Whilst undoubtedly a significant step forward for the southern African movement against the neo-liberal domination of the global economy by multi-national corporations, a Southern African Social Forum meeting in Zambia last week experienced some of the same tensions that have recently expressed themselves in the wider social justice movement. There were noticeable divisions between NGOs, many of which see their primary role to lobby their Governments and the IFIs to lessen the impact of neo-liberalism, and more radical social movements that seek to challenge the structure of the global economy itself. This tension is heightened in an area like southern Africa, where many development NGOs are dependent on western donors and NGOs for their funding. The irony that the Forum was partially funded by the Open Society Institute, a philanthropic body established by billionaire George Soros, was not lost on more radical participants. (See Pambazuka News 132 for the full Southern African Social Forum statement.)

Much research on urban development is supply-led - generated by the interests of donors and researchers in the North rather than the needs of poor households in the growing cities of the South. Communicating for Development focuses attention on the most fundamental of questions about development: how can the lessons of good practice and innovation and the results of research benefit the poor?

An excellent editorial (Pambazuka News 132: International Institutions and Development in Africa).

Excellent as always.

UN officials have warned of a move towards a “silent humanitarian emergency” in Eritrea unless the level of international aid is sustained. Christian Balslev-Oleson, country representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), pointed out that malnutrition among women and children in the traditional breadbasket regions of Gash Barka and Anseba was rising rapidly.

Seldom could such a drastic reversal in direction have attracted so little attention. The market simply ignored it. There was little or no comment on it. And yet President Thabo Mbeki announced a fortnight ago that the neo-liberal market economic approach must be abandoned. But at the end of the day, argues this article, Mbeki is doing the old classical political thing: talking left but doing right.

The cabinet in Uganda has paved the way for senior figures including the president's brother to be tried for corruption and wasting state resources. The officials are accused of wasting millions of dollars buying two unusable second-hand helicopters from Belarus.

Namibia could soon be forced to borrow from the World Bank if it adopts a plan to overhaul the education system, which has been gobbling up huge chunks of funds with relatively little to show for the expenditure. A decision to borrow from the World Bank would put paid to the country's refusal to become a debtor to the Washington-based institution and its sister body, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which President Sam Nujoma has described as imperialist agents.

Develop your skills and competency with this unique course that offers participants the opportunity to acquire a recognised qualification Topics covered include: Introduction to fundraising and Why donors invest in nonprofit organisations.

In less than a year, the African Development Bank (AfDB) will be celebrating its 40th anniversary. This comes at a time when there is growing consensus all over the continent on the need for Africa to have ownership of its development. In tune with this, African heads of states in June 2003 committed their leadership to the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which centres on African ownership and management of the agenda, strategy and process of the continent's development. In fact, the overarching goal is for “Africa to claim this millennium”.

The AfDB is tasked with co-ordinating and facilitating NEPAD. The African Development Bank (AfDB) is widely regarded as the premier financial and development institution of Africa. The Bank started operations in 1966 with a clear mandate to promote the economic and social development of its regional members and to promote international dialogue and understanding of development issues relevant to Africa. Within its general policies, the AfDB emphasised the importance of planning an energy sector for social and economic development, and indicated the intention to provide energy services to the maximum number of households at the least economic and environmental cost. This was to be done through loans, equity investments, and technical assistance to regional member countries. This envisaged regional leadership has remained a pipe dream, however, as institutions of global economic governance like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund provided external influences on Bank operations.

It is important to assess how far the Bank has lived up to its commitment to position Africa's infrastructure on the path to sustainable development. A look at the AfDB energy portfolio provides answers to these questions, while basic indicators of transparency between the AfDB and the World Bank are also worth looking at.

