Why does Africa lag? Cornell researchers address issues of health and poverty at U.N. meeting

"Africa will probably not meet the Millennium Development Goals, but there is enormous progress taking place and we should not lose sight of that," said Nicolas van de Walle, director of Cornell's Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, speaking at a symposium on governance in Africa at the United Nations in New York on May 21.

The symposium was one of four on Africa that Cornell and the U.N. University have jointly planned for 2007-08. These symposia, open to all members of the U.N., aim to inform two high-level meetings, in New York City on Sept. 22 and 25, on "African Development Needs and the Millennium Development Goals." Each symposium examines a theme relating to why Africa has lagged in efforts to achieve the U.N.'s goals to halve the number of people in the world living with hunger and extreme poverty by 2015.

Governance is "a critical factor in the achievement of the MDGs because it deals with the capacity of a government to deliver," said Muna Ndulo, Cornell professor of law and director of Cornell University's Institute for African Development. For example, to achieve the goals related to health care, you need "a government that is well run," free of corruption and transparent, said Ndulo. "The critical factor is to build institutions," including parliamentary and judicial levels of government, he added.

Educational institutions have also collapsed in many African countries, said Ndulo, adding that governments must provide more funding for schools, and there should be more collaboration with universities in developed countries that can train African researchers and help create new opportunities for research.

In his talk, van de Walle said that in the face of pessimism about Africa,it was important to remember the great progress of the last 20 years in terms of democracy, better collaborations between foreign donors and African governments and economic growth. In spite of election strife in Kenya and Zimbabwe, "democratization is not a sure thing ever, but the progress is huge," said van de Walle.

Also, during the day's discussions, many speakers made recommendations to international donors who agreed to triple aid for the goals campaign, given the implicit understanding that African countries would "clean up" their governments.

But van de Walle said more recommendations, rather than criticisms, should go to the African governments to help them instill changes.

Finally, he noted that countries have "vertical accountability" in the form of free press and elections and "horizontal accountability," which includes checks and balances across the executive, judicial and legislative branches. Many African governments have imbalances when the executive branch gains too much power. Therefore, donors should give more to "strengthening judicial and legislative branches" of government, he said.

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