Author: Lia Beyeler

Africa, Country systems, Development finance

Statebuilding without the State: Getting beyond “chicken and egg” in Somalia

By Dan Honig, Assistant Professor of International Development, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and Sarah Louise Cramer, UN-World Bank Aid Coordination Officer for Somalia

“The credibility of the Somali Government hinges largely on its ability to deliver for the Somali People.” International partners clearly recognise the importance of using country systems to achieve broader statebuilding goals, as this line, taken from the May 2017 Communiqué of the London Conference on Somalia, indicates. Yet, international partners continue to deliver aid primarily through parallel systems, as the Government struggles to raise sufficient domestic revenue to deliver tangible results for its people.

DW: Lessons for Peace in Somalia 

Of an estimated USD 1.75 billion in official development assistance (ODA) for Somalia in 2017, only USD 103.9 million was delivered on budget (approximately 6% of total ODA). Excluding humanitarian aid from this calculation, the proportion of on budget aid rises to 14%, which still lags significantly behind the use of country systems in other fragile states. For example, donors delivered between 28-44% of development-focused aid on budget in the Central African Republic, Mali and Liberia in 2015.[1]

Continue reading “Statebuilding without the State: Getting beyond “chicken and egg” in Somalia”

Lia Beyeler3 Comments
Africa, Data, Food security, Human Development, Policy

Disentangling urban and rural food security issues in West Africa

By Richard Clarke, Consultant, Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat

The rapid growth of cities in West Africa poses significant challenges across development dimensions. In particular, as the location of poverty spreads from rural to urban areas so have issues of food insecurity and malnutrition. Indeed, the potential impact of growing food insecurity in urban areas was highlighted by the widespread rioting over food prices in 2008.

The West African region is set to experience a further doubling of its urban population over the next 20 years, having grown from 6 million to 170 million between 1950 and 2015. This growth will place greater demands on regional food systems, which themselves are increasingly exposed to adverse global climatic and economic conditions, to provide cities with their nutritional needs.   Continue reading “Disentangling urban and rural food security issues in West Africa”

Lia Beyeler
Africa, SME

Three things we have learned about investing in African small businesses and in fragile countries

By Jean-Michel Severino, CEO of Investisseurs & Partenaires

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Africa’s small and medium businesses (SMEs) form what is often called the “missing middle” of African economies. The smaller the investment ticket is, the higher the transaction and monitoring costs are, reducing the net profitability for investors. In addition, the poorer and more fragile the country is,  the riskier the investments are. These are well-known facts amongst private equity professionals. Small businesses require small investments but also long gestation periods, as well as sizeable personalised financing and access to specific expertise and knowledge. Fragile countries require in-depth knowledge of the environment in all its dimensions to make wise choices. This is why so few investors are willing and able to finance small African businesses and invest in complex local situations. The choice of supporting these businesses and investing in fragile countries is primarily a choice of impact. It implies several adjustments to ensure the sustainability of the investment fund.

Continue reading “Three things we have learned about investing in African small businesses and in fragile countries”

Lia Beyeler
Africa, Data, Food security, Policy

Food prices must drop in Africa: How can this be achieved?

By Thomas Allen, Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC/OECD)

After the 2007-08 crisis, we got into the bad habit when discussing food prices of focusing almost exclusively on volatility and overlooking the question of the level of prices. Of course, reasons were good for this; between February 2007 and February 2008, world food prices jumped 60%. These increases combined with local factors had dramatic effects, particularly in West Africa, where millions of households already had insufficient income to cover their basic nutritional needs. Today, according to OECD and FAO projections, food prices are expected to remain stable in the medium-term. This is a good time to re-examine some important questions.

Are food products cheap in sub-Saharan Africa?

The question may seem surprising, as food is no doubt cheaper in the poorest countries. This is the first thing that any tourist would tell you, and it is confirmed by statistics. Sub-Saharan countries do indeed have the lowest prices in absolute terms (see figure). African food products are therefore much more affordable…for the European consumer. What about for the African consumer? Continue reading “Food prices must drop in Africa: How can this be achieved?”

Lia Beyeler9 Comments
Development finance, SDGs

Reflections on scaling up financing for development

By Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee

Blended Finance Watering CanSpending last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos and today in the Private Finance for Sustainable Development conference, my head is spinning with financing for development issues.

Chairing the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), I often find myself reminding members to uphold their aid levels and to use their public finance resources to stimulate private capital for sustainable development.

It’s a balancing act. Governments risk being accused of shying away from commitments when we talk too much about the “innovative financing tools” and about involving the private sector for development outcomes. It is true that upholding aid levels and directing them to countries most in need will continue to be important to leave no one behind. However, OECD countries must continue to move from talking to taking action when it comes to stimulating private finance.

Why? Faced with an estimated USD 2-3 trillion annual funding gap for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, public or philanthropic capital will be able to meet only half of it; opportunities for the private sector, thus, are significant.

