Africa Region Findings & Good Practice Infobriefs

415 items available

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https://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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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.
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.
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).
Prioritization Through Participation : Agricultural Investments in Cameroon
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1998-11) Bindlish, Vishva; Clementine Ananga, Messina
Accounting for around a third of the 1996 Goss Domestic Product (GDP) of US$ 9 billion (second only to oil), and almost three-fourths of all employment, agriculture is a dominant sector of the Cameroonian economy. Also, as in most African countries, poverty in Cameroon is concentrated in rural areas, with more than 80 percent (approximately 5.5 million) of all poor people living in such areas. The Government of Cameroon's objectives include the need to create a sectoral environment favorable to reviving agricultural production; ensure food security; increase farm incomes by improving productivity and reducing the costs of production; and render agricultural products competitive in domestic and international markets. It is committed to progressively liberalizing the marketing's of inputs and traditional export commodities, and privatizing agricultural development activities. Consequently, inasmuch as poverty reduction and economic growth are at the core of the World Bank's Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for Cameroon, they necessitate a strategic focus on the agricultural and rural sectors.
Lessons from Africa's Social Funds, Public Works and Employment Projects
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1998-11) Frigenti, Laura; Harth, Alberto; Huque, Rumana
The note focuses on the review of "Local solutions to regional problems: the growth of social funds and public works, and employment projects in Sub-Saharan Africa", which compares, and draws lessons from the African experience. It highlights three social funds in Zambia, Eritrea and Angola, and three urban works projects in Senegal, Benin, and Mauritania, and provides stakeholder views: it reports high impact on employment, income, and local capacity building; improved coordination between service providers; weak consideration to the sustainability of micro-projects; and, participatory inadequacies, at the expense of long-term sustainability. The note implies the greatest challenge these operations face, is the reconciliation of short-term, and long-term goals, and, beneficiary participation, and ownership should be key to social funds project design, with appropriate technical standards in design, construction, and supervision for micro-projects sustainability.
Improving Soil Fertility Management in Sub-Saharan Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1998-10) Donovan, Graeme; Casey, Frank
There are more than 60 million smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Declining soil fertility is a fundamental impediment to agricultural growth and a major reason for slow growth in food production in SSA. In Africa, as a result of soil degradation, irrigated lands may be, on average, 7 percent below their potential productivity, rain-fed crop lands 14 percent below their potential and rangelands 45 percent below potential. Compared to parts of North America, Europe and of Asia, most SSA soils are naturally not very fertile. Low in a number of chemical constituents such as phosphorus, sulphur, magnesium and zinc, low amounts of soil organic matter (SOM) combined with poor land cover have resulted in poor soil structure, limited rooting depth and susceptibility to accelerated erosion. However, similar soils in other parts of the world have been made highly productive by using appropriate management techniques. There are two main approaches to improved soil fertility management. One is to attempt to meet plant requirements with purchased mineral fertilizers. The second relies on biological processes to optimize nutrient recycling, with little reliance on external chemical fertilizers, but maximizing the efficiency of their use. The more sustainable middle path borrows the best features from both and is referred to as Integrated Nutrition Management (INM). INM combines mineral fertilizers with organic resources, thus increasing fertilizer use efficiency, reducing the risks of acidification and providing a more balanced supply of nutrients.
Gender Issues in Ethiopia : Implementing the National Policy on Women
(Washington, DC, 1998-09) World Bank
The National Policy on Women (Women's Policy) formulated in 1993, aimed to create appropriate structures within government offices and institutions to establish equitable and gender-sensitive public policies. The Government of Ethiopia in 1995, under its new constitution, renewed its commitment towards this policy. The government initiated an ambitious and extensive process of regionalization, whereby new regional boundaries were demarcated and administrative powers devolved to regional governments which were authorized to implement all development policies. This represented a departure from the earlier practice of centralized project management by ministries. This more participatory and decentralized form of governance made the implementation of the national policy a more challenging endeavor. There was correspondingly a great need to build the delivery capacity of the regional governments. While the central level of government promoted gender-sensitive policies and development interventions, very little was known about the constraints and issues at the regional levels.