Energy policy and accessibility is a pillar of economic and human development. It is estimated that between 40-45 percent of Africa's 730 million people live in absolute poverty. Thirty percent are extremely poor and most of these are women. Energy poverty prevails. The availability of clean, safe energy services is vital for human livelihood and sustainable development. Poverty prevalence and health standards are inextricably linked to energy policy. Africa boasts an array of substantial renewable energy resource options, which if exploited intelligently could electrify rural areas. Solar, micro-hydro, wind and geothermal energy would bring power sooner and with lower environmental impact than conventional policies have done.

The Bank says lending in the traditional sector (i.e. fossil-fuel power plants) has significantly declined [and that] over the recent past, there has been a shift in the bank's lending from conventional energy projects to rural, decentralised projects incorporating renewables. Such a shift is overdue: in the year 2000, just one renewable energy project was funded by the Bank and typically, about 3 percent of AfDB energy investments went to such projects.

The importance of energy to development is acknowledged in the AfDB 1994-draft energy policy which even stated Bank support for the promotion of solar, wind and micro-hydro initiatives. Several small initiatives have helped to identify and promote viable renewable energy technologies but these have been temporary and marginal to the vast majority of energy spending. And the new energy policy of the AfDB borrows greatly from the World Bank programme of privatising publicly owned energy companies. This programme has not resulted in improved development or sustainable energy in developing countries around the world. In this light, AfDB would-be energy policies are highly unlikely to improve energy access in rural areas nor boost development.

Though the AfDB was founded by African governments holding a majority ownership on paper, they don't exert proportionate influence over the Bank. Fifty-three member countries are African while 24 are non-regional members. Within the Bank, the role of non-regional members is large and growing. Since 1999, the share of regional members has shrunk to 60 percent, down from 67 percent, while non-regional members own the remaining 40 percent, up from 33 percent.

Conventions that are upheld within the Bank provide clear possibilities for skewed priority setting. The non-African member countries that provide the capital and set policies in the World Bank also strongly influence the AfDB. So far, the AfDB has not developed viable Africa-relevant alternatives and more often abides by World Bank prescriptions, remaining silent on the negative aspects of the privatisation of public services and assets.

Though it has not assumed leadership in Africa's development, the AfDB is still an important influence over regional and domestic energy policy. Aside from direct spending influence, regional development banks can actually prescribe national policy reforms. The introduction of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in the 1980s by the World Bank and the IMF prompted the AfDB to equally engage in policy based lending. Rather than alleviating poverty, these economic adjustment policies instead generated poverty in the sense that unemployment increased, real wages fell and governments cut social expenditures.

Through policy-based lending, International Financial Institutions (IFIs) facilitate the opening of emerging energy markets to foreign investment through privatisation and deregulation. Development bank sponsored energy sector restructuring and projects for the extraction, processing, transport and combustion of fuels for energy provision have enormous impacts on peoples livelihoods and health and on the environment as well as the affordability or otherwise of essential electricity and liquid fuels. At least in theory - through the resultant economic growth and exposure to market rules - this process facilitates competition and transparency. But in practice the transfer of control and ownership of resources and infrastructure is removing, rather than introducing opportunities for public oversight.

African Development Bank representatives reside in most client countries often with a skeleton staff for basic tasks excluding public liaison. The total absence of full resident missions in some countries of operation precludes the facilitation of information dissemination and public dialogue. AfDB units such as that in Cameroon, which is housed within UNDP offices, have as few as two staff to follow up Bank financed projects and who therefore do not provide information on general Bank operations. Most offices maintain only limited information on projects and are not always ready to release it to the public. The absence of functioning Bank structures in most member countries makes it difficult even for the Bank itself to evaluate the projects it finances, let alone for those operations to be transparent to others.

Public notification is not a requirement when a project comes up for internal consideration: the first step in the approval process. It is invariably difficult to obtain project information, especially project briefs for which access is limited to management and Board members. Project documents are only released once an internal evaluation of the project has taken place and even then, only at the Bank's headquarters in Abidjan. Even this after-the-fact information disclosure can be avoided when the Bank cites legal restrictions or practical constraints or deems the information sensitive or privileged in which case it may be classed as confidential, for official use only. When they are finally available to the public, project files contain the terms of reference and operational directives of the bank but not the financial aspects or information about private sector partners. At this point, the project-in-pipeline becomes available on the official web-site including country, sector and cost of project but has already reached an advanced stage of the approvals process with minimal stakeholder input. Even so, it is regarded as very difficult for an affected community to discuss a planned project with the bank once it appears publicly.

