Africa briefs

The United States Agency for International Development


Africa Malaria Day, April 25, 2003

Commemoration & Panel Presentation

When: Friday, April 25, 2003 from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM
Where: National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC

In recognition of Africa Malaria Day 2003, leaders from international health institutions and partners in the Roll Back Malaria Global Partnership will commemorate efforts to lessen the burden of malaria and review progress toward the 2000 Abuja Declaration goal of halving Africa’s malaria mortality by 2010 at a breakfast reception and panel presentation at the National Press Club.

The event will launch the first Africa Malaria Report, published by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, with contribution from the World Bank; and a special supplement to the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene detailing findings from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kenya Medical Research Institute study of insecticide-treated bednets in Western Kenya. A panel of international health experts will then present technical and programmatic progress for rolling back malaria in Africa. Participants will include representatives from:

The African diplomatic and health community
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The U.S. Agency for International Development and its partners
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
UNICEF
The World Bank
The World Health Organization
Malaria, a parasitic disease, affects an estimated 500 million people and results in up to 2 million deaths each year. Ninety percent of malaria deaths occur in Africa, and the disease accounts for approximately $12 billion a year of lost African gross domestic product.

To RSVP for the ceremony and/or panel discussion, please e-mail RSVPMALARIA@phnip.com. For more information, call 202-393-9001 extension 121.

For more information on Malaria and Malaria partnerships, access Roll Back Malaria.(http://www.usaid.gov/cgi-bin/goodbye) (http://mosquito.who.int/amd2003/index.html)

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World TB Day - 24 March
UN News Wire

WHO Reaches 10 Million With DOTS Treatment

A decade after declaring tuberculosis a global emergency, the World Health Organization yesterday marked (http://www.stoptb.org/world.tb.day/default.asp) World Tuberculosis Day by announcing what it presented as a milestone in global efforts to fight the disease. More than 10 million patients, 90 percent of whom live in developing countries, have been successfully treated under the directly observed therapy, short-course, or DOTS, treatment, the WHO said, adding that the spread of the disease has slowed to a growth rate of 0.4 percent per year. This year's (http://www.who.int/gtb/publications/globrep/index.html) WHO Global Tuberculosis Control Report, released today, indicates the number of countries that have adopted the DOTS strategy has grown to 155.  More than 60 percent of the world's population now has access to DOTS services.

The treatment and cure of so many people under DOTS has saved millions of lives and is slowing the spread of infection," said WHO Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland. "But now we must accelerate our efforts.  With additional funding for TB control programs, especially in the 22 high-burden countries that account for 80 percent of global cases, we could expect to see a worldwide reduction in the sickness and death caused by TB within three years."

The WHO said the tuberculosis epidemic is growing unabated in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is closely linked to HIV/AIDS and poverty, and in many countries of the former Soviet Union, where it is exacerbated by poverty and social disruption.  In some sub-Saharan countries with high HIV rates, tuberculosis rates have quadrupled since the 1980s and threaten to overwhelm well-established control programs, the agency said.

TB and HIV have become intertwined epidemics, increasing their devastating impact on communities worldwide," said Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS.  "Effectively treating TB will not solve the AIDS crisis, but will save lives and ultimately reduce the burden of AIDS on societies."

The WHO and (http://www.stoptb.org/home.html") Stop TB Partnershipmembers -- including the World Bank, the U.S. (http://www.usaid.gov/")Agency for
International Development, the (http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/index.htm">Canadian International Development Agency, the British (http://www.dfid.gov.uk/")Department
for International Development, Japan and the Netherlands -- are closely cooperating to meet funding gaps in the (http://www.stoptb.org/GPSTB/default.asp">Global
Plan to Stop TBfor 2001-05, the WHO said.  They are also demonstrating how tuberculosis and HIV workers can collaborate to strengthen DOTS for people with HIV, to diagnose tuberculosis earlier and to provide preventive therapy, the agency said.  High-burden countries are also said to be putting considerable funding and expertise into defeating tuberculosis, with verifiable results.

The WHO cited efforts in India, where more than 1 million patients have been treated under DOTS since 1998 and 50,000 new patients start on treatment every month.  In China, 1.3 million people have been treated under DOTS over the last decade, and 90 percent of them have been cured, the WHO added.  Vietnam and Peru have already exceeded the global tuberculosis control targets for 2005 by identifying better than 70 percent of all cases and curing more than 85 percent of them, the agency said, adding that Myanmar and Cambodia are within reach of the 2005 targets (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/releases/2003/pr25/en/) WHO release, March 25).

Tuberculosis rates have fallen in El Salvador because of early detection and treatment programs, Vice Minister of Health Herbert Betancourt said yesterday.  He added that 85 percent of treated patients have been cured but warned that the risk of death is doubled among patients who are also suffering from HIV/AIDS (Ivette Amaya,
(http://www.elsalvador.com/noticias/2003/03/25/nacional/nacio11.html") El Diario de Hoy, March 25, UN Wiretranslation).

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The United States Agency for International Development

Ethiopia - Drought Fact Sheet #4 (FY) 2003/March 20, 2003

Background

In 2002, below-average belg, or secondary rains (March through May) coupled with delayed and sporadic meher, or main rains (July through September) led to widespread food insecurity in Ethiopia affecting pastoral and agricultural areas, particularly the lowlands and midlands of Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples (SNNP), Tigray, Oromiya, and Amhara regions. The Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s (GFDRE) Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission, along with the U.N.’s Emergency Unit for Ethiopia, issued an appeal on the food security situation in the country on September 30, 2002.

The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate that Ethiopia’s food deficit in 2003 will be more than 2.3 million metric tons (MT), with increased food aid, commercial imports, and internal production needed to meet the deficit. It is currently estimated that 11.3 million people will require more than 1.4 million MT of food aid in 2003 and an additional three million people require close monitoring.

As many rural households dependent on agriculture and livestock for their livelihoods had not yet fully recovered from the drought of 1999/2000, the capacity of these affected populations to cope with the current food shortages has been greatly reduced. Efforts to cope by selling assets have left much of the population destitute and weakened the economy. Along with the perilous food security situation, the ensuing deterioration in health, nutrition, and sanitation conditions have made this a full blown humanitarian crisis.
Total Affected Population 11.3 million Source: WFP/FAO
Total Food Aid Requirements 1.4 million MT Source: WFP/FAO

Current Situation

The worsening humanitarian situation in Ethiopia since mid-2002 has evolved into a food and humanitarian crisis that has the potential to deteriorate even more rapidly in the next several months before the harvest. The humanitarian outlook is dire, particularly if the short belg rains are not sufficient and multi-donor support for the crisis is not increased soon.

