afrol.com/articles/30661

A cabinet reshuffle in Burkina Faso saw the appointment of six new ministers and shifting of ministerial portfolios. In a presidential decree, President Blaisse Compaore has retained all officials of the 34-sized cabinet headed by prime minister Tertius Zongo.

Chad: Court sentences former president to death

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5byvrj

A Chadian court on Friday sentenced a former president and 11 rebels to death for crimes against the state, an official said. Former president Hissene Habre is currently awaiting trial in Senegal for torture and murder. A Chadian commission of inquiry concluded Habre killed tens of thousands of political opponents during his eight years in power until he was ousted by rebels in 1990.

Africa: Corruption kills development- TI

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5cfl27

On the eve of the Accra High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF) being held on 2-4 September in Ghana, Transparency International (TI) warned that corruption would continue to undermine poverty reduction efforts without immediate action on transparency, accountability and citizen participation by aid recipient and donor countries.

Africa: Africa’s search for collective development strategies

2008-09-05

http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=3502

While aiming at its unity, Africa has attempted a number of initiatives to search for a collective development strategy. Such a search included the Lagos Plan of Action, the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes, and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)

Africa: Ecobank plans Africa’s biggest rights issue

2008-09-04

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/257732c0-6f18-11dd-a80a-0000779fd18c.html

Ecobank, the African regional banking group, has announced plans for the continent's biggest rights issue outside South Africa as rising wealth in the world's poorest continent spurs demand for banking services. The bank is seeking to raise $2.5bn on three west African exchanges - Ghana, Nigeria and Ivory Coast - to expand its branch network across the continent in the first African rights issue in more than one country.

Africa: Angola becomes Africa’s largest oil producer

2008-09-05

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/ango-s04.shtml

Angola overtook Nigeria this year as Africa’s largest, and the world’s eighth largest, oil producer—a combination of Angola’s surge in growth and Nigeria’s decline in production following rebel attacks on its oilfields. Angola is now producing over 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) of high-quality crude oil from onshore and near-shore fields, up from 900,000 bpd in 2002 and from 500,000 bpd in 1993.

Global: Alternative approaches to employment-based social protection

2008-09-05

http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=3058

Are supply-driven or demand-led approaches to employment generation more successful in reaching poor women? This chapter in the Commonwealth Secretariat’s publication Mainstreaming Gender in Social Protection for the Informal Economy examines social protection schemes in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Global: Slowdown 'could spill over to poor countries' - UN

2008-09-05

http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=6492

A new United Nations report on the outlook for the global economy over the next few months indicates that the robust growth seen in developing countries could be checked by the slowdown in the industrialised world. "This is really a downturn after four blessed years of relatively strong growth," said Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary general of UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development), which put out its annual report Thursday.

Global: Statistics must be used to measure aid effectiveness

2008-09-05

http://www.awcfs.org/content/view/507/1/

In order to measure progress on achievement of the Paris Declaration, the 3rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness called on developing countries to partner with donor communities to ensure good statistics are produced to facilitate development results.

Global: A window of opportunity in post-conflict countries

2008-09-05

http://www.awcfs.org/content/view/501/1/

In post conflict settings, where new constitutions are agreed upon, national development plans and budgets drawn up, new laws adopted and institutions rebuilt, there is often a unique window of opportunity to advance women’s rights and gender-equality, says Joan Sandler.

Global: World Bank revises poverty estimates

2008-09-05

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3887.aspx

New estimates from the World Bank reveal that there are more poor people in the world than previously thought. The World Bank has updated its global poverty estimates, which now reveal that while overall global poverty has declined since 1981, there are more poor people today than previously estimated.

Swaziland: Don't blame donor dependency

2008-09-05

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=43771

What happens to a nation whose people depend on the largesse of international donor agencies for their existence, once support is withdrawn? If forecasts for the small landlocked African nation of Swaziland are an indication, the granting of temporary relief may be followed by a new humanitarian emergency.

