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.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 29

Enticing Investors : To Make a Serious Dent in Poverty, Africa Must Attract More Foreign Capital

(Washington, DC, 2007-06) World Bank

The nearly 750 million people who live in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are among the world's poorest. To foster the economic growth required to create jobs, raise living standards, and hasten development, SSA nations need to attract more foreign capital, which, by enhancing imported technology and the transfer of know-how, has proved instrumental in raising productivity in many countries.
Ghana : Tracking Public Resource Flows in Schools and Clinics

(Washington, DC, 2002-04) World Bank

An accurate estimate of public expenditure flows must start from the distribution and recording systems which would permit accurate tracking. While the strategies to improve these systems in Ghana are beyond the scope of this study, it presents here the problems encountered while trying to track public expenditures. Hopefully, this will provide an entry point for relevant parties to discuss the best ways to increase the efficiency of public expenditure distribution. Estimated resource flows are also presented. Although the accuracy of estimates is not claimed in absolute terms, the patterns of the public expenditure distribution revealed by these estimates were consistent with the perceptions of district level education and health officers, to whom these results were presented at a workshop in Ghana.
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.
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.
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.
Madagascar - Savings and Loans

(Washington, DC, 1998-09) World Bank

The first savings and loan associations (SLAs - mutuelles d'epargne et de credit) were established in Madagascar in 1993 under a pilot project supported by the World Bank. By the time the project closed in December 1997, 54 SLAs had been established in four regions, Toamasina, Lac Alaotra, Fianarantsoa and Haute-Mania, and they had started to group themselves into regional unions. The lessons learned from this pilot project are being factored into the preparation of the follow-up project. The main lesson is that it takes more effort to maintain and develop Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) than to create them. The enthusiasm of donors to provide assistance in microfinance and the lack of readiness of the government to receive it resulted in duplications and contradictions. These can be avoided in the future by a well-defined national strategy on microfinance. To progress towards self-sustainability, MFIs must also move into urban areas where population density helps to lower the costs of delivering financial services and where savings can be more readily mobilized to support growth.
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.
Togo - Coffee and Cocoa Liberalization

(Washington, DC, 1998-06) World Bank

The reform, a key component of a larger economic recovery and adjustment operation, and of the agricultural sector strategy, focused on the liberalization of coffee and cocoa prices, their primary marketing and export, all previously regulated by a marketing board. The main objectives of the liberalization were to improve producers' incentives and income and develop private participation in marketing and export activities while maintaining the country's reputation in international markets as a reliable supplier of quality products. The liberalization took effect in June 1996. Coffee and cocoa exports reached a record high in 1997 - more than double the 1996 level.
African Development Indicators 1997

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1998-05) World Bank

Monitoring Africa's development progress and aid flows requires basic empirical data that can be readily used by analysts. African development indicators 1997, a World Bank publication, provide a starting point for accomplishing that task. This revised and expanded statistical collection provides the most detailed collection of data on Africa available in one volume. This volume, which is the fifth in a series that began with African economic and financial data in 1989, and was followed by African development indicators 1992, 1994-95, and 1996, presents data from 53 African countries, arranged in 292 separate tables or matrices for more that 400 development indicators. In addition, 24 charts facilitate data interpretation and cross-country comparison. The indicators are grouped into 15 chapters: background data national accounts, prices and exchange rates, money and banking, the external sector, external debt and related flows, government finance, agriculture, power or communication and transportation, labor force and employment, public enterprises, aid flows, social indicators, environmental indicators, and household welfare indicators. Each chapter includes a brief introduction on the nature of the data and their limitations followed by technical notes that define the indicators and identify specific sources.