While on a national level large-scale food aid distributions that began in July 2002 have stabilized the situation, at the household and village levels, pockets of global and severe acute malnutrition are growing. Recent surveys have shown critical levels (greater than 15 percent) of global acute malnutrition in 24 districts. Relief agencies are struggling to reach many of these areas because of the large territory covered by the drought and a shortage of technical personnel. Given the already alarmingly high levels of global and acute malnutrition, a break in the food aid pipeline could be devastating.

USAID’s Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) reports that, as of March 6, food aid pledges have reached 56 percent of the 2003 food aid requirements, or enough to partially cover needs through the end of June. However, FEWS NET reports that the food aid pipeline is expected to show breaks beginning in late May unless more food aid pledges result in actual deliveries. This is particularly worrisome for some of the worst drought-affected areas which become inaccessible during the peak rainy season in July and will therefore require stocks to be prepositioned in May and June.

USAID/OFDA assessments concluded that the most affected areas are mainly in the Afar Region and West Hararghe, Arsi, Shewa and Bale zones of Oromiya Region, lowland areas of the Amhara Region, Shinile and Fik zones in the Somali Region, and areas of southern and eastern Tigray Region, and SNNP.

USAID/OFDA reports that land preparation is already underway in many areas and in some highland and midland areas, many farmers have already planted. While seeds have been difficult to find on the commercial market, the fact that many farmers are planting indicates that seeds were saved from last year or are still available on the informal market. Much of the success or failure of this year’s harvest will depend on the consistency and adequacy of the rainfall in coming months.
Losses of livestock herds are being reported around Shinile and near Somaliland. Many herders have taken their animals into Somaliland in search of better pasture. The number of animals flooding the regional livestock market, even at a reduced selling price, is indicative of the level of crisis the situation is reaching. Depletion of livestock assets, either through distress sales or death, threatens to leave the pastoral population destitute.

Drought has exacerbated chronic water problems and severe water shortages are being felt in many areas of the country. The water table has dropped several meters in some areas and shallow wells are drying up. A recent USAID/OFDA assessment reported villagers traveling much longer distances than usual to obtain drinking water. Water rationing is being implemented in some towns and others are constructing catchments in time for the rainy season. In addition to addressing emergency water needs, the long-term development of safe water supplies is critical to maintaining sanitary conditions and reducing the risk of water borne disease.

On February 21, WFP reported that an estimated 76,500 internally displaced persons displaced by the border conflict are unable to return to their land to resume farming activities because of the ongoing border demarcation process and landmine clearance.
U.S. Government Assistance

On August 1, 2002, the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia declared a disaster in response to the developing drought situation. In response, USAID/OFDA, USAID/FFP, and USAID/Ethiopia contributed more than $71 million in humanitarian assistance in FY 2002. In addition, in FY 2002, USDA contributed $34.4 million of section 416(b) emergency food assistance and State/PRM provided $7.2 million towards assistance to refugees in Ethiopia.

To date in FY 2003, USAID/OFDA has committed funds of more than $7.2 million to support emergency water and sanitation, health and nutrition, and agricultural recovery activities in drought-affected areas of Oromiya, Afar, Amhara, and SNNP regions.

Since the onset of the crisis, USAID/OFDA has deployed several technical and program personnel to Ethiopia to augment the efforts of USAID/Ethiopia. These personnel include an Emergency Disaster Response Coordinator (EDRC), based in Addis Ababa, to continually monitor USAID/OFDA programs and a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) epidemiologist to provide technical assistance in the sectors of health and nutrition. From February 27 to March 7, a USAID/OFDA assessment team, including agriculture and water specialists, traveled to drought-affected regions of Oromiya, Somali, and Tigray to assess the humanitarian outlook and short-term recovery prospects.

To date in FY 2003, USAID/FFP has pledged or committed more than 481,000 MT of P.L. 480 Title II emergency food assistance, valued at more than $220 million. USAID/FFP has also deployed personnel to augment USAID/Ethiopia’s Food and Humanitarian Assistance Unit. While no U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds have been obligated in FY 2003 to date, it is anticipated that additional USDA Section 416(b) emergency food assistance will be made available. The U.S. Government is the largest donor of food aid to Ethiopia. The Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (State/PRM) supports Ethiopian refugees in Kenya through the provision of more than $1.1 million for refugee camp operations. uring the week of February 16, U.S. Ambassador to the UN's Food and Agriculture agencies Tony Hall and USAID/DCHA Assistant Administrator Roger Winter traveled to Ethiopia to assess the status of the drought, review response measures to date, identify upcoming food and non-food needs, and consider longer-term measures to improve national food security and reduce the likelihood of recurrent crises. They reiterated the U.S. pledge to provide more than 508,000 MT of emergency food aid valued at $233 million in response to the crisis.

U.S. GOVERNMENT HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE TO ETHIOPIA FY 2003 (TO DATE) USG AGENCY IMPLEMENTING PARTNER SECTOR REGION AMOUNT
USAID/OFDA Total 1 $7,266,292
AmRC Water/Sanitation Oromiya $430,278
CARE Water/Sanitation Oromiya $719,285
CRS Agriculture, Water/Sanitation Oromiya $1,554,983
FHI Agriculture Amhara $453,749
IMC Primary Health, Nutrition Oromiya $1,689,395
IRC Water/Sanitation Oromiya $1,222,535
World Vision Nutrition, Livelihoods Afar, SNNPR $756,000
UN OCHA Coordination Afar, Somali $350,000
USAID Administrative All $190,067
USAID/FFP Total $220,500,000
WFP 251,000 MT of P.L. 480 Title II Emergency Food Assistance Countrywide $116,000,000
JEOP 201,000 MT of P.L. 480 Title II Emergency Food Assistance Countrywide $88,500,000
ICRC 29,700 MT of P.L. 480 Title II Emergency Food Assistance Countrywide $16,000,000
TOTAL USAID HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE IN FY 2003 (TO DATE) $227,766,292
TOTAL USG HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE IN FY 2003 (TO DATE) $227,766,292

1. USAID/OFDA also provided more than $1.2 million in humanitarian assistance in the last quarter of FY 2002.

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http://(http://www.usaid.gov/regions/afr/pubs/docs/usaidafr_w03.pdf

USAID in Africa - NEW ISSUE
This newsletter covers news, updates, and resources from USAID's programs in Africa and shares experience from development partners.

