Bill Gates Speech to the Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly

Mr Bill Gates: co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Mr. President, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

The World Health Organization and this assembly have set the standard for global cooperation in pursuit of better health. For decades, you have established ambitious goals, such as eradicating smallpox. And you have rallied the world to accomplish those goals. It is an honor to join you today.

I had the privilege of addressing this assembly in 2005, when my wife Melinda and I were new to global health. At that time, we were so optimistic about the future. The world was finally starting to use its greatest resource, innovation, to solve this difficult problem – the fact that billions of people don’t have the chance to lead a healthy, productive life.

In the past six years, my optimism has continued to grow.

An recent important new book Getting Better by the economist Charles Kenny shows that life is getting better, rapidly, for people in poor countries. To build his argument, he examines a series of key quality-of-life indicators, including child survival, school enrollment, and levels of violence.

I hope this book gets the acclaim it deserves. It proves that the great work this assembly has been leading is having an enormous impact. We need the people who make funding decisions and set policy to understand the progress being achieved every day. I believe we have the opportunity to make even more progress, faster, for more people.

This opportunity is the reason I devoted my time to the Gates Foundation. Health and development is the most rewarding work I can think of, and Melinda and I will devote the rest of our lives to it.

When I was a teenager, I was captivated by computers because I believed they would change the world. I couldn’t predict exactly what the future would look like, but I was amazed by a sense to improve and empower.

Over the years, as I watched so much change taking root, I also saw glimpses of what was not changing. In 1994, I traveled to sub-Saharan Africa. It was impossible to ignore the devastating impact of disease and poverty on people’s lives.

Then, in 1998, Melinda and I read an article about rotavirus. We learned that it was the leading cause of diarrhea in young children – and that it caused 500 000 deaths annually. Our first child had just been born, and there was a good chance she’d suffered from rotavirus. But in the United States, children don’t die from diarrhea, so this was not a worry for us.

We’d never been forced to reckon with rotavirus, in fact, we’d never even heard of it because there was no chance our daughter would be killed by it.

This was a sobering realization for me. I had built my life around the idea that innovation is for everyone. When I began to understand how billions of people are deprived of its benefits, it made me angry. That’s when I decided to use my personal wealth would be used to help confront that inequity.

Thirty years ago, when I founded Microsoft my colleagues and I envisioned a computer for everyone. Now, I join you in seeking good health care for every human being.

At the Gates Foundation, our goal is to spur innovation on health problems.

Our priorities are your priorities: to make motherhood safer; to ensure that newborns survive their first 30 days; to provide children with a nutritious diet.

We see what you see everyday – that diseases like HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria can destroy communities. Along with great partners like the Global Fund, we want to help you diagnose, treat, and above all, prevent disease.

As we think about how to deploy our resources most effectively, one intervention stands out: vaccines.

Today, I would like to talk about how you can provide the leadership to make this the Decade of Vaccines.

Vaccines are an extremely elegant technology. They can be inexpensive, they are easy to deliver, and they are proven to protect children lifelong from disease. At Microsoft, we dreamed about technologies that were so powerful and yet so simple. Today, I like to imagine what the future will look like when world leaders start to take full advantage of vaccines.

In this Decade, we can achieve a lot.

Early in this decade, we will eradicate polio.
By the end of the decade, five or six new vaccines will be available to all children of the world.
And, crucially, every country in the world will have built a delivery system made to get vaccines to every last child.

To put an end to polio and reach all children with new vaccines, we must create strong immunization programmes.

In January of last year, I called for the world to accelerate progress on vaccines. That was a moment, and now there is momentum. I’m excited that global health leaders are now collaborating to put a specific global vaccine action plan in place.

The success of that plan will be a blueprint for the success of the Decade of Vaccines. It will depend on us to do our best work.
Vaccines and immunization

The greatest asset of every country is the energy and talent of its people. Disease saps that energy and squanders that talent. Repeated intestinal infections stunt children’s growth and reduce their cognitive development. Meningitis can cause permanent neurologic disability. Malaria prevents people from being productive; over a lifetime, high rates of malaria are cause substantially reduced earnings.

That’s why vaccines are one of the best investments we can make in the future: healthy people drive thriving economies. As we free billions of people from the relentless burden of sickness and death will unleash more human potential than ever before.

Let me give you an example of the difference vaccines can make.

This year, 20 million children will have severe pneumonia. More than a million will die. But even when the disease doesn’t take a child’s life, it can affect the child’s and family’s future.