Global: Empower women and girls to stay HIV-Negative

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5vaz4q

Globally half of the people living with HIV and AIDS are female. Biologically, women are more likely than men to acquire HIV. Gender inequalities and human rights violations heighten girls' and women's vulnerability. Investing in comprehensive HIV prevention for women and girls is also an investment in the health and well-being of boys and men and of communities.

Africa: Is male circumcision as good as the HIV vaccine?

2008-09-04

http://tinyurl.com/5ovzd3

This article from Future Medicine reports on research into the effectiveness of male circumcision (MC) as a means of preventing HIV in Africa. Findings show an average 65 percent reduction in HIV infection as a result of MC, rising to 76 per cent in South Africa where HIV prevalence was highest. MC has also been shown to eliminate or significantly reduce the risk of acquiring or spreading many sexually transmitted infections including syphilis as well as human papilloma virus.

Malawi: Poor results using non-medical HIV counsellors

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5nvj3d

There may be limits to which medical tasks can be shifted to non-medical staff in resource-limited settings with only limited training and supervision, according to a report from The Lighthouse Trust in Malawi presented at the XVII International AIDS Conference last month.

South Africa: Belief in conspiracy theories means less HIV testing

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/58fykd

South Africans who believe in a conspiracy theory that HIV was introduced by white people as a way of controlling the black population are significantly less likely to have had an HIV test, according to a study published in the September 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. For the South African government to restore the public’s faith in their response to HIV, they need to “present a consistent and strong prevention platform about the importance of testing”, argue the investigators.

Africa: 'Hidden epidemic' of HIV amongst migrants in the US

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/56s5d5

There is a “hidden epidemic” of HIV amongst African migrants living in the United States, according to investigators writing in the September 12th edition of AIDS. The researchers found that African-born individuals in the US had a disproportionately high prevalence of HIV – although they comprised only 0.6% of the study population, almost 4% of HIV diagnoses were amongst African-born individuals. Furthermore, the investigators found that in one health area approximately 50% of HIV infections amongst black people were amongst individuals originating in Africa.

Uganda: HIV prevalence and incidence on the way up

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/6oclfg

HIV prevalence and incidence in rural Uganda appear to be increasing, researchers report in a study published in the August 20th edition of AIDS. Coinciding with these increases, the investigators observed changes in HIV sexual risk behaviours in certain groups. The study was conducted in villages in rural Uganda and the trends it revealed mirror other evidence from Uganda pointing to increases in HIV prevalence and incidence.

Kenya: 'Express care' by nurses decreases clinic congestion

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/6s2rhe

'Express care', a new model for providing care to people starting antiretroviral therapy in which most of the burden for seeing patients is shifted to nurses, is associated with reduced death rates (by about 50%) and reduced losses to follow-up among people with CD4 cell counts of less than 100 cells/mm3, according to a Kenyan presentation made earlier this month at the International AIDS Conference, in Mexico City.

Uganda: Using mobile phones to fight HIV

2008-09-05

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80176

Uganda's rising HIV prevalence is forcing policy makers to look for inventive ways of educating people about the virus. Their latest tool is mobile phone technology, whose rapid growth has provided an avenue that could potentially reach millions with messages.

Zimbabwe: Union provides free ARVs to journalists

2008-09-05

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80171

The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ), which represents journalists in the country, has launched a programme to provide life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to its HIV-positive members.

Kenya: Talk show breaks the ice on homosexuality

2008-09-05

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=kenya&id=1945

Hatua, a cutting edge talk show on Kenya’s Citizen Channel, unraveled a topic of homosexuality for the first time on Saturday 23 August. With the topic, Hatua, a project of the Mohamed Amin Foundation, supported by a grant from the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA), aimed to highlight human rights issues surrounding the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community in Kenya and to open a dialogue around homosexuality.

Botswana: Batswana gays celebrate their pride

2008-09-05

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=botswana&id=1948

Locked iron gates, entry by invitation, absence of the media and controlled noise behind one of Gaborone’s town houses appeared to be an illustration of innate fear by Batswana lesbians, gay and bisexuals to be outed and recognised as homosexuals during a pride party hosted by the Lesbians, Gay and Bisexuals of Botswana (LeGaBiBo) recently.