In this Issue:
- Presidential Initiatives Develop African Capacity
- Solving the West African Cocoa Child Labor Dilemma
- Comic Books Promote Understanding of Land Contracts
- Civil Society Conflict Resolution in Madagascar
- Reducing the Impact of HIV/AIDS on Education
- Rebuilding Southern Sudan’s Basic Education Program
- Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

This is published by the Africa Bureau Information Center, operated by the Academy for Educational Development under contract to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and is part of the Development Information Services project of USAID’s Office of Development Evaluation and Information. : Christine Chumbler Patricia Mantey provides news, updates, and resources from USAID’s Bureau for Africa. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect USAID policies. Comments, letters, and articles are welcome. Send them to: The Editors, Africa Bureau Information Center 1331 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Suite 1425 Washington, D.C. 20004-1703 USA Telephone: (202) 661-5827 Fax: (202) 661-5890 Internet: abic@dis.cdie.org (http://www.usaid.gov/regions/afr/abic Looking for photos of USAID/Africa activities or African daily life scenes? The Africa Bureau is pleased to offer the help of a new photogallery website. The ever-growing collection currently contains approximately 500 images taken all over sub-Saharan Africa and includes all sectors from agriculture to education to health, and more. Ideal for use on webpages, the searchable images are available for downloading. A limited number of high resolution versions suitable for print publications are also available. Please visit (http://www.dec.org/partners/afr/ photogallery/ and browse.

AFRICA

AGOA Forum Builds on Africa’s Potential for Trade and Growth

R. Zurba/USAID South Africa
By Madeleine Gauthier

Delegations from 34 African nations gathered for the second African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) forum, held in Mauritius, January 13 – 17. The forum drew trade and finance ministers, civil society representatives, and business leaders from both Africa and the United States, as well as representatives from 13 different U.S. government departments and agencies, including USAID, and five members of the U.S. Congress. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick led the American delegation.
The AGOA forum was actually three separate meetings for private sector, civil society, and ministerial representatives. Each meeting focused on business investments, trade, and investment in the people of sub-Saharan Africa.

The U.S. Congress passed AGOA in May 2000 to stimulate African export markets by granting eligible nations duty-free access to U.S. markets. The act has worked remarkably well so far, with nonfuel U.S. imports from participating countries increasing 50 percent in the past two years. Africa has nearly doubled its share of the U.S. apparel market. South Africa alone has seen its auto exports increase 16-fold in the past two years. AGOA encourages the import of apparel and textiles, such as those made by these South African women, to U.S. markets.

USAID Continues Drought Assistance

Through the end of the year, up to 35 million people in Africa will need food aid. USAID is working with its partners—the World Food Program (WFP), other donors, and the private voluntary community—to deliver up to 2.75 million metric tons of food to help meet this need. USAID is also working with African governments to address longer-term structural problems that hinder agricultural productivity, which is fundamental to Africa’s efforts to reduce widespread poverty. Agriculture is the foundation for most African economies, supporting over 70 percent of the population and contributing an average of 30 percent of gross domestic product.

Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe will need humanitarian food aid between now and this year’s upcoming harvest. The United States has delivered or pledged more than 500,000 metric tons of food aid since the beginning of 2002. At a total value of more than $266 million, the U.S. government is the largest donor to the WFP’s operations in southern Africa.

In Ethiopia and Eritrea, millions of people are vulnerable to food shortages brought on by a severe drought. Following disturbing reports from its Famine Early Warning System, USAID started sending emergency food assistance in July 2002. Since then, the United States has given or pledged over 500,000 metric tons of food to Ethiopia and Eritrea. Nonfood assistance has included emergency health kits and seeds.

Unhindered humanitarian access to Sudan has led to an expected significant increase in the WFP caseload. Most recently, USAID contributed 46,030 metric tons of food assistance to Sudan, an estimated value of $40.1 million.

For more information, visit: (http://www.usaid.gov/about/africafoodcrisis/)

The Mauritius forum was designed to build on this kind of business success. During his opening remarks, Zoellick said there were six questions that he hoped would be addressed during the five days of discussions: 1) What can countries learn from the experiences of AGOA countries? 2) How can the U.S. improve capacity building efforts? 3) How can the private sector be encouraged to share knowledge and experience? 4) How can Africa’s market position be strengthened? 5) How can governments be encouraged to reduce subsidies? and 6) What else should be done to prevent the spread of HIV/ AIDS and care for those already affected by the disease? By the end of the forum, he said he was pleased that participants had discussed all six questions.

A highlight of the forum was U.S. President George W. Bush’s videotaped ad-dress. During his speech, he announced that he would ask Congress to extend AGOA beyond the current 2008 end date. Audience members burst into applause at this news.

USAID organized or co-organized three sessions at the forum. USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios co-chaired the first session, entitled “Expanding Agriculture Productivity through Science, Technology, and Trade,” along with U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary J.B. Penn and Mozambique Minister of Agriculture Helder Muteia. Natsios spoke of the importance of agriculture in African trade and economic growth and presented the president’s Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA), implemented by USAID, as the U.S. commitment to address one of the most compelling and significant development challenges on the continent today, hunger. (For more information about IEHA, see page 3.) The two other co-chairs spoke of the importance of science and technology in raising agriculture productivity and the critical link to trade, markets, and ad-equate policies.

Africa Bureau Announces New Photo Resource Women in Niger, one of hundreds of photos available. M. McGahuey/USAID The second USAID session presented and discussed the three regional Hubs for Global Competitiveness, the main component of the TRADE initiative, another presidential initiative implemented by USAID. (For more information about TRADE, see page 3.) USAID Assistant Administrator for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade Emmy Simmons co-chaired the session with Botswana Minister of Trade and Industry Jacob Nkate. Pat Fleuret, director of the regional USAID mission in Southern Africa, made the point that the hubs should be centers for coordination, learning, sharing, and collaboration for public and private sector stakeholders, to encourage a culture of commerce and enterprise, and to emphasize entrepreneurial development.

The third USAID-led session was en-titled “HIV/AIDS as a Development Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Simmons co-chaired this session with Magnus Kpakol, chief economic advisor to the Nigerian president. A panel of three speakers from Africa presented recent research findings; the business perspectives on HIV/AIDS and best practices; and the labor perspective and adequacy of workplace policies and programs. This very well attended session was considered one of the best of the forum.
Participants were very pleased with the forum as a whole. Civil society representatives, for example, enjoyed the opportunity to contribute ideas on their organizations’ involvement in the AGOA process and thereby assist African entrepreneurs.

