The APP Bulletin

If a recent report by Global Financial Integrity is to be believed, illicit financial flows out of Africa amounted to $854 billion (see chart) over the last 39 years, or $1.8 trillion once mispricing of services and smuggling is added. Cumulatively, flows exceeded Africa’s outstanding external debt at the end of 2008. Volumes have increased each decade, growing at an average rate of 12.1% p.a. Only the increases in oil and commodity prices have kept illicit flows down to a relatively modest share of Africa’s GDP, down from 11% in 1987 to 7% in 2008.

The situation in Sudan is alarming. Worst case scenarios are unfolding – boycotts, vote rigging, intimidation, security breakdowns and increased levels of violence. Huge amounts of money and political energy are being spent on an exercise that may not yield benefits for her people or the region.

Mounting free and fair elections, the first in over two decades, in the face of massive logistical hurdles, and in Africa’s largest country, was never going to be easy. Voters, a vast number of whom are illiterate, have to fill in a minimum of eight ballot papers, some 12, each one with a dozen or more candidates. The scope for confusion, manipulation and fraud is massive.

There are over 12,000 African blogs. At least this is what was revealed in last week’s Pan Africa Media Summit held in Nairobi. This increasing number of African bloggers is testimony to how new media and technology are a force for change in Africa.

To what degree are African priorities and concerns reflected in global agreements and policies? Not nearly enough, most would say, whether in trade, finance, food security, climate change, intellectual property, migration, security or other areas. Is Africa to blame for this deficit? No. The IFIs and various economic and financial global fora have been crafted by, and for, the powerful. The emergence of the G20 is not necessarily going to help LDCs; it might even do the opposite. Big emerging economies, including South Africa, have their own interests.

‘Fragile states’ are in the spotlight at the moment, in part because of the tragedy in Haiti. By most counts, over half the world’s fragile states are in Africa. ... However, the worst fears have not been realized. This is not to say that events across the continent, whether in Niger, Guinea-Bissau or Cote d’Ivoire, Sudan, Kenya or Madagascar, cannot be attributed partly to recession-related unrest.

2010 will be a great year for acronyms. A focus for the UN, IFIs, NGOs, CSOs, FBOs, LDCs and the AU will be the MDG Summit at the GA in September, preceded in June by an ECOSOC Ministerial Review , the G8 and G20 Summits, as well as multiple meetings addressing individual MDGs or reviewing overall progress and priorities. Even FIFA is on side.

That ODA levels are not increasing in line with Gleneagles outcomes is alarming; many donors are postponing or walking away from their pledges.

The New Year has been dominated by security issues. Most high profile have been the failed plot on Christmas Day by a Nigerian student- the so-called ‘underpants bomber’- to blow up a plane over Detroit, and the attack last week on the Togolese football squad in Cabinda.

The last thing Africa needs is intensified global media focus on violence and extremism and further negative stereotyping.

The mountain shook, a mouse emerged. Copenhagen has not resulted in an agenda for action, but a political compromise of questionable legitimacy.

The Copenhagen Summit is finally upon us. Many of the world’s leaders will be there, which is good news. Will it be the moment when, despite their many differences, they commit their countries to a common course?

Jacques Diouf of FAO is rightly disappointed that this week’s World Food Summit did not result in exact targets for reducing global hunger. The UN says that one billion people are currently going hungry.

At a time when investment, remittances and aid levels from OECD countries are in doubt or declining, Chinese investment is good news for Africa. Investments in areas as diverse as infrastructure and agriculture are helping to create jobs, reducing the cost of basic goods, and softening the blow to African countries of the global economic downturn.

The recent coup in Guinea is highlighting multiple dilemmas regarding Africa’s ability to manage its own affairs, and the approach of the international community when rich resource pickings are at stake.

Quality information, effectively communicated, is central to mutual responsibility and accountability for progress in Africa. The quality of the dialogue between governments and citizens, as well as between African countries and their international partners, depends upon it. But gathering information is not easy.

The decision by the 63rd UN General Assembly on 11 September to request and authorize the creation of a UN agency for women could get lost in the other big news stories this week, including the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh and the High Level Summit on Climate Change being convened by Ban Ki-moon. But if handled adroitly, it could have a big and profound impact.

“For the first time in its history, Africa will field a single team empowered to negotiate on behalf of all the member states of the African Union” announced PM Meles Zenawi at the Special Session on Climate Change of the Africa Partnership Forum, held in Addis Ababa on September 3rd.

More than ten African countries will hold presidential or legislative elections by the end of 2009, and 22 during 2010. The global financial and economic crisis has clearly had a major impact on Africa in terms of growth, poverty, projects postponed and cancelled and increase in social stress. But is it affecting political outcomes?

President Obama has made two major speeches on African soil recently, one in Cairo, one in Accra. Reactions to the latter have varied widely, from the ecstatic, particularly in Ghana itself, to the sceptical. Kenyans are of course piqued. Some on the continent even saw the choice of Ghana as based upon its recent oil discoveries, missing his intent.

Is the international consensus around Africa’s development in danger of crumbling? The last decade has seen remarkable achievements including the Millennium Declaration and mobilization around the MDGs, Monterrey, the creation of the Global Fund and GAVI, the campaigns for debt relief and to double ODA to Africa, and a consistent focus on Africa by rich countries, including the G8.

Last week two important events took place, simultaneously. One was the World Economic Forum for Africa, in Cape Town, and the other was the Africa Partnership Forum, in Rome. They had several things in common, including great locations. Both exist to catalyze partnerships for development. Both focused on the impact of the global economic crisis.