The 2005 Human Development Report, "International Cooperation at a Crossroads: Aid, Trade and Security in an Unequal World," was launched this week prior to a UN summit on development this month in New York.

By examining three pillars of international cooperation - aid, trade, and security - the report argues that none of the Millennium Goals will be achieved on time if the international community does not decide to make a serious effort towards overcoming social and income inequalities.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of 15 targets adopted in September 2000 to reduce poverty, improve health and education, reduce debt and increase global trade and aid by 2015.

Claes Johansson, a statistician and co-author of the report, told AllAfrica that the focus on inequality turns up some surprising facts about countries that appear to be progressing towards the MDGs.

"The Human Development Report tries to look at not just income, but also inequality and progress in other areas," Johansson said in a telephone interview. For example, the report analyzes data on child mortality rates for the poorest and richest groups within a country. "We see that in countries that are doing relatively well, such as Ghana and Uganda, most of the progress in child mortality is happening in the richest groups of society, while the poorest groups are falling behind," Johansson said. "So the gaps, in terms of health, are widening in these countries."

Child mortality figures show an especially pessimistic picture of health care in the developing world. The report finds that an additional 4.4 million preventable child deaths will occur in 2015, following current trends, which is equivalent to three times the number of children under age five in New York, London and Tokyo. But with immediate action, argues the report, these projections could change.

Although the report has a global outlook, it says that African countries are having a particularly hard time meeting the MDGs, and some are even losing ground.

"A large portion of the countries moving backwards or going slowly are in Africa," Johansson said. "Of those 4.4 million children whose lives could be saved, 3 million of those deaths take place in Africa."

In spite of this grim prediction, the report also makes recommendations of what the international community can do in the areas of aid, trade and security to reduce poverty and meet the MDGs by 2015.

In terms of aid, the report suggests not just more of it, but more effective aid delivered with a greater focus on countries' needs. For example, the report notes that "tied aid," which requires recipients to spend the money in donor countries, is not productive, and estimates that this costs Sub-Saharan Africa $1.6 billion a year. The answer to tied aid is simple:"stop it in 2006," the report says.

Even more troubling than the cost of misallocated aid, the report says, are the substantial trade barriers and agricultural subsidies that prevent developing nations from competing successfully in world markets. Africa in particular has been marginalized, the report says. With a population of 689 million people, sub-Saharan Africa gets a smaller share of world exports than Belgium, which has only 10 million people. Though subsidies in developed countries have been increasing since the 1990s, Johansson said subsidies could be cut without distorting or harming the agricultural industry in those countries.

Conflict reduction in poor countries, funded and supported by the international community, would also pay a dividend for development, the report says. Better regulations on the trade of natural resources that fuel conflicts, such as oil and minerals, could cut off the funds of warring groups. The report recommends that the African Union be supported in creating a standing force for peacekeeping efforts, and argues for a global focus on longer post-conflict reconstruction.

"What we see is that in conflict critical pieces of infrastructure are often destroyed, and this is actually the cause of a large part of the decline of human development in the country," Johansson said. One of the goals of the report is to quantify, through case studies, the impact of conflict on development, and to suggest ways to help mitigate those costs. Aid for reconstruction, says the report, should go to building schools and health clinics, funding teachers and doctors, and helping national ministries function effectively.

Aid, trade and security are not isolated goals; they need to be tackled simultaneously, Johansson said, as failure in any one will undermine the progress of all three.

And certainly, there have been some signs of progress. Barbara Barungi, the poverty reduction strategies and microeconomic policy specialist for the UNDP regional office in South Africa, pointed to the example of health care in Uganda as one instance. In Uganda, where the government has recently removed public health user fees, the report finds an 80 percent increase in the use of the public health system. Half of those new users are among the poorest 20 percent of the population.

Interviewed by telephone from Johannesburg, Barungi said regional cooperation through such groups as the African Union and Nepad have given Africa a stronger position on trade issues. Armed with information about trade inequalities from this UNDP report, African nations may be able to present a united front at the Doha Round meetings in December, she said.

The more immediate concern for UNDP is the report's reception at the UN summit in New York beginning September 14, which the document calls a "critical opportunity to adopt bold action plans." According to Johansson, the report has to compete with "a whole big agenda" when world leaders gather next week, but the authors and supporters of the report's recommendations remain hopeful "that large parts will be implemented."