For more information, visit (http://www.agoa.gov/index.html or contact Madeleine Gauthier, EGAT economic analyst, at mgauthier@usaid.gov or (202) 712-4947.

Presidential Initiatives Develop African Capacity

The Bush Administration has introduced four USAID/Africa Bureau initiatives to eliminate hunger, increase trade and economic growth, strengthen education, and conserve Africa’s Congo Basin ecosystems. Additionally, in January, the president announced a new initiative to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean (see page 12). All these initiatives build on USAID’s existing programs and enhance the Agency’s ability to work in partnership with Africans to address their most immediate challenges. By developing and strengthening African capacity in all sectors, and placing special emphasis where the need is greatest, USAID is helping Africa reduce its dependency on development assistance and better position itself to compete in the global marketplace.

Initiative to End Hunger in Africa

The Administration Initiative to End Hunger in Africa was launched in Au-gust 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is helping to meet the Millennium Development Goal of cutting hunger in half by 2015. The primary objective of the initiative is to rapidly and sustainably increase agricultural growth and rural incomes in sub-Saharan Africa. It calls for a partnership with African leaders and governments to work and invest in a smallholder-oriented agricultural growth strategy. Since significant domestic and foreign investment from the private sector is also necessary, the conditions to attract and support private investment need to be established and maintained. This initiative is now being implemented through three regional and three focus country (Mozambique, Mali, and Uganda) multi-year action plans.

Trade for African Development and Enterprise

TRADE is an initiative designed to support the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which provides new export opportunities for Africa through unrestricted market access and enhanced trade assistance by improving Africa’s trade and investment environment in the short-to-medium term. The initiative focuses on six broad areas:
1) promoting U.S.-African business linkages;
2) enhancing competitiveness of African products;
3) expanding the role of trade in poverty reduction;
4) improving the delivery of public services supporting trade;
5) building capacity for trade policy analysis; and
6) strengthening the business environment. U.S. and African partners from both the government and private sectors are developing a field-driven, trade capacity building agenda. USAID has established three regional Hubs for Global Competitiveness in Accra, Ghana; Nairobi, Kenya; and Gaborone, Botswana, which will coordinate and support country-based activities to facilitate the TRADE Initiative.

Africa Education Initiative

Economic growth depends on an educated workforce capable of taking ad-vantage of economic opportunities. Africa lags far behind the rest of the world in the investment in people necessary to achieve such growth. USAID is helping to improve the spread and quality of African education. USAID pro-grams focus most of their efforts on improving basic education, especially for girls, because of the proven positive impact this has on economic and social development. USAID launched a multi-year initiative that commits $200 mil-lion over the next five years to improve education for Africa’s children. This initiative challenges African education professionals to find new ways to quickly provide children with opportunities to learn and become productive members of their society. It also ad-dresses the devastation of HIV/AIDS by increasing African capacity to confront the impact of the epidemic on education systems. The initiative will target improved access and quality of education through increased funding of girls scholarships, improved teacher training, enhanced use of new learning technologies, and increased community involvement in education. USAID will also continue to support programs that ad-dress country-level education system reform.

Congo Basin Forest Partnership

The goal of this partnership is to pro-mote economic development, poverty alleviation, improved governance, and natural resource conservation through support for a network of national parks and protected areas, commercial forestry concessions, and assistance to communities that depend upon the conservation of the outstanding forest and wildlife resources of 11 key ecosystems in six Central African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo). The Congo Basin Forest Partnership will provide people sustainable means of livelihood through well-man-aged forests, sustainable agriculture, and integrated ecotourism programs; improve forest and natural resource governance through community-based management, combating illegal logging, and encouraging enforcement of anti-poaching laws; and help countries develop a network of effectively managed national parks, protected areas, and corridors. The United States proposes to invest up to $53 million over four years (2002-2005), including a $36 million increase for USAID’s Central African Regional Program for the Environment. Additional funding will come from G8 nations, the European Union, international environmental organizations, and the private sector.
For more information, visit (http://www.usaid.gov/regions/afr/.

Comic Books Promote Understanding of Land Contracts in Guinea
By Laura Lartigue

In order for land users to invest in sustainable natural resource management practices, they need incentives such as secure tenure of their land. USAID has been promoting the use of long-term land-use agreements to help resource-poor villagers and communities access land from landowners through unconventional means: comic books. In Guinea, a USAID-sponsored NGO, Winrock International, is developing a series of colorful comic books in Pulaar, Susu, and French on issues related to land use and natural resource management. The books are being illustrated and adapted to comic book form by Guinean caricaturist Youssouph Ben Barry, better known as “Oscar” of Le Lynx newspaper. The first book, already developed and distributed on a wide scale in Lélouma, Tougué, and Kindia Prefectures, is about land tenure questions and the need to obtain written documents rather than— or in addition to—traditional transactions such as word of honor, a handshake, and the exchange of cola During a fight over land, an elder says “Stop immediately! We can resolve this problem peacefully!”

nuts. Contractual agreements are encouraged, even when trust is evident between two parties, in order to make a land use agreement binding, and to avoid future conflict concerning land use or ownership.

In addition to having become quite popular reading material, this first comic book is helping the local population understand this new approach to increased land security. The book features two main characters, Elhadj and Mamadou, who will remain familiar to readers as the main actors throughout the series.

Besides the wide circulation of the first comic book, land contract workshops have been held in seven locations throughout central Guinea. Local radio (Radio Rurale) has also been used to air a radio play specifically developed to inform land users about land contract mechanisms.

Messages have also been successfully conveyed using a theater group. A Labebased NGO developed a short play about co-management that it presented in the villages surrounding the Souti Yanfou and Bakoun classified forests. Another theater group has since re-corded three radio plays on contract mechanisms, co-management, and community forests. These radio plays are aired by the regional Radio Rurale station and then cassettes of the broad-cast are used in village-level information sharing sessions. At the end of the session, the field agent distributes copies of the comic book containing the same message.

The Guinean government has also re-quested that USAID take the lead in examining approaches to better adapt the national land code to the rural situation in Guinea. A national USAID-sponsored workshop on “Applying Solutions to Rural Land Tenure Issues in Guinea” held in February 2002 was an important step in trying to pass field-Locally developed comic books are designed to promote the use of land contracts.

tested solutions up to the national level for recognition and legitimization.

These efforts have been paying off. Between October 2000 and December 2002, 134 new land use agreements were signed, exceeding USAID’s targets. This figure is expected to rise again in 2003. In the long run, the availability of land contracts is also expected to sup-port the conversion to market-oriented agricultural production in Guinea.

