Climate change will cause severe drought conditions in large areas of Africa by 2050, according to findings presented in early November at the Buenos Aires global warming conference. The projections on global warming's impact, prepared by a British research team, point to an additional 30 million people hit by famine in 50 years' time because of the reduced ability to grow crops in large parts of Africa.
Forecasting an average 6 per cent increase in global land temperatures over the next century, the study concludes that climate change will have the strongest impact on food supply in Southern and Central Africa and parts of North and South America. The study also projects rising sea levels world wide, with the coasts of Egypt and West and East Africa among the most vulnerable regions. Global warming could also cause malaria to spread to parts of the world which are now free of the disease, including the eastern highlands of Africa and parts of Europe.
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Cape Verde, along with the Maldives, Samoa and Vanuatu, may be removed from the UN's list of the world's 48 poorest nations by the year 2000. The UN Committee for Development Planning recommended that these four states should be categorized as developing countries instead of least developed countries (LDCs) because of increases in per capita income and other signs of improved economic performance. Before it can take effect, the recommendation must be acted on by the 185-member UN General Assembly.
But the four countries are reluctant to leave the category of the "poorest of the poor," since LDC status confers certain privileges and concessions such as a higher proportion of grants and debt cancellation.
The four LDCs want the UN to defer its decision until their special status as fragile, tiny economies is fully evaluated. Per capita income, one of the determining indicators used in categorizing LDCs, is not always an accurate means of gauging economic performance, they argue. Because per capita income simply divides a country's national income by its population, this economic indicator can make small states appear wealthier than they really are.
Along with several other small developing states, the four countries are urging the introduction of a "vulnerability index" that would provide a more accurate indicator of a country's economic status. Taking into account the economic impact of factors such as a propensity for natural disasters, fragile national assets in risk of depletion or destruction, and dependence on the production of one or a few crops, this index would be a fairer determinant of development status, they say.
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Pfizer Inc., the international drugs company, and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, a US charity, announced plans in early November to jointly launch a $66 mn programme to help eradicate trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness in Ghana, Mali, Morocco, Tanzania and Vietnam.
Strains of the chlamydia bacterium cause trachoma, which has blinded some 6 million people worldwide. However, treatment is simple and effective -- just a single dose of an antibiotic once a year, health workers said.
The programme will distribute Zithromax, a long-acting antibiotic, to help meet the World Health Organization's target of eliminating trachoma by the year 2020. The WHO strategy also involves increasing clean water supplies, and carrying out minor eye surgery. Pfizer plans to donate enough Zithromax to treat 3 million people in the five countries over the next two years.
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African 'success stories' attract considerable FDI, says UNCTADExcluding South Africa, the African continent's share in total foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to developing countries was just 3 per cent last year, notes the World Investment Report 1998: Trends and Determinants, published by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The estimated $4.7 bn worth of FDI into African countries excluding South Africa in 1997 was $100 mn less than in 1996, but double the inflows in 1990.
These "success stories" give Africa "signs of hope" in competing for FDI, remarked Mr. Georg Kell, an economist in the Office of the Secretary-General who helped launch the report at the UN in New York. "On a per capita basis, many [African] countries attract more FDI than do developed countries," added Mr. Kell. Moreover, rates of return on foreign direct investments in Africa "have consistently been high," according to the UNCTAD report. Important factors contributing to the considerable FDI inflows into a number of African countries in 1997 include improvements in macroeconomic performance, enhanced business regulatory frameworks, and the implementation of other policies encouraging private enterprise. Many of Africa's smaller economies that received relatively low amounts of FDI in absolute terms last year attracted high levels of FDI relative to their size. The sizeable natural resources possessed by many of these countries, as well as the strategic geographic locations of some countries for servicing larger African economies, were among the factors that attracted foreign investors, UNCTAD reports. |
