Iro-nsi Bose Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah

BUSAN, South Korea, Dec 1, 2011 (IPS) – Gender champions have lauded the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness for providing gender equality and the empowerment of women a special session, but there is dissatisfaction with Thursday’s Busan outcome document.

Although the document alluded to gender equality, experts feel that the scope is narrow and does not really touch the core issues that can be catalytic to the empowerment of women.

“There has been progress since the Paris Declaration, which had no mention of gender equality. In the Accra declaration, gender equality achieved some recognition in relation to development. Today, we have moved slightly beyond Accra,” said Kate Lappin, regional coordinator of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development. But, she is emphatic that economic development is not a comprehensive indicator of human development.

Lappin said “women’s human rights were not integrated throughout the Busan outcome document.” Perhaps this explains why although the Busan conference coincided with two important global events on human rights, particularly in relation to gender, women’s rights did not form part of the Busan agenda.

Women account for more than half of the HIV/AIDS disease burden globally as also the burden of care, but the Busan Forum had nothing to say about how aid effectiveness can also mean life saving drugs reaching poor women.

United Nations statistics show that across the world, one in every three women has suffered some form of abuse, be it physical, emotional or sexual.

Campaigns for a world where women can be free and enjoy their rights without fear and intimidation are funds driven. It costs money to integrate Gender-Based Violence (GBV) awareness and sensitisation programmes in the health sector.

“Currently, Nigeria is still coming to terms with the brutal murder of Titi Omozojie, a young woman who is alleged to have been mutilated by her husband in a domestic quarrel,” said Iro-nsi Bose, executive director of Women’s Rights and Health Projects in Lagos, Nigeria.

“Civil society took to the streets and ensured that she was not hurriedly buried to impede proper investigation. This led to her husband being charged and is awaiting trial for murder,” Bose explained.

Prioritising the wellbeing of women is an important component of development, Bose said. “We cannot talk about real development when our women, young and old alike are butchered to death.”

Although a Joint Busan Action Plan on Gender Equality and Development is one of the outcomes of the conference, it is considered to be limited.

“The three E’s (education, employment, entrepreneurship) approach of the U.S. government was a very limited vision and disappointing – not a step forward,” said Lappin.

“It is nonetheless limited in the sense that it only looks into two outcomes: increasing the number of women in the labour force as well as improving their chances to access microfinance.

“There is no mention of, for instance, women’s labour rights. If we are to get more women into the workforce, then there are some practical needs to be put in place,” Lappin said.

Indeed, women are often at a crossroads between human production and economic production and when these two roles conflict, then they have to give up the economic venture to be able to look after the human resource.

It was expected that Busan will show a real commitment to women’s human rights as part of development effectiveness.

Bose said that “Omozojie’s untimely death is just the tip of the iceberg.

“There is still a great degree and extent of GBV across Africa. Yet, Busan offered no real commitment to champion women’s human rights as a development agenda. Instead, there was a strong focus to ensure that effective aid transforms poor countries into middle income nations.” (END)

An internally-displaced Kenyan woman cooks in her makeshift kitchen. Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Analysis by Miriam Gathigah

BUSAN, South Korea, Dec 13, 2011 (IPS) – Women’s rights champions are not prepared to let the dust settle on the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness that ended in this South Korean port city on Dec. 1 with the customary nod towards gender equality and empowerment.

The Busan Outcome Document’s paragraph 20 says: “We must accelerate our efforts to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women through development programmes grounded in country priorities, recognising that gender equality and women’s empowerment are critical to achieving development results.”

Roselynn Musa, programme manager at the African Women’s Development and Communication Network, says, “Busan is not the end, but the beginning.

“As we turn a new leaf, there is no time to wait for the dust to settle before we roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. We need to start engaging with our governments to ensure that they move paragraph 20 of the Busan Outcome Document into the lives of women,” Musa said.

Although many gender experts continue to express discontent with the handling of the issue of women’s empowerment at the Busan conference, they agree that there was an increased show of interest in the plight of women compared to the previous forum in Accra, Ghana.

Says Monica Njenga, a gender activist in Kenya: “Previous international conferences offered many promises to women, hoodwinking them into believing that there is a real interest in fighting gender inequalities and narrow down gender gaps. Women need to take initiative and make paragraph 20 work.”

Njenga adds that many developing countries are facing major socio-economic challenges and may not prioritise the Busan commitment to gender.