If not, the report warns, there is little chance that the promises of the Millennium Development Goals will be met in 2015, or that issues of deepening inequalities in developing societies will be rectified.

Amy Brisson

Source: http://allafrica.com/

The UN's '2005 Human Development Report' released on Wednesday noted that 12 of the 18 countries that have suffered development reversals between 1990 and 2003 were in sub-Saharan Africa, with Southern Africa "hit hardest".

South Africa has plunged by 35 places to 120 on the global Human Development Index (HDI), Zimbabwe by 23 and Botswana 21 places. Reversals were also noted for Lesotho, Swaziland and Zambia. The HDI, which ranks 167 countries, focuses on three measurable dimensions of human development - living a long and healthy life; being educated; and having a decent standard of living.

"Most of Southern Africa has experienced a decent growth rate, however the impact of HIV/AIDS has affected the life expectancy in the region," commented Claes Johansson, one of the authors of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) report.

He noted that South Africa had the resources to meet the MDGs - a set of development goals agreed by all countries to halve poverty by 2015 - if the impact of HIV/AIDS could be reversed.

However, a report recently released by the South Africa government indicated that the country was "well on course to meet" eight MDGs related to combating HIV/AIDS; poverty eradication; universal primary education; gender equality; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; and environment sustainability.

The UNDP report acknowledged progress achieved in lowering income inequality as a result of South Africa's social security network, particularly the old-age pension system.

The cash grants have also resulted in tangible health gains, said the UN report. "Among black children under age 5 these transfers have led to an estimated 8 centimetre increase in height - equivalent to six months' growth".

But the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) was scathing over the government's progress in meeting at least two of the MDGs - combating HIV/AIDS and access to universal primary education.

South Africa has the highest number of people needing AIDS treatment now - 800,000. However, the government is providing free antiretroviral drugs to only around 50,000 people.

"This is too little considering the resources that South Africa, compared to other countries in the region, has at its disposal," said SANGOCO spokesman Hassen Lorgat. "In fact the MDGs are too minimum a programme for a country with resources like South Africa."

The epidemic is generating multiple human development reversals, extending beyond health into food security, education and other areas, noted the UNDP report.

"HIV-affected households are trapped in a financial pincer as health costs rise and incomes fall. Costs can amount to more than one-third of household income, crowding out spending in other areas," it said.

Beyond the household, HIV/AIDS is eroding the social and economic infrastructure, pushing already overstretched health systems "to the brink of collapse".

"Zambia now loses two-thirds of its trained teachers to HIV/AIDS, and in 2000 two in three agricultural extension workers in the country reported having lost a co-worker in the past year," noted the report.

Although the South African government has forecast that it will achieve the goal of full school enrolment well before 2015, Lorgat was critical of the authorities' performance.

"The point is South Africa does not even provide free primary school education," in a country where more than 30 percent of its population lives on less than US $2 a day, he commented.

Sub-Saharan Africa's education record is extremely poor. "On average, a child born in Mozambique today can anticipate four years of formal education. One born in France will receive 15 years at vastly higher levels of provision," noted UNDP.

Not only is school enrolment problematic in Africa, but so to is the quality of education: less than one-quarter of Zambian children emerge from primary school able to pass basic literacy tests, said the report.

More and better aid is key to helping lift sub-Saharan Africa out of its poverty and increased marginalisation in the world market.

"Fixing the international aid system is one the most urgent priorities facing government at the start of the 10-year countdown to meeting the MDGs in 2015," said Kevin Watkins, lead author of the UN report.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Source: http://www.irinnews.org/

The 'Gender Monitoring Group of the World Summit' is the brainchild of the Centre for Women's Global Leadership, located in the American state of New Jersey, the Fiji-based Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era -- and the Women's Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), which is headquartered in New York.

The summit will review efforts to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and attempt to reach consensus on proposals for U.N. reform.

Eight MDGs were agreed on at the U.N. in 2000. They include halving extreme hunger and poverty, achieving universal primary education and promoting gender equality. In addition, child and maternal mortality are to be reduced, efforts made to fight AIDS, malaria and other major diseases -- and environmental sustainability ensured.