It is worth noting that, though the AfDB and World Bank shareholder constituencies are European and US dominated, the standard of Information Disclosure, Environmental Impact Assessment and Resettlement Policy are substantially lower in the AfDB.

Given the demonstrable power IFIs wield over development prospects and energy sector reform, and the urgent need for sustainable energy provision, transparency within International Financial Institutions is imperative. Because a projects value depends not only on its profitability to investors but its contribution, or at very least its absence of detriment, to the people that live most closely with the consequences, they must have a say over whether the project proceeds and under what terms. Effective public participation, in turn, relies on good information disclosure policy and practice on the part of the Bank. Even as lenders of last resort for many types of programmes, the African Development Bank could function better by aligning policies and projects more carefully with a broader spectrum of stakeholders, especially those directly affected by individual projects. Public funds should not be used for projects or policy reform exercises that affected people are not informed of prior to implementation nor for which no reasonable avenue of appeal exists.

As the controversies over bank reform priorities, policies and projects are broadcast from project-affected people and NGOs to a wider audience - including the major constituencies of Bank Executive Directors in the US, Japan and Europe, greater accountability is being demanded. Development banks and the private sector must exercise the principles and standards of operation that would be expected in their shareholder countries, starting with the basics of reasonable and consistent information disclosure standards across regions. To position Africa on the trajectory to sustainable development, AfDB should make its policies and project documents transparent and based on public input. This is the only path to true ownership of any development initiative for Africa. Until use of public funds is subject to public scrutiny, energy policy that reflects African needs, aspirations and sustainable development will remain elusive for this millennium.

* Akong Charles Ndika is an Energy Policy Analyst with Global Village Cameroon

* Please send comments on this editorial to

African leaders must move fast and integrate the Nepad strategy within the African Union structure. This would make decision-making on development issues easier and more efficient and reduce the conflict of interests that might arise between the Nepad (New Partnership for Africa's Development) secretariat and the African Union (AU), a top Nepad official said.

At their Spring meetings held in April 2003, the major shareholders of the World Bank and IMF considered how they could "enhance the voice and participation" of developing countries in the decisions and policy-making of the institutions. This paper - prepared at the invitation of the Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN) - discusses some of the issues around, and options for reforming, the governance structures of the World Bank and IMF.

Kenyan prosecutors on Wednesday charged a businessman at the centre of Kenya's biggest fraud case with trying to bribe a judge, intensifying a crackdown on high-level graft in the judiciary. Prosecutors said Kamlesh Pattni, a well-connected Kenyan whose fraud trial in the so-called Goldenberg case has dragged on for years without resolution, tried to bribe a judge to induce him to release his passport, which is held by a court.

The Southern Africa media has been urged to strengthen their principal democratic role of providing accurate information and acting as watchdogs pertaining to elections, as there is a higher probability of electoral fraud during the electoral period in most southern African countries.

Women and children continue to bear the brunt of human rights violations in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where, despite some progress towards peace, rape is still being used as a weapon of war, and children are still being recruited to fight these wars, according to two new UN reports.

Andre Tarallo, 76, nicknamed "Mr Africa" for his close ties to several African leaders has been sentenced to four years in prison and fined two million euros. He was among three former top executives of the French oil firm Elf sentenced to terms of up to five years in prison on corruption charges in a Paris court.

One of the world's leading electrical companies, Schneider Electric, has been implicated in a R16 million bribery case in the Lesotho High Court. The alleged bribery relates to the construction of the now-completed Lesotho Highlands Water Project. French-based Schneider calls itself one of the world's leading manufacturers of equipment for electrical distribution, industrial control and automation. It boasts operations in 130 countries.