“In Kenya, citizens continue to struggle as the cost of living continues to skyrocket. Labour unrest is now unprecedented with doctors in public hospitals having been on a week- long strike. The army is also at war with Al Shabab in Somalia. Gender equality is perhaps the last thing on the government’s list of priorities.”

In spite of these challenges, gender champions believe they can use the Busan document to leverage the gender agenda. One of these is Mayra Moro-Coco, development policy and advocacy manager at the Association for Women Rights in Development.

“The global partnership coming out of Busan will aim to reach effective development cooperation,” says Moro-Coco.

“Working for development effectiveness means promoting a development model that shifts the dominant development scenario towards an inclusive, sustainable, and just paradigm that recognises and values reproductive and unpaid work, promotes decent work and promotes the empowerment, human rights and emancipation of women and girls,” she said.

Moro-Coco lays emphasis on the need for various stakeholders to acknowledge that “development effectiveness requires democratic ownership by women and meaningful and systematic participation by civil society, especially women’s and feminist organisations.”

The global partnership that resulted from the Busan conference shows no real commitment to the human rights approach to development, says Moro-Coco.

This, she says, poses a challenge for initiatives and interventions geared towards “advancing development and poverty eradication in ways that are democratic and coherent with international human rights standards and give adequate attention to women’s human rights, the right to development and environmental justice.”

Moro-Coco expresses concern about the implementation of the Busan global partnership since the document “has not given adequate attention to women’s rights, the right to development and environmental justice.”

Paragraph 20 does express an interest in reducing gender inequality as “both an end in its own right and a prerequisite for sustainable and inclusive growth.”

It also recognises the need to “accelerate and deepen efforts to collect, disseminate, harmonise and make full use of data disaggregated by sex to inform policy decisions and guide investments, ensuring in turn that public expenditures are targeted appropriately to benefit both women and men.”

These, many feel, are not enough.

Says Njenga: “Promises are easy to make. Women need to show their leaders that they mean business. If indeed women account for a majority of the population, especially in developing countries where gross gender inequalities thrive, they need to make their votes count.”

Njenga believes that women should vote for leaders “who have tangible results to show as commitment to women rights.

“During campaigns, most leaders give gender issues lip service only to be voted in and disappear from the gender forums. This needs to change.”

(END)

Emilia Pires, finance minister of Timor Leste. Credit: Suvendrini Kakuchi/IPS

BUSAN, South Korea, Dec 2, 2011 (IPS) – The new deal for the ‘fragile states,’ from the G7+ – a group of 19 countries that struggle with poverty, instability and violent conflict – has been hailed as a major breakthrough at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness here, earlier this week.

‘The 1.5 billion people who live in the fragile states need significant aid for basic governance and economic transformation. Most of them have seen conflict since 1989 and 30 percent of official development assistance (ODA) is spent in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

Despite the aid commitments, the fragile states are moving further from achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs).

The new deal builds on the base of five new goals – legitimate politics, justice, security, economic foundations and revenue and services – that are tailored to individual situations. Fragile states include Afghanistan, South Sudan, Kenya and Timor Leste.

Emilia Pires, Timor Leste’s finance minister has worked tirelessly to changetraditional development assistance to accommodate the particular vulnerabilities of the fragile states.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Q. The endorsement of the new deal in Busan is viewed as a major achievement in development. What does it signify?

A. For fragile states, the realisation of the new deal symbolises a bold change in the way aid has been disbursed and affected us. For a start, Busan has clearly accepted that these countries will lead the way in their development.

The message from us is that the target of reaching the MDGs by 2015 cannot be applied to fragile states that have experienced or are already dealing with conflicts and crisis. There is clearly the need for new conditions to be applied to aid for fragile states. This is what we were agitating for and realised finally.

Q: What are the new ways that will be implemented following the new deal?

A: Obviously, the breakthrough in Busan is just the beginning. Now comes the hard part of implementation and I expect a lot of fighting with our donor partners as we go ahead. For example, developing clear indicators to monitor results. The traditional practice has been that donors monitor the progress.

The new deal that endorses country ownership would pave the way for fragile governments to expect donors to support our own monitoring through experts.

What is important is that the experts would be working with us to develop the results instead of being dispatched by lending institutions to do their own monitoring. This change would enable the local partner to be able to participate and learn about monitoring results and contribute to development effectiveness.

Q: Why has development assistance failed in fragile states?

A: The above example is apt to illustrate why traditional aid patterns have not worked – simply because the aid modality in the world has not strengthened community capacity on the ground. Our dialogue with G7 partners stressed the need for changing the pattern of aid focusing narrowly on the MDGs for fragile states.