South Africa: gay refugees meet hostility in ‘liberal’ South Africa

2008-09-05

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=southafrica&id=1943

South Africa is one of only seven countries in the world that grants refugee status on the basis of sexual orientation. But people seeking that relief are battling as much as other refugees in the country. In Uganda, homosexual acts are punishable with life imprisonment; in Mozambique with three years’ imprisonment, and with seven years in Botswana.

Africa: EU takes a weak step against logging

2008-09-05

http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=6493

The European Union has reached a new agreement aimed at preventing import of illegal timber from Africa, but environmental campaigners believe bolder action is needed to curb deforestation across the globe. Under a deal reached with Ghana Sep. 3, the EU has undertaken to establish border controls to prevent unlicensed wood from the West African state entering the Union's 27 countries.

Nigeria: ERA Flays arrest of activists, Journalists

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5drhr5

The Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth, Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has condemned Tuesday's arrest and detention of its officers, community elders and some journalists at Iwherekan community, Delta State by soldiers guarding gas flaring sites operated by Shell. The group demands their immediate release and an apology from the military and Shell.

Global: The link between environment and development

2008-09-05

http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=3524

Development and environmental management are inextricably linked. The Earth’s physical resources (land, atmosphere, oceans) and biological systems provide the humans with goods (food, timber, medicines) and essential services such as purification of air and water, soil generation, maintenance of soil fertility and pollination of crops, among others, says Charity Irungu.

Nigeria: Should stopping gas flaring be a priority?

2008-09-05

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80157

Environmental experts warn gas flaring by the Nigerian oil industry in the southern Delta region causes acid rain, respiratory infections, skins diseases and land degradation in dozens of local communities, but some environmentalists defend the country’s right to continue flaring.

Africa: South Africa, Nigeria worst greenhouse gas emitters

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5a2fty

Nigeria and South Africa are the main emitters of greenhouse gases in Africa, accounting for almost 90% of the emissions in the continent, environmental experts have said. "Nigeria produces almost 45% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Africa from its gas flaring by oil firms in the Niger Delta while South Africa produces as much from industrial pollution," said Stefan Cramer.

Western Sahara: UN to appoint new mediator

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5fe5j4

The Polisario Front on Saturday (August 30th) said it was prepared to enter into "serious and intensive" negotiations with Morocco over Western Sahara, two days after the United Nations confirmed that a new mediator will replace special envoy Peter van Walsum, whose mandate expired last week. The Polisario said it would resume dialogue "on the basis of international legality on decolonisation, through holding a free and fair referendum overseen by the United Nations".

Ethiopia: Newspaper editor freed on bail

2008-09-05

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=28317

Reporters Without Borders has learned the good news that Amare Aregawi, the editor of the privately-owned Amharic-language weekly Reporter, was released on 27 August. The press freedom organisation calls on the Ethiopian government to amend the newly-adopted media law in order to eliminate prison sentences for press offences. It also urges the Ethiopian courts to ensure that the law is strictly respected, and thereby guarantee the rights of citizens.

Zimbabwe: Journalists urged to take lead in confronting crisis

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5zfapl

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists are calling for a new strategy to remove harsh media laws that have been used to intimidate and stifle independent journalism. The IFJ says the government has indicated its willingness to have a full review of the extensive legal regulations that have been put in place over the past five years.

Sudan: Press Council allows English-language daily to resume publishing

2008-09-05

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=28396

Reporters Without Borders has hailed the decision by the National Press and Publications Council (NPPC) to allow the English-language Sudan Tribune daily to resume publishing after being suspended since 1 September. “This is a very satisfactory decision,” the press freedom organisation said. “The NPPC is sending a positive signal at a difficult time for the Sudanese press.”

Nigeria: Journalist murdered in unclear circumstances

2008-09-05

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=28261

Reporters Without Borders is saddened and dismayed by the murder of Paul Abayomi Ogundeji, a reporter for the privately-owned daily Thisday and a member of its editorial board. He was gunned down in Lagos on 17 August, less than two years after Godwin Agbroko, the chairman of its editorial board, was killed in similar circumstances.

