Global Monitoring Report-2006
Sub-Saharan Africa
Growth improves, but region largely off-track on MDGs

Poverty levels

• On current trends, most of the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa will not meet any of the Millennium Development Goals.
• In 2002, Africa’s share of population in poverty fell slightly to 44%, compared to 2001's value of 46.4% which was virtually the same as its value in 1990. Current projections are that Africa’s 2015 poverty rate will remain markedly off-target at over 38%.
• The picture on economic growth is more positive. In the region's low-income countries, per capita GDP growth reached an estimated 3% in 2004 and 2005 — a marked improvement on the 1995–2004 average of about 1.7%.

Infrastructure

From the mid-1990s to 2002, the average electrification rate for the region improved to about 27% — a gain of 5 percentage points, but still the lowest in the world. Only an estimated 64% of the population has access to safe drinking water and 37% to improved sanitation. Although the number of telephone subscribers has tripled, less than 5% of households have telephones.

Investment Climate (Return to Top)

According to the World Bank/IFC's Doing Business in 2006, African nations impose the most regulatory obstacles on entrepreneurs and were slower than any other region in implementing reforms to ease constraints on doing business, averaging around 0.6 reforms per country in 2004. But some countries, such as Rwanda and Nigeria, are acting to improve their business environment. Mauritius and South Africa both rank among the top 30 economies globally on the ease of doing business; Namibia is not far behind at 33rd.

• While much of Africa is off track to meet the nutrition target — with conditions even worsening in some countries — notable progress has been made in Gambia.
• Progress has accelerated on universal primary education. In Niger and Guinea, part of the Fast Track Initiative (FTI), primary completion rates have been increasing three times faster than before 2002–3. Countries making  the  fastest progress—FTI countries Ethiopia and Mozambique and others such as Benin and Rwanda — are exceeding the rates of improvement by today’s industrialized countries at a similar point in their history.
• Primary school completion rate for girls is still more than 15% lower than that for boys. In 2015, it is projected that 21 of 133 countries—12 of them in Sub-Saharan Africa—will still have girls’ to boys’ primary enrollment ratios below 0.9. Only 30% of girls in Sub-Saharan Africa go to secondary school.
• Strong-performing countries include Mauritania, which increased the primary enrollment ratio for girls from 39% in 1990 to 85% in 2001.
• Rwanda has made great strides in political participation for women, who comprise 49% of the National Assembly.

Improved spending bodes well for future progress in human development outcomes (Return to Top)

• Countries registering particularly high increases in the budget shares for education and health include Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Zambia.
• While the general trend is up, a few countries have seen large drops in spending shares for education and health: Cameroon, Gambia, and to a lesser extent, Mozambique.

Health in Sub-Saharan Africa (Return to Top)

• Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most HIV/AIDS-affected region in Africa, with 63% of the population living with HIV.
• However, new evidence suggests that prevention programs initiated some time ago are finally bearing fruit in Zimbabwe, the first documented decline in Southern Africa: HIV prevalence appears to have fallen from 26% in 2002 to 21% in 2004.
• Evidence that decreased HIV prevalence also reflects real successes of HIV prevention programs comes from recent comparisons of prevention activities across regions in Tanzania and across the Uganda-Kenya border.

Child and maternal mortality (Return to Top)

• In some African counties, particularly those hardest hit by conflict or HIV/AIDS — Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, and Swaziland — child mortality rates are rising.
• On the other hand, some countries — Eritrea, Comoros, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Guinea—show exceptionally sharp increases in child survival — reflecting in part an expanded immunization coverage.
• In Madagascar, the current pace of decline in child mortality (more than 4.3% a year) is sufficient to reach the MDG.
• There has been almost no improvement in maternal mortality since 1990 in Africa: In 1990, 40% of women had skilled attendants at delivery; in 2003, it was 41%.

Monitoring and Improving Governance (Return to Top)

Improving governance and fighting corruption in Africa is a major challenge. But while there are great distances to go, there is certainly progress:

• Among the most significant developments is the creation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) with the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) to foster better governance. So far 25 countries have formally acceded to the APRM. Ghana is the farthest along in the process and Rwanda is also underway.
• An effective bureaucracy facilitates the scaling-up of aid. There are numerous examples of progress in Africa in this area. In terms of public financial management for example, according to the World Bank’s performance criteria (the CPIA), Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Tanzania and Uganda were among the better performers.
• The 2006 Global Monitoring Report points to Tanzania as an example of effective administrative reform, underway since 1991. The program incorporates both a phased approach to pay reform, and a performance improvement model that gives individual agencies incentives to clarify their role and mission, develop strategic plans, and identify and address capacity development needs.
• Several countries have adopted Freedom of Information Laws. South Africa enacted a comprehensive law in 2001, and many countries in southern and central Africa, mostly members of the Commonwealth, are following suit.
• Checks and balances are improving, if unevenly. Among the forces supporting transparency is an active civil society. In Tanzania, the Rural Initiatives and Relief Agency helped 10 local communities track government program expenditures for health and education. The pilot projects appear to have helped ensure that commitments to deliver funds were met. The expenditure tracking tool has been made available to CSOs in other rural areas of the country.
• Civil society engagement is increasing, albeit slowly, and is well developed in Ghana, Rwanda and Uganda. Rwanda’s poverty reduction strategy (PRS) process is notable for the level participation and disclosure. According to one “voice and accountability” measure, Benin, Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, São Tomé and Principe, and Senegal ranked high.
• Adopted in 2003, the comprehensive African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption has been ratified by 10 countries so far.
• More than half of the 20 countries participating in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Under the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, launched in 2003 to prevent raw diamond production from fueling conflicts, 19 country reports had been produced by the end of 2005.

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