For example, aid extended to improve education access for the poor – an MDG goal – could not be used effectively in fragile states because a crisis would mean children cannot attend school. As a result, funds have to be returned.

With the new deal, however, indicators that take in the problems due to crisis will be taken into consideration. Developing such new structures based on individual country systems is the key way forward.

Q: The new deal has specifically identified engaging youth and women as important actors in peace and state building. How will this be done?

A: Fostering capacity building in youth in Timor Leste is hugely important. I would describe this as extending opportunities for them to learn and look ahead. They deserve to be exposed to the same opportunities as their counterparts in countries that have not experienced conflict and violence.

It must be noted that generations of youth who have experienced long conflicts including in Timor have only experienced violence. A strong symbol of this is the fact that children in Timor have not played on swings that represent such joy to other children.

To change the mindset, governments must invest in capacity building and projects that give hope and support safe family systems. We need swings, concerts for youth as much as we need hospitals and schools. This is why I say let’s build roads that, for example, may lead to nowhere but will still be effective because youth will learn the skills of road building.

Q: What has changed in Busan in aid effectiveness?

A: The Paris Declaration set the road to country ownership but in Busan we see this becoming a reality. The dismal statistics in aid effectiveness have proved to the world the need to change current behaviour. The new deal offers them a new way by proving that aid for them involves money but for us it is life.

The basic principles are not different. I believe in the importance of transparency, democratic processes and accountability. For instance, the national budget in Timor is available online. Therefore, it is the attitude that we need to change. The donor countries must realise poor countries can make their own decisions and many are making the effort to do this.

(END)

BUSAN, South Korea, Dec 1, 2011 (IPS) – Inclusiveness was the winner as donors, recipient governments, emerging economies, multilateral lenders and civil society representatives hammered out a consensual document at the close of a major meeting in this South Korean city to boost development aid effectiveness.

Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS

“The process has been bumpy but we have landed safely. The challenge is to move ahead along a less divided and more unified front,” said Talaat Abdel-Malek, co-chair of the Development Aid Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Abdel-Malek was referring to the Busan Outcome Document, released Thursday, that has been endorsed not only by traditional donors but also by new players such as China, India and Brazil that emerged as key actors at the three-day Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4).

The document pledged to “establish a new, inclusive and representative global partnership for effective development co-operation” and spoke of Busan as reference for South-South partnerships “on a voluntary basis.”

The rise of new players that do not belong to the Northern countries, particularly China, has become a complex issue in the development world. China insisted that the document was voluntary.

Under the new South-South co-operation, the group of emerging donors has launched small- and medium-scale bilateral and multilateral aid projects in poor countries. They provide knowledge, funds and technical expertise that primarily call for a results-based approach.

The approach has raised concern and pressure is rising to encourage the new actors to join the DAC that is committed to regulations and principles that support transparency, democratic rule and diverse stakeholders.

Economic slowdown in the big donor countries, including the United States, the European Union and Japan, that led the way over the past half century, has raised the risk of a squeeze in funding.

Paul Okuma, head of Secretariat Africa CSO Platform on Principled Partnership, Kenya, explained that the changes in aid are here to stay. “The politics have changed,” he told IPS, echoing the common voice in Busan that the European Union and the U.S. are no longer the only drivers in the development aid seat.

“The thrust for all development actors is to get along with China to support the need of the state which is growth. The option we face is to work with citizens in developing countries to be more aware of their own development effectiveness. This is the lesson in Busan,” he explained.

Experts at the conference expressed viewpoints that supported the role of emerging donors in global aid.

“In order to create a space for diverse development actors, the road ahead must be one that calls for understanding and accepting differences. The danger is to compare apples and oranges and force countries such as China to join traditional donor groups. This will not work,” said a senior official at the United Nations who declined to be named.

Li Shaojin, a Chinese official at the co-operation division of the international poverty reduction centre, told IPS that China’s contribution to development is based on its own experience that depended heavily on its own manpower and natural resources.

“China built its country relying on simple resources in its own country. We gained expertise in such areas as water resource management that has mobilised people who worked hard with local materials to expand our agriculture, industry and economy. We can share what we have with poor farmers around the world,” she said.

The Chinese official brushed aside concerns raised by experts on southern co-operation ignoring partnerships with local civil society organisations (CSOs), pointing out that the education and capacity building at the rural level in China was done with local groups.

Such comments, according to Prof. Masayoshi Ohashi, a development expert in Japan, reflect the growing need to move cautiously on the unified global co-operation model.