The goals also aim to develop a global partnership for tackling unfair trade rules, amongst other issues. The deadline for the MDGs is 2015. IPS spoke to WEDO Executive Director June Zeitlin about her hopes for the summit:

IPS: What specific issues will your organisation take to the World Summit?

June Zeitlin: We have commented on each succeeding draft (of the U.N. reform document). It's our view that the last draft represented real progress in terms of gender equality and women's rights: these were integrated throughout the document, not just in the development section.

So we are very concerned to hear the informal talk about discarding the document and starting all over again (as) has been suggested by (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) John Bolton.

Already the content of the document represents just the minimum necessary to achieve the MDGs, along with peace and security and human rights. Whatever the final document says, it is important to reaffirm the commitments made at all the world conferences and summits during the 1990s. We know the U.S. is trying to delete this section.

We also want to make sure that a commitment to gender equality, women's rights and women's empowerment is explicitly stated in the document. We think that the section relating to women's education, political representation, violence against women, reproductive health rights and women's situations in armed conflicts is absolutely essential. In fact, we would like to see that paragraph strengthened.

IPS: Do you think that world leaders -- who are almost all men -- will take women's concerns around the MDGs seriously?

JZ: We are visiting as many governments' missions as possible to remind our supporters that this is not something to take for granted. If they don't make an explicit recommitment to gender equality, not only will those MDGs specific to gender equality not be met, but neither will all the goals related to poverty, access to water, and health and so on.

We are asking that the centrality of gender equality be reaffirmed in the heads of states' statements and in other documents and speeches at the summit.

IPS: Do you believe that governments will be able to fulfil their commitments?

JZ: That's the 64,000 dollar question. Are they capable of it? The answer is yes. Will they? That's a question of political will and resources. We have resources for war. The question is how we are going to apply resources for peace and human development, and human security.

IPS: Looking back at the promises made at various summits in the past, why do you think government leaders fail to demonstrate political will?

JZ: I think getting commitments on paper is the easy part, but getting them implemented and raising the resources is the biggest challenge.

There is a disconnect between what government leaders say, what the research shows about successful strategies for poverty alleviation and development, and what's in the interest of many rich and powerful countries.

IPS: Recently, your organisation initiated a global project to monitor governments' progress on gender equality with regard to the MDGs. Could you tell us more about it?

JZ: In March, we issued a global monitoring report called 'Beijing Betrayed' which looked at governments' implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action (drawn up at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing) and also the MDGs.

We found that governments have basically failed in their leadership to implement these commitments and that a vast majority of women at the lower economic level are becoming poorer. Although there have been some successes, progress has been very uneven. Again it's a question of political will. We are talking about changing patterns of behaviour and age-old discrimination: it doesn't disappear without really concerted action.

What is discouraging is that the rhetoric is grand but the gap is so great when it comes to action.

It's not just about helping women because women are half the population. Women are key agents of change, and yet this fact is not translated into public policy. This is what the monitoring report shows.

IPS: Some civil society groups and diplomats from developing countries are saying the United States is trying to sabotage the summit. What is your view on this?

JZ: There is no question that Ambassador Bolton was sent here to be a bully and disrupt the process. This is the policy of the current (U.S.) administration.

I also think we have to put this into perspective, since we have a long history of working at the U.N. The U.S. tends to stand by during the preparatory process -- they are present and make some contribution, but they don't roll up their sleeves and really get into the game. Instead, they let everybody play their hands and then come at the last minute, usually from a fairly high level, and announce that whatever has been negotiated is unacceptable.

IPS: What role should civil society play if the process does become disrupted?

JZ: The process has already been disrupted and there is a lot of confusion about how to proceed with the summit only two weeks away. Things are happening behind closed doors and civil society is not able to participate or even observe what is happening. We are very, very concerned. I don't think anybody who cares about the U.N. and multilateralism would like to see this process fail.

Haider Rizvi

Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/

If they vote in sufficient numbers, these women could send the laggards packing. According to the Electoral Commission of Kenya, about 50 percent of people who cast votes during the last general election -- in 2002 -- were women.

"We can, if only we sensitise all women that they have a right to demand explanations from their leaders on why certain promises have not been fulfilled," Monica Amolo, executive director of the Programme for Rehabilitation of Women in Socio-Economic Difficulty (PROWED), told IPS.

