AFRICA: UN meeting addresses "the path to development"
NAIROBI, 17 July (IRIN) - The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Monday opened an in-depth discussion of ways and means to set Africa on the path to lasting peace and sustainable development.
In a report to the 54 member states of the council, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan made no bones about the "multiple challenges" that must be tackled to set Africa, a continent in the most harrowing circumstances, on the path to development, according to a UN press statement.
Echoing Annan's sentiments, the current president of the council, Cameroonian Ambassador Martin Belinga-Eboutou, spoke of the need to pay special attention to the eradication of poverty against a setting of heavy
debt burdens, stagnating or receding international development assistance, a withdrawal of foreign direct investment, armed conflicts and the ravages
of the AIDS pandemic.
The high-level discussion on Africa takes place days after the end of the Organisation of African Unity summit in Lusaka, Zambia, at which the OAU paved the way for the establishment of an African Union. Annan last week described that move as "an historic effort" that "will require leadership, courage and a willingness to depart from the ways of the past, if it is to do for Africa what the European Union has done for Europe".
The ECOSOC session, to last until Wednesday, will be attended by officials from the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and other major financial institutions, as well as ministers of African states,
representatives of African private companies and UN specialised agencies, trade unionists and investors.
Three round-table meetings on the investment climate in African countries, financing investment, and priority infrastructure needs will run in
parallel.
Annan, and the head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, on Monday called on developed countries to cut the US $300 billion a year they spend on
subsiding farmers, and give poor African states more chance to compete for trade. Annan said the subsidy had the effect of lowering world prices, thereby contributing to lower incomes and poverty in Africa.
On Tuesday morning, former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela is to address the gathering by video during a debate on the link between peace and development. General discussion is due to continue on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, and to culminate in a ministerial declaration.
Annan has voiced the hope that the African countries will reach agreement on a single, integrated framework for development on the continent, and emphasised that the international community has an obligation to help them in their efforts.
In advance of the ECOSOC talks, he identified six broad areas of concern:
improving governance and preventing conflict; mobilising resources for eradicating poverty; food security and increasing productivity in
agriculture; diversifying Africa's economies; rehabilitating infrastructure; and strengthening human capital.
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001
AFRICA: UN conference adopts plan to help world's poorest countries [2010522]
NEW YORK, 21 May (IRIN) - Nearly 200 governments who participated in a recently-concluded United Nations conference in Belgium have committed themselves to fighting poverty in the world's poorest countries while improving the lives of the 600 million people there.
The Third UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), which ended on 21 May, adopted a political declaration and a decade-long programme of action spelling out specific measures to address development assistance, debt cancellation and private investment in the 49 LDCs. More than two thirds of these nations are in Africa.
But while valuable work was done to map out priorities and strategies for assisting LDCs, the conference was considered disappointing by some in the scope and scale of its achievement.
Rubens Ricupero, who heads the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said that the Brussels meeting had made important progress possible in vital areas but had still been unsatisfactory in that there
were no major breakthroughs on such debt relief, trade or development aid.
In the Brussels Declaration on LDCs, governments stressed the need for a "transparent, non-discriminatory and rules-based" multilateral trading
system to help poor countries reap the benefits of globalisation. They resolved that an upcoming meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Doha, Qatar, should be used "to advance the development dimension of trade".
Governments also committed themselves to using the UN Conference on Financing for Development in March 2002 as an opportunity to mobilise resources. They pledged to reverse declining levels of official development assistance (ODA) and to provide the world's poorest states with special debt-relief initiatives.
Eveline Herfkens, the Netherlands minister for development, called on donor countries to improve their behaviour in relation to LDCs. "[They] are not transparent as to when they will give money, how much and when," she said. "There is too much conditionality, and often the cost of implementation is too high... We need to ensure that LDC aid recipients who have adequate policies will not fail because aid is insufficient or undependable."
Rwandan economy and finance minister Donald Kaberuka said that each LDC nation needed to do more if it was to emerge from being among the world's poorest countries. "We have to look at what we can do for ourselves," he said. Kaberuka said that LDC countries would be conducting reviews among themselves to ensure implementation of national policy pledges, indicating
that many were unfairly stereotyped by negative occurrences in a neighbouring nation.
The 60-page 'Programme of Action for the Decade 2001-2010' arising from the LDC meeting in Brussels calls for halting the marginalisation of these countries as an "ethical imperative". It outlines a broad range of
measures to be applied by the developed nations and the LDCs themselves in such areas as good governance, trade and the mobilisation of financial resources.
The conference, which attracted more than 6,500 representatives from governments, UN specialised agencies and civil society, was a follow-up to LDC conferences in France in 1981 and 1990.
The 34 African countries on the list of LDCs include: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea,
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia.
