She said donors believed, particularly those from the Utstein Group, that there could be a turn-around for Zambia's economic growth. She said they looked at figures for under 5 children indicating that in the last ten years, chronically malnourished children had risen from 37 per cent to 52 per cent. She also noted that people have to become more serious about conflict resolution in Africa if the region is to move forward and develop. And Norwegian international Development Minister Anne Kristin Sydnes said the three ministers of development had very open and frank discussions with various interest groups and President Frederick Chiluba. Sydnes said it was inevitable to build capacity in all institutions fighting corruption and that new alliances and partnerships were needed.
Capacity means having capable people to investigate and prosecute.
She added that tight financial and legal systems was important as well as management of public resources because what was needed was accountability and transparency and that new systems particularly in the Ministry of Finance had been put in place, with some success but that a lot still had to be done. She said a lot of discussions had centred on democracy and good governance and in this vein, there was need to improve capacity in big institutions to combat corruption which was a major concern to them as donors. She observed that they also wanted to see implementation of all the good policies and want to concentrate their effort at country level. She said it worried them that government was struggling to reduce poverty but at the same time they saw an increase in poverty levels. Klingvall said they fully respected President Chiluba's decision not to go for a third term of office when his mandate expired next year because Africa needed good role models and leaders that respected their own Constitution by relinquishing power when the time came.