Africa Watch: Africa: Continent Makes Unsteady But Remarkable Progress, Says Report

Cape Town — The annual report of the Africa Progress Report says that despite authoritarian and corrupt leaders, wars and coups, the overall trend in Africa is towards less conflict, more democracy and greater development.

Selected highlights from its 2009 report:

Progress in the areas of governance and education are mixed, with more democracy and access to education on the one hand, but coups d'etat and low school enrolment still prevalent. Corruption is costing the continent $150 billion a year;
Health financing has improved and several countries appear to have significantly reduced their AIDS prevalence rate, and there is growing number of patients receiving antiretroviral treatment. But indicators of health in Africa remain the lowest in the world;
While Africa still has the largest number of armed conflicts of any region and about one fifth of the continent's population lives in conflict zones, there has been tangible progress towards strengthening mechanisms for reducing conflict;
Although international food prices have fallen, the nutritional needs of the poor are still receiving inadequate attention and food crises persist in 20 African countries.

More detailed excerpts from the report follow in the areas of governance, education, health, peace and security and food and nutrition security:

Africa's story remains one of unsteady but remarkable progress punctuated by setbacks and chronic problems. On the one hand, the continent has never been in a better position than today. Not only are there more democratic countries than ever before (almost 30 as opposed to merely five at the end of the Cold War) and fewer civil wars (three as opposed to 13 a decade and a half ago), but over the past decade most countries have also been able to record real progress, whether in terms of economic growth and private sector development, primary education, women's rights or the fight against poverty and disease.

It is true that there are still too many countries with authoritarian and corrupt leaders, too many contested election results and that major problems persist such as the wars in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the surge of piracy off the coast of Somalia, and coups, notably in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Madagascar.

The positive trends towards less conflict, more democracy and greater development are nonetheless clear.

Governance

It has been a very mixed year for governance in Africa. On the one hand, there has been progress with respect to overall accountability, political liberalization, and economic management. Multi-party elections have become more regular, with particularly encouraging electoral processes in Ghana, South Africa, and Zambia.

To date, 29 countries have voluntarily acceded to NEPAD's African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), 15 have launched reviews, and five countries are actively implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) which is designed to monitor the use of funds earned from oil and other natural resources.

The scope of political representation has widened and efforts have been made through constitutional provisions to reflect the diversity of African societies in organs of government, especially in the executive and legislature.

The growing role of civil society in many countries is also a great sign of progress as nongovernmental organizations and other citizen groups are increasingly holding governments accountable for their actions .

Average scores in the Ibrahim Index of African governance, for example, have risen from 52.7 in 2002 to 55.8 in 2008, with 31 out of 48 sub-Saharan countries improving their governance performance over this period. On the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is notable that the largest improvements are in the categories of political participation and human rights. In some countries, such as Liberia, with the continent's first elected female head of state, the change has been transformational.

On the other hand, there have been glaring setbacks such as the coups in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Madagascar, or the refusal of most African states to support the indictment of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The power-sharing deals in Zimbabwe and Kenya are fragile, the quality of elections remains suspect in many countries (with a continuing tendency to re-elect the incumbent), and adherence to constitutionalism and the rule of law are still not entrenched everywhere.

Eighteen out of Africa's 53 states remain governed by rulers with military roots and even though there have been notable breakthroughs in anti-corruption investigations and convictions in several countries, corruption also remains a major challenge. The African Union estimates that corruption is costing the continent nearly $150 billion a year, and the African Development Bank estimates that it leads to a loss of around 50 percent of domestic tax revenues thus significantly curtailing the ability of African governments to fund vital public and social services.

Education

The picture on education is equally mixed. In the second year of Africa's Second Decade of Education, many countries have committed to a wide-ranging agenda, including tertiary and vocational education and scaled up domestic resources allocated to education. Almost half of African countries (23) have developed national education plans endorsed by the World Bank's Education for All Fast Track Initiative (FTI), and around a third (17) have already formulated long-term plans to achieve Education for All, outlining available domestic resources and external funding needs as agreed at the Abuja Financing for Development Conference in 2006.

African countries have also made considerable progress in increasing access to education - net primary enrolment, for example, has grown at the fastest rate of any region - and reaching gender parity at primary level by 2015. Fifteen countries had already achieved this by 2008.

However, enormous challenges remain. The primary enrolment rate is still the lowest in the world. 49 million children remain out of school, the female illiteracy rate is the highest of any region, completion rates are much lower than enrolment rates and secondary and tertiary intake rates in sub-Saharan Africa remain as low as 32 percent and 5 percent respectively. Despite the establishment of trusts like the Education Programme Development Fund and the Extended Catalytic Fund, public and private investments in education are still far below the required levels, with the financing shortfall for the FTI alone estimated to be in the region of $2 billion annually.

Health

The last year has seen some very positive developments in Africa's health sector. For instance, heads of state and government endorsed an Africa Health Strategy for the period 2007-2015 which aims to strengthen the quality and coverage of the continent's health systems. The World Health Organisation launched an effort to maximize positive synergies between global health initiatives like the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization (GAVI) and national health systems.

Africa Progress Panel Reports

Financing for health has also increased significantly, with the United States having made a particularly significant contribution through its Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Innovative financing mechanisms like Advance Market Commitments, the UNITAID airline ticket solidarity tax, and the International Financing Facility for Immunization (IFFIm) have been launched to bridge existing and expected funding gaps.