Chad: Urge Chad to free child soldiers

2008-09-05

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/09/03/chad19745.htm

The Security Council working group on children and armed conflict should urge Chad to take measurable, concrete steps to demobilize children from its armed forces and stop continued recruitment, Human Rights Watch has said in a letter. On September 5, 2008, the working group will discuss violations of children’s rights in Chad. The working group asked Chad to take steps to bring an end to the recruitment and use of child soldiers a year earlier, in September 2007, but government efforts to comply have been largely ineffective.

Burundi: Restarting Political Dialogue

2008-09-04

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5632&l=1

This latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, points out that disarmament has barely started, and no consensus has been reached on integrating former rebels into state and security institutions. Burundi cannot afford to have wasted three years in legislative gridlock and then move directly towards the preparation of the 2010 elections without delivering peace dividends.

DRC: East Congo risks plunging back into war - U.N.

2008-09-05

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/KLMT-7J78PP?OpenDocument

Congo's eastern borderlands risk plunging back into all-out war between the army and Tutsi rebels after the heaviest clashes in months, the U.N. peacekeeping mission chief said. The enemies fought heavy battles last week in North Kivu province, where violence fuelled by simmering ethnic tensions has raged despite the official end of Congo's broader 1998-2003 war, a regional free-for-all over the country's mineral wealth.

Somalia: Accord welcomed

2008-09-05

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27940

The Security Council has welcomed the recent signing of a peace and reconciliation agreement by Somalia’s warring political groups and urged the two sides in the troubled Horn of Africa nation to fully implement their commitments under the accord.

West Africa: UN agencies step up relief efforts in wake of widespread floods

2008-09-05

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27924

United Nations humanitarian agencies are expanding their relief efforts across West Africa, where rising flood waters have displaced hundreds of thousands of people in seven countries, damaged major infrastructure and sparked the threat of widespread outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Ethiopia: Drought-stricken areas assessed

2008-09-05

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27890

The top United Nations humanitarian official has begun his three-day visit to Ethiopia, where he is holding talks with Government officials, relief groups and individuals affected by the country's drought and food crisis. John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, travelled to Ethiopia's Konso Special Woreda in Southern Nations Nationalities and People's Region (SNNPR) today to review humanitarian efforts.

Burundi: Prisoner release to help peace process

2008-09-05

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80145

The release of detainees suspected to be members of the Palipehutu-Forces for National Liberation (FNL), Burundi's last rebel group, would remove a major impediment to the ceasefire between the group and the government, sources said. The FNL has repeatedly demanded the release of its detained members as a pre-condition for implementing a ceasefire with the government, according to local observers in the capital, Bujumbura.

DRC: Clashes resume between army, rebels

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/5pd6hs

Fighting resumed on Friday between government troops and rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a new breach of a truce agreement, sources on both sides said. The governor of Nord-Kivu province, Julien Pakulu, said forces of renegade general Laurent Nkunda had attacked positions of the government's Seventh Brigade at Katsiru, about 100km north-west of the provincial capital, Goma.

Kenya: School books go digital

2008-09-05

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/464696/-/tk9oqj/-/index.html

Textbooks may soon be available online if a pilot project yields results. The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) has entered into an agreement with the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE) meant to provide learning materials to schools in soft copies as well as online. According to the deal, the CCK will fund digitalisation of 11 Form One subjects at an initial cost of Sh15.2 million.

Africa: Internet access fuels development in war-torn Uganda

2008-09-05

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1381/1/

Not far from the closely packed mud huts of Pabo camp for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Northern Uganda, the Catholic parish office lights up like a beacon in the inky night of this war-torn area; the region has never had electricity. Last year, the Pabo diocese used a wireless internet connection provided by an NGO called Battery Operated System for Community Outreach (BOSCO) to apply for a $40,000 grant for solar panels. Now the health center has an internet phone they can use to call free anywhere in the world, and students at Pabo secondary school are sharing stories of abduction and war on personal blogs.

