Category: Africa

By Jerome Mwanda
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

NAIROBI (IDN) – Whether and how African countries could reduce their dependency on foreign aid – if not do without it altogether – was a major subject of debate at the African Economic Conference in Rwanda’s capital Kigali. It was the first time since the 2011 Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, that the issue was discussed.

Convened by the Economic Commission for Africa, (ECA), the African Development Bank, (AfDB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the four-day conference  from October 30 to November 2, 2012 focussed on the theme ‘Inclusive and Sustainable Development in an Age of Economic Uncertainty’.

By Jerome Mwanda
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

NAIROBI (IDN) – Some 19 million people in West Africa’s Sahel region are living with the threat of hunger and malnutrition, though the potential to increase agricultural production in Africa is enormous. Poor people in the slums of Nairobi pay more for their maize, rice, and other staple food than wealthy people pay for the same products in local supermarkets.

Such asymmetries are surmountable – if only African leaders would agree to improve inter-regional trade so that food can move more freely between countries and from fertile areas to those where communities are suffering food shortages, says the World Bank in a new report.

By J C Suresh
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

TORNOTO (IDN) – A new report by the World Bank highlights the resilience of African economies despite global slowdown caused by the Euro-zone crisis and decline in growth in emerging economies, particularly China – an important market for the continent’s mineral exports.

In fact, new oil, gas and mineral wealth offer an opportunity for inclusive development. But strong growth rates could yet be vulnerable to deteriorating market conditions in the Euro-zone, the report warns.

So far, consistently high commodity prices and strong export growth in those countries which have made mineral discoveries in recent years, have powered economic activity and are expected to buttress Africa’s economic growth for the rest of 2012, according to the World Bank’s new Africa’s Pulse. African countries’ share in global reserves and annual production of some minerals is sizeable.

By Charles Mafa*
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

LUSAKA (IDN) – China’s voracious appetite for natural resources has driven a boom of investments and aid to African countries. In the Southern African country of Zambia, Chinese companies are building roads, hospitals, sports stadia as well as reviving copper mines abandoned in the country’s Copperbelt region.

By Sven Richter*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

African demographics are at the start of a long-term trend that will most likely trigger high gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the region for the next decade or two. A by-product of this is likely to be more democracy. Studies show that as GDP increases, the likelihood of democracies becoming autocracies fades and the likelihood of autocracies becoming democracies increases. This holds true for all nations, bar those with a very high GDP per capita where the wealth is derived from a single resource such as oil. 

By Chiara Francavilla*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

While Somalia relies on the World Food Programme to deliver food to the area, the country on the Horn of Africa continues to export livestock to neighbouring states. This may seem baffling. But the situation underlines that one needs to look beyond food availability itself to understand hunger caused by food shortages.

By Jaya Ramachandran
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Hardly one year after the election of Alpha Condé as President of Guinea, the West African state is faced with a rather vulnerable situation that political analysts fear may open the army’s way back to power.

By Joan Baxter*
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

Palm oil is expected to be the world’s most produced and internationally traded edible oil by 2012. At what price? As foreign investors descend on Africa to develop large-scale palm oil plantations, the survival of local people is being threatened. They are losing control of the land and water on which they depend for their food production and livelihoods.

By Jerome Mwanda
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

NAIROBI (IDN) – In run-up to an important global forum on aid effectiveness, African leaders from fragile and conflict-affected countries have called for new approaches to development in the region and a reassessment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The call emerged from a regional meeting on peace- and state-building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, September 7-9, 2011. Recognizing that not a single fragile state has achieved any of the eight MDGs, the African Development Bank (AfDB), along with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Union Commission (AUC), organized the meeting.

By Alemayehu G. Mariam*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

“Why are Ethiopians starving again? What should the world do and not do?” These are the two enduring questions Time Magazine of December 21, 1987 asked in a cover story. The reply in short was couched as a question: “Is the latest famine wholly the result of cruel nature, or are other, man-made forces at work that worsen the catastrophe?” Something that should strike as déjà vu 24 years later.