The second issue in the comic book series, soon to be distributed, will have as its theme the development of management plans by a local community. Subsequent issues will provide good advice on topics related to natural re-source management, sustainable agricultural production, and community forestry—providing eager readers of the Winrock comic books with even more to consider.

For more information, visit: (http://www.usaid.gov/gn/) or contact Son Hoang Nguyen, USAID/Guinea natural resource management team leader, at snguyen@usaid.gov. Laura Lartigue is a technical writing specialist with USAID/ Guinea.

Y. Ben Barry
Y. Ben Barry
4 USAID in Africa
Mobile Task Team Addresses HIV/AIDS and Education
By Brad Strickland

HIV/AIDS is having a devastating impact on the education sector in Africa. An estimated 30 million orphans live in Africa, many of whom will lose family support for schooling. Countries are losing alarming numbers of teachers to the disease, particularly in Southern Africa, and are struggling to replace them. And absenteeism among both teachers and pupils de-tracts from the quality of education. With these grim realities in mind, in the fall of 1999, Zambia’s assistant is responsible for her sisters’ care. for primary educaof Natal’s Health Economics AIDS Research Division hosted a USAID Africa Bureau-sponsored meeting of 42 ministry of education and ministry of finance personnel from eight Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. One recommended next step was to form a group of African professionals working in HIV/AIDS education, health information systems, economics, management, planning, and demography who could work with MOEs to develop long-term plans for responding to the impacts of HIV/AIDS, which have the potential to collapse education systems.

With Africa Bureau funding and technical support, and with advice from MOEs, USAID Missions, the SADC Secretariat, and other donor agencies, the MTT has come to play an important role in facilitating the development of strategic plans and strengthening management capacity within education ministries. In the process, it has helped MOEs, USAID, and other donors to identify the highest priority activities requiring funds, in turn helping MOEs attract and manage funding to the sector for HIV/AIDS mitigation and prevention.

Over several weeks, an MTT team works with the MOE and USAID mission staff to prepare for a three- to five-day workshop involving ministry planners, educators, NGOs, and other stakeholder groups at the discretion of the MOE. The ministry provides or finds funding for on-ground costs and handles local logistics, while USAID funds the MTT facilitators. Workshop participants assess the country’s HIV and education situation, examine any existing plans, and develop a comprehensive action plan that includes monitoring and measurement components. Through related training activities that supplement the workshops, the MTT trains core groups of local education managers in critical skills for HIV/AIDS response. The aim is to develop a network of managers and planners able to design and implement long-term countermeasures to the pandemic.

MTT continued on JHU/CCP

Stories Out of School

This regular focus on basic education is contributed by the Africa Bureau’s Education Division.

tion asked members of the Africa Bureau education team to think about providing assistance for a very particular task. She described the availability of substantial funding to focus on HIV/AIDS impacts in education and an en-gaged Ministry of Education (MOE), but no articulated plan to explain funding priorities or implementation steps to the ministry of finance and donor agencies. “Show us the plan, and we’ll give you the money for HIV/ AIDS in education,” donor and ministry financial officers advised her. In turn, she said to the Africa Bureau education team, “If you can help us make that plan, we can get the funding to address these issues.”

The University of Natal Mobile Task Team on HIV/AIDS and Education (MTT) was created in response to this and similar re-quests. In April 2000, University

To support education ministries and achieve the goal of transferring skills, members of the Mobile Task Team have collected and honed a selection of resources for educators’ use. These include:

- Sector appraisal framework
- Techniques for building a vision, goals, and objectives
- Prioritized implementation planning
- Tools for forecasting teacher supply and demand
- District-level data collection systems and management resources
- Methods and/or templates for partnership database development
- Templates for analyzing technical assistance needs
- Monitoring and evaluation frameworks

A Contract for Peace: Southern Sudan Basic Education Program

By Mara Evans and Mitch Kirby A classroom in Bahr Olo, Equatoria Region.
M. Kirby/USAID

on the Upper Nile, East and West Equatoria, and Bahr el Ghazal regions.

A technical review committee evaluated proposals submitted by potential implementing partners. One important selection criteria for the SBEP was that proposals address the educational needs of Sudanese women. A virtual design team including USAID and southern Sudanese participants in Nairobi and USAID education staff in Washington exchanged ideas via phone and email. At the end of the process, the virtual team had the beginnings of the SBEP design. The whole design process was a huge success. The participatory and collaborative process emphasized the input from Sudanese stakeholders, and USAID staff based in Nairobi and Washington.

The grant to implement the SBEP was awarded to a consortium of education organizations led by CARE, in conjunction with the American Institutes for Research, World Vision, Save the Children, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the New Sudan Councils of Churches, other Sudanese NGOs, and selected higher education institutions in eastern Africa. The SBEP team will work in collaboration with southern Sudanese parents, teachers, and local administrators to improve educational opportunities. Schools will be rehabilitated, regional teacher training institutions will

More Stories Out of School

Over the past 20 years a devastating civil war has raged in Africa’s largest nation, Sudan. Millions have died from famine, fighting, and disease and millions more have been displaced. Amid the suffering of war, the people of southern Sudan have struggled to survive and address the basic needs for their children, including education. Only 20 to 30 percent of school age children in southern Sudan are enrolled in primary school. Drop-out rates are high, especially among girls—only 12 percent of students continue past grade four. Many teachers in southern Sudan lack sufficient training and often teach on a voluntary basis due to limited resources. Despite their overwhelming difficulties, the communities of south-ern Sudan possess the self-sufficiency and desire to pro-vide education for their children. This spirit gave rise to the new Southern Sudan Basic Education Program (SBEP). The five-year, $20 million SBEP was designed to support community-based schools, improve teacher education, and provide nonformal educational opportunities for children and adults. The SBEP will focus

Education Officers Share Experiences

Over 140 USAID mission staff and partners met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the end of September 2002 to discuss challenges and successes from basic education programs at a week-long Basic Education Exchange (BEE). The BEE was designed by the Africa Bureau’s Office of Sustainable Development education division members Tracy Brunette and Megan Thomas to share information and experiences across country programs, gain exposure to the state-of-the-art in the sector, acquire new skills to more effectively manage and implement programs, develop stronger collaborations between USAID and in-country partners, and update programmatic approaches to meet the changing needs of those that USAID’s programs are designed to serve.