Zambia has been host to the first ever Southern Africa Social Forum held at the Mulungushi Conference Center, from Sunday, 9 November, till today, 11 November.

We have been meeting as anti-globalisation activists, social movements, NGOs and unions opposed to neo-liberalism and corporate-led globalisation. We have drawn our inspiration from the growing international anti-globalisation movement as symbolized in the form of the World Social Forum, and from its African counterpart, the African Social Forum.

Our gathering included women and men, youth and the more elderly, from Angola, the DRC, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean delegation demonstrated its commitment by traveling in large numbers by road. The Tanzanian and Malawian delegates also traveled by road. There were also participants from countries beyond Southern Africa. Participants from Kenya and Britain delivered messages of solidarity.

We unanimously agreed that the globalisation process, dominated by the giant transnational corporations from the North, is impacting negatively on the people in our region. We rejected the role played by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organisation in imposing the agenda of the governments and corporations of the North. We noted the ways in which many of our governments have supported this agenda. We rejected Nepad as an expression of support by certain leaders of our continent for the world's elite at the expense of the majority in the Southern African region and the continent as a whole. We noted with serious concern the role of the South African government and the expansion of South African corporations throughout the region at the expense of local economies. We rejected this new form of colonialism and sub-imperialism.

Over the last three days, we have deliberated on many themes, including: gender, HIV/Aids, debt, trade, governance, education, culture, labour, malaria, media and ICTs, land and environment, agriculture and food security, youth and peace and security. Some of the areas of agreement arising out of these deliberations include:

~ We reject HIPC and the PRSPs as nothing other than the continuation of structural adjustment. The debt owed to the World Bank, IMF and other Northern creditors must be be unconditionally cancelled;
~ Privatisation has put social services out of reach of the majority and must be vigorously opposed;
~ We must go beyond the demands for debt cancellation, an end to structural adjustment conditionalities and a reversal of privatization. Apartheid, debt, SAPs and privatisation have caused immense damage in the region, and those responsible, including those banks and companies that supported Apartheid, as well as the World Bank and IMF that have imposed their disastrous economic policies, must make reparations for the damage caused;
~ On HIV/Aids, the governments in the region must have comprehensive policies to address the issues of stigmatization, discrimination, prevention, treatment and care. In particular, we say: Treat the People Now!;
~ We must abolish inequality with regard to gender, and governments must introduce clear policies towards gender equality;
~ We insist on the right to free education;
~ We demand youth participation at all levels of society in the region;
~ We must put a stop to gun-running and the mercenary business;
~ There must be significant redistribution of land to the poor and, in particular, to women. The poor and women must be involved in decision-making in this regard; and
~ We must develop our sub-regional resource base to ensure the agricultural capacity to achieve food security, including developing our human resources, protecting our natural resources, developing infrastructure and ensuring access to finance.

During the forum, a delegation from the debt, trade and labour theme joined other civil society leaders in meeting the IMF mission in Zambia. They let the mission know that the IMF is not welcome in Zambia and Southern Africa. It was told in no uncertain terms: Pack Up and Go!

We are saying enough is enough! We have committed ourselves to build the social forum from the grassroots up. We will take on the task of building strong social movements to challenge the global system and the way it manifests in the region. This gathering of the social forum is an initial step in that process.

Another Africa is in the making!

This is our time!

* For more information, visit http://earth.prohosting.com/sasf2003/mission.htm

The gathering presents a platform for participants from around the world to share information and insight on the impact of Information Technologies on Economic Development. It is a forum for professionals and executives to exchange information and identify new opportunities in today's highly competitive and rapidly changing world.

According to SABCnews, a report from the Auditor General has revealed that more than R40mn of unspent donor funds allocated to government's Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) have been returned to the respective donor countries. The blame for the long-standing difficulties in spending donor funds has been blamed on government bureaucracy.