Africa Region Findings & Good Practice Infobriefs

415 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9389

These briefs report on ongoing operational, economic, and sector work carried out by the World Bank and its member governments in the Africa Region.

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The Roll Back Malaria Partnership : Defining the role of the World Bank

(Washington, DC, 1999-10) World Bank

Malaria kills over one million people and causes 300-500 million episodes of illness each year. The majority of the 3,000 deaths each day and ten new cases every second occur in Africa. The disease not only takes a high human toll; it also impedes development. Malaria has economic impacts through labor efficiency and land use; adversely affects school attendance, performance and cognitive ability; and translates in monetary costs in terms of expenditures by households and the public health sector. The poor are affected most, as they have less access to services, information and protective measures (e.g. nets, screens, prophylaxis), and have less power to avoid living or working within malaria-affected areas. Malaria is on the rise. While efforts to control malaria in the past fifty years have achieved a decline in malaria mortality and morbidity in some regions, the gains have often not been sustained (e.g. Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Central Asia). Emerging drug and pesticide resistances threaten to reduce the availability of effective and affordable prevention and treatment of malaria. Recent epidemics indicate a resurgence of the disease in previously low-risk areas (e.g. the highlands of Kenya), and climate changes are expected to lead to further changes in intensity of transmission. While there is no magic bullet for malaria, a range of cost-effective interventions exists, namely antimalarials for treatment, prophylaxis, insecticide treated materials and residual spraying with insecticide. New tools are available and are continually being developed, such as treatment for severe malaria, rapid diagnostic tests, and combination drug therapy to prevent resistance. As access to prevention, diagnosis and treatment are essential to reducing the burden; malaria can only be effectively controlled within the context of broader health sector development. The main strategies for addressing malaria are timely care-seeking, diagnosis and effective treatment, the use of prophylaxis during pregnancy, and the use of insecticide-treated bednets and materials.
Ghana - Women's Role in Improved Economic Performance

(Washington, DC, 1999-10) World Bank

The Government of Ghana's program to develop a gender strategy has been supported by the World Bank. This article is based on a Bank-assisted sector study, Ghana: gender analysis and policymaking for development. The Bank team worked closely with Ghanaian Ministries of Agriculture, Micro-finance, Education, and Health to identify gender issues and study feasible recommendations. Along with the government, a broad range of stakeholders participated in the study, including academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, and women's groups. Through workshops and mission visits, four points of focus were identified for the study: agriculture, micro-enterprises, education, and health. Many of the stakeholders also emphasized the importance of strengthening Ghana's institutional capacity to develop and implement policies that adequately address gender concerns. The study focuses on two broad areas of gender-based differences and inequalities: the links between gender and economic productivity, and the development of human capital. In addition to the study described here, the Ghanaian government produced two policy documents from this study; both are now under final review within the government.
Uganda’s Integrated Information Management System : A New Approach in Statistical Capacity-Building

(Washington, DC, 1999-09) World Bank

Uganda is embarking on a major program to upgrade its statistical systems. As with many African countries, the quality of national statistics and the timeliness with which they are produced have been issues of considerable concern for a number of years. It has suffered from problems common to many national statistical offices, including: high staff turnover, inadequate funding, lack of timeliness in delivering outputs, unevenness in quality of data produced and inability to respond quickly to new data needs. The starting point for reform has been to persuade government and donors to commit more resources to essential statistical activities. This led to the establishment in 1999 of a new semi-autonomous Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and to the development of a draft UBOS Corporate Action Plan. The World Bank will be channeling its support through the Second Economic and Financial Management Project (EFMPII). The main goal of the program is to support the building of national capacity to collect, process, store and disseminate statistical information for the purpose of monitoring and evaluating outcomes and outputs of development policies and programs at both national and district levels.
Financing Higher Education in Africa : Makerere - The Quiet Revolution

(Washington, DC, 1999-09) World Bank

One of the standing conundrums of educational policy in Africa in the last fifteen years has been how to provide good quality higher education to large numbers, equitably but without undue dependence on public resources. Now, from Makerere University in Uganda, comes an instructive demonstration of new possibilities for solving this conundrum. In the past seven years, Makerere has reversed the plant decay and capacity loss of the 1970s and 1980s, and moved from the brink of collapse to a point where it can again aspire to become the pre-eminent intellectual and capacity building resource in Uganda and the wider region. It has more than doubled student enrolment, instigated major improvements in the physical and academic infrastructure and drastically reduced its traditional financial dependence upon the state. This has been achieved despite declining financial support from government but in a national context of economic growth and political stability. The contribution of the World Bank has been a set of programs supporting the macro-economic and governmental reforms which have reinforced the context of institutional change.
Ethiopia - The Gilgel Gibe Resettlement Project

