Global News Journal

from Africa News blog:

African poverty falling faster than thought?

The old image of an Africa doomed to get ever poorer has certainly lost credence over the past decade even if it is a view still held by some.

Well, according to a new study, Africans are getting wealthier more quickly than previously believed and the poorest continent's riches are also spreading beyond the narrow confines of its elite.

"Africa is reducing poverty, and doing it much faster than we thought," the study by U.S.-based economists Xavier Sala-i-Martin and Maxim Pinkovskiy said.

"The growth from the period 1995-2006, far from benefiting only the elites, has been sufficiently widely spread that both total African inequality and African within-country inequality actually declined over this period."

The research, which assesses poverty levels and income distribution from 1970 to 2006, lends weight to a belief among local and foreign investors that Africa is finally getting its act together 50 years after shaking off the colonial shackles.

The study, published by the private, non-profit U.S.-based National Bureau of Economic Research, also challenges the suggestion that strong African growth over the last decade or more has done little to alleviate grassroots poverty due to the countervailing effect of equally strong population expansion.

Going by an inflation-adjusted $1 per person per day yardstick, the study, using statistical analysis pioneered by the two authors said 32 percent of Africans were in poverty in 2006, compared to 42 percent in 1995 and 40 percent in 1970.

Europe draws inspiration from U.S. Peace Corps

Much criticism has been heaped on the European Union — the vast majority of it by its own member states — for not being seen to do enough to help Haiti after the Caribbean state’s earthquake. 

Never mind the fact EU states and the European Commission have promised a combined 400 million euros  ($575 million) in aid and long-term reconstruction. In public relations terms, the sums have all but been eclipsed by images, beamed around the world, of  volunteer U.S. firemen pulling victims from the rubble, and emergency aid workers from the likes of Israel and Brazil running much-needed field hospitals.

But an interesting new proposal from Greece promises to change the way the European Union operates and is perceived in the world’s most-needy countries, especially at times of crisis.

Drawing a leaf from the U.S. Peace Corps programme, the overseas volunteer organisation established by President Kennedy in 1961, Greece wants to create a European Volunteer Corps that would send thousands of young Europeans abroad to do humanitarian work for a couple of years.

“We need to provide European citizens, and particularly our younger generation, with a framework to actively participate in projects related to  humanitarian and development aid, civil protection and emergency relief assistance,” Greece said in a document circulated in Brussels this week to promote the idea.

Such a corps would channel young people’s energy “into activities that serve the common interest and reinforce their sense of belonging to a common European family of values, but of action as well”.

For countries such as Greece, with high and rising joblessness and an often restive youth, it might also provide an opportunity to keep young and active minds busy in the frequently restless years between formal education and long-term employment.

Haiti and “the bad dream of newspaper headlines”

By Tom Brown

MIAMI – Since my return from Haiti, many have asked me what it was like that first week after its devastating earthquake. Here are but a few impressions:

     ANGER What were the 9,000 United Nations police and troops already stationed in Haiti supposed to be doing there in the immediate aftermath of the quake? It flattened the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known by the acronym MINUSTAH and killed dozens of U.N. employees, including the mission chief, Hedi Annabi.

     But the Blue Helmets were still visible everywhere, clutching assault rifles as they lumbered around the capital in convoys of heavy white trucks. I never saw any of them wielding picks and shovels. Rather than helping or trying to rescue the living, they clogged chaotic, rubble-strewn streets with more traffic.      “You can’t spell unhelpful without UN,” one Haitian told me angrily.      HOPE

