Still Our Common Interest Commission for Africa Report 2010

STILL OUR COMMON INTEREST COMMISSION FOR AFRICA REPORT 2010 EMBARGOED until midnight 12 september 2010 STILL OUR COMMON INTEREST CONTENTS Preface 2 Executive summary 3 INTRODUCTION: AFRICA FIVE YEARS ON 5 What ‘Our Common Interest’ said 7 What happened next 9 How Africa has changed 10 New opportunities and challenges for Africa 17 Is ‘Our Common Interest’ still relevant? 22 AUDIT OF PROGRESS AGAINST THE 2005 RECOMMENDATIONS 23 Getting systems right: Governance and capacity-building 24 The need for peace and security 29 Leaving no-one out: Investing in people 34 Going for growth 43 More trade and fairer trade 47 Where will the money come from: resources 51 Making it happen 55 CONCLUSION: STILL OUR COMMON INTEREST 57 What needs to happen next 58 ‘Our Common Interest’- now more than ever 58 Recommendations 59 Governance 59 Peace and security 60 Investing in people 61 Promoting inclusive growth 63 Climate change 64 Trade 64 Resources 65 Making it happen 66 ANNEXES 67 Annex 1: Acronyms and abbreviations 67 Annex 2: The commissioners 68 1 COMMISSION FOR AFRICA PREFACE This publication would not have been possible without the commitment and support of a number of individuals and institutions. Financial support for the production of the report and associated events has come from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Small Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. They have also given us encouragement throughout. Without them, there would be no report. We are enormously grateful to them. Many bodies and organisations have produced or will produce reports in this crucial year of assessing progress against the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The risks of duplication and mixed messages are high; the rewards of maximising the synergies are higher still. We are pleased to have had the opportunity to cooperate with many colleagues and organisations who share the same aims for a prosperous and secure future for African citizens. In particular, the Commission for Africa has bene! ted from the analysis and policy prescriptions to be found in the reports from African Monitor (Development Support Monitor 2010), ONE (The DATA Report 2010), the Africa Progress Panel (From Agenda to Action: Turning Results into Resources. Africa Progress Report 2010) and the Africa Partnership Forum (Mutual Report on Development E! ectiveness 2010). A number of organisations have been of particular help to us in various ways in putting together and promulgating this report and associated events. These include the UN; Wilton Park; the Open University (OU); the British Museum; and Portland PR. We thank them very much. We have enjoyed the intellectual, moral and logistical support of Tony German, Judith Randel, Daniel Coppard, Asma Zubairi, Rosanna Mann and their colleagues at Development Initiatives, and of Andy Sumner, Ricardo Santos, Graca Sousa and Mohammed Nurul Azam at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Sussex throughout; we owe a large debt of gratitude to all of them. Many other individuals – Rebecca A" older, Laura Kelly, Nick Stern and Zahid Torres-Rahman among them – have helped us to take into account key developments, including in speci! c policy areas such as health, trade and the private sector. We would also like to thank our copy editor David Wilson for proof-reading and Diane Broadley Design for the design of this report. Above all, our thanks are due to the Commissioners. They have enthusiastically embraced the notion, and recognised the value, of a follow-up report which only they could produce, because it comments on their own recommendations. Those original recommendations were made in 2005, one-third of the way into the timetable for the MDGs. This review comes, in 2010, two-thirds of the way towards the proposed completion of that timetable. The Commissioners have willingly given their time, their support, their comments and their energy. They believed in 2005 that it was in our common interest to work together for a well-governed and prosperous Africa. They still believe that to be the case. We have been delighted to support them in this work. This is their report. Myles A Wickstead CBE Claire Hickson September 2010 2 STILL OUR COMMON INTEREST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY “This is our responsibility, it is the responsibility of this generation, it is costed, it clearly is a! ordable and this is what must take us forward, together.” Trevor Manuel, at the launch of Our Common Interest, March 2005 When the Commission for Africa’s report, Our Common Interest, was launched in 2005, the Commissioners hailed the report as providing a coherent and practical package of measures for the creation of a strong and prosperous Africa. They called upon Africa and its partners to implement them. The purpose of this report – published ! ve years later – is to ! nd out what has happened since. Our Common Interest argued that responsibility for tackling poverty in Africa lay in the hands of Africans and that the rest of the