What's New in the Office of the Chief Economist

June 2007: Africa Region Awards for Excellence

Africa Region staff recognized the accomplishments of 17 teams who, over the past year, have led the region in outstanding projects in several countries. The award winners, chosen out of 36 nominees, worked in the areas of Quality Assurance, Private Sector, Strategy, Human Development, ESSD and Analytics.

Africa's Silk Road and the Africa Catalytic Growth Fund both received awards for excellence in the analytical area. Elizabeth White and Yutaka Yoshino picked up the awards on behalf of the teams involved. More on the  Awards for Excellence

June 2007: World Economic Forum on Africa: The Launch of the Africa Competitiveness Report

Cape Town, South Africa hosted the 17th annual World Economic Forum on Africa with the focus on building capacity for success. This year’s conference theme, “Raising the Bar,” underscored the objective of the meeting––to tackle issues such as investment, infrastructure, energy, governance, skills development, malaria and other health issues, urbanization, and climate change. The conference brought together diverse players from the continent as well as other countries––800 participants from 42 countries in all. 

A highlight of the conference was the launch of the African Competitiveness Report 2007, the first report on the region’s business environment to leverage knowledge and expertise within the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank.

Competitiveness report panelists: Yann Zopf (WEF), Jennifer Blanke (WEF), John Page, Temitope Oshikoya (African Development Bank),  and Hamadoun Toure (International Telecommunication Union)

The report looks at  the competitiveness and investment climate in Africa’s four largest economies (South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt), and the effect of gender disparities on employment and competitiveness. It also identifies the role of new technologies in fostering a more dynamic business environment. The report concludes that African businesses can become far more competitive, but that African governments and their international partners will need to improve access to finance, rebuild infrastructure and strengthen institutions. World Bank Chief Economist for Africa John Page noted, “Africa can compete, but that competitiveness is not uniform.”

April 2007:  World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings and Progress and Change in the Africa Action Plan 

The World Bank’s key strategy for Africa—the three-year Africa Action Plan (AAP)—was up for mid-term review on April 15 at the Development Committee, the body that that advises the Boards of Governors of the Bank and the Fund on critical development issues. The Development Committee meeting discussed and assessed the first 18 months of experience in implementing the AAP.

With many countries at risk of being left behind at fulfilling the eight Millennium Development Goals that include eradicating severe poverty and hunger and achieving universal primary education, the Bank decided to amend its strategy to accelerate progress and work more effectively with countries and other development partners.

The result is a more focused and outcome-oriented plan that leverages the Bank Group’s strengths and seeks to improve the odds for all 48 African nations, says John Page, Chief Economist for the Bank’s Africa region.

Page says the revised plan does not affect the Bank’s traditional focus of working one-on-one with countries. Nor does it change the amount of financing each country receives  from the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank that provides zero-interest loans and grants and 90 percent of the Bank’s financing for Africa.

The action plan has been pared down from 14 focus areas to eight. The eight new focus areas respond to emerging demand from countries, according to the report for the Development Committee, Accelerating Development Outcomes in Africa: Progress and Change in the Africa Action Plan. The report presents an outcome-oriented framework to guide the Region’s work to help every African country meet as many of the MDGs as possible.

The Bank’s strategy will vary from country to country. Mineral-rich countries will receive analytic and advisory assistance to help them manage revenues from natural resources and invest them to sustain prosperity.In slow-growing countries, the Bank’s most effective role is often helping to develop core government functions and mobilize donor support, the report says. Many faster-growing countries have already reduced poverty. Such countries can offer clues to solving problems in slower growing countries, says Page.  “It’s about understanding what these growth leaders might help us do to accelerate growth more generally in Africa,” he says.