“The perception among some of us is that Busan watered down aid commitments to push through a global partnership. There is indeed a perception difference with the traditional donor world where hard won breakthroughs to earn better transparency and accountability should have been beefed up… in Busan,” he told IPS.

Still, Northern aid is riddled with issues. Stark examples of poor performance include the Millennium Development Goals that may exceed the 2015 deadline and the inability of DAC donors to contribute 0.7 percent of the GDP for aid disbursements.

Korean aid expert Jee-hae Ha, at Korea Eximbank, said South Korea, a new donor and member of DAC, has played the role of mediator in the debate to accept partnerships with middle-income countries.

“The South Korean development experience is based on strong growth at the beginning and also democratic principles that have become important now. The political statement of aid has been Northern countries at the top which South Korea is helping to balance,” she said.

The OECD co-hosted the meet with the South Korean government. Busan, a thriving port city and the second largest in the country, has been the venue and, according to delegates from developing countries, an inspiring model of development.

South Korean Prime Minister Kim Hwang-Sik has promised to double aid to 0.25 percent of national GDP. The high-profile meeting, held for the first time in Asia, is symbolic of increasing growth and consensus and marks a dramatic shift in development assistance away from the West.

END

Jean-Louis Sarbib. Credit: Miriam Gathigah

BUSAN, Dec 1, 2011 (IPS) – Representatives of nations and organisations committed to development wrapped up on Thursday the Fourth High Level Forum (HLF 4) on Aid Effectiveness with an ambitious plan to eradicate global poverty.

One cross-cutting issue through HLF 4 was the importance of transparency and accountability between donors and recipients of development assistance. Transparent practices are a strong foundation for enhanced accountability.

Towards this end, Development Gateway, an international non-profit,   works in the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D).

A number of African countries are reaping the benefits of working in an environment where information about donor funding is easily accessible.

Q: What is the mandate of Development Gateway towards effective aid?                                                                                                               

A: We work with governments that receive aid to improve aid transparency and governance. This is achieved through information management solutions and consulting services for development organisations and developing country governments.

Q: Tell us more about your work in Africa.

A: We are now working with 16 African countries and are still working to expand this network. The idea is to provide these countries with instruments that really put them in charge of development assistance.

After the Accra HLF, we developed a system owned and managed by these countries to ensure that up to date information on which donor is funding which initiative is made available.

Q: What does your transparency and accountability tools entail?

A: One of the our tools to enhance transparency and accountability – The Aid Management Platform – is an opportunity to give people a chance to balance power between themselves and the donors, it’s about placing people in the driver’s seat of development assistance.

Q: How does Aid Management Platform work?

A: We begin by identifying a target country. Our information technology system does an analysis of how the government gets information. They then proceed to work with the government and respective donors to come into an agreement on how to make information on funding available.

Q: What are some of the benefits of this initiative?

A: It is a sustainable way of ensuring that people are involved in development assistance. It provides information that can help avoid duplication of funding and initiatives for development and growth.

We also realised that government and development officials spend a lot of time trying to get information, so this gives them more time to actually get the work done.

It also allows governments to better manage donors and hold them accountable towards development effectiveness.

Q: To what extent are donors willing to be transparent and accountable?

A: There is a donor willingness to be accountable. About 60 percent of aid is covered under the International Aid Transparent Initiative and this is a good indication that donors are willing to allow their grantees to hold them accountable.

Q: Are there any outstanding models of success?

A: In Malawi, for example, the people have been able to gather donors in one room and hold them accountable for what they are not doing, for instance, not making information on initiatives they are funding available on time.

We are also working towards integrating Uganda into this initiative. One of the projects in the pipeline has identified that there is a significantly high number of mobile phone users, we want to enable these people to send data from the provinces into the central database using this gadgets.

For instance, a person somewhere in a village will be able to communicate that the donor-funded clinic has stock outs, or the water project has stalled, among other life transforming stories.

Q: What has been the greatest challenge?

A: The major challenge in Africa is Internet connectivity. Our initiative comprises web-paged tools. In DRC Congo for instance, we have experienced major challenges because the Internet connectivity is extremely low.

Q: In what ways will Busan impact this initiative?

A: I hope Busan has convinced donors to provide information in a better manner, on time, and also use friendly format. It is important that donors take stock of the fact that the world of development assistance has really changed. There are now more actors. For the first time the HLF has acknowledged civil society organisations, the new actors.