Track sessions organized around three themes—management, alternative learning delivery strategies, and recruiting and retaining a trained teacher force—were held over all four days. One-time topical sessions covered a variety of subjects, such as HIV/AIDS, conflict, data management, and the role of NGOs in programs. All 11 USAID Africa basic education programs sent representatives, as did some countries without formal programs, such as Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. To obtain a copy of the BEE Proceedings, contact abic@dis.cdie.org. For more information about the BEE, copies of BEE presentations, or copies of the Daily BEE newsletter, visit (http://www.afr-sd.org/Education/ beeworkshop/overview.htm). For additional information, contact Tracy Brunette at tbrunette@usaid.gov or (202) 712-1847.

Addressing the West African Cocoa Child Labor Dilemma

Promises of good pay and education have enticed children from their villages to work on large farms in West Africa growing cacao, coffee, or other crops, most often far from home, sometimes in another country. However, many times they find low or no wages, poor nutrition, and few prospects for developing knowledge and skills for a better future.

The chocolate industry, human rights groups, and the government of Côte d’Ivoire have pledged to confront this social injustice. The first step was to determine to what extent there is a problem on cocoa farms—pre-existing data were anecdotal and unscientific.

USAID’s Sustainable Tree Crops Pro-gram (STCP) is tackling the issues of trafficking children for labor through new research and interventions in Côte d’Ivoire and other countries in West Africa. USAID sponsored an initial six-month survey conducted in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), completed in July 2002, has developed the knowledge base needed to design substantive community-level activities.

The survey consisted of five field investigations that comprehensively examined the child labor issue and underlying contributing factors. The picture that emerged is of a sector with stagnant technology, low yields, and an increasing demand for unskilled workers trapped in a cycle of poverty. The vast majority of permanent labor is from within the farmers’ families (87 percent in Côte d’Ivoire). Only an average of 1 percent of farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria indicated that they employed children as permanent salaried full-time workers. Whether the children are family members or not, however, they are less likely to attend school than children not working on the farms.
Salaried child workers are most clearly trapped in this vicious cycle. The majority of these children had never been to school and were earning subsistence wages, forced into this labor by economic circumstances. Most of these children are from the drier savanna areas of West Africa, where family livelihoods are inherently uncertain. The survey report is available at (http://www.iita.org/ news/cocoa.pdf or see page 11.

The three-year action plan for the phase II pilot activities was completed in October. These activities will take place in all five STCP countries—Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Nigeria—and each will cover 100 communities. They will include strengthening community-based groups’ ability to provide services such as employment training and labor safety inspections, as well as building integrated information systems that can trace products and preserve identity. Pilot activities will also help establish which approaches are credible in tackling the problems of child trafficking, the worst forms of child labor, and the poverty that under-pins these problems. The pilot information systems will document key aspects of cocoa production, including quality standards, sustainable farming methods, and socially responsible production.
A premise of the integrated pilot project concept is that child labor activities alone cannot improve the incomes needed to raise social standards and prevent the reliance of a family or community on child labor. Another premise is that raising productivity and incomes through enhanced production systems cannot by itself credibly raise the quality of living of rural communities, house-holds, and workers. Therefore, each of the integrated pilot projects will introduce and test a variety of interventions to strengthen community organizations and labor regulations, combat child trafficking, and introduce technology to raise productivity and product quality, as well as instituting the above mentioned trade and information systems.

Additional resources will go towards promoting environmentally sustainable farming, improving farmer incomes, increasing efficiency of the tree crop sector through policy change, and in-creasing product quality.

It is critical to implement the child labor and trafficking interventions at the same time as the income generating activities to test the validity and impact of these efforts on improving the social and economic circumstances of the workers, households, and communities. It is also important to establish the credibility of efforts, including the pilot activities, to systemically eliminate the worst forms of child labor.

The STCP has created two working groups on the survey and programmatic response to the issue of trafficking of children for labor. First, a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) was established to ensure balance and independence of the surveys and to provide oversight. The TAC includes 15 members from participating countries, NGOs, labor unions, international agencies, and the study team.

Secondly, the STCP created a special Working Group on Labor Practices to coordinate with stakeholders, including USAID, the U.S. Department of Labor, UNICEF, international NGOs such as Save the Children and the International Labor Organization, and West African governments and NGOs. Close collaboration and input will also be solicited from groups delivering goods and services on the ground, such as international and local research groups, NGOs, trade and industry groups, policymakers, and producer organizations.

For more information, visit the IITA website at (http://www.iita.org) or contact AFR/ SD’s agricultural research advisor, Jeff Hill, at jehill@usaid.gov or (202) 712-5256.
—Christine Chumbler

Civil Society on the Front Lines of Conflict Resolution
By Vincent Carbonneau

Disputed presidential elections in Madagascar in December 2001 led to a near civil war. Supporters of the self-pro-claimed “legitimate” president, Marc Ravalomanana, claimed the mayor of the capital, Antananarivo, had won the election outright. Supporters of the incumbent president, Didier Ratsiraka, claimed that their candidate had won a large enough percentage of the vote to force a runoff election. Peaceful protests by thousands of Ravalomanana supporters brought Antananarivo to a standstill and spread to the rest of the country. In response, pro-Ratsiraka forces attempted to stifle these protests.

In March 2002, the central Madagascar province of Fianarantsoa became a strategic focal point in the conflict. Fianarantsoa was the one provincial capital where the governor had been unable to quell demonstrations in favor of Ravalomanana. Tension mounted steadily in late March as militia and soldiers disguised as civilians repeatedly threw live grenades at peaceful demonstrations. A march on the governor’s mansion turned violent, and 11 people died. Regional army units responded to the shootings by uniting against the governor and demanding his surrender. Open, armed combat over the course of the next several days pitted civilian defense groups and some army units against militias and army units loyal to the governor, leaving a total of nearly 60 dead. In early April, the governor left the area and militias and soldiers abandoned the mansion.

Throughout these events, civil society groups and regional institutions, drawing from training they had received from Pact under a USAID/Madagascar-funded project, played a lead role in limiting bloodshed and protecting regional roads and railways from sabotage. Pact, a U.S.-based private voluntary organization, has spearheaded this pro-gram since 1997 through its work with civil society and local government on issues first at the local and later at the regional level. These activities, designed to provide civil society organizations with the skills and knowledge to participate in the public policy process, were instrumental in helping to establish a credible local government body and to build the capacity of local civil society organizations to intervene in public affairs.

For example, Pact helped its regional Malagasy public and civil society partners create a new regional public entity, the Fianarantsoa-Manakara Railroad (FCE) Union of Communes, organized around the railroad linking the provincial capital to the port city of Manakara on the southeast coast. This initiative enables individual communities to pool resources for better management of public services, protect the rail service, and address local development issues.