"We are tired of empty promises, and what women want now is action. This calls for intensified efforts in the area of civic education," she added. PROWED works with communities in western Kenya.

Even with the best will in the world, however, can PROWED and other groups like it provide Kenyan women with all the information they need to make informed decisions at the ballot box? And if not, would women be able to get this information elsewhere?

The print media might seem a good source for coverage of what the MDGs are, and analysis of whether politicians have a respectable track record concerning their implementation. But, illiteracy would prevent millions of women from benefiting from this information.

According to the latest available figures (for 1999) from the Adult Education Department of the Ministry of Gender, Sports, Culture and Social Services, five million of Kenya's estimated 30 million citizens are illiterate. Of these, 60 percent are women.

It could be argued that the country's broadcast media should step into the breach here, as radio and television programmes on development issues skirt problems of literacy. Community radio stations, which have their finger on the pulse of local developments, seem a promising way of getting information across -- especially those which broadcast in local languages.

Yet, government concerns about the possible effects of a lively network of community stations appear set to undermine the role such broadcasters might play in informing women about the MDGs.

"When you give information on sensitive matters such as governance and then allow communities to air views on the same, you are democratising information to the anger of the government," Grace Githaiga, coordinator of the Kenya Community Media Network (KCOMNET), told IPS. "The government fears being challenged by an informed audience." (KCOMNET, which links journalists, media organisations and non-governmental groups, is based in the Kenyan capital -- Nairobi.)

It is perhaps telling that Kenya has only one community radio station at present: Mang’elete Community Radio, located in the east of the country. It was licensed last year after a decade of intense lobbying by media activists.

Even if women manage to become informed about whether their leaders are fulfilling promises made about development, their votes may still go to undeserving politicians, warns Amolo.

"Most of the women in the rural areas vote for anyone who gives them handouts like sugar, flour and money, given the high poverty level," she says. It seems that information about development issues will have to go hand-in-hand with poverty relief initiatives if hunger and need are not to drown out efforts at holding politicians accountable.

"This can succeed only if we embark on socio-economic programmes to empower women, especially the rural woman," notes Amolo.

"There is a need to collect data on how many rural women have some source of livelihood, then find out how those lacking income can be helped to sustain themselves," she adds. "It then becomes easy to talk to someone who is capable of helping themselves, out of voting for non-performers."

Government statistics indicate that about 56 percent of Kenyans live below the poverty line of a dollar a day.

In addition, ethnicity may undo the work of activists, community stations and the like.

"People do not vote from an informed point of view. There are issues of culture that power belongs to the man; ethnicity also plays a part in that one can only vote for someone from his ethnic group among others," Winnie Mitullah, a senior research fellow from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Nairobi, told IPS.

Kenya has several dozen ethnic groups of which the Kikuyu is the largest, accounting for about a fifth of the population.

Eight MDGs were agreed on by world leaders during the Millennium Summit, held at the United Nations in New York in 2000. The deadline for the goals is 2015.

The MDGs focus on halving extreme hunger and poverty, achieving universal primary education and promoting gender equality (to be measured by whether boys and girls receive an equal education at primary and secondary school).

The goals also deal with reducing child and maternal mortality, combating AIDS and other major diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability -- and addressing development issues such as trade imbalances and high levels of national debt.

Later this month (Sep. 14 to 16), another summit will take place at U.N. headquarters to assess progress towards achieving the MDGs.

The hope is that discussions at this meeting will provide added impetus to the MDG campaign, ultimately putting women in Kenya -- and the rest of the continent -- in a position where they can, as rights activist Yassine Fall says, "use their votes intelligently."

Fall made the comment in May at a conference organised by a Dakar-based non-governmental organisation, the African Women’s Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights, of which she is president. This meeting dealt with MDG implementation.

"They must demand to know from their leaders when treaties or laws signed in their favour will be implemented, before voting," Fall told IPS. "It should be something like 'Tell me what you are going to do for me and when, if I am to give you my vote'."

Joyce Mulama

Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/

In an opinion piece carried in the Financial Times and Le Monde newspapers, Mr. Annan also called for help for some 20 million Africans who are at risk of similar severe hunger and food insecurity.