I am pleased to say that this conference has acknowledged the South-South cooperation. (END)

Demanding Right to Health at Busan. Credit: Miriam Gathigah

BUSAN, Dec 01, 2011 (IPS) – As the curtain comes down on the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in this South Korean city, thursday, billions of people  will be marking yet another World AIDS Day –  this one themed ‘Getting to Zero,’ for zero AIDS-related deaths, zero new infections and zero stigma and discrimination.

But, in Africa, what may be needed is zero tolerance to corruption so that funds needed to fight HIV/AIDS and create awareness does not get siphoned away.

Creating awareness has been important in places like Kenya where those afflicted were considered extremely promiscuous.  When they died, they were buried in a polythene bag.

No one would drink from a cup that a person known to be infected with HIV had touched.

Over the years, Kenyans have become more aware of HIV/AIDS but that has not reduced the stigma attached to the disease. Neither has it significantly reduced risky sexual behaviour. Some 1.4 million Kenyans are currently infected with HIV.

Statistics by UNAIDS, the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS prevention and cure, show that an estimated 22.5 million people were living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. Slightly over half of them are women. Children have not been spared; they account for 2.3 million of this figure.

Since years of research do not seem to have brought scientists any closer to discovering a cure for HIV/AIDS, the condition claims at least one million lives every year in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.

If millions of people in Africa infected with HIV are still alive it is because of donor funding that makes it possible for them to access life-sustaining drugs.

“There’s need for more funding to provide treatment,” Mary Naliaka, a nurse in Kenya, told IPS on an earlier occasion.

But more funding is perhaps not what African countries need. Widespread corruption has made it difficult for African countries to make any notable dent in HIV prevalence.

Programmes that popularise prevention of HIV/AIDS by creating more awareness of the condition, establishing HIV programmes in health facilities and providing free condoms are all affected by  diversion of funds.

“People are extremely afraid of HIV but they make choices which don’t reflect an understanding of the devastating effect that this disease has had on mankind,” Ann Kariuki, counsellor at an HIV/AIDS voluntary testing centre in Kenya, told IPS.

“In Africa, which continues to bear the highest burden of the disease, risky sexual behaviour remains rampant,” she said.

When the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria was established in January 2002 as a public-private partnership, the aim was to provide financial support for global responses to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria.

For many African countries this was an opportunity to provide treatment for ailing people who at that time lived for an average of about six years

“In poor countries, treatment for 70 percent of HIV patients is financed by the Global Fund.

But evaluation of how the Global Fund is spent in Africa has revealed gross misappropriation of grants, denying many HIV-positive people in need of anti-retroviral drugs an opportunity to live healthy and normal lives.

As of February 2011 out of 145 poor countries that were recipient of this grant, the Global Fund had uncovered misuse of funds in 11 countries, totalling 44.2 million dollars.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that an estimated 63 percent of  misused funds were identified in four countries – Djibouti, Mali, Mauritania, and Zambia. These countries have very high HIV prevalence rates.

According to Tiaji Salaam-Blyther, a specialist in global health, in line with its policy of zero corruption, “the Global Fund is reported to be seeking compensation of the funds and has already recovered 4.5 million dollars and submitted evidence in support of criminal investigations in Mali, Mauritania, and Zambia.”

At least 20 arrests have been made in these countries as the Global Fund gets to the bottom of who bear the responsibility of misusing funds meant for people with HIV, TB and Malaria for personal gains.

These countries have also had their grants suspended. Others whose funds have been suspended or frozen include Chad, Uganda and Djibouti.

In order to create transparency and accountability, the Global Fund released a statement earlier this year stating that it had established strict measures “to reinforce its financial safeguards and increase its capacity to prevent and detect fraud and misuse in its grants, many of which are already underway.”

According to the statement, these measures include “expanding the mandate of firms that monitor expenditure in countries in order to enhance fraud prevention and detection.”

END

BUSAN, South Korea, Nov 30, 2011 (IPS) – There are many inspiring stories that delegates from Africa attending the ongoing Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness can take home to provide insights to their respective countries on making the transformation to middle-income economies.

Achieving MDGs through effective aid. Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Most African countries are in a much better place than the host of the HLF4 was five decades ago. South Korea, now a solid economy, presents an alternative for African countries keen on forming partnerships for better growth.

It was with admiration that delegates heard South Korean President Lee Myung Bak at the opening ceremony recounting the long and bitter-sweet journey that the Koreans took to become a developed country.

That journey involved making painful sacrifices, but it has borne fruit.