During the crisis in Fianarantsoa, three bridges were destroyed, further isolating the capital, Antananarivo, from the rest of the country. Had these political events unfolded before the FCE Union was formed, the FCE railroad would have been an easy target of attacks since communities and public officials along the railway did not feel any ownership over rail service. However, with the FCE Stakeholders Association in place, people from all political sides were able to swiftly move beyond political divisions to protect what they now perceived to be theirs. As a result, Manakara was the only access to the sea the Ratsiraka camp was not able to close.
In other actions during the unrest, Pact’s democracy and governance regional coordinator, Amélie Razafindrahasy, and key representatives from five regional civil society organizations formed a coordination task force to provide around-the-clock conflict mediation assistance to all parties, promote tolerance, and avoid bloodshed. Linked together through mobile phones, they The new provincial administrator, Pety Rakotonirina (in dark jacket, center right), walks to the governor’s mansion in Fianarantsoa after the weeks of fighting were finished.

These five organizations quickly connected to networks of church groups, traditional authorities, and civil defense groups. Links with church groups acted as an early warning system at the neighborhood level, greatly limiting the ability of the Ratsiraka camp to organize armed attacks on strategic and civilian targets. Links with traditional authorities were instrumental in foiling at-tempts by the ousted governor to ignite an ethnic war. In one dramatic instance, an estimated 600 youths from the Antesaka ethnic group responded to declarations by the governor that the Antesaka were being attacked by the high plateau Betsileo people by traveling from the southeast coast and massing outside the provincial capital. Rapid mobilization of the traditional leaders from the coast through the network forced the governor to quickly recall the youth before any blood was spilled.

Maintaining political tolerance and protecting infrastructure have proved extremely important, not only in limiting violence and preserving valuable Madagascar continued on
PACT/Madagascar 8 USAID in Africa

The MTT is currently working or preparing to work in 12 countries. Members of the MTT have served as technical leaders for HIV and education training activities for several regional groups such as SADC, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa, and UNESCO West Africa. Under a new cooperative agreement with the Africa Bureau, MTT will soon begin to expand its work and train additional personnel. The Africa Bureau education team continues to work with the World Bank, UNICEF, and the British Department for International Development (DFID) to help integrate MTT work with that of other agencies in the education sector.

There are many early signs of the effectiveness of the MTT. Comprehensive plans for HIV/AIDS management in MOEs in Zambia, Malawi, Namibia, and Ghana, and provincial departments of education in South Africa, are getting started. MTT is gearing up to respond to new requests for strategic planning activities with MOEs in Ethiopia, Guinea, and Uganda. USAID and DFID in Namibia decided in 2001 to co-fund a major Ministry of Basic Education, Sport, and Culture study of the impact of HIV/AIDS on education. In Zambia, USAID and DFID are collaborating with the MOE on the adaptation of a new decentralized education management information system for collection and use of HIV/AIDS-relevant data. USAID/Malawi is working with the MOE and UNICEF on life skills training for teachers. The joint education ministries in Namibia formed a common dedicated unit for HIV/AIDS management, and funded a life skills curriculum workshop for provinces to develop implementation plans. Finally, the Namibian MOE is establishing a permanent HIV/AIDS management unit based on an MTT-designed model.

USAID and other donors are confident that the MTT will continue to be effective as it expands its work to other parts of the continent.
For more information, visit: (http://www.und.ac.za/und/heard), or contact Brad Strickland, Africa Bureau education division member, at bstrickland@afr-sd.org or (202) 219-0482.

roads and railways, but also for the future of ethnic relations. By working to temper extremism and keep dialogue open between the different political sides during the crisis, civil society organizations have laid a more solid foundation on which to build the future of the autonomous province. Once the crisis had passed and Ratsiraka had fled Madagascar, a three-day celebration of provincial unity, called Tambatra, was organized in the provincial capital between May 24 and 26 in a move to restore a normal political and administrative environment. Nearly 300 participants representing each of the province’s 35 administrative units de-bated development issues in two days of presentations and discussions.

In the coming months, as Madagascar struggles toward reconciliation and rebuilds its economy, the skills, mechanisms, and institutions introduced within the context of USAID governance programs are expected to play a key role in establishing more open, be established, and communities and local leaders will be trained to promote and sustain community-based education. To address the special needs for girls’ education, more than 2,000 girls’ scholarships will also be provided, particularly for girls interested in be-coming teachers. All the SBEP activities will be guided by the principles of Sudanese ownership, participation, and empowerment through education.
Organizers hope that by 2007, the SBEP will have created a community-based educational structure that will sustain 290 rehabilitated primary schools and 10 secondary schools. Where students once sat on the floor in dilapidated classrooms, they will have desks, learning materials, and better teachers. Thousands of girls who worked long hours in their family’s fields will spend their days at school. By 2007, hundreds of parents and community leaders will contribute to their schools and children’s education. Hopefully, the results from the new Sudan Basic Education Program will contribute to a more peaceful and prosperous Sudan. Mara Evans was an intern with USAID/Kenya. For more information, contact Mitch Kirby, senior education advisor for the Africa Bureau, at mikirby@usaid.gov or (202) 712-5421.

informed, and better organized communication between civil society groups and local and regional government. Vincent Carbonneau is the director of democracy and governance programs for Pact Madagascar. For more information, visit Pact’s website at (http://www.pactworld.org or contact Sylvain Brow, program officer, at sbrowa@pacthhq.org.

R E S O U R C E S: A selection of recent USAID-funded publications on Africa

Jon Anderson, Asif Shaikh, et al. International Re-sources Group; Center for International Forestry Research; Winrock International; World Resources Institute; USAID/AFR/SD. August 2002.
English: PN-ACR-288 French: PN-ACR-289

Experience demonstrates that programs that integrate nature (environmental management), wealth (economic concerns), and power (good governance) have promising results. This experience has generated a set of principles detailed in this booklet as action steps that can guide investment in rural Africa.
1) Nature: improve information and knowledge management systems; promote local land use planning and appropriate resource tenure systems; foster innovation, social learning, and adaptive management; build capacity and invest in human resources; and promote cost-effective technical advisory and intermediary services. 2) Wealth: be strategic about the economics of natural resource management (NRM); strengthen markets and NRM market incentives; invest in rural organizations; create a frame-work for better NRM choices; and assure that local resource managers have secure access to NRM means and benefits. 3) Power: strengthen environmental procedural rights for rural people; improve rural input into public decisions and policy; redistribute natural resource authority and functions; transfer powers, rights, and responsibilities to representative and accountable authorities; explore a minimum environmental standards approach; and promote platforms that allow for continuous and inclusive consultations. Case studies of Namibia, Madagascar, and Mali illustrate the effectiveness of integrating all three dimensions and the various principles and actions recommended under each dimension.