"One of the proposals I have put before next month's World Summit calls for a 10-fold increase in the UN's Emergency Fund, which would enable UN agencies to jump-start relief operations," allowing governments, the UN and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to take adequate preparatory measures and deploy personnel with greater speed, he said.

The summit of more than 170 heads of State and Government will meet from 14 to 16 September at UN Headquarters in New York to discuss UN reform and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of targets designed to halve or eliminate a host of socio-economic ills.

Niger is grappling with a devastating array of challenges, including hunger, prolonged drought, accelerating desertification, locust infestation and regional market failures, but the Government and civil society groups have mobilized to help those most in need, Mr. Annan said. "I saw profound suffering in Niger, but I also saw signs that the country can come through this crisis, with lessons for all of us."

The UN started raising the alarm about Niger and appealing for resources last November.

Mr. Annan said that in the Sahel region, desertification and environmental degradation rob people of arable land and drinking water, thereby increasing their vulnerability to food shortages, and when a drought followed last year's massive swarm of locusts, the people were pushed beyond the brink.

"Niger's struggle has belatedly galvanized international action. But a similar scenario of severe hunger and widespread food insecurity could still engulf some 20 million people in other areas of the Sahel, southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Southern Africa. If the world acts now, this need not happen," he said.

Some of the international community's early analyses failed to distinguish between a poor country striving to meet its people's needs and the drastic emergency that the situation in Niger became, thereby providing prescriptions that did not reflect the urgency of the circumstances, Mr. Annan said.

According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), one in three Africans is malnourished, he said. Every year, hundreds of thousands of African children die from preventable causes, most related to malnutrition and hunger. "Human activities, poverty and nature are part of this lethal picture," he said.

Prevention is less expensive than cure, Mr. Annan said, recommending debt relief, increased aid and trade regimes more favourable to the poor, as well as increased use of irrigated agriculture to reduce dependence on irregular rains.

"More generally, we need to draw on scientific advances and experience in Asia and elsewhere in order to trigger a green revolution in Africa," he said.

Both the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), addressing West Africa's humanitarian and security challenges, and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), offering a framework for bilateral and multilateral cooperation, deserve increased international support, Mr. Annan said.

Meanwhile, governments in the region, international financial institutions (IFIs), donors and aid groups shared responsibility for the crisis. "Each of us, in our own way, was too slow to understand what was happening, get people in place and come up with the necessary resources," he said.

All must now act to end the scourge of African hunger, Mr. Annan added. "Africa cannot develop, prosper, or be truly free on an empty stomach."

Source: http://www0.un.org/

"Despite commendable efforts by countries and partners to control tuberculosis, impact on incidence has not been significant and the epidemic has now reached unprecedented proportions," UN World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa Luis Gomes Sambo told a meeting of health ministers in Maputo, Mozambique.

"Urgent and extraordinary actions must be taken, or else the situation will only get worse and the TB targets in the Abuja Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be achieved," he added, referring to goals set by regional organizations and the MDG targets set by the UN Millennium Summit of 2000.

A resolution adopted at the end of the 55th session of WHO's Regional Committee for Africa, comprising health ministers from 46 countries, urged Member States to commit more human and financial resources to strengthen DOTS programmes and scale up collaborative interventions to fight the co-epidemic of TB and HIV.

DOTS, the internationally recommended strategy to control TB, combines five elements: political commitment, microscopy services, drug supplies, surveillance and monitoring systems, and the use of highly efficacious treatment regimes with direct observation of treatment.

These and other measures recommended by the Committee encompass those laid out in a blueprint developed by the global Stop TB Partnership, which calls for $2.2 billion in new funding for TB control in Africa during 2006-2007. In the other four WHO regions of the world, TB trends are either stable or in decline, and are on track to reach the MDG targets of halving TB prevalence and deaths by 2015.

Beyond more financial support, specific actions include: improving the quantity and quality of staff for TB control; rapidly enhancing detection and treatment with expanded DOTS coverage at national and district levels; managing of TB and HIV together with greater access to anti-retroviral therapy for patients co-infected with HIV; and expanded public-private and community participation.

Globally, TB is second only to HIV/AIDS as a cause of illness and death of adults, accounting for nearly 9 million cases of active disease and 2 million deaths every year. Although it has only 11 per cent of the world's population, Africa accounts for more than a quarter of this global burden with an estimated 2.4 million cases and 540,000 deaths annually.