“The history of Korea’s economic development and democratisation is one of sweat and tears of ordinary people, who worked hard to escape poverty and dreamed of having decent lives.

“People often ask me what the key to Korea’s success was. Without any hesitation, I say that it was the power of education. Even when they did not have enough food to put on their tables, Korean parents sacrificed everything to educate their children.”

“These children grew up to lead the economic development of Korea,” the President said. “I believe that education is the key to the advancement of individuals, countries, and the world. ”

Moses Dura, a Kenyan aid consultant, hopes that Africa is listening. “Aid is a good idea. It is meant to supplement domestic resources. But in most African countries, political regimes thrive on corruption. In Kenya for instance, there has been a series of corruption allegations in key ministries such as education, water and land.”

Corruption and lack of accountability at the government level is the cancer that is eating into efforts to transform African countries from low to middle-income and make them less dependent on aid.

Hillary Clinton, the United States secretary of state, during the same ceremony, exhorted developing countries to take responsibility and show accountability for the slow place of development.

She said that often money that is set aside for sector budgets is supposed to be supplemented by aid. Unfortunately, “this money is usually allocated to other areas when these countries receive funding.”

Many civil society organisations saw Clinton’s presence as an opportunity to hold the U.S. accountable for its role in the ineffectiveness of aid. Clinton acknowledged that U.S. aid remains tied and cannot be completely free.

This although it is well understood that untied aid is a significant aspect of effectiveness. It means that all the money given as aid goes into the recipient country for development assistance.

“Between 2005 and 2009 we have doubled the percentage of untied aid from 32 to 68 percent. We still need a percentage of aid to remain tied in order to get political support for the budgets that we turn into aid for development assistance,” Clinton explained.

As 2015 beckons, many African countries are hard pressed to make aid work in order to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) launched in 2000 by a United Nations summit to fight global poverty by accelerating economic and human development.

For those African countries who think it is too late to attain these goals, President Lee had something to say. “When I was a child, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Our per capita GDP stood at less than 100 dollars, and the country was full of people without jobs.

“However, within half-a-century, Korea rebuilt itself, emerging from the ashes of a devastating war and extreme poverty to a vibrant economy and democracy. I firmly believe that the Busan forum will galvanise the world to achieve the MDGs and to make a better world for all.”

Now more than ever, Africa has a great opportunity to achieve significant growth.

Michael Sudarkasa, an expert with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) says there are new opportunities to mobilise resources through partnerships with China, India and even Brazil. “But Africa needs to have donors follow their countries’ development strategies while giving aid.”

“The private sector in Africa should also play a greater role towards achieving development aims. Investors coming to Africa are looking for strong private sector representatives to form mutually beneficial partnerships,” Sudarkasa said.

Clinton also emphasised the importance of forging partnerships to “help countries that are rich in natural resources escape resources curbs that make them rich in oil and gold but poor in all other ways.”

She said that towards this end the U.S. is already working with African countries such as Ghana and Tanzania, and noted that Brazil is working closely with Mozambique in the agricultural sector since the two countries share similar soil types.

Sudarkasa said he would urge African countries “to enhance the combined impact that all these opportunities for development present and to implement donor funding in a manner that acknowledges that aid is a catalyst to improve human and economic development.”

(END)

BUSAN, South Korea, Nov 30, 2011 (IPS) – The idea of business as an effective development tool is gaining ground at Busan where hundreds of experts are gathered to charter a new chapter in global aid amidst growing political and economic uncertainty among donors.

Touting the merits of working with the private sector, Northern governments and top-level aid agencies are joining hands with corporations operating in developing countries to promote inclusive partnerships to fight poverty.

Busan tower view. Credit: Michiel1972/Creative commons

Ben Knapen, minister of international cooperation, the Netherlands, said it is time to “rethink traditional roles of aid.” He said inclusive partnerships as a viable sharing of the experience and knowledge of donors and civil societies with the technology and management skills of the private sector.

German minister for development co-operation Dirk Niebal pointed out that “aid needs results” and this is the reason that making use of the private sector is crucial.

Niebal referred to the development of safe and clean cooking stoves, the innovation of a small business initiative that has transformed 100 million poor households around the world.

The project created jobs, protected the environment and addressed health problems suffered by more than 1.9 million people – mostly women and children – through inhalation of poisonous smoke from makeshift stoves.

Busan, South Korea’s bustling port city, is itself a showpiece of business growth that has, in just half a century, changed the country into the world’s 14th largest economy.

