2007 Spring Meetings

Briefing on Africa Action Plan Progress Report

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The purpose of this session was to provide CSO representatives with an opportunity to comment and discuss the Progress Report on the Africa Region Action Plan which was discussed by the Development Committee during the Spring Meetings. The session was hosted by the Bank but organized jointly with InterAction. 

The speakers were:  John Page, Chief Economist for Africa Region (World Bank); Francis Gatare, Special Advisor (Office of the Presidency, Rwanda); and Ezra Mbogori, Executive Director (MWENGO Zimbabwe).  The session was chaired by Sylvain Browa, Senior Manager for Partnership & Development Impact (InterAction,USA).  The session began with Sylvain welcoming everyone and then asking each of the panelists to speak for a few minutes, before he opened the session for a general discussion.

John Page (World Bank) made a short presentation on the key findings of the Africa Action Plan progress report.  The report showed that the Africa region as a whole has experienced a fairly high level of growth in the past 10 years, but there is not guarantee that this will continue in the future.  The region has responded well to reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS, prevalence of malaria, and investing in infrastructure.  It has done less well in increasing agricultural production, connecting small farmers to markets, and promoting gender equity.  The Bank is committed to learning from its recent experience in the region and further refine its action plan to support more effective poverty reduction efforts.

Francis Gatare (Rwandan Government) followed by making remarks focusing on Rwanda’s recent experience with developing a strategic development plan.  He stated that many countries in Africa are developing their own country plans based on NEPAD’s framework rather than relying on World Bank or OECD-DAC guidelines. Donor agencies now need to support the implementation of these plans through grants so low-income countries don’t incur high debt ratios as in the 1990s.  The implementation of the Rwandan strategic development plan is proceeding well and is allowing the government to not only turn the page on the past genocide, but to carry out important governance and poverty reduction measures. 

Ezra Mbogori (MWENGO) concluded the initial portion by commenting on John’s presentation on the Action Plan.  While acknowledging that there have been improvements in some areas such as the efforts against HIV/AIDS, the global perception of Africa being a ‘hopeless continent’ still prevails and overall development indicators continue to be unacceptably low in most countries.  There seems to be a ‘rhetoric – reality’ gap in the Bank’s perception of the region.  Many CSOs feel that even if the MDGs were met, this would still be too low of a standard as it would leave huge segments of Africans living in poverty.   In addition, the G7 countries are not living up to the aid commitments made at Gleneagles two years ago.  

Discussion

There was a lively and lengthy discussion period which raised a number of issues:

• This development landscape in Africa is further complicated by the fact that ‘mineral rich’ countries in the region do not have minimal governance structures in place to avoid problems with corruption or exploitation by Northern companies and emerging rich countries such as China and India.  While CSOs support the efforts of leaders in Nigeria to recover stolen assets and recognize the Bank’s role in furthering these policies, they are also asking how is the Bank is addressing governance in extractive industries in light of the problems faced with the Chad – Cameroon pipeline project.
• The Bank needs to work harder to incorporate civil society in such strategy instruments as Country Assistance Strategies (CASs), Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSs), and Poverty Social Impact Analysis (PSIAs).  
• While CSOs generally support the idea of improved integration among donor agencies, it is interesting that CSO involvement was substantively left out of the Paris Declaration on donor harmonization.    
• Another serious issue which African governments and the Bank need to address is the ‘brain drain’ which is occurring in many countries as skilled workers leave to work in Europe or the United States.  How to prevent this when donors impose caps on government salaries and the local economies can’t generate high paying jobs. 
• Perhaps the best approach for Africa is to become less dependent on donor agencies, as Chile has done over the past decade.  This requires, though, that governments adopt sound economic growth policies, introduce governance reform geared to making governments more transparent and accountable, and promote pro-poor policies.  This will provide governments with more latitude to consider different policy options from those being proposed by the donors.
• CSOs are concerned that the Bank will lower its social and environmental safeguard standards in light of the Bank’s greater emphasis on increasing IDA commitments and stepping up support to large infrastructure projects in the region.  Standards may also be weakened by the introduction of ‘country system’ which is being piloted in several countries.  Bank staff responded that the standards will not be lowered, and that the Bank has learned from its past mistakes in this area and are confident that its new infrastructure investments are more pro-poor and environmentally sustainable.