Four key indicators illustrating the extent of the Central African Republic’s development catastrophe:

• CAR ranks 178 out of 179 on the UN’s Human Development Index 2008, down from 171 the year before
• CAR ranks 180 out of 181 on the World Bank’s Doing Business Index, unchanged from last year
• CAR ranks 8 out off 177 on the Fragile State Index of the Fund for Peace, down from 10 last year
• Bangui ranks 214 out of 215 on Mercer’s Quality of Living Index, one before Baghdad

(KJ*) Over the last two years, humanitarian assistance has made a decisive contribution to the stabilization the Central African Republic while the country’s condition was at its most critical. Back from the brink of collapse, the benefits of peace and stability now would have to be spread much wider throughout this desperately poor country, if the patient were to recover successfully. However, while humanitarian assistance is levelling off and may well decrease in 2009, development support is still lacking too far behind to pick up the thread. The looming recovery gap now jeopardizes CAR’s fragile progress, as data from the country’s new aid management system shows.

Improving aid effectiveness

In November 2008, the Central African Republic (CAR) and its partners launched a new aid management system (DAD). Widely used in Asia but still rare in Africa, the goal of this online database is to make humanitarian and development aid more transparent, coordinated and effective. Previously, no central data source existed to help decision-makers understand who finances projects, who works in which sectors, in which locations, and where the gaps are. As in many other African states critically dependent on foreign support, the absence of reliable data was a stumbling block to improved aid effectiveness. Less than four months after the system’s launch, detailed financial, sector and geographical data for almost 300 projects is now available online. While the usual caveats on aid statistics apply (the data will not account for 100 percent of all transfers), the numbers are nevertheless already a reasonably good reflection of the realities in CAR.

Good numbers on the surface

At first sight, the recent data on aid to the Central African Republic looks encouraging. Between 2005 and 2007, total foreign assistance to CAR more than doubled from about $117m to $242m. The increase is particularly significant, given that CAR had long been a forgotten crisis. While aid to Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole went up by more than 90 percent between 1985 and 2006, it fell by almost 50 percent for CAR. During this time, the country’s development catastrophe slowly turned into a humanitarian emergency, directly affecting more than a million people and forcing up to 300,000 into displacement. CAR now ranks 178 out of 179 on the UN’s Human Development Index. More than two thirds of the population live in poverty. Reaching the Millennium Development Goals has become a distant dream. Continue Reading »

An updated presentation of the general humanitarian and development situation in CAR is now available. UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Toby Lanzer presented this briefing to donors and other partners in Europe earlier this month, including at an OECD/DAC seminar, during EC consultations in Brussels and with Dutch officials in the Hague. The updated version integrates new developments in security sector reform and political dialogue, as well as other key points.

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UNDP-CAR launched its first annual report today, providing an accessible, thorough overview of the office’s activities in 2007. The aim of the report is to improve UNDP visibility and transparency at the country office level and to engage donors, partners and the interested public in UNDP’s work in CAR. Continue Reading »

Every month, we produce a fact sheet with the most important humanitarian and development indicators for the Central African Republic.

The new fact sheet for August reflects the increased number of CAR refugees in Cameroon (now 26,000), after the humanitarian situation in Ngaoundaye worsened.

The number of people who were forced to flee their home since the of 2006 stands now at roughly 291,000.

The HDPT CAR Fact Sheet is always on this website, in the Briefing Material section. Just scroll down, download it now or read it right here Continue Reading »