What about Berly Renfort and others like him? A bright 21-year-old I met just after the quake, he looks and sounds like comedian Chris Rock but also has a good command of Creole.      Born in Haiti but a resident of South Florida, he was deported recently after a run-in with the law. Renfort told me he would rather spend 10 years in Miami’s Krome Detention Center than another day in Haiti. But he also said there was hope — if U.S. President Barack Obama could lead the reconstruction efforts himself. Of Haitian President Rene Preval, Berly said, “Who is that guy? Where is he, in hiding?”      For my part, I have some hope for young Berly and others like him, if U.S. officials reached out to him, offering incentives like a return to the United States if he pitches in to help pull Haiti out of its misery. Renfort and thousands of Haitian-Americans like him could prove to be valuable. To start, they could serve as interpreters, construction workers or community liaisons for U.S. troops and others trying to distribute aid in the shattered country.   GRAHAM GREENE

Many journalists may feel like the ghost of Graham Greene is looking over their shoulders as they seek to chronicle the suffering in a seemingly hopeless country. Greene helped put Haiti on the map, after all, when he wrote about the horrors of rule under Papa Doc and the dreaded Tontons Macoute in “The Comedians,” which was published nearly half a century ago. In “Ways of Escape,” one of his memoirs, Greene wrote that “Haiti really was the bad dream of the newspaper headlines.”      THE SCREAM As night fell on my last night in Haiti, a high-pitched scream cut through the din of the traffic. It came from a half-naked boy, no more than about 8 years old and was the most bone-chilling sound I’d heard in my week covering the earthquake. The barefoot boy seemed to be running aimlessly, as he raced past crowds of stunned-looking people on nearby street corners. No one reached out to stop or embrace him, or to find out what was wrong, as he disappeared in the darkness still wailing.

Will EU ever move on from “soft touch” diplomacy?

Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos recalled this week that it had been said of the previous U.S. administration that what American diplomacy needed was “regime change”. Europeans, meanwhile, he said, simply needed “a regime”.

America got its regime change with President Barack Obama, Moratinos explained this week, while Europeans got a new regime with the Lisbon treaty, a document that is supposed to help bolster the EU on the world stage and creates a more powerful foreign policy chief for the bloc.

The question now is whether the EU, a group of 27 nations and 500 million people that has consistently punched below its weight in foreign affairs even as its economic influence grows, will be bold enough to seize the opportunity Lisbon presents to make it presence fully felt in the world.

Europhiles have argued for years about the need for Europeans to back their ability to exert “soft power” through aid and trade with a united approach to international diplomacy backed by credible “hard power”, or military capability.

Lisbon partly opens the way by providing for the formation of a European diplomatic service. But a rigid reluctance among most big European states to cede sovereignty on foreign and security policy means any “hard power” vision remains a distant concept.

Sceptics will point to the appointment of an unglamorous first EU President in Herman Van Rompuy and an equally low profile foreign affairs chief in Catherine Ashton as evidence that Europe’s most powerful nations remain distinctly reluctant to cede influence or limelight any time soon.

The catastrophe in Haiti, for which the EU has offered 420 million euros in emergency aid and long-term redevelopment, presented an early opportunity for Van Rompuy — a Belgian and a committed EU federalist — to argue the case for combining such EU “soft power”, with a bit of hard power.

from Africa News blog:

The unnumbered dead

The simple answer to the question of how many people died in Congo’s civil war is “too many”.

Trying to get a realistic figure is fraught with difficulties and a new report suggests that a widely used estimate of 5.4 million dead – potentially making Congo the deadliest conflict since World War Two - is hugely inaccurate and that the loss of life may be less than half that.

The aid group that came up with the original estimate unsurprisingly says the new report is wrong.

The problem is the way estimates are reached.

One way is to do a body count, but that is next to impossible in a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo. Very few of the victims are shot, blown up or otherwise die as a result of violence. Most succumb to disease or malnutrition. But then who died as a result of the war and who would have died anyway in a country where survival is normally so tough?

That is where the other methodology comes in. It is based on using the difference between the rate at which people were dying before the war and the mortality rate once it has started. It should indicate the number of those who have died as both a direct and indirect result of the war. This sort of calculation led to the figure of 5.4 million dead in Congo.

The problem is that if you get the wrong mortality rates, even by a small margin, the estimate can be way off. That is what the Human Security Report Project says happened with the Congo figures. The International Rescue Committee stands by its estimate.