Korean companies, leading producers and exporters of high quality goods, are fuelling domestic and overseas employment. Korea is also a new donor with more than half of its four billion dollar overseas aid in 2010 extended to Asia.

The Korean model is inspiring both donors and aid recipients at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. Saifa Hage, from the ministry of planning, Liberia, told IPS that working with the private sector for development is crucial.

“The public-private partnership is all about job creation and growth. Busan represents a story of how enterprising business can move countries away from aid,” he said.

Forging liaisons with the private sector in development is, however, still an emerging concept.

Case studies indicate that while business models can contribute to uplifting the poor by developing small and medium enterprises in their communities, issues such as setting out clear social and ecological goals, resource protection and project timelines for results are still vague.

“Partnering is not easy. It is about expectations and missions that can differ. The involvement of the community also marks a sophisticated approach in established corporate models,” explained Prof. Rob van Tulder, from the Rotterdam School of Management.

Businesses gathered at a session on the theme, show cased experiences of ongoing projects with local communities.

Daniel Gad, who established Omega Farms, a project with the support of Dutch public funds and covering 10,000 smallholders in Ethiopia – where he was born – provides livelihoods and promotes sustainable agriculture.

For example, barley produced by the farmers is sold to the Heineken beer company in the Netherlands.

“As a member of the diaspora, I was keen to invest in Ethiopia despite the economic and political problems. Working in a partnership with donors and local civil society organisations has been successful, given the availability of starting capital and other support,” he said.

Anna Peter from the Btertelsmann Foundation, Germany, says more than 12,000 business partnerships with local governments and donors have been started in the least developed countries, proving that patience and risk-taking can give poor communities a chance to enter the global market and earn incomes.

(END)

Hillary Clinton at Busan Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS

BUSAN, South Korea, Nov 30, 2011 (IPS) – Women toil in the fields for most of their lives producing food and strengthening the largely agricultural economy of African countries, but when their fathers, husbands or older sons die, they are no longer welcome on land they may have tended for years.

This observation was made by Hillary Rodham Clinton, United States secretary of state, at a special session on the status of women at the ongoing Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) in this South Korean port city.

Some 2,500 delegates, including members of ministerial teams from 160 countries, civil society leaders, experts from multilateral organisations and academics are attending the HLF4 to discuss international principles and rules to improve development co-operation.

Many agreed with Clinton’s observation that created a strong image of the status of women in Africa and Asia who earn their livelihoods from natural resources.

“Many years ago I travelled to Africa and everywhere I went there were women working in the fields, gathering firewood and in market stalls, and so I asked an economic analyst, how do you account for these contributions by women? And, he said that they didn’t. Because it wasn’t in the formal sector.

“If these women could stop working, even for a day, that would have a huge impact on the economy.”

The situation has not changed significantly for many women in Africa and Asia.

“Women still account for at least 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people living in abject poverty. Women work two-thirds of world working hours, produce at least half of the food. Yet, they only earn a paltry 10 percent of world income and own a negligible one percent of world property,” said Michelle Bachelet, executive director of U.N. Women, an entity concerned with gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Despite statistics showing that countries that engage women and recognise their contribution achieve greater growth, many African countries are only too willing to offer lip service to the course of gender equality to improve their image at global conferences such as in Busan.

Said Bachelet: “We are saying that this is the time to move from speech line to budget line.”

“I can sense the same frustration in Bachelet’s voice as she made a case for gender equality. The same frustration that I feel. I ask myself, how much longer do we have to make this case?” Clinton said.

Clinton said this is in spite of the fact that credible sources such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have shown that the gross domestic product and per capita income could be higher if women were recognised and integrated into development.

From Clinton’s passionate plea for more commitment to gender equality in relation to better implementation of aid, she made it clear that discriminating against women hurts the economy.

“In Asia, statistics show that the economy loses about 89 billion dollars every year because of discriminating against women within the labour force. Sadly, this is a region with countries working hard to emerge as leading economies,” Bachelet said.

Leading champions of gender equality said women are empowered when they are given an opportunity to go to school, their children are better fed and they too stand a better chance of accessing a good education.

A majority of women remain poor with few opportunities to access work that is remunerated, little or no money and little chance to give their children a decent meal. During the recent drought in the Horn of Africa, U.N. statistics showed that of the four million people on the brink of death, two million were children.

But this could change. The Busan forum, that ends Thursday, can take this chance to redeem itself with a new and practical solution towards improving the lives of millions of women.

What is measured gets noticed, Clinton said. “We are now working on developing data on whose basis gender status can be improved. Today, I am pleased to announce a new initiative, the Evidence and Data for Gender Equality (EDGE).

