From The Guardian, writer David Smith combines all of the recient good news into one article.

“Africa is leading, believe it or not, global economic recovery in the sense of being such a strongly recovering zone compared, for instance, to Europe or the US,” Ncube told the Observer. “If you look at the ranking, it’s China, India, then Africa and then Brazil. That is the untold story about Africa.”

He predicted that China will double its investment in Africa in the next few years, with the establishment of manufacturing parks likely to be the next big development: “At the moment East Africa is the shining zone: Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania. These are countries that basically rely on agriculture and services.”

The Ethiopian famine that inspired Bob Geldof’s Live Aid concert 25 years ago this week was the defining image of a war-torn continent, eternally hungry, helpless and dependent on foreign aid. But the ADB is the latest voice to argue that Africa is poised to become a serious global player. Many argue that, after failed socialist experiments, it is now embracing capitalism and reaping the rewards.
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Africa has huge mineral reserves, underexploited farmland and a booming young population. Trade and foreign investment have increased fourfold in a decade. Numerous problems, including entrenched poverty, political instability and an Aids epidemic, still cast a shadow, but Ncube estimates that one in three Africans is now part of a burgeoning middle class: “We do worry about the bottom of the pyramid in Africa, but there’s something to be said about the middle of the pyramid. We say very little about the African middle class.

“These are your consumers and they want the same things. They want mobile phones, they want to travel, they want to send their children to the best schools. The issue now is capacity to live out and achieve those aspirations.”

Yes, Africa does have a middle class is a post from: Updated News

From India’s My Digital FC, we read more about the new aid to Pakistan.

The goal of the CPS which is in direct support of Pakistan’s own Poverty Reduction Strategy is to help steer its economy back onto a path of high growth by addressing the country’s key long-term constraints to growth: weak revenue mobilization, unreliable energy supply, and a fragile security situation, the bank said.

Noting that the persistence of conflict in Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas poses a threat to some of the most vulnerable and marginalized populations in Pakistan, while also challenging economic stability across the country, the Bank said the CPS seeks to help Pakistan cope with the consequences of conflict while reducing the prospects of future conflicts.

Support under the Bank’s strategy will likely include investment for agricultural/livestock-linked employment and livelihoods, expansion of general and technical/vocational education, investment in energy and transport, and social protection.

The Bank will also administer a Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) that will support a comprehensive reconstruction and development strategy in conflict-affected areas of the country, it said.

World Bank gives more money to Pakistan is a post from: Updated News

From the BBC, we learn more about this new reason to celebrate in the Congo.

DR Congo currently pays around $300m (£198m) every year in debt repayments.

The African country has been hard hit by violence and bad governance.

An estimated 5m people died in what was dubbed “Africa’s world war” between 1998 and 2003, and areas of the country remain in conflict.

Despite having a multitude of valuable minerals, most of its citizens are poor.
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The country itself is among the group known by the IMF and World Bank as the Highly Indebted Poor Countries.
Continue reading the main story map DR Congo: Celebrating 50 years of chaos

The debt relief plan comes under their initiative to help these countries escape their debts in return for economic and government reforms.

The new debt relief could see as much as 90% of DR Congo’s external debt erased, the BBC’s Thomas Fessy reports from Kinshasa.

Congo Republic relieved of 90 percent of its debt is a post from: Updated News

From the AFP article that we found at South Africa’s News 24 we read more on the joint statement on the relief, and some reaction from OXFAM.

In a joint statement, the boards of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank said the impoverished African nation, which is only just recovering from the ravages of a protracted civil war, “has successfully implemented its poverty-reduction strategy and maintained a stable macroeconomic environment, despite the global economic crisis”.

They said that Liberia’s course toward economic and social stability would be eased by the debt relief.

“We welcome the concerted efforts made by Liberia to obtain this debt relief. This will help attract new investment and generate much needed opportunities,” Chris Lane, IMF mission chief for Liberia, said in the statement.
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“Debt relief for Liberia is a step in the right direction, as it will open up fiscal space for spending on desperately needed social services,” said Oxfam policy advisor Pamela Gomez.

“Oxfam along with our partners in Liberia recently conducted a research study which found that Liberia is facing a public health crisis – three out of four people have no access to safe water, and lack of water and sanitation cause 18% of deaths in that country,” she said.

So “the Liberian government itself is going to have to act fast to budget more for water and sanitation to halt the scandal of preventable disease and deaths”, Gomez said.

Debt relief plan announced for Liberia is a post from: Updated News

From the Washington Post, writer Howard Schneider explains the controversy.