South Africa: Mobile a serious challenge for Internet publishers

2008-09-05

http://africa.oneworld.net/news/news1/

It was bad enough for web publishing when the challenge was to persuade marketers to move money from 'old fashioned' magazines and radio to the 'new and trendy' Internet. Now there's something newer and trendier! The success of MXit has been phenomenal. The instant messaging service available via cellphones has more than three million subscribers in South Africa.

Africa: Islands agree on fibre connection scheme

2008-09-05

http://tinyurl.com/6ll2cw

A meeting of the members of the Indian Ocean Commission in Addis Ababa has decided to give the go-ahead to connect their island-members by fibre to each other and the rest of the world. The connecting cable would be available on non-discriminatory terms and under a low-cost, high volume regime

Global: IDRC Doctoral Research Awards

2008-09-05

http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-23374-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

Since 1982, IDRC has assisted Canadian graduate students to undertake their thesis research in the field of international development. IDRC Doctoral Research Awards are intended to promote the growth of Canadian capacity in research on sustainable and equitable development from an international perspective. Normally, such research is conducted in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East or Asia.

Global: Focus on the Global South International Course 2008

2008-09-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/50276

This course examines globalization and its socio-economic consequences. It offers an analytical interpretation of the ongoing debates concerning the dynamics, institutional structures, and central processes of globalization and the organized resistances of civil society groups and networks worldwide. Inherent in this examination is a critical understanding of the role and nature of hegemony in the relations between countries in the institutions of global governance. Application Deadline: September 15, 2008.
Focus on the Global South International Course 2008
“Globalization and Social Transformation”

November 3 - 21
Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok, Thailand


Application Deadline: Sept. 15, 2008

Course Description
This course examines globalization and its socio-economic consequences. It offers an analytical interpretation of the ongoing debates concerning the dynamics, institutional structures, and central processes of globalization and the organized resistances of civil society groups and networks worldwide. Inherent in this examination is a critical understanding of the role and nature of hegemony in the relations between countries in the institutions of global governance.

The course will look at the political, social and cultural aspects of social movement building and other forms of counter-hegemonic activities. Case studies presenting the political, social and cultural aspects of social movement building as well as campaign initiatives for social justice, sustainability and human rights will be discussed by practitioners and activist researchers.
The course will bring together practitioners (staff and members of social movements/civil society organizations and networks, including the media) from within and beyond the Asian region. Through this course, Focus and Chulalongkorn University wish to contribute to the development and strengthening of links between organizations and networks as well as provide a space for deepening understanding about global issues and the role of civil society organizations in social transformation.

Course Design
The course will comprise a combination of inputs from an international pool of lecturers, public seminars, small group workshops, debates and mutual teaching and learning among participants. The participants will also be encouraged to prepare presentations and share their experiences of campaigning, public education and mobilization. The topics for presentations will be agreed between the lecturers and the participants. Some sessions will also be allocated for campaign and/or mobilization strategy sharing and other practical exercises.
The course will run for 15 days (Monday to Friday, with 3-hour morning and afternoon sessions) at the Chulalongkorn University campus in Bangkok, Thailand from October 15 to November 2, 2007.

The course organizers will ensure a well balanced participation in terms of gender, sector, and level of engagement (local, regional, global). The course is designed for those who have at least 2 years of involvement in any social movement and volunteer work or work experience in NGOs.

Admission
Participants will be charged a US$ 1,000 course fee, which will also cover in-campus accommodations, reading materials and short field trips in Bangkok. Participants are expected to shoulder their own travel expenses to Thailand.
There will be 20 full scholarship placements for travel and course attendance (competitive) for participants that are coming from the social movements and strategic advocacy organizations from the South.

Due to cost considerations, all lectures and public events will be presented in English. It is expected that participants have a good command of the language. For successful applicants from China, the language requirement could be waived and simultaneous translation will be available during lectures and public events.