September 2006:

Africa's Silk Road: China and India's New Economic Frontier. This book, just launched by the World Bank, and written by Harry Broadman, Africa Region Economic Advisor, discusses how a recent, massive increase in African trade and investment by Asia’s two emerging economic giants—China and India—holds great potential for growth and job creation in Africa. This new economic frontier extends beyond trade and investment in natural resources, according to the new data presented in the book. However, the book also cautions that there are major asymmetries in the economic relations between the two regions. It is imperative that both sides of this promising economic relationship address asymmetries and obstacles to its continued expansion through reforms. The book recommends an array of trade and investment reforms within and between both regions to deepen the growing South-South ties and address imbalances that could prevent African economies to benefit from the increasingly important roles China and India play in the global economy. Read more:  Press release from the Annual Meetings, Story,  Book

May 2006: Chief Economist John Page gave the Keynote address at the World Bank/IFC-hosted Gender and Economics Training Workshop in Nairobi, Kenya.  This workshop brought together 60 participants - including many women entrepreneurs from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda - to examine theoretical and practical aspects of gender dimensions to growth and private sector development. The keynote address highlighted the challenges of shared growth in Africa, with particular emphasis on the important gender dimensions of growth.  Read more

May 2006: A team led by Harry Broadman of AFRCE visited South Africa, Tanzania, Senegal and Ghana to conduct case study interviews to be included in the forthcoming "Prospects and Challenges for Africa-Asia Trade and Investment" study.The team carried out four case studies in each country, interviewing firms from various industries. The purpose of these case studies is to gain a better understanding of the business environment firms operate in, and the day-to day constraints and obstacles they face, and how these problems relate to trade and investment ties between Africa and Asia. The results drawn up form the case studies will be incorporated into the AATI study, set to be presented in September at the annual meetings in Singapore.

May/June 2006: Working in partnership with other departments in the Africa region, Katie Heller, consultant in the Office of the Chief Economist, helped conduct a social and gender assessment of the Multi-Donor Trust Fund Decentralized Health System Reconstruction and Development in Northern Sudan.

April 2006: Senior Economist Jorge Arbache, working with members from the Africa Quality and Knowledge Services, is working on this year's Africa Development Indicators, a volume of selected indicators focusing on the AAP main pillars, MGDs, IDA, Paris Declaration, and infrastructure, among others. A CD accompaning the book will provide an even more extensive array of indicators. The ADI will be available from mid-July.

April 2006: Senior Economist Jorge Arbache spoke on tradeliberalization and the labor market in Brazil at the Conference on Trade, Inequality and Poverty, organized by Latin American Trade Network, CINDES and FUNCEX, held in Rio de Janeiro on April 24-25.  Read more.

March 2006: Under the management of Elizabeth White, the Africa Catalytic Growth Fund (ACGF) was launched in to provide credible programs with the rapid, targetted support required to accelerate growth, poverty reduction, and attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Read more.

March 2006: The Office of the Chief Economist welcomes Senior Strategy Office Elizabeth White to the team, to help guide strategy and results management in the Office of the Chief Economist, as well as to manage the African Catalytic Growth Fund. Read more.

March 2006: Senior Economist Jorge Arbache travelled to Mozambique to do some preliminary research for an analysis of the economic impacts of labor law reform, as requested by the government and civil society partners. The second element of this trip was to work with the country office on the development of the local PRSP. 

January, 2006:  The Chief Economist's Office coordinated and verified the Country Policy and Institutional Assessments (CPIA) for the Africa Region. This process assesses the quality of a country’s present policy and institutional framework, in terms of how conducive that framework is to fostering sustainable, poverty-reducing growth and the effective use of development assistance. These assessments are used to guide the allocation of IDA resources, and they can also be used to identify areas of strength and weakness upon which to base a country strategy, to extend maturities and lower spreads. Read the CPIA criteria for 2004.

December 13, 2005:  Chief Economist John Page spoke at the Conference on New Frontiers of Social Analysis, discussing Legal Empowerment of the Poor. The Chief Economist emphasized not only that formalized legal rights are vital to both economic empowerment and growth for the poor, but also that merely formalizing rights are not adequate. Individuals, particularly women, must be informed of, and able to access and enforce their legal rights in order for legal empowerment to be an effective strategy for poverty reduction and growth.

November 25 to December 6, 2005: Lead Economist Delfin Go participated in a two-part economic modeling workshop hosted by South Africa National Treasury (NT) at Kievitskroon, Pretoria, South Africa. More details

October 27, 2005: Chief Economist John Page and Vice President Gobind Nankani participated in a workshop on "Accelerating and Diversifying Export Growth in Africa" in Tunis. Read more

Sept. 12, 2005: Launch of the Africa Action Plan: read and listen to  Chief Economist John Page's comments.