Publications

This year, the Africa Progress Report is dedicated to the transformative power of partnerships. While the idea of pooling a range of actors and their energy, creativity and resources around specific development challenges is hardly new, too few success stories are replicated or brought to scale to effect lasting structural change. Against this backdrop, this year’s report identifies partnership models that have already proven their transformative potential and assesses how to create the policy framework and incentive structure needed to spur further collaboration for progress. The report argues that all actors, including governments, international organizations, the private sector and civil society, can do more to facilitate the spread of successful models across sectors and countries, and that doing so is in their self-interest. It also argues that much work remains to be done to convince all sides of the inherent benefits of partnering for progress. This is the main purpose of this report.

The APP Editor’s Diary is being published to mark the second anniversary of the APP Bulletin. Since November 2008, this newsletter has tried to capture, as succinctly as possible, the main events and trends relevant to Africa’s political, economic and social progress, including commentary on significant news, announcements by African regional bodies and governments and initiatives by Africa’s partners in the G8, G20 or international organizations. It has been a challenge to remain loyal to its strict two-page format –especially through key events such as the run up to Copenhagen, the World Cup and the series of elections in Africa.

There is no mystery about what measures are required to tackle maternal mortality. There are many examples of dramatic improvements in maternal health, including in severely resource-constrained environments in Africa and beyond. The Africa Progress Panel is preparing a policy brief targeted at African leaders, particularly Finance Ministers and decision-makers in both the public and private sectors on what can and needs to be done to accelerate progress on MDG 5. This will make the case that maternal health is not just a public health issue, but a development issue in which Finance Ministers have an integral role to play in ensuring greater investment in and the improvement of health systems, and maternal health specifically.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have challenged the world to measure and quantify progress in an unprecedented way. New resources including publications, databases and web portals on the goals are launched every year making valuable contributions to the task of monitoring progress. Making the MDGs time-bound and measurable has played a significant role in helping produce enormous amounts of MDG-related information. It has also revealed the tremendous gaps that persist in key statistics especially in terms of gender-disaggregated data.

This policy brief has been prepared by the Africa Progress Panel Secretariat in collaboration with the Future Agricultures Consortium that brings together researchers in Africa and the UK. The main authors are Steve Wiggins and Henri Leturque from Overseas Development Institute.

This policy brief argues that additional public financing is required for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, climate-change adaptation and mitigation of greenhouse-gas emissions in Africa.

It sets out a ‘roadmap’ for action for developed and developing countries towards the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 16 in Cancun in December and highlights that whilst the Copenhagen Accord includes the commitment to provide an additional annual $100 billion in climate finance by 2020 the source of this funding remains unresolved.

Scoring for Africa illustrates key development issues between countries competing in the World Cup. For each selected game, the guide provides a brief overview of the relationship or “match history” between the competitors identifying “attempts on target” and “attempts off target” from a development perspective. It goes on to present a “game plan” that outlines policy recommendations and possible areas for action.

Africa Progress Panel members Kofi Annan, Peter Eigen, Linah Mohohlo and Olusegun Obasanjo launched the Africa Progress Report 2010 on 25 May 2010 in Johannesburg. The landmark publication analyses the continent’s progress and issues key recommendations to African leaders and its international partners. The report was launched in coordination with the launch of ONE's 2010 DATA Report

This policy brief has emerged from a series of consultations with a unique combination of people: distinguished business leaders, policy experts, development advocates and, perhaps most importantly, African entrepreneurs, some working at a very local level in their communities, others in the growing
number of dynamic African businesses across the continent.

By identifying priorities and sharing examples of what is already being done, this policy brief is intended to inspire action by business leaders already engaged, or planning to invest, in Africa. It is also intended to complement the work of the many business and policy bodies that are dedicated to encouraging responsible investment in Africa.