As a component of Focus on the Global South’s China Project, course participants from China will be offered a 10-day field exposure or Study Tour to the rural areas in Thailand by the Focus Thailand Country Programme.
Please visit Focus on the Global South website (www.focusweb.org <http://www.focusweb.org/>) for more information and to down load the application form.

South Africa: COPA’s Advanced Conflict Transformation Course

6-31 October 2008

2008-09-04

http://www.copafrica.org/training.html

The Advanced Conflict Transformation (ACT) is a four week course that is organized by COPA. This course offers diverse aspects of conflict transformation and peace building. It is aimed at participants working in related fields on the African continent. Although reference is made to the impact of international political and economic events & trends on the continent, emphasis is placed on culturally sensitive and sustainable responses to regional and community conflicts in Africa.

Ending Aid Dependence: New book from Fahamu Books

2008-09-04

http://fahamubooks.org/book/?GCOI=90638100770030

In September 2008, ministers from over 100 countries, heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, donor organisations, and civil society organisations from around the world will gather in Accra for the Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (2-4 September 2008). This meeting has been promoted as helping “developing countries and marginalised people in their fight against poverty by making aid more transparent, accountable and results-oriented.” The agenda for ‘Aid Effectiveness’ has, however, come under heavy criticism from many quarters. This timely book cautions developing countries against endorsing the agenda proposed at this meeting. If adopted, it would subject the recipients to a discipline of collective control by the donors right down to the village level.

Regional Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa

Internews Network: Position Location: Nairobi, Kenya

2008-09-08

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/50384

Internews Network is seeking an experienced manager with regional expertise in Africa. Candidates should have relevant media experience, as well as previous experience with US government funding and knowledge of French. The full job announcement can be viewed at:
http://www.globalrecruitment.net/GRS_585-HB.html

Please email cover letter and resume to Helena Brykarz at hbrykarz@globalrecruitment.net

South Africa: AfriMAP Advocacy and Communications Officer

2008-09-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/50273

The Open Society Institute’s (OSI) Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) seeks to appoint an Advocacy and Communications Officer, who will be based at the offices of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) in Johannesburg, South Africa. Closing Date for applications is 12th September 2008
The Open Society Institute’s (OSI) Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) seeks to appoint an Advocacy and Communications Officer, who will be based at the offices of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The communications officer will be primarily responsible for the development and implementation of a strategy to ensure that AfriMAP’s research is packaged for and reaches the widest possible audience. The communications officer’s first responsibility on starting work will be to assist in the development of a public relations and advocacy strategy for a major comparative report on the broadcast media in Africa for which research is already under way.

Among the target audiences that the communications officer will be expected to assist us to reach are the organs of the African Union (including the AU Commission, the APRM and NEPAD secretariats, ECOSOCC and the Pan African Parliament), the regional economic communities (SADC, ECOWAS etc), Africa’s bilateral and multilateral development partners, national governments, civil society organisations and the public at large,.

Key areas of responsibility are:
• Assisting the conceptualisation, organisation of roundtable discussions at which AfriMAP research findings are presented; in the first case the research findings of AfriMAP’s 12-country survey of public broadcasting services in Africa
• Planning follow-up activities once the reports are launched (conferences, seminars, hearings etc)
• Preparation (in cooperation with the authors/editors) of summary versions of AfriMAP reports and recommendations for use by parliamentarians, civil servants and other policy makers and assistance to the other AfriMAP and OSI staff in presenting these documents at different fora.
• Development and implementation of a strategy to ensure substantive coverage of our work in African and international media, including preparing press releases and other promotional materials and briefing selected media on the findings of AfriMAP research
• Taking over primary responsibility for the development and enhancement of the AfriMAP website as an advocacy tool, including assisting with its maintenance and the additions to its library database (no particular web programming skills are required, however)
• Development of the occasional AfriMAP newsletter into a more substantive publication
• Coordinating the process of producing AfriMAP’s publications and supervising the finalisation of printed versions.
• Assisting with other aspects of AfriMAP’s and OSI’s work in Africa, as instructed by the AfriMAP director.