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001
EAST AFRICA: Tapping into traditional health practices
NAIROBI, 21 May (IRIN) - The World Bank, representatives of US complementary health institutes and African traditional healers have agreed to collaborate on the analysis and validation of indigenous health practices, including herbal treatments of HIV/AIDS-related opportunistic
infections.
Western health institutes and the Bank also agreed to discuss ways in which to build partnerships between traditional health practitioners and the scientific community, according to a press release from the World
Bank's Indigenous Knowledge for Development (IK) Programme on 17 May.
The decision to collaborate followed a seminar last week in the US, hosted by the IK programme, at which delegates from US complementary and alternative health centres heard presentations from the Tanga AIDS Working Group (TAWG), Tanzania, and the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Agricultural By-Products (CIKSAP), Kenya, on their approaches to
health care based on indigenous knowledge.
Government leaders and civil society groups called for learning from local communities at the First Global Knowledge Conference in 1997 in Toronto, Canada. Following that conference, the IK programme was launched and now supports local communities, NGOs and governments seeking to integrate traditional health and agricultural practices into development activities.
[for the IK programme website, go to:
http://www.worldbank.org/afr/ik/index.htm
According to the World Bank, the programme has helped identify and disseminate details of more than 200 cases where indigenous knowledge has played a role in solving local development problems.
In and around the port city of Tanga, Tanzania's second most important port after Dar Es Salaam, TAWG has treated over 2,000 AIDS patients with herbs prescribed by traditional healers. And in Kenya, CIKSAP has facilitated an exchange between local communities of Maasai pastoralists and Luo farmers on medicinal and food plants.
"We are trying to learn how local communities are solving daily development problems," said Nicolas Gorjestani, head of the World Bank's IK programme. "We think this is important for us for three basic reasons: First, it solves development problems and has impact. Second, we would like to play the role of a broker in the increasingly interrelated,
interconnected learning society and knowledge economy... The third reason is that it helps us to respond better to the requests and to the calls
from civil society groups."
The gains to be achieved are diverse, and often powerful. Health workers in Iganga District, southeastern Uganda, used indigenous knowledge systems
to help reduce maternal mortality rates by 50 percent within three years, according to the World Bank statement.
Meanwhile, women in the village of Malicounda, Senegal, led a local movement which stopped female genital cutting in 200 communities within
four years.
In Tanzania, the impact of TAWG had been most significant in alleviating some opportunistic infections caused by HIV/AIDS. Some patients treated
using indigenous knowledge have lived longer by up to five years, according to the World Bank statement.
In Tanga regional hospital, TAWG traditional healers and medical doctors work closely together, testing patients for HIV, treating them and providing counselling. TAWG has set up an information centre for AIDS education. The group also provides home care for people living with AIDS. To replicate the success of the group, the World Bank is supporting exchanges with other communities in East Africa.
In Uganda, a national workshop resulted in the 1999 Kampala Declaration on indigenous knowledge for sustainable development. The Bank provided a grant from the Institutional Development Fund (IDF) to support activities to help integrate IK into the operations of health and agriculture ministries, to build local capacity to document and exchange indigenous knowledge.
In Kenya, the IK programme is sponsoring an exchange between Maasai herders and Luo farmers. A Maasai community in the Ngong Hills [24 km southwest of the capital, Nairobi] created a museum in their village to
educate their youth and preserve the local material culture and language. The community has also set up a project to conserve local trees and document their medicinal properties. The CIKSAP has been facilitating the exchange of information and experience between these two communities on the development and marketing of indigenous medicinal and food products.
The US meeting last week was "just the beginning of a process", said Nicolas Gorjestani. "We have succeeded in bringing together and brokering a cooperation between development practitioners in the field, the
scientific community and World Bank to come together and begin looking at the process of validation of some of these traditional practices."
"We need to learn from local communities to enrich the development process," World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn added.
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001
News Release No: 2001/302/AFR
worldbank.org
MALARIA ON THE RISE, CHILDREN MOST VULNERABLE
World Bank, WHO, UNICEF, and UNDP, call for much more action in the fight against Malaria
WASHINGTON, April 18, 2001
Malaria, one of the world's most important public health concerns, is on the rise again, causing over a million deaths a year, including an estimated 700,000 children. According to the WHO, in absolute numbers, malaria kills 3,000 children under 5 years old, every day?a death toll comparable to that of AIDS. Effective malaria control programs have led to dramatic declines in death in some countries, but obstacles remain in many of the world's poorest countries.
Mobilizing action to implement effective nation-wide programs is the focus of attention of the Fourth Global Partnership Meeting to Roll Back Malaria, hosted by the World Bank in Washington D.C. from April 18th-19th 2001. The meeting brings together health and finance officials from twenty-one malaria-affected countries, representatives of NGOs, industry, the private sector, foundations, research institutions, donors and UN agencies to agree on methods to strengthen their capacity to expand malaria programs beyond the public and health sectors.