world, particularly developed economies, should follow their lead by providing resources, through aid and debt cancellation, but also by ending the damage being done to Africa’s fortunes by unfair trade rules, ine" ective aid, corruption, the trade in con# ict resources and arms, and irresponsible business practices. As the report’s title itself states, we have a collective common interest in a strong and prosperous Africa because it would lead to a more prosperous and secure world. The Commission’s recommendations had considerable in# uence. It contributed to the agreement at Gleneagles to double aid to Africa and provide 100% debt relief to eligible countries. It contributed to the creation of the Investment Climate Facility for Africa, the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa and Business Action for Africa. It gave support to the creation of the UN Peacebuilding Commission and to the UN decisions to commence discussions on an international Arms Trade Treaty later in 2005. As discussed in the ! rst section of this new report, Still Our Common Interest, Africa has made extraordinary progress in the past ! ve years. From 2003 to 2008, the continent sustained average annual growth rates of 6%. Foreign investment and exports quadrupled. This was largely driven by African governments’ e" orts to make it easier to do business in their countries supported by increased African and international investment in infrastructure - as well as record levels of demand for African goods. This demand for Africa’s natural resources, particularly from emerging economies, has transformed the continent’s relationships with the outside world. Relief for debt valued at $100 billion and a 46% increase in aid to Africa since 2004 have helped African countries increase their spending on health, education and other social sectors. Governance has improved in many countries, and though some existing con# icts remain intractable, there have been no major new con# icts on the continent. As a result of this progress, many commentators are predicting great things for Africa. Growing external demand for Africa’s goods and its growth as a market for goods from elsewhere could see Africa becoming the next major emerging market, with increased political power to match. However, this progress has not been enough to put sub-Saharan Africa on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Despite the massive progress made by some countries in reducing poverty, sub-Saharan Africa as a whole will not achieve any of the MDGs on time and the vast majority of Africans have yet to bene! t from the economic success of recent years. Economic growth and trade have been damaged by the global economic crisis. Climate change and rising food prices will make poverty reduction more challenging in many parts of the continent. At the centre of this new report is an ‘audit’ of action against all of the recommendations made by the 2005 report on governance, peace and security, investing in people, growth, trade, aid and reform of international organisations. There has been substantial progress in some areas. In addition to the steps taken by African governments to improve the investment climate, a substantial increase in investment in infrastructure has contributed to Africa’s growth. Progress has been made towards an international Arms Trade Treaty. Ever growing donor support for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) means that this year the 300 millionth child will be immunised with a GAVI-supported vaccine. African governments’ commitment alongside strong donor support has enabled access to the anti-retroviral treatments for HIV/AIDS to grow from 14% in 2005 to 43% in 2008. More children go to primary school and more get to sleep under a bed net that can protect them from malaria than ever before. Africa is very close to eradicating polio. 3 COMMISSION FOR AFRICA But there are also a few areas where progress has been disappointing. International trade reform is perhaps the area of least progress with no movement towards an agreement in the Doha Development Agenda, on the removal of agricultural subsidies or on trade agreements between the EU and African countries. The Commission called for the amount of arable land under irrigation to it be increased by 50% by 2010 – it has grown by just 0.9%. Investment in higher and technical education has not increased – contributing to a continuing shortage of trained teachers, doctors and other key professionals. Progress on most recommendations has been mixed. Advances in expanding enrolment in and closing the gap between girls and boys going to primary school, for example, have been tempered by a relative lack of progress in improving the quality of basic education, completion rates and enrolment in post-primary education. Africa still accounts for the majority of new HIV infections. Expanded support to sexual and reproductive health services masks an ongoing underinvestment in reproductive health, contributing to the lack of progress in reducing child and maternal mortality.

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