Requirements
• Master’s degree in journalism, social science, human rights law, development studies, political science, international relations, any related field, or equivalent experience
• Demonstrated excellent written and oral presentation skills in English
• Reasonable spoken and written French
• Willingness to travel widely in Africa and occasionally outside the continent, as required
• Familiarity with the politics of the African continent and with the issues researched by AfriMAP
• Ability to work independently but also as a team member (with staff of AfriMAP project, OSI Africa foundations and national partners).



An attractive remuneration package, commensurate with experience, are offered. The job is offered on a three-year contract.

The Open Society Institute and AfriMAP: OSI works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. AfriMAP is an initiative to promote compliance by African states with the requirements of good governance set out in African and international treaties. AfriMAP works closely with OSI’s African foundations and with African civil society organizations to research and publish reports on themes related to governance in individual African countries. More information about AfriMAP and OSI can be obtained on http://www.afrimap.org
Interested and qualified candidates who match the profile are invited to submit their CV and a letter of interest to:


The Human Resources Department
AfriMAP
c/o Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa
P.O. Box 678
Wits 2050
Fax: +27 86 626 086827 / +27 11 4032708
Email: humanresources@osisa.org


Closing Date for applications is 12th September 2008
Only short-listed candidates will receive a response from AfriMAP.

West Africa: Information pluralism and and media programme coordinator

2008-09-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/50299

The Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA) is seeking a determined and dynamic collaborator (male or female) to fill the position of Information Pluralism and Média Development Programmme Coordinator. The Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA) is a Regional Non Governmental Organization based in Dakar (Senegal) and operating in West Africa. PIWA has as mission to contribute to the construction of a democratic space of communication for change and social justice in Africa. PIWA. The deadline for application is October, 03rd 2008
INFORMATION PLURALISM AND MEDIA DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME COORDINATOR

The Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA) is seeking a determined and dynamic collaborator (male or female) to fill the position of Information Pluralism and Média Development Programmme Coordinator. The Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA) is a Regional Non Governmental Organization based in Dakar (Senegal) and operating in West Africa. PIWA has as mission to contribute to the construction of a democratic space of communication for change and social justice in Africa. PIWA

Job Mission
Contribute, within the frame of the 5 Years Strategic Plan, to the consolidation of Information Pluralism and Media Development at the West African regional level through the implementation and visibility of the programme at regional and international levels.

Main responsibilities
Under the supervision of the programmes director you will:
Implement the programme’s strategy for the coming years.
Contribute to the fundraising for the development of the programme in the coming years.
Consolidate and broaden the judicial, economic and institutional frameworks of information pluralism at the regional level.
Provide documentation and facilitate public debates on the challenges of information and communication for democracy.
Strengthen capacities of actors in the media sector and their synergy.

Your qualifications and profile
Master’s degree to PhD in international relations, political sciences, communication and information sciences.
Project management knowledge: command of development projects and programmes conception, planning, implementation and evaluation.
Research: good knowledge of research methodologies, and ability to define terms of reference of studies and coordinate research work on the fields from a distance.
Knowledge of the information sector and theme (Information Pluralism and Media Development) : good knowledge of theories, concepts of information and communication sector, specific knowledge of challenges of information pluralism and media development stakeholders at both international and West African level;
Minimum 5 years of relevant working experience at the same level;
Languages : perfect command of English or French, with good working knowledge of the second language;
Strategist, leader, creative, autonomous, reactive, dynamic, ability to develop and interpersonal relationship and networks;
Command of usual office softwares and internet.



Applications
Send your resume and cover letter in which you explain why you think you are a good candidate for the position (maximum 4 pages for both documents, in word format).
Recall :
i) the position you’re applying for in the resume and the cover lettter,
ii) your availability,
iii) your expected salary,
iv) 3 professional references with their phone number and email.

The deadline for application is October, 03rd 2008, to the following email addresses: olakh@panos-ao.org

Due to the number of applications awaited, only short listed candidates will be contacted.
Applications that don’t fulfil the conditions and requirements will not be considered.

Fahamu