For the survivors, the sickness reduces their chances of growing up healthy and strong. Their parents will go into debt. But we now have vaccines against two of the leading causes of pneumonia which make it possible for countries to reduce the burden and tap into people’s energy and nurture their talent.
Product development

The pneumonia vaccines are a symbol of one of the most exciting trends in global health, the drive towards equity in delivering innovations.

In the past, innovations developed vaccines for rich countries, and it took more than a decade before they were introduced in poor countries. But that is changing.

The newest pneumonia vaccines were available in developing countries only a few years after they were approved for use in developed countries. The same is true of a new rotavirus vaccine. But approved and available don’t mean delivered. Now it is up to the GAVI Alliance and many of you in this room to ensure that these vaccines reach the children who need them.

Last December, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger made history when they introduced a brand new vaccine for Meningitis A, the first vaccine developed specifically for use in Africa.

The story began in 1996, when the deadliest meningitis epidemic in memory tore through 25 countries in Africa, infecting more than 250 000 people. Meningitis strikes with frightening speed. A perfectly healthy child can be playing with friends one minute and literally be dead a few hours later.

In 1996, the only weapon against meningitis was barely useful at all, a short-lasting vaccine that wasn’t effective among young children. Health officials used it to control outbreaks that were already raging, so they called it “medicine after death.” They demanded a better vaccine that could prevent outbreaks.

The WHO and an organization called PATH formed the Meningitis Vaccine Project in 2001. The partners set a target price of 50 cents for the vaccine, which would make it affordable.

But producing a vaccine at that low price required a new approach to drug development. The Meningitis Vaccine Project worked with a Dutch biotech company to obtain key raw materials and arranged a technology transfer from the United States. Then, the Serum Institute of India agreed to manufacture the vaccine at the target price.

I am pleased to announce that we now have very early results from the use of vaccines from Burkina Faso. In the first 16 weeks of this year, there was just a single case of meningitis reported in the country.

It’s too soon to declare victory, but the early data makes me hopeful. For centuries, meningitis terrorized a region of 400 million people. This vaccine can help end the terror.

We need to continue creating and delivering more vaccines, but finally, for the first time, we can see a bright future.
Vaccine coverage

To keep the promise of equitable access to health care, all new vaccines must be priced low enough so that all countries can afford them. The Gates Foundation is working with many vaccine manufacturers to ensure that vaccines are available at a reasonable price. I believe that we can cut the combined price of the pentavalent, pneumococcus, and rotavirus vaccines in half by 2016.

But even when prices are fair, delivering vaccines to every child takes a great commitment.

Many developing countries are already doing a great job. Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Rwanda, and Vietnam routinely reach about 90 percent of their infants. But there are many places where vaccination rates are low. Almost every country can do better, must do better, if this decade is to reach the potential of the Decade of Vaccines.

Leading a health ministry is a hard job. You face a multitude of complicated choices. The stakes are always life and death and you have many priorities.

But you all have access to one key resource: your own leadership. And leadership can be decisive. The best immunization systems work because leaders hold themselves accountable for results. They diagnose problems, innovate to solve them, and spread the best ideas.

Let me give an example. Just a few years ago, the Indian state of Bihar was vaccinating under 30 percent. Then, a new chief minister, Nitish Kumar, was elected, and he made it clear that he expected change.

So even though Bihar is still one of the most challenging places in the world, but it’s no longer one of the least vaccinated. Under Chief Minister Kumar, the vaccination rate has more than doubled, and it plans to go higher.

I visited with Chief Minister Kumar two months ago, and his understanding of what was working and what wasn’t was impressive. He understood the innovations that were being tested.

Examples like this inspire all of us for better leadership. I was also struck by the chief minister’s popularity. People are hungry for visionary leaders who not only promise a better future, but take a basic system and make it work.

Today, I ask for your leadership. In 2005, you set two critically important immunization-related goals that we have not yet reached.

Let us renew our pledge that no country will be below 90 percent coverage. Let us rededicate ourselves to the idea that no district will be below 80 percent coverage. We will meet those goals if, and only if, you lead. With your leadership, you will make this the Decade of Vaccines.

As a global health community, it is imperative that we shine a light on the countries doing the best work. We need to know who the innovators are, so that the most powerful ideas spread far and wide.

Starting in 2012, the Gates Foundation will bestow an award on the individual or organization that has made the most uniquely innovative contribution to the Decade of Vaccines. This could be innovation in the science, delivery, or funding of vaccines. I will announce the winner every January in my annual letter. My goal is to make sure that pioneering global health leaders get the credit they deserve.
Polio

The long fight against polio proves just how powerful vaccine technology can be, but it also demonstrates that it is only as effective as the quality of delivery.

Twenty-three years ago, here in this building, the delegates to this Assembly resolved to wipe polio off the planet. And now we’re 99 percent of the way there, because of two things: a 13 cent vaccine so easy to administer that even I have done it many times; and the most impressive, farthest-reaching delivery effort global health has ever seen.

It is fantastic that more than 100 countries no longer have polio. In the most difficult conditions in the world, we are making stunning progress. Despite the ongoing war, Afghanistan has had only one case this year.

But progress is not the same as success, and eradication is not guaranteed. We have tools: diagnostics, surveillance systems, and vaccines that are constantly being improved, but the virus keeps spreading back into countries where it had been eliminated. There are countries where the virus continues to circulate, despite multiple campaigns every year. Globally, the polio programme is not assured of funding to keep running campaigns and improving vaccination systems.

These discouraging facts raise a question: do we really have the political commitment to eradicate polio?

Are donor countries, especially the G8, ready to close today’s funding gap and see the job through to the very end?

Are the countries where polio still exists ready to take extraordinary action to reach every single child with the vaccine?

We have a choice. We can keep doing what we’ve been doing, immunizing the same children over and over and missing the children who are the most vulnerable. Or we can do more. We can step up our fundraising, we can intensify our campaigns, and we can do what it takes to get to zero cases. If we make that choice, we will prove that people are capable of coming together to solve complex, worldwide problems.

The eradication of polio will be a great victory for this Assembly. You started the courageous fight against this disease. You will finish it. And then you will be able to move on to the next ambitious goal.

One of the polio leaders I respect most is Dr. Muhammad Pate, who directs Nigeria’s national eradication effort. Just a few years ago, Nigeria was the most troublesome spot on the polio map. It had hundreds of cases. Much worse, it lacked the commitment to bringing that number down.

But Dr. Pate, along with the global polio partners, President Goodluck Jonathan, and members of the ministry of health, helped rally government and traditional leaders around the cause. Dr. Pate told me that his agency makes a point of identifying poor-performing states publicly. That’s the kind of accountability that leads to results. Last year, thanks to a nationwide effort, polio was down 95 percent in Nigeria. Nigeria’s leaders still have a lot of work ahead of them, but they have turned the polio programme around.

During my last visit to Nigeria, Dr. Pate asked me a small favor. He hoped I’d be willing to sign his daughter’s school yearbook. I was more than willing, of course, and I want Dr. Pate’s daughter to know this: I admire her father very much, I want to someday introduce my children to him one day soon, and I hope more than anything that when that day comes we shall be celebrating the fact that there is no more polio in Nigeria.
Call to action

The world has a great opportunity right now, and whether or not we seize it will depend in large part on those of us in this room. It will depend on our ability to do the difficult, necessary things to usher in the Decade of Vaccines.

Donor countries, will have to increase investment in vaccines and immunization, even though they are coping with budget crises. The GAVI Pledging meeting in June gives you and your governments the opportunity to show your support. If donors are generous, we will prevent 4 million deaths by 2015. By 2020, we can prevent 10 million deaths.
Pharmaceutical companies, you must make sure vaccines are affordable for poor countries. Specifically, you must make a commitment to tiered pricing.
For all 193 Member States, you must make vaccines a high priority focus of your health systems, to ensure that all your children have access to existing vaccines now, and to new ones that have recently become available.

At the Gates Foundation, we are committed to working with all our partners – civil society, donors, drug companies, and national governments – to help you do the difficult but necessary things.

I am confident because I’ve seen so many examples of leadership.

British Prime Minister David Cameron passed the toughest austerity budget in his country’s memory. Yet, in the face of enormous pressure, he kept his promise to maintain development spending. A few months later, he announced that the United Kingdom would double its commitment to the polio campaign.

Another example is the Serum Institute of India, led by Dr. Cyrus Poonawalla, has broken the mold for the low-cost manufacture of vaccines. They developed the meningitis vaccine, they are the world’s largest producer of the measles vaccines, and they provide the pentavalent vaccine to GAVI at a lower price than any other manufacturer in the world. In the coming years they will manufacture inexpensive diarrhea and pneumonia vaccines.

Nitish Kumar and Muhammad Pate and many others have demonstrated that the best leaders can overcome tough challenges.

Together, and with your leadership, we can make this the decade in which we take full advantage of the technology of vaccines. When we do it, we will build an entirely new future based on the understanding that global health is the cornerstone of global prosperity.

It might be the most difficult thing we’ve ever done, but it will also be the most important.

Thank you.

May 16, 2011May 16, 2011

New Study Shows Four Women Raped Every 5 Minutes in the DRC

Almost every minute of every day in different parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a woman is raped. So says a new study published by the American Journal of Public Health, the AJPH. The study says the incidence of sexual assault is 26 times higher than United Nations figures.

Jocelyne Sambira reports.

Duration: 2’36”

The study examined detailed household data gathered from women between the ages of 15 and 49 living in the DR Congo.

The data shows that 400,000 women are raped every year in the Congo which translates to over a thousand raped every day, 48 raped every hour and four raped every five minutes.

Margot Wallström, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said the report helps to better understand the problem.

“This brings more clarity to the phenomenon of sexual violence. It also confirms what we know from before and that is sexual violence is grossly underreported.”

The rate of sexual violence quoted in the new study is significantly higher than the previous estimate of 16,000 rapes reported in one year by the UN.

Wallström explained the discrepancy between the two reports.

“We do make a distinction between conflict-related sexual violence – how it is being used as a kind of weapon of war and what is also studied here – which is intimate partner sexual violence and domestic violence. And finally I would say that there is a difference in the way we count because the United Nations also has to verify these figures. When we report, we also should do it in such a way that we can do follow-up, that there is assistance to be given to the victims.”

But the expert on sexual violence also believes it’s time to move beyond the numbers.

“As much as we want to describe the magnitude of the problem, it must take us beyond counting the number of rapes for example. It must bring us into how we can prevent it. How we can do peacekeeping better.”

More important though are the people behind the figures. Margot Wallstom again:

“I remember this young woman who I met in Walikale and she said that she had been taken out of her home the night before she was getting married and had been gang raped and her whole future destroyed in a way. And she was not only devastated but she was also angry. I could feel that that she was also furious that this could be done to her. And she said that a dead rat is worth more than a woman who has been raped.”

Jocelyne Sambira, United Nations.

United Nations Radio

May 14, 2011

Study Shows ARVs Can Protect the Uninfected Against HIV

Khopotso Bodibe

AllAfrica

A multi-national study shows that if an HIV-positive person starts taking antiretroviral therapy early on, that is, when their CD 4 count is still high, their chances of infecting their HIV-negative partner can decrease by as much as 96%.

The results of the study are viewed as confirmation of untested wisdom among clinicians who have for a number of years thought that people on combination antiretroviral therapy have a lower chance of transmitting HIV to their uninfected partners. This was presumed on the basis that ARVs fight off HIV infection, which results in the reduction of the viral load in one’s system. The study involved almost 1 800 people in sero-discordant relationships, where one partner has HIV and the other doesn’t. They were from Africa, Asia and the Americas. In South Africa, the study was conducted at two sites in Johannesburg – Helen Joseph and Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic hospitals, and involved almost 100 participants. A key requirement was that they needed to have a considerably higher CD 4 count of 350 – 550.

“We were looking to confirm or to evaluate whether combination antiretroviral treatment can interrupt HIV transmission between HIV-discordant partners”, says Dr Guy de Bruyn, the principal investigator who conducted the clinical study at Chris Hani Bara.

The result showed a significant potential.

“We’ve shown that there’s a 96% reduction in transmission of HIV from the positive partner to the negative partner”, says Dr Sharlaal Badal-Faesen, the principal investigator at the Helen Joseph Hospital site.

This was a randomised study where participants were divided into two groups. Those on the intervention arm were given different ARV combinations and those on the control arm started receiving ARVs only when they reached a stage where, according to national AIDS treatment guidelines, they would qualify for treatment at a CD 4 count of 200 or when they started getting ill with AIDS defining symptoms.

“On the one arm, 50% of these patients received ARVs immediately. On the second arm, those patients did not receive ARVs when they started on the trial. They were monitored until their CD 4 counts reached 250 or below, and then initiated on ARVs. So, in that way we could compare subjects that got ARVs to subjects that do not get ARVs”, explains Dr Badal-Faesen.

Dr de Bruyn adds that “there had been 28 infections that were linked in other words, that were demonstrated by molecular methods to have come from the HIV-infected partner and passed to the initially uninfected partner. Of those 28, 27 were in the group that received treatment according to guidelines and only one was in the group that received immediate antiretroviral therapy. So, that is where we arrived at the 96% difference comparing those two rates”.

He says throughout the study, participants were advised to follow safe sexual practices, which some might have followed adequately and others not. That, then, would explain the differences in levels of infection in both study groups.

“What we are reporting is the actual number of infections that occurred. Essentially, we’re showing that the immediate treatment arm was protected at a far higher rate than people that were in the arm that was treated per guidelines. We assume that the behaviours, on average, would have been similar across both groups. That’s something that’s inherent in a randomised trial. For example, potentially by the act of randomization, the propensity to use condoms when advised to do so should be equally distributed between the two groups”, Dr de Bruyn says.

The second element of the study was to investigate whether early anti-retroviral therapy can protect HIV-positive people from HIV-associated illnesses, as “starting patients earlier on ARVs obviously improves their immunity. So, in so doing they have the added advantage of protection from opportunistic infection”, adds Dr Badal-Faesen.

“In this particular study we’ve shown that there was a 40% reduction in morbidity”, she says.

The recommendations arising out of the findings suggest that early intervention with ARVs could reduce morbidity in HIV-infected people as well as add to HIV prevention methods that exist.

“The implication is that we need to be providing treatment earlier than we do currently. The benefit to the individual receiving treatment is present whether you start late, when it’s life saving, or earlier, in which case you reduce clinical events as we saw in this study. Not only is it beneficial to the individual, but it’s also highly effective in reducing transmission to their partners. And that, hopefully, could be an important tool in reducing the epidemic”, concludes Dr de Bruyn.

May 13, 2011

International Religion Extremism

In March, 2011, when pastor Wayne Sapp set afire the holy book of Islam, the Koran, he never thought his action in far-away Florida, would spiraled into a convolution of arson and human carnage elsewhere. In Kandahar, Afghanistan, some innocent staffs of the UN have paid the ultimate price. Religion extremism has come to define modern living. International diplomacy and internal politics of nations have been mired in incessant religion conflicts in a more lethal dimension since 9/11. It has been a battle between the West (Christians) and the Middle-East (Muslims), from Nigeria to Egypt, as in Bahrain and Afghanistan; there is no love between brothers and sisters of the two faiths. The death of Osama Bin Ladin, the inspirational leader of Al-Qaida group in a US military-led operation in Abbotadab, Pakistan might mark the denouement of the group operation. But that has not foreclosed the possibility of group’s total incapacity to carry out attacks on innocent souls in their usual characteristic manner. While the US is still trying to access Osama’s computers and flash-drives for sensitive information that could give leads to some other key members of the group, the US, other Western nations, as well the whole world would have to beef-up security to check their operations. The Marxian postulation of religion, as the ‘opium of the people…’ has been repeatedly confirmed with devastating events as that in Kandahar and other religion flashpoints in the world. Religion tolerance has become a hard pill to swallow.

May 11, 2011

The Role of the Informal Sector in African Economy

The informal sector of the economy often refers to the unregulated and mostly unregistered sector of the economy, put simply it refers to the numerous petty or small scale businesses operated by artisans, peasants and other micro entrepreneurs, within the economy.

Experts have argued that in most African economies, the informal sector is often the driving force of the economy and that as a matter of fact it is opined that the reason why most Western originated economic recovery prescriptions channeled through the World Bank, IMF and so on to Africa have often failed is because of the inability of such prescriptions to take the informal sector in most of these African economies into consideration.

The prominence of the informal sector in most African economies cannot really be underemphasized as almost all persons who cannot find placements within the formal sector of the economy finds solace in the informal sector of the economy. In as much as the informal sector, drives most African economies, it is a very much neglected sector as it seldom accounts for a pride of place in government planning for the overall economy. This may be due to a myriad of factors such as the unregistered and unregulated nature of most businesses in the informal sector, poor work ethics of most micro entrepreneurs, which often leads to mismanagement of such businesses, tax evasion and illiteracy on the part of most operators in the informal sector.

Giving the role of the informal sector, in the economies of most African nations, governments in African countries should begin to take more than a simple look at the informal sector with a view of enacting policies that will synergize the informal and formal sectors in order to unleash the vast potentials of the African economy since activities in both sectors of the economy are not mutually exclusive. A massive drive to register and have a data base of all businesses in the informal sector can also be carried out to ascertain the number and needs of the operators in the informal sector.

May 10, 2011May 10, 2011

University of Ghana Thief ‘Fingering’ Update

JoyOnline

Four ‘Fingering’ University of Ghana Students on the Run

Four students of the University of Ghana suspected to have taken part in the ‘fingering’ of a young woman accused of laptop and mobile phone theft have absconded, the police have said.

legon fingering boys — Some of the handcuffed students at the court premises May 5

The four were part of 13 others who allegedly sexually assaulted Amina Haruna and were last week invited for an interrogation and identification parade but refused to turn up.

The nine who did, have been granted bail by a court in Accra with a surety of GHS 9,000 each.

The bail follows a request by the defence to allow their clients the opportunity to prepare for their exams.

Police acting Public Relations Officer Cephas Arthur confirmed the four had absconded.

“For now we can say that they have absconded, that is a fact. The information we have is that they have run away,” he said.

He said the “police will ensure that these four people are also brought to face the law because they are suspected to have committed an offence.”

“The police are going to do everything possible; we are already collaborating with the university authority; we will continue to collaborate with them until we get them.

“We also have other means by which to get them. We can take a warrant for their arrest and publish the warrant.

“Even if they decide to travel abroad we also have the Interpol and other bodies [to assist],” he said.

Meanwhile, the nine are to reappear in court on May 30, 2011.

The Daily Guide

8 Legon Boys Charged For Amina Sex Assault

Eight students of the University of Ghana, Legon, have been charged for indecent assault of Amina Haruna, a lady who went to the campus of the university to trade.

Four more students are expected to join the eight, bringing the number of suspects to 12 in the Amina sexual assault saga.

The eight students who arrived at an Accra Circuit Court yesterday to face charges of indecently assaulting Amina Haruna, the lady who is also suspected to be a thief, were accompanied by tens of their colleagues in a show of solidarity.

The assault victim Amina was also there but it was unclear whether she would also be charged or would be a prosecution witness.

The students, who arrived in three buses, were seen walking to and fro the court while waiting for their colleagues to be tried.

The suspects who were identified by the victim, after a police identification parade, were initially taken to cells at the 28th February Road Court, popularly called Cocoa Affairs Court, and thirty minutes later whisked to Mrs. Georgina Mensah-Datsa’s court where it was revealed by a court clerk that the judge had retired for the day.

They were immediately sent back into the cells, waiting to be taken back to police custody as the case was adjourned to today.

The students are to be charged with indecent assault and causing unlawful harm.

DSP Kofi Blagodzi told journalists that he was still studying the docket and declined to give details such as the names of the suspects or what offence each was expected to be charged with.

Earlier, the Legon Police said they were screening the students suspected to have been involved in molesting Amina, who had earlier been arrested twice for stealing on the Legon Campus.

The university has also indicated in a press release issued on Wednesday April 20, 2011 that a fact-finding committee set up by the school had since Tuesday April 12, completed its work and submitted a report to the Vice-Chancellor who is the Head of the Disciplinary Committee.

“The fact-finding committee appointed by the Executive Committee of the University to look into the circumstances leading to the mentioned event has completed its work and submitted a report on its findings to the Dean of Students and the Vice-Chancellor on Tuesday, 12th April 2011. The Committee identified a number of students who were present during the molestation as seen in the video clips produced and also from credible eye-witness accounts.”

Following this development, a number of students who were identified were handed over to the police to assist in their investigations.

“Without any prejudice to the provisions of the University’s statutes, the list of persons duly identified in the report of the fact-finding committee has been handed over to the Ghana Police Service for its own investigations,” it stated.

The university said that “based on the recommendations of the fact-finding committee, the Vice-Chancellor, in his capacity as the Chief Disciplinary Officer of the University, has referred the case against the persons mentioned in the report to the Disciplinary Committee for students.”

Those persons were invited to meet with the Disciplinary Committee through a Writ of Summons issued on Wednesday, 13th April 2011.

Amina Haruna, a resident of Maamobi in Accra, was on Thursday March 31, 2011 stripped naked when she was caught by students of the Mensah Sarbah Hall, Annex B, popularly called Okponglo, on the Legon campus for allegedly stealing a number of mobile phones and a laptop computer.

Though some of the students were seen trying to free her from the claws of her captors, others were seen eagerly stretching her thighs widely open for their colleagues to insert their fingers and even mobile phones into her vagina, revealing her clitoral region.

Amina’s brassiere and her underpants where shredded and even snatched away, leaving her stark naked for the boys to do their own thing, despite her pleas for leniency.

May 6, 2011December 22, 2012

The Power of Partnerships in Africa, by Kofi Annan

We are witnessing a historic change to the development paradigm. Drastic spending cuts in the United States, uncertainty around Europe’s common currency and the consequences of the earthquake in Japan are reordering international priorities and put further pressure on aid budgets. At the same time, development needs in Africa are multiplying as climate change and rapid population growth add new financing demands, and populations empowered by advancements in information and communication technology are asking more of their leaders. While aid remains vitally important to build capacity, leverage other flows and achieve specific results, it is clear that African leaders and international donors need to look beyond traditional development strategies to fill funding gaps and accelerate progress.

We at the Africa Progress Panel are convinced that partnerships harnessing a broader range of actors and their energy, creativity and resources can provide at least part of the solution. In this year’s Africa Progress Report, which we launched yesterday at the World Economic Forum on Africa, we call on leaders in all sectors, including government, business, and civil society, to do more to strengthen, replicate and scale-up existing partnerships, but also to identify and consider new forms and areas of collaboration.

Partnerships have already demonstrated their transformative impact. In recent years, we have seen collaboration between the private sector and international philanthropists leading to significant reductions in malaria deaths. Partnerships between mobile-phone providers and governments have greatly increased access to finance for Africa’s poor. And collaboration between civil society and intergovernmental organizations has vastly improved access to credit for smallholder farmers and helped raise agricultural productivity.

By mobilizing resources, improving efficiencies or extending services, access and opportunities to marginalized groups, partnerships can clearly achieve tremendous results. In doing so, they are already complementing and expanding government-led development efforts. But — as the various partnerships around the introduction of mobile money in East Africa have shown — collaborations brought to scale can achieve much more. They can create vibrant markets, transform entire sectors, and lead to sustainable structural change.

As countries and companies are shifting their attention from Africa’s problems to its vast potential and abundant opportunities, new spaces for engaging actors around their comparative advantages are opening up. The private sector understands that it needs the access and knowledge of local partners and national governments to grasp the enormous commercial opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid. Governments and civil society organizations are recognizing the value of the resources, capacities and expertise the private sector can bring to their development efforts. As the interests of the various sectors continue to converge, and improvements in regulatory environments make cooperating easier and safer, opportunities for partnerships continue to grow.

However, despite the many encouraging examples we have seen, the number of successful partnerships remains miniscule compared with both the potential and the need for them. Too often, activities remain small-scale, localized and isolated, as actors lack the capacity, resources or incentives to scale up their operations, replicate them elsewhere, or deliver more than piecemeal change. As a result, many opportunities for tackling Africa’s problems and driving its progress are missed — to everyone’s detriment.

We argue that more can, and should be, done to facilitate the spread of successful partnership models across countries and sectors. National governments can do more to ensure the regulatory conditions that allow partnerships to mature beyond pilot projects. International donors and institutions can do more to initiate and provide seed funding, risk mitigation and other supportive guarantees to innovative models. Private-sector actors, particularly international corporations, can do more to move beyond traditional patterns of sourcing, production, and distribution, and expand their operations to marginalized segments of the population. And civil society organizations can do more to increase accountability and play a constructive intermediary role.

However, despite the enormous value they can add, partnerships for development are certainly no panacea for all of Africa’s problems. Even brought to scale, there are limits to what they can achieve. They do not replace good governance, strong institutions as well as political leadership and vision as the core ingredients of progress. On the contrary, partnerships depend on these to be able to fulfill their potential.

Crucially, partnerships do not shift the responsibility for progress away from the shoulders of African leaders and international donors, even though they can help to spread the burden. Donors still need to fulfill the extensive financial and political commitments they have made to Africa, and it remains up to African leaders to inspire processes and build capacities to translate the continent’s wealth and potential into tangible benefits for its citizens. It also remains up to them to protect these citizens from the vagaries of nature and the volatilities of the global economy, providing them with adequate public services and opportunities to feed and educate their children and make a decent living.

For this, Africa’s leaders need to rise to the interlinked challenges of growing their economies, delivering results for their people, conserving the environment, and achieving the Millennium Development Goals they set themselves a decade ago. My fellow panel members and I strongly believe that partnerships can help them with all of these tasks.
Kofi Annan is Chair of the Africa Progress Panel. The panel launched the 2011 Africa Progress Report — ‘The Transformative Power of Partnerships’ — at the World Economic Forum on Africa this week. The full report is available to download from www.africaprogresspanel.org

May 5, 2011May 12, 2011

Africa: ‘Continent of Hope’, Kofi Annan

The foreword to the Africa Progress Report 2011, by the former United Nations Secretary-General:

The last year has been particularly eventful for the continent, and the world as a whole.

A growing debt mountain in the United States, uncertainty around Europe’s common currency and the consequences of the earthquake in Japan are reordering the industrialized world’s priorities. This and the lingering repercussions of the global financial crisis, accelerating shifts in the balance of economic and political power, high food and fuel prices, and political change in North Africa have transformed the policy space in which African leaders and their partners operate. By compounding existing challenges, but also by creating new opportunities, these dynamics are transforming prospects for ordinary Africans across the continent.

The events of the last year have also accelerated changes in how Africa is perceived – and perceives itself. The broader aftershocks of the financial crisis, including currency and price volatility, fiscal crises and asset-price collapse, have proved that no region, for better or worse, can be seen as exogenous to the world economy. They have also highlighted the need for new growth poles and markets to sustain the economic order in the developed world. As a result, countries and companies are increasingly shifting their attention from Africa’s problems to its vast potential and abundant opportunities. In the process, they are redefining the continent’s image.

