Investing in Mothers' Health
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Formerly ‘Africa Recovery’ United Nations Department of Public Information Vol. 21 No. 4 January 2008 Investing in mothers’ h e a l t h Also inside: Saving Africa’s forests State building in Congo AIDS deaths declining UNCDF / Adam Rogers United Nations Vol. 21 No. 4 January 2008 FRI UE ENOUVEAU contentsCover article Investing in the health of Africa’s mothers....................8 Social hurdles to better maternal health ....... 10 Also in this issue A bank in every African pocket? .............3 AIDS deaths are declining, reports UN ........4 Saving Africa’s forests, the ‘lungs of the world’....................5 Building a state for the Congolese people .... 12 Armed groups in eastern Congo........................14 A cleaner bureaucracy, a fuller treasury ..................17 Panos / Giacomo Pirozzi Departments Agenda .........................................22 Books ..........................................22 Briefs ...........................................23 A pregnant woman gets medicine and advice Watch ..........................................24 at a rural clinic in Kenya. Africa Renewal is published in English and French by the Strategic Communications Division Editor-in-Chief of the United Nations Department of Public Information, with support from UNDP, UNICEF and Julie I. Thompson UNIFEM. Its contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or the pub- Managing Editor Writers lication’s supporting organizations. Material from this magazine may be freely reproduced, Ernest Harsch Mary Kimani with attribution to “United Nations Africa Renewal,” and a clipping would be appreciated. Gumisai Mutume Research Assistant Correspondence should be addressed to: Marian Aggrey The Editor, Africa Renewal Administrative Assistant Distribution Room S-955, United Nations, NY 10017, USA Shelly Edelsburg Atar Markman Tel: (212) 963-6857, Fax: (212) 963-4556 e-mail: [email protected] TELL US WHAT Subscribe to Africa Renewal YOU THINK! Annual subscriptions are available to individuals for $20 and to institutions for $35. Please send an international money order or make cheques payable in US dollars, drawn on a US bank, to the “United Nations” and send to Circulation at the address shown above. For Please fill out our reader those who lack the means to pay the subscription fee, a limited number of complimentary subscriptions are available. Please send a clearly written application to the editor. survey at www.un.org/AR Africa Renewal is printed on recycled paper. A bank in every African pocket? Mobile phones expand access to financial services By Mary Kimani “As long as you have that mind-set,” he Established in 2004, Wizzit has signed Kigali says, “it becomes incredibly expensive to up 50,000 South African customers. It nn Wanjiku walks up to a green-and- bring banking to the mass market.” hopes to reach 16 million others, in a coun- white booth with an “M-Pesa agent” As a result, regular bank services are try where some 60 per cent of the popu- A sign on it. There she shows the agent often simply unavailable. Ethiopia has lation has no bank account. Holders of her identity card and her cell phone, which just one bank branch for every 100,000 Wizzit accounts can use any cell phone, displays a PIN number provided by even the cheap, old models popular a client. Using the PIN number, the in low-income communities. Users M-Pesa agent takes just a minute to can deposit cash into their cell-based verify that the client has transferred accounts through any post office or payment for 1,000 traditional carv- any branch of Amalgamated Banks ings into Ms. Wanjiku’s mobile money of South Africa or the South African account. Ms. Wanjiku then withdraws Bank of Athens. Salaries can be paid the amount in cash. electronically into a Wizzit account. Like 90 per cent of Kenyans, Ms. Account holders also receive Maestro Wanjiku does not have an account in debit cards accepted at ATMs and by a regular bank. Across Africa, only 20 retailers. There is no minimum balance per cent of families have formal bank or annual fee, but users pay the equiva- accounts, according to a World Bank lent of US$0.15–0.78 per transaction. survey. In Tanzania the percentage is According to Mohsen Khalil, the as low as 5 per cent, and in Liberia 15 World Bank’s director of global ICT, Alamy Images / Greenstock Photographic Library per cent. Wizzit’s operation is one of the most But the proliferation of mobile innovative approaches to mobile telephone services around the conti- banking, since it specifically targets nent has opened a new way to extend the poor. If this model works in South financial services to people like Ms. Africa, he says, the World Bank will Wanjiku. In the few countries where help the company expand coverage they have emerged, companies such within and beyond the country. “We as M-Pesa can use any phone or phone