Africa Region Findings & Good Practice Infobriefs

415 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

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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Burundi - Investing in Leadership Development through the Rapid Results Approach

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-08) World Bank

The government of Burundi appealed to the World Bank Institute (WBI) for help in strengthening the capacities of leadership to implement policies and programs that would achieve measurable results. The new government needed to make tough decisions on competing priorities, including allocating an estimated US$12 billion to achieve the millennium development goals, and carrying out reforms to ensure efficient allocation of public resources. The government understood it would need to invest in leadership development in order to drive change at the institutional level and achieve results, and that this would require more than the traditional classroom method of leadership training. Instead, the following approaches were needed: 1) training programs adapted to the needs of leaders; 2) a learning-by-doing approach to capacity development; and 3) a participatory approach to action planning, work planning, and defining modalities for resource management.
The Northern Uganda Social Action Fund : Community Reconciliation and Conflict Management Empower Communities in a Post-Conflict Setting

(Washington, DC, 2006-12) World Bank

The five year Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF), being implemented since 2003 is meant to assist government in its efforts to tackle poverty and bring about development that utilizes and builds on community value systems As part of the broader efforts to reconstruct Northern Uganda, NUSAF, as a project, and through direct grants to communities, is intended to: overcome underdevelopment through community action, leadership development, resource mobilization, strengthening the ongoing reconciliation processes in the region, and make it possible for communities to articulate and prioritize their specific needs and manage processes and outcomes, there by enhancing good governance for peace and development.
Eritrea - Rapid Results Initiative (RRI) on HIV/AIDS

(Washington, DC, 2004-06) World Bank

In January 2003, the Eritrean Ministry of Health prepared a National Strategic Plan on HIV/AIDS for 2003-2007. In an effort to boost progress in the Community Managed Response (CMR) component of the plan, the government and the World Bank explored the rapid results approach to accelerate the number of community project proposals. The initiative was launched in Asmara on February 24, 2003 through a two day workshop. Specific 100-day goals were agreed upon, self selected teams were assembled, and leadership and resource structures of support and accountability were established. At the conclusion of the workshop the participants agreed on four major areas to focus their initial actions: (a) voluntary counseling and testing, (b) school prevention, (c) behavioral change, and (d) home-based care.
Tanzania : Women in the Mining Sector

(Washington, DC, 2001-08) World Bank

The Government of Tanzania has, in recent years, focused on revitalizing its mining sector in order to attract foreign investment, with the goal of raising its contribution to Tanzania's Gross Domestic Product. With the support from the World Bank through the Mineral Sector Development Project (MSDP), the legal and fiscal regimes were revised and an environmental framework was put in place. As the growth of the small scale mining sub-sector continues, so do the challenges. This Notes discusses the obstacles faced by Tanzanian women and introduces the work of a women's nongovernmental organization -- Tanzania Women Miners Association (TAWOMA).
Nigeria - Innovative Training for the Improved Delivery of Water

(Washington, DC, 2000-06) World Bank

The primary objectives of the World Bank-assisted six-year Nigeria National Water Rehabilitation Project (NWRP) are a reliable supply of good quality water, and increased revenue for the country's state water agencies. Nearly 250 urban water systems are being restored to original design capacity. Prior to the start of the project in 1992, many water meters had quit working, valves controlling pipe networks were often faulty, treatment of water was uneven, leaks were often not adequately located and repaired, a number of pumps were not pumping, boreholes were silting up or becoming polluted. All of these deficiencies added up to water systems delivering below design capacity, which in turn resulted in unreliable delivery of water to customers, and revenue often inadequate to enable water agencies to meet basic operational needs, including maintenance of physical assets. The NWRP has effectively changed this situation through an innovative outreach training strategy, an intrinsic part of the institution building and training component which accounted for $ 13 million out of the total project cost of $ 306 million.
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.
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.
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.
The Africa Live Data Base : Statistics for Development

(Washington, DC, 1998-12) World Bank

The Africa Live Database (LDB) is a user-friendly computer-based data tool that consists of: a) a Local Data Base--a tool for in-depth economic work; b) query-- a tool for storing and manipulating economic and sectoral variables; and c) Africa briefings-- presorted ready-to-use data. The system was developed by the Africa Region of the World Bank with two complementary goals in mind: 1) in the short term, to provide staff in the region with an efficient means of collecting, analyzing and manipulating economic and sectoral data; and 2) in the long term, to become the linchpin of a major effort for capacity building in African countries, aimed at upgrading local capacity in statistical data collection and analysis. This, combined with other initiatives, could then become a powerful tool for monitoring the impact of policy on development. The LDB responds to three sets of client needs: a) staff in the World Bank, b) users of statistical information in client countries, and c) other users of statistical information worldwide-- other donors, researchers, banks, etc.
The Role of Information, Education and Communication in the Malawi Social Action Fund

(Washington, DC, 1998-07) World Bank

The Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), which began implementation in 1996, was proposed by the Government of Malawi as a quick-disbursing poverty alleviation facility that would be based on and respond to the needs and demands of the country's poor rural communities. The country's experience with self-help projects and programs to date had not been notably successful this project was intended to herald a paradigm shift in this respect. It was designed to promote a change in the way all development actors, including, and perhaps, especially, the government, would work with other stakeholders. Communities were required to contribute up to 20 percent of total sub-project costs, in the form of cash, or labor or materials. Participation was therefore a key factor in the designing of the project. The Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) component was primarily intended as a tool to generate support for and disseminate information about the project. However, it evolved and was shaped, as were the rest of the project and its actors, by the dynamics of project implementation.