EU catches up in race to help Haiti

In the six days since a powerful earthquake struck Haiti, the world has responded with vast amounts of aid and promises of long-term reconstruction, something the Caribbean country’s creaking infrastructure desperately needs.

The World Bank and the United States pledged $100 million each, the United Nations promised $10 million and announced a “flash” appeal for $500 million more, and dozens of companies including Google, Microsoft and Bank of America committed $1 million a piece. Hollywood stars, rap singers and tennis champions all immediately raised money themselves or lent their support to encourage donations to the relief effort.

The European Union was, at least initially, a bit more low-key.

The bloc of 27 countries has a foreign aid budget of nearly 8 billion euros ($11.4 billion), around 45 percent of which is allocated to humanitarian relief and development work. But 24 hours after the quake hit, with fears of up to 200,000 dead, the EU as an institution had promised only 3 million euros of “fast-track funding”. Individual member states had made their own, generous bilateral pledges to Haiti, but the EU and its executive Commission was still battling to coordinate a unified response from the 27 member states as a whole.

Two days after the earthquake struck, the EU’s newly appointed high representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, said  EU ministers would meet to discuss the situation. Over the weekend — with bodies still being dug out of the rubble in Haiti — the EU announced that ministers would discuss holding an international conference on Haiti during Monday’s meeting, but didn’t say when any such conference would take place or where, or what the aid funding target might be.

When the ministers met on Monday morning, emergency relief and long-term reconstruction assistance of more than 420 million euros was announced, including 137 million euros of immediate aid. That will go a long way to helping the tens of thousands of Haitians who still don’t have proper food, water or shelter nearly a week after the quake hit.

The message is clear: when the EU wants to act, it can do so decisively and generously. The problem is, it takes time before the wheels of the 27-country juggernaut start to roll. For Ashton, who must coordinate the EU’s foreign and security policy, including the work of 3,000-strong European diplomatic corps, that is going to be one of the foremost challenges.

YOUR TURN TO ASK: Karel De Gucht, EU humanitarian aid chief

** This post is from Alertnet, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s global  humanitarian news Web site.**

Earthquakes, floods, the global recession and recurrent famines have been keeping aid professionals across the world as busy as ever. Such crises hit poor countries the hardest, focusing increasing attention on preventing and preparing for disasters rather than dealing with their devastating aftermath.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is one of the biggest sources of humanitarian and development aid in the world. For emergency response to recent earthquakes in Indonesia, it has provided $4.4 million – more than any other donor so far.

To help the Philippines currently recovering from two typhoons, the European Union and some member-states have contributed a total of $5.6 million – again, more than sent or promised by any other foreign donor.

How to help the developing world, not just when they are disasters, will be at the core of debates among heads of states, top European Union officials, Nobel Prize winners and other experts at an international conference in Stockholm between Oct. 22 and Oct. 24, called European Development Days.

Ahead of the conference, European Union Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Karel De Gucht will take questions from readers on this year’s topics for discussion: the impact of the economic crisis on developing countries, climate change and the link between democracy and development.

You can participate by using the comments section below or by using the #askEUaid tag on Twitter. Please post your questions by Thursday, Oct. 15.

from Africa News blog:

Should West back Zimbabwe’s government?

The United Nations has joined Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government in appealing for more than $700 million in humanitarian aid for the ruined country.

But while Western countries may show willing when it comes to emergency aid, they are still reluctant to give money to the government between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, his old rival.

First, they say, there must be broader political reforms and a clearer demonstration of respect for human rights.

The Western countries have long been at odds with Mugabe, accusing him of ruining Zimbabwe after the seizure of white-owned farms, of widespread human rights abuses and of making a mockery of elections last year that were widely condemned outside Zimbabwe.

But if those countries don’t come up with the finance that the government needs, some believe there is a danger it could undermine prospects for change rather than strengthening them.

