Committee evaluates African recovery and sets 'New Agenda.'

UN Chronicle, Dec, 1991

A new plan for African recovery efforts was formulated by the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole of the General Assembly, which met in the New York from 3 to 14 September to conduct the final review and appraisal of the five-year UN Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development 1986-1990.

The United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s was adopted by consensus ad referendum and recommended for approval by the Assembly later this year.

The Committee also completed a 44-paragraph assessment of the implementation of the original Programme of Action. Acknowledging, along with other critics, that that Programme had been too optimistic, the Committee noted that targets for growth, food security, human investment and debt reduction had been missed, and declines rather than hoped-for-increases had been recorded by many States and for Africa as a whole.

Nevertheless, in the Committee's view, the Programme "was far from being a failure." It had focused the attention of African and other Governments on the basic economic, human and governance problems of Africa. "As a result, the economic decline afflicting Africa from 1981 to 1985 was slowed and, in many countries, halted."

During debate, it was apparent that representatives of African States and their development partners were often deeply divided over the assessment of the Programme's results and future measures to be taken.

In the New Agenda, remedies are prescribed for conditions in what the Committee predicted would become "the most afflited region in the world" by 1995 if present trends hold.

To avoid that and place the continent on a path to growth, the three-part plan recognizes the necessity for a new and stronger accord between Africa and the international community, and elaborates on what Africa and the developed countries commit themselves to do.

Innovative measures

In particular, the New Agenda calls for "innovative and bold measures" to tackle Africa's external debt, which exceeded $270 billion on 1990 and requires over 30 per cent of the continent's exports to service.

The Committee noted that donor countries had already cancelled or rescheduled some African debt, and an appeal was made to the international community to undertake further measures. These include the write-off private commercial debt, debt-equity swaps, debt buybacks, and debt for environment schemes. An international conference on Africa's external indebtedness was also proposed.

In his report, the Secretary-General noted that over the last five years, economic and social conditions in Africa had actually worsened, despite the "many far-reaching actions and reforms undertaken by African countries, including notable progress towards democratization". Although economic output had grown on average by 2.3 per cent, gross domestic product in per capita terms fell by 0.7 per cent.

The causes of such poor performance, he reported, were falling commodity prices and reduced export earnings, "a crippling debt and debt-servicing burden", and inadequate net resource flows. Continuing drought, political instability, civil strife, military conflicts, weak institutions and ineffective policies to utilize domestic resources were both cause and consequence.

He cited a target of 6 per cent annual growth rate to be achieved by Africa's economies during the 1990's, an objective affirmed in the New Agenda. Both development assistance and debt reduction would be needed, the Secretary-General stated. African debt was of "little value to its creditors", but a major obstacle to Africa's recovery, and nothing woudl better demonstrate the international community's concern for Africa "than a bold action on debt relief".

The New Agenda also calls for aggressive action regarding inadequate resource flows to the continent and insufficient commodity diversification. To remedy the latter, the Agenda proposes a feasibility study on the estblishment of an African diversification fund.

African nations, in turn, would commit themselves to: structural reforms of their economies; democratization of development; creation of an environment attractive to foreign and domestic investment; and improvement in human rights, among other policies.

With a mid-term review of the New Agenda proposed for 1996, two high-level Economic and social Council sessions--in 1995 and in 1998--are to be devoted to the plan and a final review by the General Assembly is slated for the year 2000.

A unique call for help

The original five-year Programme of Action to revitalize and develop the economies of Africa was adopted at the thirteenth special session of the Assembly (27 May-1 June 1986, New York). It addressed the continent's critical needs in the aftermath of continuing crises resulting from severe drought, civil strife, crumbling economic infrastructures and other factors. The special session was proposed by African Heads of State themselves, and was the first ever devoted to the problems of a single region.

Crucial priority areas addressed included: agriculture and such agricultural-support sectors as transportation and distribution; drought and desertification and other environmental factors; human resources, including education, the "brain drain" and the role of women and youth; and policy reforms, including management of economies and population problems.