Source: http://www0.un.org/

The report, 'Health in the Millennium Development Goals', said that without stronger health systems, large numbers of people would continue to die every year from mostly preventable diseases.

Deaths included almost 11 million children under five, about one million people succumbing to malaria and more than 500,000 women passing away during pregnancy and childbirth. The AIDS pandemic claimed three million lives each year.

WHO director-general Lee Jong-wook said in a statement, "Providing universal access to broad-based health services could save several million children's lives each year."

MDG progress was particularly slow in sub-Saharan Africa because, as Jong-wook pointed out, "The evidence so far suggests that while there has been some progress, too many countries - particularly the poorest - are falling behind in health."

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Source: http://www.irinnews.org/

As the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's forthcoming Economic Report on Africa 2005 shows, the proportion of the poor - those living on less than one dollar a day - halved between 1980 and 2003 at the global level, from 40% to 20%.

But in Africa, the share of the poor increased slightly, from 45% to 46%.

Africa's poverty rate in 2003 exceeds that of the next poorest region, South Asia, by 17 percentage points.

Recognising the link between economic growth and poverty reduction, those who crafted the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) estimated that halving poverty by 2015 in Africa requires countries to achieve an average minimum growth rate of 7% annually.

Whether or not African countries will reach this goal is an open question.

Since the mid-1990s, African economies have been recording growth rates that are higher than world averages.

According to the World Bank, the average growth rate for the period 1996-2002 in Africa was about 3.6%, compared to the world average of 2.7%.

Growth in Africa in 2004 averaged 5.1%, the fastest in eight years.

Growth rates this year and in 2006 are projected at 4.7% and 5.2%, respectively.

These average rates mask stark differences between countries.

In 2004, for example, Chad's 39.4% annual growth rate contrasted sharply with Zimbabwe's -6.8% economic contraction.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that African economies, taken together, have recovered from the dark years of the 1980s.

So the big question is why growth hasn't translated into poverty reduction.

One reason is that Africa's recent growth rates, while high by international standards, remain too low to have a substantial impact on poverty.

Initial conditions are so low that only high and sustained growth levels may have a noticeable impact on poverty reduction.

In no year has Africa, as a continent, achieved the 7% average growth rate required by the MDGs.

Consider Ethiopia.

With its per capita GDP of about $100, a growth rate of 7% means that a typical Ethiopian will increase his income by $7 a year (if this additional income is evenly distributed).

But if this rate of growth were sustained over a period of just ten years, per capita income would double, which underscores the need for sustained high growth rates.

Very few countries in Africa have posted growth rates consistent with the MDGs threshold.

In 2004, only six countries - Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique - had annual growth rates higher than 7%.

And only four countries sustained a growth rate of 7% or more over the past five years.

Moreover, most of the observed growth was generated by capital rather than labour-intensive sectors.

If the fruit of economic growth reaches the poor through employment creation, growth in capital-intensive sectors has a limited effect on poverty reduction.

Indeed, recent growth in Africa appears to have been fuelled by increases in oil exports and high oil prices.

Eight of the top 10 performers in 2004 are either oil-exporting countries or post-conflict economies, with the latter's high annual growth rates explained mostly by the proverbial "dead-cat bounce" - the low base period over which growth is measured.

Economic growth reduces poverty only if it benefits the poor, and the effect of growth on poverty reduction is a function of the pattern of income distribution within a country.

Africa as a continent has the world's second highest measure of income concentration.

This suggests that the new wealth created over the last ten years has mostly benefited the rich.

To help reduce its poverty, Africa must strive to increase even further its growth rates and sustain them over a long period.

Moreover, there must be greater balance between capital-intensive and labour-intensive activities.

But encouraging labour-intensive industries, which create jobs for the poor, must not be at the expense of capital-intensive industries.

Finally, Africa's income distribution must become more equitable.

This is difficult, given that a skewed income distribution is usually a legacy of a country's history.

But it is not impossible, particularly for those African countries that succeed in modernising their political institutions.

- Project Syndicate * Janvier D. Nkurunziza, an economist, works for the Economic and Social Policy Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Source: http://www.namibian.com.na/