"Roll Back Malaria movement has clearly made extraordinary progress in many countries across the world, enabling hundreds of thousands of people living in poor communities to better access prevention and treatment services." according to Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization. "But there remains much to be done. I hope that international and national agencies, encouraged by the progress, will commit additional resources so that actions to Roll Back Malaria can be scaled up and millions more can benefit."
The rising numbers of people affected by Malaria overwhelms national health services, sustains poverty and weakens societies, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where ninety percent of the cases occur. The cost of prevention and treatment consumes scarce household resources and the disease continues to have a negative impact on the health of children.
"Malaria is much more than a health issue. In many countries, it is now endangering development, targeting the poor and especially children who have little or no defense." according to James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank Group. "We need to give them those defenses. We have seen in Asia, Latin America and some African countries, that malaria can be controlled with the right tools and resources. We need to work aggressively with local NGOs and with the private sector to fight malaria at the local level, and work with governments to scale up local programs into national strategies."
The meetings provide a platform for countries to share experiences on expanding country level partnerships to achieve effective nation-wide programs to reach the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) goals of halving the burden of malaria by 2010. It will also examine the role of the Government and potential contributions of the private sector and NGOs to form better partnerships that will extend malaria programs beyond the public health sector. In addition participants will discuss the challenges they face in mobilizing, and effectively employing external resources, and the opportunities provided through national Poverty Reduction Strategies and the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative to scale-up successful malaria programs.
The Roll Back Malaria (RBM) initiative was launched jointly by the World Bank, WHO, UNICEF, and UNDP in November, 1998 in New York. It responds to the concerns of Heads of State in more than 30 malaria-affected countries and to the particular problems faced by their poor communities.
RBM is headed by David Alnwick who was recently appointed as Project Manager in January, 2001. Dr. Alnwick was Chief of the Health Section in the Program Division of UNICEF's New York Headquarters for the last three years. RBM is not a financing mechanism, but aims to support countries through global partnerships to ensure that they have effective access to the information, technology and financial resources required to reduce the burden of malaria.
Country Examples
Azerbaijan: Public-private- partnership
An alarming upsurge in malaria cases in Azerbaijan during the mid-90s is being reversed through the efforts of a public-private partnership brokered in 1998 by the Roll Back Malaria global partnership.
During its first year of operation the malaria program, funded by a private sector multinational company and supported by international and other UN agencies, helped reduce malaria cases by over 50 percent.
Ethiopia: Community Participation
In the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where less than half the population live within easy reach of a health center, more than half a million people are treated for malaria every year by a network of more than 700 volunteer health workers.
Mothers are also recruited to teach other mothers how to diagnose and treat malaria in the home. This has led to a 40% reduction in overall death rates among children less than five. Death rates of children from other villages outside this scheme, continue to be high.
Cambodia: National Commitment
Over half a million Cambodians live in hilly areas or work in forests where malaria is rife. The prevalence of malaria is more than 50 percent of malaria prevalence are found in children living in hill villages.
The National malaria program brought together several partners including the International Federation of the Red Cross, the European Commission, WHO and others, to fight outbreaks in the rural areas of the country. Cambodia's commitment to malaria control has significantly reduced the number of cases per year.
For more information on the Roll Back Malaria movement please visit the website:www.rbm.who.int
TANZANIA: Technology test in fight against poverty
NAIROBI, 11 May (IRIN) - The Tanzanian authorities, backed by UN agencies and Britain's Department for International Development (DFID), are planning to use information technology to improve planning and
decision-making in their efforts to reduce poverty.
The Tanzania Socio-Economic Database (TSED) is intended to make it easier for government agencies to discern trends and spot disparities among regions, according to the UNDP, which is backing the endeavour. The database is also to be made available to civil society organisations. The Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics is carrying out the initiative, in
collaboration with UNICEF, 14 government ministries and the UNDP, and with support from DFID.
"The formation of the Tanzania Socio-Economic Database will go a long way towards giving us a road map of where we are in our war against poverty," according to Daniel Yona, Tanzanian Minister of State for Poverty
Alleviation in the Vice-President's Office.
"Using data from TSED to understand what is happening to poor people in Tanzania, district by district, is what will make it useful and important," said Sally Fegan-Wyles, UNDP Resident Representative and
Resident Coordinator. "The real benefit of the database will come from giving government and civil society the capacity to assess the impact of policies, budget allocations and development assistance on poverty, so that policies and resource allocation decisions can be reviewed and revised."
The database will track 67 indicators by sector and theme, in areas ranging from health, education, agriculture and food security to labour, women's affairs, children, and science and technology. Future plans for the project include expansion of the number of indicators, a web version to improve access, and development of a training programme to facilitate
the use of data for analysis and planning.
[for further details, go to:
http://www.undp.org/dpa/archive/index.html
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001