U.S. representatives on the IMF and World Bank boards abstained in the recent votes that approved raises of 4.9 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively. They were joined by European nations that felt the increases set the wrong tone when governments are being pushed to retrench. The IMF just released its “Ten Commandments for Fiscal Adjustment in Advanced Economies.”

Raises at the World Bank were approved at a Wednesday board meeting, just a day after Britain released an austerity package featuring new taxes and spending cuts — not the best timing for winning the British board member’s support.

“We greatly value the hard work and expertise of bank staff,” said Rob Kelly, a spokesman for Britain’s Department for International Development. But “when governments worldwide are cutting public spending, increasing taxes, and reducing or freezing public-sector pay, to award an above-inflation pay rise risks making the bank appear out of touch.”
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The dispute mirrors some of the broader dynamics in the world economy. The United States and Europe remain the major financial backers of the IMF and World Bank, and they were recently tapped to help replenish the coffers of both institutions after the global crisis spurred record lending to support economies around the world. Salaries of top World Bank staff were frozen last year in recognition of the crisis.

IMF and World Bank gets pay raises and criticism is a post from: Updated News

For all of us that actually live honest hardworking lives, and see no real returns for our hard work with regards to salary and cost of living ratio. As we stress just to make ends meet, while the gluttonous rich 1% of our society splurge on million dollar second and third homes, driving up the cost of living in our previously humble middle class, and perhaps even lower class neighborhood; it seems that the new poverty line should be set at anyone making less than $100,000../year. I remember my dad doing just fine making $60,000./year and providing for a family with three boys. He was able to buy a humble house for us to finally call our own after 13 years of moving and renting. But now 20 years later, my wife and I with four kids we cant even barely get by, zeroing our bank account out every two weeks; on $80,000./year. What has gone wrong? Was it ever “right” in the first place.
First of all, it was never right, this “anlgo-supremist” oriented nation of laws benefiting the original illegal immigrants, “The Pilgrims”: Slaughtering the Natives and enslaving the Black, Brown, and Yellow man to get a “head start” in this rat race they call the “human race”. And I am of “anglo” heritage myself, so I should know. Second of all, as far (or not so far) as the gluttonous rich 1% of the world running us all down the drain go; Christ said to comfort all poor and working-class people of the the world: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter into heaven…”
Thus we who struggle and suffer at the economic winepress of the gluttonous world-wide “Romans” of our day, need not worry or stress, but rejoice and be glad through this temporary tribulation, for there is a place in heaven for us. Not the heaven the rich want/coerce us to believe, that so called “place in the sky” we’re supposed to evaporate off to when we “die”, but the kingdom of heaven right here on earth, within all of our hearts: There God sits on his throne in loving-kindness and compassionate everlasting mercies. Not for the rich (tough we still hold compassion for them in our hearts, for they know not what they do), but the poor in spirit. Poor in spirit because the greedy money changers are grinding us to the marrow, driving up the cost of living in neighborhoods they don’t even live in. the wicked have put a price tag on life itself…is this the proverbial “mark of the beast” the ancients were talking about? A price tag on living? If you’re rich you live if you’re poor you die? This demented strategy put into action over a thousand years ago, lends itself nicely to the “Darwinian” theory of evolution, or should i say “evil-ution”, where man (white man) miraculously evolved from monkeys into white guys: leaving blacks and browns unfortunately closer to monkeys. Hey that’s the theory, I didn’t make it up. That anglo centric view of the world is evaporating along with the fleeting illusion that life is a thing money can buy. Though they fear the “redistribution of wealth,” in actuality it is not the redistribution but the removal of the price tag (w/inflation) on life itself. Thus we need fret not international brothers and sisters, we will inherit the earth and the spoils of the rich gluttons. And we will “share” as we have always done from generation to generation. Rest unassured for the greedy devils and money changers of today: The Bankers, The Bush’s (yeah them), The Chenney’s, The Greenspan’s, The Madoff’s, The Bernanke’s, The Wells Fargo’s, The Citi Bank’s, The Wall Street’s, World Bank, IMF, etc…, the predatory borrowers and lenders of today
……Woe unto those wicked people in high and low places of society that lie and cheat their way around money to the suffering and detriment of many: “The Money Changers”. To them we can all whole heartedly say, “We got nothin’ but love for y’all”, along with a big Texas sized “#@^* You!” as we ride our camels unto Zion…

The Camel and The Needle’s Eye is a post from: Updated News

In this Reuters article, reporter Lesley Wroughton details some of Rwanda’s current needs.

Zoellick said the World Bank wanted to bolster the areas of infrastructure, farming and private sector development.

After several years of strong growth, Rwanda has been hit hard by the collapse in global trade and commodity prices.

Lower levels of foreign direct investment are seen slashing growth to around 5 percent this year from 11 percent in 2008.

Over the past three years, World Bank assistance to Rwanda totaled about $400 million.

“I’d like to do more,” Zoellick said at the end of his visit to the capital Kigali.

He said Rwanda could benefit from international investment in agriculture and revenues generated by new global climate change initiatives for nations that protect their forests.

“This is a country where you feel for every dollar you spend, or every hour you put in, you get a tremendous return,” he added.

World Bank President visits Rwanda is a post from: Updated News

The World Bank wants Congo to change a minerals for infrastructure deal with China before giving the debt relief. However, changing the deal could cancel 3 billion dollars of infrastructure improvements to Congo.

From this Reuters article, writer Lesley Wroughton explains this give and take that Congo has to do.

The relief would cover some $7 billion of non-commercial loans from the IMF, World Bank and bilateral debt held bilaterally with governments. The savings to Congo would amount to $400 million a year in payments.

Zoellick said there had been progress in talks between Congo and China on amending a $9 billion infrastructure-for-minerals deal, components of which have held up the debt relief accord.

The International Monetary Fund fears the contract, which uses Congo’s mineral reserves as a guarantee for infrastructure projects, could plunge the central African nation deeper into debt and has delayed forgiveness of most of the $10 billion Congo already owes.

A mission from the IMF is currently in Congo.

Agreed early last year, the contract with China is a cornerstone of Kabila’s post-conflict reconstruction policy following decades of dictatorship and a 1998-2003 war that left the former Belgian colony’s infrastructure in ruins.

The deal is comprised of two phases of infrastructure projects with a total price tag of $6 billion aimed at rehabilitating thousands of kilometres of road and rail connections and constructing schools and hospitals.

An additional $3 billion is slotted toward developing new Chinese copper and cobalt mines in Congo’s mineral-rich Katanga province, where reserves will serve to pay back the costs of those projects.

Congo closer to debt relief is a post from: Updated News

Now the World Bank predicts that 500,000 Ghanaians could fall back under the poverty line by 2010. In fact, the bank admits a policy that the bank persuaded the Ghanaian government to follow could contribute to the increase. The bank hopes that could turn around in the long term.

From Modern Ghana, this Stateman article quotes a World Bank report on the situatiuon.

Explaining what may give rise to an increase in income poverty for the next two years, the World Bank refers to the tight fiscal policy it has persuaded the Mills government to implement. It says, poverty will rise further “because the planned macroeconomic adjustment entails increased cost recovery in the energy sector and increased taxation, staff forecasts aggregate per capita private consumption growth to fall, which will result in income poverty rising by as much as 2 percentage points between 2008 and 2010 (an additional 500,000 people below the poverty line at US$1.25 a day) assuming unchanged income distribution.”

Meanwhile, under the New Patriotic Party , the World Bank admits that “all major regions recorded reductions in poverty,” with some achieving them much more rapidly than others.

Unfortunately, the bulk of poverty has become concentrated in the three northern regions which now comprise about 80 percent of the poor.

Efforts to address the special needs of these lagging regions had been initiated in the recent past, and there are “ongoing efforts to amplify them in the context of an ambitious Savanna Accelerated Development initiative which is supported by several Development Partners (DPs) including the Bank,” the report adds.

Though the NPP has been portrayed by its political opponents as anti-poor, the World Bank admits that when “the domestic price of food rose substantially against that of non food items between November 2007 and July 2008,” the Kufuor administration, went ahead to protect the purchasing power of the poor with “ tax exemptions on fuel and food instituted in 2008 and still operational, and by a scaling up of safety nets (including additional health and educational benefits, a new program of direct transfers to the ultra-poor, and subsidies for fertilizers in food insecure regions).”

500,000 Ghanaians could fall into poverty by 2010 is a post from: Updated News

From News 24, we get more details on what the loans will go for.

The agreements which were signed by World Bank interim representative, Luiz Tavares and Cuereneia consisted of a $75.6m agreement to fund health and information technology from the World Bank and another one of $15.6m from the Canadian government, $4.3m from the Swedish government and $7.9m from the Russian government.

Cuereneia said projects run by the ministries of science and technology, health and transport and communications would benefit from the loans.

Tavares said the amount destined for the health sector would seek to reduce high mortality rates in children and women caused by malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/Aids and pregnancy complications.

It would also fund the construction of 25 health centres in three poor northern provinces.

A new World Bank loan for Mozambique is a post from: Updated News