Storms in Madagascar provide an added opportunity for embezzlement in education. Photo: lefthandrotation (flickr)

Mismanagement and corruption continue to hinder the progress of education in Africa, suggests a recent Transparency International report on primary education in several African countries. The report cites several examples where local officials wasted the funds of school systems, which raised the costs that parents were forced to pay.

One of more outrageous examples of such corruption came from Madagascar, where school officials use the annual cyclone season as an opportunity to embezzle funds. A Space for Transparency blog explained how they do it:

Every year the coastal areas, mainly in the north eastern part of the island, face an onslaught from seasonal cyclones. First warnings usually start airing on TV and radio a few days before the cyclone hits, which gives people time to put their corruption scams into action. It works like this: when the cyclone is confirmed, the person in charge of school procurements pays a local merchant to fabricate an invoice for school supplies. The wind and rains come and lo and behold the school storage room is inundated with water and all the supplies are damaged. The school then submits a reimbursement claim to the central emergency fund for school materials. It explains how the storage room roof leaked and the supplies were ruined. The fake invoice is included in the claim.

As the World Bank points out, It is particularly important to address such practices in primary schools because education is the key to achieving other development goals. If poor kids are to have a chance at getting the education that could help them lift themselves out of poverty, a strong start in primary school is imperative.

Holiday bakers, take note: Vanilla might be harder to get because of a deadly fungus attacking Madagascar’s vanilla crops.

The island off the coast of Africa produces 60 percent of the world’s vanilla, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Nearly 80 percent of the country’s plantations are affected.

It's bad news for Madagascar, too. Vanilla sales, primarily to the U.S. and Europe, typically yield hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Researchers say the fungus is a result of planting crops too close together, which spreads disease rapidly between plants. Replanting is an option, but because of vanilla’s five-year life cycle, it will take years to make up for the loss.

Better save enough of that gingerbread dough to last until 2013 — and hope Madagascar's farmers can sustain themselves until the next harvest.

Today the Economist posted a briefing on the 2008 Freedom of the World report published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, concluding that in recent years "African countries have made negligible progress liberalising their economies."

For the most part, although not without exception, the Heritage Foundation’s correlation between incomes per head and economic freedom holds good. Seven of the ten economically most free African economies (Mauritius, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Tunisia, Swaziland and Cape Verde) are, in fact, middle-income states. Uganda, Madagascar and Kenya, however, are very low-income countries.