may be looking here at . the most card to provide affordable services to effective way to provide social and customers wherever there is a mobile economic services to the poor.” phone signal. Expanding such innovations in Touch of a button In South Africa, Kenya and other countries, cell phones the use of modern information and can be used to bring financial services to people who Some counterparts to Wizzit have communications technologies (ICT) have little access to regular banks. emerged elsewhere in Africa. Like Ms. more widely was a central topic at a Wanjiku, about 1 million Kenyans use Connect Africa Summit held in Kigali, M-Pesa, a joint product of the Voda- Rwanda, in October. More than 1,000 people, compared with Spain, which has fone/Safaricom mobile phone company, private-sector, government and donor 96 branches for every 100,000 people. the Commercial Bank of Africa and representatives discussed how such tech- Moreover, requirements to maintain rela- Faulu Kenya, a microfinance organiza- nologies can help in finding solutions to tively high account balances make such tion. M-Pesa customers deposit money Africa’s development problems. services too costly for most Africans. with a registered agent or phone ven- Even in South Africa, which has a dor. The agent then credits the phone Money under mattresses more extensive banking system, it is account. Users can send between 100 Most banks in Africa have branches only estimated that people keep about R12 bn Kenyan shillings ($1.5) and 35,000 shil- in urban areas. Brian Richardson, the chief (US$1.8 bn) “under mattresses,” says lings ($530) via a text message to a de- executive officer of Wizzit South Africa, a Mr. Richardson. “If we could take just a sired recipient — even someone using a cell phone banking facility, notes that ex- small portion of that into the formal bank- different mobile network. The recipient panding access to rural areas has tradition- ing system, the impact on the economy ally involved opening new branch offices. would be enormous.” see page 21 JANUARY 2008 3 AIDS deaths are declining, reports UN But new data show that epidemic remains huge in Africa By Ernest Harsch retroactively, to previous or the first time since the AIDS years, the two UN institu- pandemic was identified a quarter- tions revealed some positive F century ago, “we are seeing a decline trends over time. First, new in global AIDS deaths,” reports Dr. Kevin infections with HIV were De Cock, director of AIDS at the World likely to have peaked in the Health Organization (WHO). Revised fig- late 1990s, when more than ures released by WHO and the Joint UN 3 million people became Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) newly infected annually. The also show that new infections from HIV, revised estimates indicate the virus that causes the disease, have that this total has actually begun to fall as well. been declining since then, Citing more accurate data-collection to some 2.5 million newly methods, the AIDS Epidemic Update infected in 2007. Second, 2007, released jointly by UNAIDS and the number of annual deaths WHO in November, estimates that there from AIDS has also started are about 33.2 million people worldwide to fall, from a high point of living with HIV, compared with the fig- around 2.4 million in 2005 to ure of 39.5 million the two institutions about 2.1 million in 2007. Peter Arnold, Inc. / Neil Cooper had released the year before. The change To an extent, these chang- in the number of people living with HIV ing trends reflect some of the was not an actual decline, the Update has- first significant successes in tened to add, but a statistical revision of AIDS-prevention efforts. estimates after detailed national surveys In a number of countries, in about 30 countries demonstrated that according to national sur- earlier totals were too high. vey results, young people The revision generated considerable are engaging in less risky Young woman promoting AIDS awareness in Swaziland: controversy, with some independent AIDS sexual behaviour, whether Southern Africa remains the most severely afflicted region. experts arguing that the data should have by using protective con- been adjusted earlier. But all agree that the doms or by having fewer newer, more accurate figures have brought or no partners. The report cites evidence other world regions, women and children into the open an important shift in the of such behavioural changes in Botswana, are far more vulnerable to the disease in epidemic’s progression, one that was not Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Togo, Zambia, sub-Saharan Africa. Of those Africans liv- apparent with the older statistics. Zimbabwe and a few other countries. ing with HIV, 61 per cent are women, while In adjusting their overall estimates fully 90 per cent of all HIV-positive children ‘Real nightmares’ in Africa in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa.