Making finance work for Africa
Next week in Nairobi the Bank will launch a new report on financial systems in African countries. For early birds you can get this report now at the World Bank's Infoshop. Called "Making Finance Work for Africa", the report has lots of useful data and practical policy advice. The main authors, one of whom is my colleague and a new blogger Thorsten Beck, argue that the advice in this report is a much better fit with on the ground realities in African countries. They repudiate some of the past mechanical transplanting of advice given to African countries. Looking at Africa's distinctive needs:
The report asks what policy response can help guarantee that modern technology, organizational innovation, and internationalization are exploited to the maximum.
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I sometimes find us concentrating too much on reports and workshops which are not only time consuming but cost a fortune, I imagine that if we were to reduce these costs and try work with what we already have on the ground we will stand a better chance of improving the economic conditions of millions of people globally. As a Kenyan, the recent WOrld Social Forum, aroused this thought, that after the forum, the main thing we have to show out of it is the huge bills paid out and the fact that a few Kenyans are now a few millions (kenya shillings) richer after being awarded the contracts.
We should now move to walking the talk and getting our hands dirty.
Anyway this is just but my personal opinion.
Posted by: Riba Capital | Mar 2, 2007 7:32:55 AM
I completely agree with Riba. Unfortunately, it is often easier to fund conferences and papers than it is to fund the on-ground work. Even when work is funded, there are usually so many strings attached that to make a project effective, and to use the "lessons learned" that appear in these papers and at these conferences, can be an even more difficult task. How do you translate these studies into practical action? How do you know if your action is truly reflecting the learning shared at these conferences?
And yet, there has been so much "bad development" and so many "lessons learned" that having these discussions is critical. It seems to me to be a catch-22.
...By the way, who doing this work actually has time to really go through all of these reports? There seem to be endless piles of unopened books throughout the halls and offices of NGOs and consulting groups. Or maybe I'm just a slow reader.
Posted by: MEH | Mar 4, 2007 4:46:30 PM