Continue reading “Reflections on scaling up financing for development”

Lia Beyeler
Data, Gender, Women and Girls, SDGs

Closing the gender gap requires closing the data gap

By Sarah Hendriks, Director, Gender Equality, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Read the Development Co-operation Report 2017 to find out more about data for development

DCR ID for blogIn many ways the world now is in better shape than ever. The global poverty rate fell below 10%; we see 9 out of 10 girls and boys entering primary school, and around 85% of all the world’s children are vaccinated against the most common diseases.

While we have come a long way, challenges remain. Perhaps the most pressing one is gender equality, since it affects all other areas of a society’s development. Nowhere in the world are males and females truly equal. Women learn less, earn less, have fewer rights and have less control over their assets and bodies. One stark example is that women are less likely to be financially included: 1.1 billion women around the world still do not have a formal bank account.

Underpinning these gaps, one challenge is particularly acute for women and girls: data.

Continue reading “Closing the gender gap requires closing the data gap”

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Data, Development finance, SDGs

With great data comes great responsibility

by Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Chair, Development Assistance Committee
and Jorge Moreira da Silva, Director, Development Co-operation Directorate, OECD

This article is featured in the Development Co-operation Report 2017: Data for Development released today. Read the report and find out more about data for development.

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If USD 142.6 billion falls in the forest of development and no one hears it, does it matter?

That depends on who you are. While mothers in Afghanistan or South Sudan can tell you how their families’ lives have been transformed by effective development programmes every single day, strong data are needed to communicate how these billions of dollars improve the human condition and create more stable societies for all.

In 2016 official development assistance (ODA) to support development goals represented 0.32% of donor countries’ gross national income, an all-time high. However, aid to those who need it most, including least developed countries (LDCs), is declining. The June 2017 report card on the 2030 Development Agenda – the world’s roadmap to end poverty, inequality and injustice for all by 2030 through a set of 17 goals and 232 indicators – tells us progress is slow and data are incomplete.

Continue reading “With great data comes great responsibility”

Lia Beyeler
Data, Development finance, SDGs

Improving sustainable development data is a task for all

by Martine Durand, OECD Chief Statistician and Director of the OECD Statistics Directorate

This article is featured in the Development Co-operation Report 2017: Data for Development to be released on 17 October 2017. Read the report and find out more about data for development.

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In an era of fake news and alternative facts, statisticians have a special responsibility. As the custodians of the evidence base for policy making, they must stand up for the right of all citizens to true, reliable and accessible information.

This is especially the case in the development field, and even more so since world leaders adopted the extraordinarily ambitious and wide-ranging 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015. At the heart of this global “plan of action for people, planet and prosperity” are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that “are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental”, with the ultimate objective to leave no one behind. Achieving the SDGs will require informed choices about priorities and strategies, and for this we will need a better evidence base than we have today.

But statisticians – and especially statisticians in developing countries – cannot do this job alone.

Continue reading “Improving sustainable development data is a task for all”

Lia Beyeler
Africa, Human Development, Policy, Security

The blurred boundaries of political violence in the Sahel-Sahara

By Olivier Walther, Visiting Associate Professor, Center for African Studies at the University of Florida and Associate Professor, University of Southern Denmark

Explore the OECD West African Papers series for more work on African socio-economic, political and security dynamics.

The Sahel and the Sahara are faced with exceptional political instability involving a combination of rebellions, jihadist insurgencies, coups d’état, protest movements and illegal trafficking. Analysis of the outbreaks of violence reveals that the region is not just the victim of an escalation of wars and conflicts that marked the 20th century. The Sahel-Sahara has also become the setting of a globalised security environment, in which boundaries between what is local and global, domestic and international, military and civilian, politics and identity are blurred.

Local grievances, global reach

A shared characteristic of many conflicts in the Sahel-Sahara is that belligerents often leverage global ideas to pursue local and national claims. Boko Haram, for example, simultaneously exploits the pan-Islamist vision of a unified Muslim world, whose boundaries transcend national borders to embrace all believers, and the historical narrative of the Kanem-Bornu empire that reigned over the Lake Chad region for around 1 000 years. These players also rely on the investment of global resources into struggles that are driven by local and national aspirations. For Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in particular, the unofficial ransoms paid by foreign governments in exchange for hostages represent amounts estimated at several tens of millions of dollars.
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Lia Beyeler2 Comments
Africa, Food security, Policy, Youth

Strengthening Regional Agricultural Integration in West Africa

By John Staatz, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University

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Photo credit: Ryan Vroegindewey

Soaring and volatile international food prices since 2007-08 have forced West African governments and their development partners to translate their long-standing rhetoric about support for West African agriculture into concrete programmes. Doing so effectively, however, has proven much more challenging than simply meeting the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) goal of increasing the share of national budgets and donor funds dedicated to the agricultural sector. A recently released joint study by the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) and Michigan State University (MSU) draws lessons from such efforts over the past 10 years and suggests ways in which policies and programmes can be more effective in helping West Africa feed its young, burgeoning and increasingly urban population. Research by MSU, SFSA and West African scholars provides a number of crucial policy insights. Continue reading “Strengthening Regional Agricultural Integration in West Africa”

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