South Africa

EASTERN CAPE - An increasing number of South African companies believe that black economic empowerment (BEE) is important to win new business, consultancy Grant Thornton reports. In its annual international business survey, the group finds that 63% of privately held businesses believe BEE is important for winning new business. This is a 4% increase on the 59% recorded in 2008. A sector analysis reveals that 71% of the construction industry (69% in 2008), 68% of the services industry (68% in 2008) and 63% of the manufacturing industry (52% in 2008) believe that BEE contributes to the attraction of new business. Only 47% of the retail industry share a similar sentiment (53% in 2008). While broad-based BEE implementation has largely remained static over the past 24 months as businesses focus on surviving the tough economic conditions, managing partner of Grant Thornton Eastern Cape Tony Balshaw says that the failure to align public sector procurement with BEE codes gives credence to the view that the largesse of business continues to propel BEE initiatives. In the rating of the importance to business of each element of the BEE scorecard, skills development (48%) and employment equity (39%) rank the highest, followed by ownership (28%), management (26%), corporate social responsibility (25%), affirmative procurement (22%) and enterprise development (20%).

JOHANNESBURG - South Africans share a common belief that large numbers of Zimbabweans have been streaming over the border, but how to handle this influx - and even how many Zimbabweans are in South Africa - is a source of disagreement. Past estimates have placed the number of undocumented foreigners as high as 9,84-million. The Home Affairs website cites a Human Sciences Research Council report which estimates that the number of undocumented foreigners could be as many as 4,1-million, while Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) claims that there are three-million Zimbabweans in South Africa. However, Tara Polzer, senior researcher of the University of the Witwatersrand's Forced Migration Programme, says that these numbers are impossible. Using census data and rough estimates, Polzer explains that of the 12-million Zimbabweans in the world, only one-quarter are adults, and those who lived outside their own country are also in other African countries bordering Zimbabwe, as well as in Europe and the US. "They are not all going to be here [in South Africa]," she says. High estimates can have serious, negative policy repercussions. While an organisation such as MSF might use a high estimate to call attention to a problem they perceive as a crisis, local government officials may use it as a rationale for apathy

Africa & the world

LONDON - Britain has pledged £5-million to Zimbabwe, but makes it clear that more reforms are needed before it starts large-scale development aid to the shattered country. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown tells visiting Zimbabwean counterpart Morgan Tsvangirai that there are "great signs of progress" in Zimbabwe, but the power-sharing government still has to meet a number of tests on the road to democracy. Brown pledges £4-million of food aid and £1-million for school textbooks, bringing total British ‘transitional support' for the Zimbabwe government this year to £60-million. He holds out the prospect of more aid if the government presses ahead with economic and political reforms. The extra British money will be channeled through the World Food Programme and charities. Like other Western donor countries, Britain remains suspicious of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and is not yet ready to give direct budget aid to his government.

NEW YORK - Ethiopia and Cape Verde are the only African countries on target to meet United Nations (UN) antipoverty goals because poor nations have not received support promised by richer ones. The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty were agreed at a UN summit in 2000 and set African and other poor countries targets to raise living standards by 2015. Africa has made the least progress in meeting those goals, says UN Development Fund administrator Helen Clark. Only $3-billion of the $25-billion that G8 nations pledged to Africa by 2010 has so far reached the earmarked countries.