John C. Woodwell. International Resources Group; USAID/AFR/SD. September 2002.
PN-ACQ-877
Early hypotheses stated that there would be wide-spread ecological degradation in West Africa by 2000, driven largely by demand for fuelwood. This review assesses those estimates, incorporating technical information from fuelwood models and broader information on changes in land use from the USAID Africa Bureau’s surveys of development experts and the literature cited therein. After reviewing the earlier models and showing the inappropriate assumptions on which they were based, the report reviews the broader issues of fuelwood supply and demand, including factors that have mitigated shortages: notably, changes in land use (e.g., intensification of agriculture, development of individual woodlots and in-field planting of trees) that have increased fuelwood supply—changes driven in part by development of land tenure and resource tenure. The third part of the document introduces a modeling environment and includes simple simulation models for reviewing future scenarios for the harvest of wood from West Africa’s forests. These scenarios are not predictions, but illustrate a range of possible out-comes for stocks of forest biomass over time.

Yolande Miller-Grandvaux, Michel Welmond, and Joy Wolf. Academy for Educational Development; USAID/AFR/SD. July 2002.
PN-ACQ-444

This paper is based on comparative case studies of the evolving role of NGOs in the education sector in Ethiopia, Guinea, Malawi, and Mali—four countries in which USAID has long-standing and substantial education programs and in which NGOs operate within the education system, many of them with USAID support. This study focuses on four key themes: the evolving relationship between government and NGOs in the education sector; NGO efforts to shape education policy; the relation-ship between donors and NGOs in the education sector; and the nature and evolution of the relation-ship between NGOs and “civil society” or nongovernmental stakeholders in the four countries studied. The overall finding is that NGOs have become integrated and important components of education systems throughout Africa. Across all four countries, NGOs increasingly participate in and contribute to the delivery of educational services, influence education policy, and are included by donors and government in different aspects of the education system. 10 USAID in Africa

Anne Itto and Lawrence Wongo. Catholic Relief Services; USAID/DCHA/ OFDA; USAID/AFR/SD. June 2002.
PN-ACQ-456

This study was carried out from March to November 2001 in order to determine the extent of grain loss and the factors causing it in these surplus-producing areas. The study areas have experienced a shift in recent years from subsistence to commercial production as a result of agriculture recovery and local grain purchasing programs funded, in part, by USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. Individual sections of the study cover storage structures and practices, acreage and quantities of grain stored, grain condition and storage losses, and farmers’ response to grain marketing problems. The study found that the shift in post-harvest practices has, in some cases, led to unnecessarily high levels of grain losses. Recommendations for curbing grain losses in these areas are offered in conclusion.
Agriculture; U.S. Dept. of Labor; International Labour Organisation; USAID/AFR/SD. August 2002.
PN-ACQ-282

This report synthesizes the major findings of recent case studies, conducted in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria, of child labor in the West African cocoa sector. Detailed individual country reports will be published once they are finalized. The studies focused on understanding and describing work situations in the cocoa sector that pose particular risks for children and that can hinder their human development. One major area of concern was the reported trafficking of children and reported forced or compulsory child labor in the cocoa sector of West Africa. Pertinent categories in which children are most likely to be subjected to these risks are salaried workers and children without family ties. Hazardous work is another area of concern. Findings are also presented on children as a factor of production (the number of children employed with kinship relations to the farmer far exceeded any other category of child worker), and the negative effect of child labor on education (e.g., of Ivorian children between 6 and 17 living on cocoa farms, approximately a third had never attended school). The picture that emerges is of a sector with stagnant technology, low yields, and an increasing demand for unskilled workers trapped in a circle of poverty.

Jon Anderson. International Resources Group; USAID/AFR/SD. August 2002.
English: PN-ACQ-875 French: PN-ACQ-876

This analysis of West Africa’s forestry sector analyzes what types of investments should be made in tomorrow’s for ests, who should be making them, and how they should be made. Findings of the study, which included field visits to Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea, Benin, and Ghana, confirmed that today’s forests are already evolving toward the dynamic, economic, integrated, diverse, and shared forests of tomorrow. To a large extent, tomorrow’s forests will be those of private and community initiative, forests that complement other rural production, provide economic opportunities for communities and individuals, help alleviate poverty, and respond to market signals. They are forests in which the U.S. Forest Service assumes a new role as a partner to communities and resource users. These forests are shared resources, where the state and community co-manage resources and share benefits; locally-managed, where men and women in the surrounding areas are empowered to make decisions and investments; and democratically-managed, where decision-making is transparent, accountable, and participatory. However, tomorrow’s forests will not appear and provide their promise without invest ment of time, skills, energy, commitment, political will, and money.
Spring 2003 11: Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

In this year’s State of the Union Address, President Bush announced an Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a five-year, $15 billion initiative to turn the tide in the global effort to combat the HIV/ AIDS pandemic. This commitment of resources is designed to help the most afflicted countries in Africa and the Caribbean win the war against HIV/ AIDS, extending and saving lives in Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. These 14 countries, which are also the focus of the president’s previously announced Mother-and-Child HIV Prevention Initiative, have some of the highest prevalences of HIV infection and account for nearly 20 million HIV-infected men, women and children— almost 70 percent of the total in all of Africa and the Caribbean.

The new AIDS initiative is intended to prevent 7 million new infections, or 60 percent of the projected 12 million new infections in the target countries; provide antiretroviral drugs for 2 million HIV-infected people; and care for 10 million HIV-infected individuals and AIDS orphans.

Implementation of this initiative will be based on a model used in countries such as Uganda. This model involves a layered network of central medical centers that support satellite centers and mobile units, with varying levels of medical expertise as treatment moves from urban to rural communities.

This $15 billion in funding virtually triples the current U.S. commitment to international AIDS assistance. Funding will begin with $2 billion in FY2004, and ramp up thereafter. USAID currently spends nearly $200 million on HIV/AIDS in Africa. The $15 billion includes $1 billion for the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, conditioned on the fund showing results.

In order to ensure accountability for results, the president will name a special coordinator for international HIV/ Operators at an AIDS hotline in South Africa.

AIDS assistance who will be responsible for coordinating all U.S. participation in international HIV/AIDS programs. For more information, visit (http://www.usaid.gov/ about/hivaids/index.html R. Zurba/USAID South Africa