“EDGE is a new initiative to improve the availability and use of statistics that capture gender gaps in economic activity. It capitalises on the United States’ call to action at the May 2011 OECD ministerial session on gender and development and builds on recommendations of the U.N. International Agency and Expert Group on Gender and Statistics.”

Often, Clinton said, loans are given to small business enterprises without assessing how many of these are owned or run by women. “Consequently, she said, “women continue to face difficulties in accessing credit.

“In many countries, a man and a woman can go to the same lender for credit and even have similar collateral, but a woman will be treated differently. We can reform credit policies that discriminate and disadvantage women.”

Clinton lauded the Busan forum saying that it created an opportunity for new initiatives and partnerships critical to advancing the struggle for gender equality and the empowerment of women.

END

BUSAN, South Korea, Nov 29, 2011 (IPS) – Poor countries have depended on rich nations to supplement their sector budget without which millions of people would have continued to live in abject poverty. Have the years of funding made these countries any less dependent? 

Sector budget is aid that is allocated to developing a country’s particular development priorities, which could be in the areas of health, education or even sanitation and housing.

Most poor countries struggle to raise funds to supplement sector budgets, remaining at the mercy of donors. But statistics are now showing that poor countries are slowly becoming more self reliant.

Lucia Fry of ActionAid UK says, “Aid dependency among 54 of the world’s poorest countries has declined by a third in the last decade. This means that poor countries are now much less dependant than they were 10 years ago.

“This has been a consequence of giving real aid to poor countries- aid that addresses inequalities and poverty by empowering poor women and men to realise their rights or aid that supports tax systems, better governance and economic development with the ultimate goal of reducing dependency.”

In Africa there are indeed countries that have been able to significantly cut their aid dependency because they have grown and are able to mobilise local resources to create revenues that can be ploughed back into sector budgets.

In 1994 Rwanda was making headlines for 100 days of terror and massacre which, according to the United Nations statistics, left 800,000 people dead and an estimated 500,000 widowed.

Women and children were subjected to physical, emotional and sexual abuse. A large number of women were infected with HIV. Then an example of a failing nation, Rwanda is a different place today.

“Rwanda is actually one of the countries that is leading in terms of human development in Africa. It has the highest representation of women in parliament and has significantly cut down aid,” explains Emma Kaguruzi, a delegate at the ongoing Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, underway in this South Korean city.

Fry agrees. “ActionAid has established that in Rwanda, aid as a percentage of government spending, or money that goes into government to be spend on the country’s national development priorities, has dropped from 85 percent in 2000 to 45 percent in 2010.”

Ronald Nkusi, director of Rwanda’s external finance unit in the finance ministry, has consistently advocated donor funding that allows people to be in the driving seat, that is accountable and transparent and whose goal is to address the needs of its people, bridging the inequalities and addressing poverty.

Rwanda is not alone though. Again between 2000 and 2010 donor dependency in Ghana fell from 47 percent to 27 percent, placing it well on its way to becoming a middle-income country.

Also in Africa, Mozambique has shown a significant cut in donor dependency from a high of 74 percent to 58 percent.

This reveals a changing pattern in the extent to which poor countries are increasingly looking inwards for resources and less on the traditional aid commitments from donor giants such as the European Union and the World Bank.

Bodo Ellmers, a policy and advocacy officer with European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), attributes this shift to the fact that “developing countries are now able to raise more domestic resources by turning to natural resources.”

Africa is well endowed with rich natural resources such as oil and fertile lands for agriculture.

“These countries are also looking to new opportunities for funding as new donors emerge. Angola is now benefiting significantly from Brazil’s development assistance. Many other African countries are now turning to China for loans.”

Ellmers further notes that these countries need to realise that raising more money for development through taxes is a sustainable way of acquiring more money that can be used to supplement the sector budget and, consequently keep key development projects going.

Chinese loans, though a positive alternative, are not a sustainable option because they will have to be repaid.

In addition, the emergence of the private sector as a key player in development will have an implication on aid dependency.

“Due to the current global crisis, many foreign investors are turning to Africa in search of new grounds on which to invest. This means more employment and revenue to African governments,” Ellmers explains.

It is, however, not enough that African countries find new ways of raising revenues, it is important that this is complemented by good governance that is mindful of the needs of its people and is also open, transparent and accountable.

Rwanda is now a shining example among many developing countries, having risen from a bloody ethnic conflict to become a role model for development.

(END)