However, despite the occasional but inevitable failure in manufacturing and other industries, there was little risk of a domino-effect ripple through its still relatively unsophisticated banking system, Karimjee said. 'I don't think the banks are exposed to the extent that the few failures you will see in the real sector will cause them to crash,' he said...." [Reuters/Factiva]
Reuters adds that "...budget deficits across the region will balloon as falling commodity prices and demand from Western countries take their toll, the African Economic Outlook 2009 said, forecasting a budget deficit of 5.5 percent of output, which compares with a surplus of 3.4 percent seen in the previous annual study.... 'Africa has been hit and it has been hit hardest,' AfDB chief economist Louis Kasekende told journalists at the bank's annual meeting, held this year in the Senegalese capital. He called on African governments to resist the temptation to resort to protectionist measures as they attempt to support ailing economies...." [Reuters (5/10)/Factiva]
Citing Dambisa Moyo's book, Dead Aid, Kagame said that "...the cycle of aid and poverty is durable: as long as poor nations are focused on receiving aid they will not work to improve their economies. ..."
Kagame added that "...often, aid has left recipient populations unstable, distracted and more dependent; as Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister of Afghanistan, has pointed out, it can even sever the relationship between democratically elected leadership and the populace. ..."
He also said that although "...we appreciate support from the outside ... it should be support for what we intend to achieve ourselves. No one should pretend that they care about our nations more than we do; or assume that they know what is good for us better than we do ourselves. They should, in fact, respect us for wanting to decide our own fate. ...
While this is encouraging, we know the road to prosperity is a long one. We will travel it with the help of a new school of development thinkers and entrepreneurs, with those who demonstrate they have not just a heart, but also a mind for the poor." [Financial Times]
Anti-malaria drugs much more powerful than previous versions will be put within reach of millions more people in Africa and Asia due to an initiative launched today by the"There is no reason any child should die of malaria anymore," said Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is managing the new $225 million partnership to reduce the price of the drugs.
"We have insecticide-impregnated bed nets to protect families from mosquitoes and effective drugs to treat those who do fall ill. Now we only need to ensure that all who need these things get them," he added
The combination of bed nets and drugs that cure malaria quickly has reduced malaria deaths by between 50 per cent and 90 per cent in areas where both are widely available, according to the Fund.
Malaria is a potentially deadly disease that is transmitted through mosquito bites and kills more than 2,000 children every day. Children make up nearly 90 per cent of the nearly 1 million people who die from malaria every year, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia.
The new drugs, known as "artemisinin combination therapies" or ACTs, are currently 10 - 40 times more expensive when sold over the counter than the old drugs which have lost their effectiveness because the malaria parasite has developed resistance to them.
As a result of the high cost, many still buy these cheaper less effective drugs and currently, only one in every five patients treated for malaria has access to ACTs, the Fund said.
The new initiative, known as the Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria, will reduce the price of effective malaria drugs so they can drive older, ineffective drugs out of the market.
The initiative was developed through Roll-Back Malaria – a broad partnership of public and private institutions that includes the Global Fund along with the World Bank, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Dutch Government, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Foundation.
The initial costs of $225-233 million for medicines in the first two years will be shared by the Government of the United Kingdom and UNITAID, an international mechanism to finance quality-assured medicines and diagnostics against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, created by France and supported by Norway and 26 other nations.
Several other organizations and Governments have indicated willingness to contribute additional funding to the initiative, the Fund said.
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Bioenergy production reaps benefits for rural communities in poor countries, according to a new United Nations-backed report that examined projects in one dozen countries spanning the globe.Although the bioenergy debate has centered on liquid fuels used for transport, over 80 per cent of bioenergy used involves other sources, mainly wood, that are used for household cooking and heating in the world's poorest areas, the study – published jointly by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) – said.
Concern over the impact of transporting the biofuels on the environment, water resources and food security has obscured bioenergy's many positive benefits for poor people in rural areas.
Among the benefits of bioenergy cited by the study are increased natural resource efficiency because energy can be created from waste that would otherwise be burned or left to rot and the creation of useful by-products such as cheap fertilizer.
In the 15 'start-up' bioenergy projects in 12 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia assessed by the report, "the local community benefited from improved energy access both for domestic and business use," said Oliver Dubois, a bioenergy expert in FAO's Natural Resources Department.
He said that "virtuous cycles" have developed where people have access to the energy needed for development without funds flowing out of communities or depleting local natural resources.
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In this time of economic turmoil, putting money behind the fight against the AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics is a "smart investment," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, as he urged donors to fund United Nations-backed efforts to stop the spread of the deadly diseases."Across Africa, AIDS threatens to reduce GDP [gross domestic product] by up to 2.6 per cent," warned Mr. Ban in a video message to the mid-term review meeting of the second voluntary replenishment process of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Mr. Ban noted that since 2001 the Global Fund has committed over $10 billion to health programmes in 140 countries, "helping to keep parents, workers and teachers alive and productive."
Programmes supported by the Fund have helped delay the onset of AIDS in 2 million HIV-positive people, detected and treated 4.6 million cases of TB, delivered 70 million insecticide-treated bed nets and administered 74 million malaria drug treatments.
"It has been a success. The Global Fund has saved millions of lives. It is important that we replenish it," Mr. Ban told the meeting in Cacares, Spain.
Pointing to the $4 billion the Global Fund needs to meet its 2010 targets, Mr. Ban said, "I say to you that spending on AIDS, TB and malaria is a smart investment. It is a true recovery package."
According to the Secretary-General, TB costs the world's poorest communities $16 billion a year, whereas containing it will only cost $4.2 billion a year. Similarly, malaria costs Africa $12 billion a year when just $3.4 billion dollars will pay for prevention and treatment.
Mr. Ban called on the international community to honour their commitments made at the Group of Eight (G-8) Gleneagles Summit in 2005 to fully fund all credible plans.
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