Mr. Gobind Nankani
Vice President, Africa Region African Ambassador’s Luncheon
September 21, 2005 The Africa Action Plan–Time for Action Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me start on a personal note by thanking you for joining us this afternoon for this working lunch. I think it is significant that we are gathered here today to reinvigorate our partnership in the development of Africa. This is particularly important for us in the Bank not only because Africa is on top of the Bank’s priorities, as stated by Mr. Wolfowitz, the President of the World Bank, but also because partnership is the bedrock of our development strategy. The Africa Action Plan, the vehicle through which we will assist Africa to address its development challenges, is anchored on partnership. I believe that a close partnership between us, and you as representatives of African partners, is critical in ensuring that we are both on the same page of the African development agenda. In this connection, I would also encourage us to begin to undertake joint activities that will reinforce the voice of Africa in formulation and implementation of Bank programs. I hope this occasion is a beginning of further exchanges in the future.I will now take this opportunity to talk to you about the Africa Action Plan. I. The Conjuncture – It is a propitious moment for Africa Africa and its development is now at the center of the international development agenda. The high profile of Africa this year is not a result of chance, but rather, a reflection of a confluence of several factors. First, more than at any other time, Africans and the world realize the daunting challenge of ridding the region of extreme poverty. Africans are only too familiar with the many faces poverty: hunger; lack of shelter; inability to obtain treatment when ill; lack of access to basic education; lack of access to clean water; unemployment; facing an uncertain future; and powerlessness in face of adversity and so on. What is more disquieting is that whereas poverty has receded by nearly two thirds in the world as a whole over the past three decades, in Sub-Saharan Africa it has been making huge strides. At the turn of the millennium, nearly 300 million Africans, half of the region’s population consumed less than $1 a day, representing twice the average global rate of extreme poverty. While the region accounts for 10 percent of the world population, it is now home to 30 percent of the world’s poor. Furthermore, the poor in Africa are poorer than the poor elsewhere, for example, spending a quarter less than the poor in Asia on their livelihood. Second, there is now a strong appreciation that Africa is on the move and that the continent’s leadership is committed to leading a strong development agenda for the region’s renaissance. Africa’s leaders are spearheading the development effort in the region. Through homegrown national poverty reduction strategies and through regional institutions such as the African Union (AU), New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review mechanism, African leaders are embracing responsibilities. They are tackling, head on, the challenges of development, whether it is economic reforms, conflict resolution, governance, and regional integration. This commitment has been reinforced by the recent encouraging progress in economic and social performance in some of the African countries. Growth has picked up in a significant number of countries. Since the mid-1990s, 15 countries have had annual GDP growth in excess of 4.5 percent. These countries host 35 percent of the region’s population. This is commendable. Two-thirds of the countries in the region are now recording some progress in reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as reducing income poverty and improving access to education. This is good news. Third, in response to this improved performance and commitment demonstrated by the African leadership, the international community has in turn signaled its commitment to help intensify its support to development efforts led by Africans. It has committed to fulfill its Monterrey pledges. For example, at the most recent Gleneagles G-8 Summit, the G-8 and other donors committed to double aid to Africa from US $ 25 billion in 2004 to US$ 50 billion in 2010. In addition, the G-8 agreed on a proposal to 100 percent cancellation of debt of the remaining post-HIPC debts of qualifying countries, owed to International Development Association (IDA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the African Development Fund. This means a significant increase in assistance to Africa. With additional resources, Africa and its development partners should be able to work together to accelerate achievement of the MDGs. This is a great prospect for Africa. It is another piece of very good news. The convergence of these events provides a unique opportunity that could help propel Africa into unprecedented progress towards eradicating poverty and a path of prosperity. The question now is how well positioned is Africa and its development partners to best act and utilize these resources in a partnership framework? It is a propitious moment for Africa. This is a moment that I think, we, as Africans should seize to ensure that Africa makes a quantum leap during the 21 st century. I strongly believe it is doable. It is also a moment that development partners, including the World Bank, should seize to ensure that we come through with the commitment of scaling up support and enhancing its effectiveness. II. Africans Must Lead This Effort For successful poverty reduction, African countries have to be in the driver’s seat. Africans know best where the shoe pinches. They should craft their own poverty reduction strategies based on national realities and a process that is inclusive of all stakeholders. In doing so, governments should consider the primacy of strategies for shared growth; strengthening capacity in the public sector and improving the quality of governance; scaling up investment in infrastructure; and enhancing the effectiveness of service delivery in human development. The target and indeed the standard of success should be results. The African Peer Review Mechanism under NEPAD and AU provides a strong vehicle for monitoring and encouraging progress. We also appreciate that the poverty challenge comes in the context of diverse country conditions and that strategies for shared growth do not come in a one-size-fits-all formula. Poverty reduction strategies need to be alive to this. For example, where poverty is predominantly rural, what may be needed may be a growth strategy that creates opportunities for the rural poor to earn a decent living, as well as carefully targeted safety nets for managing transitory poverty and extreme malnutrition. Similarly, specific problems such as urban poverty, social iniquities, regional differences in resource endowments, etc. will call for measures that are appropriately tailored. It is incumbent for African countries to make these choices. African countries also need to ask: What