On the continent, these shifts in perception are accompanied by a heightened appreciation of the need for African self-reliance in an uncertain world, and by a palpable spirit of optimism despite some high-profile setbacks. The fast recovery and strong growth rates of many economies, plus numerous examples of social and political progress, are feeding a remarkable “can-do” spirit. This is reinforced by events such as the Football World Cup in South Africa, the peaceful referendum in South Sudan, the adoption of new constitutions in Kenya and Niger, and unforeseen political change in Egypt and Tunisia.

What was termed “the hopeless continent” ten years ago has now unquestionably become the continent of hope. Hope that strong growth rates will translate into jobs, incomes and irreversible human-development gains; that the continent’s enormous wealth will be used to foster equitable and inclusive growth and generate opportunities for all; that economic transformation and social progress will drive further improvements in democratic governance and accountability as the middle classes grow and demand more of their politicians and service providers; and hope that rulers who abuse their power to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and of democratic processes are, at last, seeing the writing on the wall.

That many of these hopes actually seem attainable shows how far the continent has come. Hope, however, is not enough. Positive trends are being offset in too many countries by structural governance deficits.

Violence, political turmoil, and uncertainty still scar too many parts of the continent and add to the challenges already at hand. The slow progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the difficult task of providing productive employment for rapidly growing numbers of young people, increasing inequalities and food insecurity, the risk of contagion through increasingly interconnected systems and the effects of climate change all threaten past and future gains.

Despite repeated promises of reform by the world’s most powerful countries and institutions, Africans also remain heavily marginalized in world affairs, with little say in and control over how decisions affecting their countries are taken. The continent’s enormous potential remains constrained by unfair global rules and the ambivalent behaviour of many partners, particularly with respect to tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, distorting quotas and bloated subsidy regimes.

Given these obstacles and challenges, it is all the more remarkable that some countries in Africa have shown such solid progress towards sustainable growth and development. They offer clear proof that, with the right combination of leadership, focused development plans, and international support, enormous advances are possible in even the most difficult circumstances.

However, all African countries face the increasingly difficult task of mobilizing resources in an age of austerity. As pressures on aid budgets increase, and climate change adds new financing demands, African leaders and international donors are realizing that they cannot drive development on their own. Official development cooperation remains vitally important to build capacity, leverage other flows and achieve specific results. Yet, there is also a growing need for partnerships harnessing a broader range of actors and their energy, creativity and resources to fill the gaps.

Such partnerships have already proven their transformative power.

Collaboration between the private sector and international philanthropists has led to significant reductions in malaria deaths. Partnerships between mobile-phone providers and governments have resulted in greater access to credit in rural areas and transformed business across entire regions.

Partnerships between civil society and intergovernmental organizations have led to vastly improved agricultural methods and inputs for smallholder farmers. By mobilizing resources, improving efficiencies, or extending services, access and opportunities to previously marginalized segments of the population, partnerships can clearly complement, expand and improve government-led development efforts. If scaled up, they can even affect sustainable structural change.

Current dynamics are highly favourable for strengthening cross-sectoral collaboration. Over the last years, new spaces have opened up for engaging actors around their comparative advantages and respective interests as the benefits of partnering have become more obvious. The private sector understands that it needs the access and knowledge of local partners and national governments to grasp the enormous commercial opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid. Governments and civil society organisations are recognizing the value of the resources, capacities, and expertise the private sector can bring to their development efforts. As the interests of the various sectors continue to converge and improvements in regulatory environments make cooperating easier and safer, opportunities for partnerships continue to grow.

The core elements of effective partnerships are well established, even though their combination may vary: political leadership and vision from governments, along with a supportive regulatory, legal and fiscal environment; a private sector incentivized to invest capital and ideas not just for immediate returns but for longer-term change that will strengthen markets, value chains and social stability; civil society afforded the space by business and government to keep both accountable for socially and environmentally responsible behaviour; and international organizations, African or otherwise, able to advocate global standards and share best practices, especially from other parts of the global South.

The idea of partnerships for development is hardly new. For over a decade, MDG 8 has been calling for stronger partnerships as a basis for achieving all other goals. Despite the existence of many encouraging examples, and valuable lessons learned, we are still not seeing enough success stories replicated or brought to scale to effect lasting structural change. Too many actors still see the risks of engaging in partnerships rather than the opportunities, and too many states still fail to harness the developmental potential of their civil society organizations or to provide the enabling environment and incentive structures to make partnerships attractive for private-sector actors. This results in missed opportunities to tackle problems and drive progress. Given the transformative power of partnerships, it will be crucial to overcome these blockages and convince all sides of the inherent benefits of partnering for progress. This is the main purpose of this report.

Kofi A. Annan

Chair of the Africa Progress Panel