Several African countries appear to have significantly reduced their AIDS prevalence rate and a growing number of Africans living with the virus and requiring antiretrovirals are undergoing treatment. Three countries have achieved the goal of treating at least 50 percent of their AIDS-afflicted population.

Two thirds of African countries have adopted policies that include the use of drugs that are effective against malaria and Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia have achieved particularly impressive reductions in malaria-related mortalities.

Improvements in under-five mortality and maternal mortality have been very small, leaving most African countries significantly off-track to achieve the health MDGs: a pregnant woman in Africa is 180 times more likely to die of pregnancy complications than her European counterpart.

At the current pace, the child mortality goal will not be achieved until 2045, our promise on maternal health will not be fulfilled at all, and in some regions maternal mortality rates will actually become worse

By 2008, only a handful of countries, including Botswana, Tanzania and Uganda had met the Abuja target of allocating 15 percent of their budget to health and more than half allocated less than 10 percent... The result is that the startling contrast with other regions in areas such as the number of health care workers per 10,000 people (13 compared to an average of 115 in high-income countries), access to health care, and vaccination coverage remains a clear sign of insufficient progress towards MDG-based targets. Unfortunately, the Global Fund which has shown that it could help to address some of these challenges currently faces a funding shortfall of around $4 billion for the period 2008-2010.

Peace and Security

The media coverage of the wars, rebellions and counter-rebellions in the Great Lakes Region, the never-ending conflicts in Darfur, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (and the AU's inadequate response to it), the recent coups in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Madagascar, the surge of piracy around the Horn of Africa, the insurgency in the Niger Delta, and the uneasy truces in Zimbabwe and Kenya would suggest that there has been no improvement in the security situation over the last year.

In fact, it too often gives the impression that Africa is inextricably enmeshed in conflict. While it is true that Africa continues to have the largest number of armed conflicts of any region and around one fifth of the continent's population still lives in conflict zones, there have been a number of positive developments over the last year.

The member states of the AU have made tangible progress in operationalizing the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) as a unique framework for joint action. Several of the five regional brigades making up the African Standby Force (ASF) are nearing completion ahead of schedule, the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) is almost operational, the Panel of the Wise is meeting regularly, and capacity-building support from international actors like the EU and the UN has increased

The regional economic communities have also continued to harmonize their security mechanisms in an effort to complement the continental initiatives of the AU, and there has been an increase in intergovernmental cooperation to tackle shared challenges like cross-border crime, drug trafficking and transnational terrorism. One example is the unprecedented cooperation between the armies of Rwanda and DRC to contain the insecurity that has characterized the border between them since the genocide in Rwanda 15 years ago.

Food and Nutrition Security

International food prices have fallen sharply since last year's spike in response to economic recession, increased supplies and revised expectations. However, recent Food and Agriculture Organisation data and analysis show that food prices on domestic markets have fallen less, or even not at all, in several developing countries and that food crises persist in at least 32 countries around the world, 20 of which are in Africa.

The food crisis is by no means over, not least as demand from emerging countries and populations across the globe will continue to grow relentlessly in the coming decades. While high food prices can serve as an incentive for some, they are bad news for Africa's poor. In the long run, their food security cannot be guaranteed by just increasing production, but needs to be based on higher household incomes to facilitate access to food.

The nutritional needs of poor people are also still not receiving the attention they deserve. Old problems like unfair trade rules, under-investment in agriculture, and the influence of bio-fuel demand for food crops are now combining with the effects of the economic crisis and climate change to threaten even more people on the continent with acute hunger and malnutrition. At their meeting in April 2009, the G8 Ministers of Agriculture acknowledged that the world is increasingly unlikely to reach the goal of halving the number of people facing chronic hunger by 2015.

Over the last year, African countries have slowly pushed ahead with reforms of their agricultural sectors. Recent data shows that only eight countries have met the Maputo target of 10 percent of public expenditure allocated to the agricultural and rural sectors

On the intergovernmental level, they have continued to develop initiatives like the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and its Framework for African Agricultural Productivity (FAAP), the African Fertilizer Development Financing Mechanism (AFFM), and a new Agricultural Investment Fund under the auspices of the African Development Bank. Given the continuing urgency of food and nutrition security issues, the forthcoming summit of the AU's Heads of State and Government will be dedicated to "Increasing Investment in Agriculture for Economic Growth and Food Security".

Donors are stepping up their support too. The World Bank, for example, has announced a substantial increase of its support to African agriculture from $250 million to $400 million. However, the challenges remain enormous. Africa's yield per hectare for food crops is less than half the level in developing countries, its soils remain the most depleted, less than 10 percent of its arable land is irrigated, and fertilizer remains scarce (8kg per hectare as compared to a global average of over 100kg per hectare).

Africa Progress Panel Reports

The recent surge of large-scale acquisitions of African farmland by international investors presents African policymakers with yet another challenge. While the deals reaching up to individual sizes of more than 400,000 hectares may promise jobs, investments in infrastructure and technology spill-over, data recently compiled in a joint report of the Food and Agricultural Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the International Institute for Environment and Development highlight the potential risks.

Not only may such large scale land acquisitions result in the displacement of local people and lead to civil strife as was the case in Madagascar, but the high proportion of products destined for export, as well as the long duration of the leases, suggests that these deals may actually exacerbate Africa's food insecurity. Similar to other extractive situations, there is a need for African governments to find the right balance between perceived macro-level benefits and the protection of their people.

Source: AllAfrica.com