conditions must absolutely be guaranteed if growth is to occur and poverty to be reduced? For example, country circumstances are important determinants of what should drive a quest for growth. Sustainable growth will not take place in a country racked by war and social dislocation. It will be difficult where HIV/AIDS is wreaking untold ravages on a country’s population and work force. It will also be elusive in countries where public governance chokes private enterprise and discourages business activities, where underpaid public sector workers spend a good part of their time in rent-seeking and where corruption, especially in high places, knows no bounds, where there is a penury of basic infrastructure to permit productive economic activities, and where health and educational systems are starved of the investments necessary to meet the population’s needs. III. Where does the Africa Action Plan fit in this resurgent effort for Africa’s renaissance? To address this question, we in the Bank have developed the Africa Action Plan (AAP). The AAP, discussed by our Board earlier this month, will be on the agenda of the Development Committee in a few days ahead. The plan focuses on supporting African countries to achieve measurable results in improving the lives of ordinary people, especially the poor and women. The AAP sets out how, through a series of concrete actions, the Bank, working in partnership with other development partners, can undertake a set of concrete, results-oriented actions to assist all African countries to meet as many MDGs as possible. The Action Plan sets forth 25 specific initiatives to be undertaken by the Africa Region during the IDA14 implementation period (2006-2008), as well as a monitoring framework with clear, quantitative targets, implementation responsibilities and measures to mitigate risks. What’s Key and New? Managing for results. The Bank will work at four levels: (i) strengthening country-based, outcome-oriented strategies; (ii) developing results-based Country Assistance Strategies; (iii) establishing shorter-term indicators of progress in priority areas; and (iv) developing improved monitoring and evaluation frameworks in projects Building capable states and improving governance. The Bank will support Africa-led efforts to define country-led initiatives to improve governance and to generate increased demand by societies for good governance. The role of African regional institutions and mechanisms, such as the African Peer Review Mechanism is paramount in this respect. Strengthening the drivers of growth. The most significant shift in the Bank program during the IDA14 period will be increased attention to outcome-oriented programs to increase economic growth in Africa. Key areas here include strengthening infrastructure and regional connectivity, supporting the development of the private sector in Africa, strengthening competencies and capacity in the region for autonomous development (e.g. greater emphasis on tertiary and technical education) and harnessing Africa’s own collective action to improve conditions for growth. Building the capacity of excluded groups to participate in and benefit from growth. While evidence shows that growth is, in general, good for the poor, this is not true at all times and in all places. Two areas of particular importance are linking the poor to markets and expanding the access of the poor to human development programs. Strengthening the impact of partnerships. In each country the Bank will work with development partners to ensure harmonization and alignment to national goals, guided by the commitments of the Paris Declaration. The Bank Group will strengthen its “menu of options” to make Bank analytical, operational and country knowledge available to development partners as a public good for use in their programs. Implementing the IDA14 partnership at the country level. Additional resources available beginning in 2006 under the IDA14 partnership model will proceed in four groups of country groups: (i) countries capable of using more aid quickly across a wide range of interventions; (ii) countries where selective scaling up is possible; (iii) fragile states where additional aid is focused on targeted programs; and (iv) states affected by recent conflict. Scaling up progress to the MDGs and using aid more effectively. To use the new resources that may be forthcoming at the country level the Bank will work to help countries: (a) reach a better understanding of the macroeconomic management of aid flows; (b) strengthen capacity to manage more resources; and (c) achieve further alignment between national strategies and “vertical” funding mechanisms.
I want to emphasize the critical importance of managing risks so as to ensure sustainable progress in achieving results. The pay off from avoiding and resolving conflict is huge and goes well beyond the individual countries involved.Conflict has left some 15 million Africans homeless in their own countries, and another 4.5 million seeking refuge in neighboring countries . Regrettably this remains one of the major obstacles to development, which time again sets Africa’s development clock back and destroys the results of previous good effort. We must therefore call for distinctive approaches that go beyond traditional instruments. Managing shocks-external or internal-is another implementation challenge. The recent oil price crisis only reminds us too well about this challenge and the risks external shocks pose to reverse or undermine progress. We need to think through together about appropriate mechanisms to mitigate such risks. It is important to emphasize that the AAP is not a blue print. It is a framework designed to help African countries develop mechanisms to use additional resources more effectively. We recognize that the Africa Region is a region of extraordinary diversity. Countries have particular opportunities, endowments and constraints. Ethiopia and Gabon both need higher growth but Ethiopia’s path to shared growth will be very different from Gabon’s. Clearly, one-size cannot fit all. In this context, countries’ national development plans and poverty reduction strategies will continue to be the foundation of country results–focused development programs. The AAP is a living document; by its very nature, it is important that it is seen as evolutionary and flexible to reflect specific country circumstances and experiences as to what works well and what needs to be improved. That is why the approach embodied in the AAP emphasizes country ownership. V.Conclusion I want to conclude by calling for a sense of urgency and ambition to implement these plans as we move forward in the year and “decade” of Africa. We must seize the moment. The strengthened leadership in Africa and renewed commitment from Africa’s development partners give me the confidence to believe that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. It also means it is time for Action. Ultimately it is the commitment and resolve of Africans to act that will ensure success. |
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