Socio-economic development and adaptation to climate change are closely intertwined. Adaptation is increasingly described as climate resilient development or development under a hostile climate. In support of this view, this paper calculates the combined cost of meeting and at the same time “climate-proofing” the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for Africa. Treating adaptation and development in such an integrated way helps to better understand financing requirements analytically and, more importantly, to implement the requisite measures more effectively as part of an integrated development program. We find that the external financing needed for “climate resilient” MDGs is about forty percent higher than the external financing for the MDGs alone – around $100 billion a year for the next decade, compared with $72 billion a year for the MDGs alone. This estimate is indicative only and based on fairly cursory aggregate cost data. A clear challenge going forward is to apply the integrated adaptation and development frameworks in the form of concrete development plans at the country level.

China’s growing engagement in Africa has become a hotly-debated topic in recent years. Opinions on the developmental impact of this engagement range from enthusiastic, to sceptical, to outright hostile. This information note is intended to provide panel members with some context and information needed to put recent developments into perspective and assess possible areas for APP involvement particularly in the period leading up to the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals in September 2010.

The APP Secretariat on 17 November 2009, convened key stakeholders from African Governments, development partners, civil society and the private sector to identify practical solutions for developing the unexploited CDM potential in Africa. Following the workshop, an outcome information note was produced, listing opportunities that can be seized immediately and outlining concrete steps for action

Following the Barcelona Climate Change Talks, the APP Secretariat and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) produced a second edition of an information note on climate change negotiations. It is being shared with APP Panel Members ahead of the Copenhagen Conference taking place from the the 7- 18 of December.

The APP Secretariat with the support of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has issued and information note addressing the key issues of relevance to least developed countries that are currently under discussion in the run up to Copenhagen. It was shared with the Panel Members ahead of the key discussions that took place in Barcelona in November 2009.

This report builds on the part one of this research by exploring the three priority areas identified by the Business Advisory Group during their initial discussions. The report then suggests options for practical action in each of these three areas.

The APP Annual Report was launched on June 10th at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town, South Africa by Kofi Annan, Linah Mohohlo and Graça Machel.

This APP publication was prepared in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and in consultation with the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank as input to meetings of African Ministers of Finance, of Environment, and of AU Heads of State in July. The purpose of the publication was to support African leaders in developing a strong common African position on climate change in the run-up to and at the Copenhagen Conference in December 2009. Such a common position is necessary to ensure that Africa’s special needs in terms of financing, technology transfer and technical support required to adapt to climate change and seize mitigation opportunities are acknowledged and met.

This report focuses on ways in which business can create social and human development value in Africa. Its immediate purpose is to stimulate discussion among members of the Business Advisory Group as to what practical actions business can take. It acknowledges that business is already engaged in a wide variety of activities that contribute directly and indirectly to achievement of the MDGs, and that rich discussions are ongoing regarding new business models that create both public and private value. At the same time, its premise is that there remains huge and untapped potential for business in these areas

The APP launched a publication on the need for a new multilateralism in the days before the G20 Summit in London. Michel Camdessus, Goodall Gondwe, Gilbert Houngbo, Trevor Manuel, Simon Maxwell, Festus Mogae, Linah Mohohlo, Todd Moss, Benno Ndulu, Ngaire Woods argue that a new form of multilateralism is needed. The contributors call for Africa’s leaders to use the current opportunity and push for substantial reforms of the world’s governance structure to make it more representative, supportive and ultimately effective.

This publication launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos argues that the international community should maintain its financial and aid commitments to the continent in spite of the credit crunch. It also calls on the private sector to seize the many investment opportunities that Africa has to offer, particularly in the infrastructure, energy and communications sectors. It concludes by arguing that without sustained and reliable efforts, those least able to withstand its woes, will have to bear the brunt of the global economic crisis. An Italian version of the document (Africa: proteggere il progresso in un clima di crisi globale) was issued as an input for meetings in preparation of the G8 Summit.

The Africa Progress Panel’s report, was launched in June 2008 by Kofi Annan, Michel Camdessus and Tidjane Thiam in London. The report states that the world food crisis ”threatens to destroy years, if not decades, of economic progress” as “100 million people are being pushed back into absolute poverty”. “Unless some way can be found to halt and reverse the current trend in food prices there will be a significant increase in hunger, malnutrition, and in infant and child mortality”.