"My advice is for the international community to engage Zimbabwe as the opposite of this will only benefit hardliners," Tsvangirai told a visiting French minister last week.

The unity government has said it won more than $1 billion in promised credit lines from African banks for private firms, but says it needs more than $8 billion for reconstruction.

from Africa News blog:

Time to stop aid for Africa? An argument against

Earlier this month, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo argued that Africa needs Western countries to cut long term aid that has brought dependency, distorted economies and fuelled bureaucracy and corruption. The comments on the blog posting suggested that many readers agreed. In a response, Savio Carvalho, Uganda country director for aid agency Oxfam GB, says that aid can help the continent escape poverty - if done in the right way:

In early January, I travelled to war-ravaged northern Uganda to a dusty village in Pobura and Kal parish in Kitgum District. We were there to see the completion of a 16km dirt road constructed by the community with support from Oxfam under an EU-funded programme.

The road is bringing benefits in the form of access to markets, education and health care. Some parents say their daughters feel safer walking to school on the road instead of through the bushes. Many families have used the wages earned from construction work to pay for school fees and medical treatment. This is the impact of aid.

Having lived and worked in east Africa, I have witnessed the positive effects of aid. But done badly, it can be very limiting and even has the potential to create more harm. To avoid this, it must be provided within an enabling environment in which it is used as a catalyst for change and not as an end in itself. Governments must show leadership through an accountable system.

For individuals, access to resources – including aid - is like an investment. Aid can build up poor people’s assets, support good governance and enhance skills and capacities to bring about transformation. But it can become a bane when it makes communities dependent, lazy and hopeless. Governments, aid agencies and the United Nations need to ensure the delivery of aid is well planned and coordinated, leading to higher self-reliance among poor communities.

Aid is also beneficial when trade is fair. There are several examples in Africa, like the case of coffee farmers in Uganda, where aid has been used effectively to improve the overall quality of the coffee seeds, thereby giving farmers better prices for their produce. When they have access to markets at home and abroad, they generate income which is ploughed back into increased output, better access to health and education, and overall improvement in the quality of their lives. To make this happen, developed countries need to stop procrastinating and put in place fair trade practices.

Aid works well if governments are accountable – in other words, when they are responsible and encourage active citizenship. On this continent, civil society is still weak and needs to be nourished. But stopping aid will not resolve frustrations about poor governance, which is partly a result of weak public scrutiny. Aid should be used to help fight corruption and promote accountability through active input from ordinary people.

from Africa News blog:

Hu reassures Africa?

If anyone in Africa was worried that the global financial crisis might dim China’s interest in the continent, President Hu Jintao will be visiting this week to give some reassurances - as well as possibly to temper any unrealistic hopes for the amount of assistance to be expected.

As Chris Buckley reported from Beijing, this visit is also about China showing the wider world that it is a responsible power.

The fact that none of the countries Hu will visit is among Africa’s economic or resource heavyweights - Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius - is seen as a sign that China wants to send a message that its engagement with Africa is about much more than resources.

Trade between China and Africa rose to $107 billion last year and more deals are expected on this visit. Nearly all of Africa's exports to China still come from a handful of countries rich in oil or minerals, though, and now the global downturn has put those in more doubt.

China’s involvement in Africa is a subject we looked at recently. Alistair Thomson in Dakar found that even if some Chinese investments in Africa were losing their lustre, many Chinese firms were taking a longer-term view to pursue strategic expansion - and some were hunting for bargains. For China, Africa also offers an important destination for exports, as any visit to even the most remote African marketplace will quickly show.

Growing trade relations with China were one of the things seen by Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo in a previous blog post as a way for Africa to emerge better off from the financial crisis and less dependent on Western aid.

But China’s involvement in Africa has brought concern from some in the West - quite apart from those who may stand to lose out on the business front - with some critics saying Beijing’s interest is too focused on the drive to secure resources and pays little heed to the kind of thing that Western donors say they want to promote, such as elections, human rights and the fight against corruption.