(Washington, DC, 1999-08) World Bank

The development plan of the Federal Government of Ethiopia emphasized low-cost energy supply as a prerequisite to the enhancement of industrial and economic development for the period 1984-1993. Current power planning studies have estimated Ethiopia's hydropower potential at 30,000 MW, which greatly exceeds foreseeable domestic demands. Presently, only 1 percent of the potential is utilized. The government has therefore initiated the implementation of the Gilgel Gibe hydroelectric power plant to enhance industrial development and increase its national income through export sales of surplus energy to neighboring countries. The World Bank-assisted Ethiopia Second Energy, projected to end in the year 2000 will help to realize this objective. The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO) will implement the construction of the power plant, whose reservoir will cover an area of 6200 ha, necessitating land acquisition and involuntary resettlement. An environmental assessment (EA) including a social assessment was carried out and a resettlement action plan (RAP) designed to address the adverse social impacts presumed to be linked to the building of the reservoir. The reservoir as well as the resettlement site are located in the Oromia Region under the Jima zone administration. The host population and the resettled population are both Oromo and of Moslem faith. The main economic activity of the population is agriculture and animal husbandry.
A Regional Approach to Capacity Building for Coastal Management : Emerging Lessons

(Washington, DC, 1999-07) World Bank

The numerous economic opportunities offered within the coastal zone attract increasing populations to these areas. As these populations and their economic activities grow, there is a corresponding compelling need for sound management of coastal and marine resources, so that developmental options can be kept open. Effective coastal and marine resource management transcends boundaries and a regional approach is clearly the most effective method for governance of these fragile areas and important resources. Regional environmental organizations have, however, not always proved to be useful to the countries they were created to serve. Constraints, including unclear mission, lack of priority-setting, poor management, politics, inadequate funding and weak national support, have derailed many regional environmental organizations. The promising start of the Secretariat for Eastern African Coastal Area Management (SEACAM) illustrates that regional organization can provide effective support to national Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) efforts.
Ghana - Financial Services for Women Entrepreneurs in the Informal Sector

( 1999-06) World Bank

The Ghana Microfinance Institution (MFI) action research network brings together organizations interested in providing financial services to the poor in Ghana. With World Bank support, the network carried out this study which provides brief descriptions of the innovations that informal, semi-formal, and formal MFIs have developed in providing financial services to female entrepreneurs in Ghana. It also makes recommendations on how such services can be strengthened and improved.
Gender and Law Initiatives in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa : Gender and Law Workshop in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa (March 1998)

(Washington, DC, 1999-06) World Bank

As a result of two years of constructive dialogue between the World Bank (WB), government agencies and grassroots' associations involved in the advancement of women, a workshop for the Promotion of the societal status of women in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa was organized in March 1998 in Cotonou by the Association of Women Jurists (AFJB) with WB technical and financial assistance. From the perspective of the Bank, this initiative provided a timely forum to discuss the potential of gender-responsive legal and judicial reforms as part of the overall WB poverty alleviation and economic growth strategy. These were to provide for: a) an exchange of views (between civil society and government agencies as well as between countries) on country-specific substance of law, law enforcement and legal literacy issues, as these relate to women's experience of discrimination; and b) a constructive comparison of the operational experiences of the participants in these areas of activity. As such, the workshop was understood to be the first step in a foreseen twelve month process leading to the development, formulation and financing of country-specific action plans, for the participant countries. These were very effectively structured and facilitated by the President and members of the AFJB. These included: eleven country-specific presentations discussed during the first day plenary and from this basis, the participants identified the three themes which provided the focus for the active working group debates on the second day: a) political leadership and the institutional and legal status of women; b) the weight of religion and traditions in socio-cultural discrimination against women; and c) women's access to resources in health, education, and financial services.
Nigeria - Consultations for Improved Primary Education

(Washington, DC, 1999-03) World Bank

The World Bank-assisted Nigeria Primary Education Project aims at assisting the Government of Nigeria to improve the quality of the subsector through the supply of instructional materials, upgrading of infrastructural facilities, enhancing teachers' competence, facilitating school management, inspection, planning and data gathering. This is being achieved by involving stakeholders at all levels in the process of primary school improvement. The National Primary Education Commission (NPEC) which manages a National Primary Education Fund and oversees the quality of primary education is responsible for implementing the project. In order to identify ways of improving primary education services and developing future policy, the NPEC decided to obtain the views of users and providers of current services and their suggestions for improvement by commissioning consultative surveys.
Guinea - Speeding up Technology Transfer to Rice Growers

(Washington, DC, 1998-12) World Bank

In Guinea, improving the productivity of upland rice is a key challenge for the national agricultural services. Though rice is the main staple in Guinea, low yields make the country highly dependent on rice imports that it can ill afford. While the national agricultural research system (Institute de Recherche Agronomique de Guinee, IRAG), did not have improved technology available, the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA), located in neighboring Cote d'Ivoire, had made a major breakthrough. It was developing inter-specific rice varieties that combined the best characteristics of the high-yielding Oryza Sativa varieties of Asian origin with those of the hardy Oryza Glaberrima varieties indigenous to Africa. Though the results looked promising, the normal approach of first testing new varieties at research stations and only then releasing them for on-farm trials and then to extension will have taken years. To speed up the process, Guinea's national extension service (Service National de la Promotion Rurale et de la Vulgarisation) teamed up with IRAG in a pilot program that brought promising varieties from WARDA concurrently to evaluations on IRAG stations and to on-farm trials. The participatory pilot program was supported by the World Bank and the Special Program for African Agricultural Research (SPAAR).