africa: gloomy development indicators

Africa's defenders feel exasperated at the way words like 'chronic poverty' and 'disease' have become so strongly associated with the continent. They will find little comfort in this year's "African Development Indicators (ADI) 2003" published this month by the World Bank. And to make matters worse, staff at the Bank say in a discussion paper that "Africa will fall far short" of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) aimed at halving poverty by 2015.