*{World Bank Strategies in Africa [http://www.weforum.org/site/knowledgenavigator.nsf/Content/World%20Bank%20Strategies%20in%20Africa?open&topic_id=300350000&theme_id=300]

            22.06.2000

            Southern Africa Economic Summit 2000}

            Alan Gelb, Director of Economic Management and Social Policy of the World Bank's Africa Region, utilized the session to outline possible new strategic directions of the World Bank group in response to its operations evaluation.

            Overall, concessional finance to Africa amounts to between $14-15 billion per annum. The World Bank is not the most important international donor agency but has been very influential in the policy direction of African governments. Coordination with other concessional funders such as the EU should be considered. 

            Gelb noted that since 1990, foreign assistance to Africa has fallen from approximately $30 per capita to $18 in 2000. This can be attributed to both disillusionment with the impact of donor funding and the declining strategic importance of Africa in the post cold war period. Debt relief can be seen as a way of releasing funds to African governments and thereby improving their capacity for sovereignty.

            Funding delivery mechanisms however need to be re-evaluated. One alternative mechanism is direct funding of community-based initiatives. This approach probably requires accompanying decentralization of operations, thereby allowing for more frequent and effective monitoring and evaluation. The second mechanism is budgetary support to well-conceptualized government programmes (for example, those combating HIV/AIDS). These programmes should not merely consider the capital funding requirements but also the recurrent cost implications of the initiatives. Governance, notably an outcomes-based approach to evaluation, is essential to the success of this mechanism. Roughly one-fifth of African economies suffer from a breakdown of adequate governance mechanisms.

            Institutional frameworks and capacity-building have been neglected components of governance development. This could complement the importance attached to proper macroeconomic management by sovereign governments, the weighting of which has become even more important recently. While population size and the extent of poverty remain components of selection criteria, they are not relatively important in determining funding flows.

            During discussion emanating from the floor, further recommendations were forthcoming. The potential for promoting regional cooperation in infrastructure programs (such as power share-pooling and water catchment management) was mooted but the high transaction costs of negotiating such programmes were a countervailing influence. Economic sectors worthy of promotion through PPPs in Africa included tourism, infrastructure development, agro-processing and mineral beneficiation. The latter two were candidates for promoting exports (and hence tariff revenues for African governments). Another area for consideration is the partnership between commercial banks and micro lenders with the former serving a primarily regulatory function. However, it was noted that Africa lacked the population densities and social cohesion that enabled the likes of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank.                

                  *{Contributors:       Gelb Alan
                  Griesel Bert}