Mr. Chairman,
Your Excellency the Prime Minister of the Republic of Togo,
Your Excellencies Ministers of Foreign Affairs,
Your Excellency Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity,
Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Bilateral and International Organizations,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The opportunity to share with your Excellencies perspectives on latest economic developments in Africa at these gatherings is one that the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, K.Y. Amoako, greatly cherishes. This particular meeting, on the eve of the first summit of the millennium of the Organization of African Unity where major decisions will be taken on the continental integration essential to Africa’s future, is especially important.

May I begin by conveying Mr. Amoako’s deep disappointment at not being able to be here today as a result of another pressing commitment. He has asked me to extend his sincere apologies as well as his best wishes for the critical deliberations over the next few days. He has also asked me to convey the following message:

Three major gatherings since our last meeting -- the World Education Forum in Dakar in April; as well as the mid decade reviews of the Fourth World Conference on Women in New York in June and the World Summit for Social Development in Geneva last week -- have served to remind us that no country that disinvests in its most precious resource, its people, can hope to prosper.

ECA’s analysis shows that in the recent growth literature on Africa, low levels of investment in education and health have been identified as major impediments to growth and development and are thus "at the core" of the initial conditions that must be addressed.

Yet in the economic decline of the eighties, and rush to reap the short-term gains of economic stabilization of the nineties, we have continued on the slippery downward slope of disinvesting in our human capital. As one example, average per capita spending on education in Africa declined from $41 in 1980 to $25 in 1995 in real terms.

I hardly need to quote further statistics to make the point. We need only cast back to what are now fondly called Africa’s "golden years" in the sixties and seventies and compare them with where we are today to know that something is sadly amiss. Remember the schools and the hospitals of our childhood that have become skeletons of their former selves? Go no further than the national universities that you and I attended in our youth. Once symbols of national pride, these institutions of higher learning are today a morass of crowded dormitories, unwieldy classes, libraries that look more like archives, and laboratories where students conduct imaginary experiments. This, in an era where knowledge is the driving force, is the dividing line between success and failure!

At the meetings I have just mentioned, we have renewed our commitment to a series of specific targets for placing people -- men and women -- at the centre of development. As I will illustrate by picking just a few of these targets, we are far from achieving any of them:

• Halving poverty by 2015, a centrepiece of the social summit process: Presently, forty percent of Africans live below the poverty line. The majority are women. To achieve this target, economies would need to grow at eight percent per annum -- double the growth rate last year.

• Eradicating, eliminating or controlling major diseases constituting global health problems by 2000: AIDS is increasing at an alarming rate in Africa, especially among women. Malaria, which elsewhere in the world is on the decline, is increasing its deadly reach in Africa.

• Providing universal primary education by 2015: Enrolment rates for Sub Saharan Africa stand at 73 percent.

• Eliminating gender disparities in secondary education by 2005: According to UNIFEM’s "Progress of the World’s Women" only five out of 34 countries for which data could be found have succeeded in doing this. In ten of these countries, there has been a decline in female enrolment rates over the last decade.

Mr. Chairman,

How, one might ask, can countries who paying 60 percent of their budgets in foreign debt, where twenty percent of the population has HIV/AIDS, where the national income has halved in the last decade, be expected to meet all these obligations? I do not underestimate the challenges. But I would urge, first, that we recognize how much more can be achieved from a few possible steps:

First, focusing on development priorities that are agreed by key stakeholders. For example, budgetary appropriations in the past tended to support projects that reflected a multiplicity of often-uncoordinated donor-driven programmes. By focusing resources on a commonly agreed development agenda and priorities, domestic public revenue and external aid can have a greater impact.

Second, mobilizing additional resources (internally and externally). Financial sector reforms, innovative savings schemes and capital markets development in a sub-regional framework -- as well as a stable macroeconomic environment -- could raise the level of domestic savings, increase private inflows and stem capital flight, thereby increasing resources for development.

Third, enhancing the productivity of resources – through public expenditure reallocation, strengthening the service delivery capacity of key state organs, and forging partnership between public and private entities in service delivery. In too many of our countries more money is spent on defence than on education and health. By reallocating budgetary revenue from war and conflict-related expenditures to education and health, and strengthening service delivery, including more active participation of the private sector, we could stretch the reach and enhance the quality of human resources services and supporting economic infrastructure.

Fourth, bold actions by our external development partners in respect of debt relief, increased official development assistance (ODA), and opening up of markets for Africa’s competitive lines of exports. By restricting market access for Africa’s exports, particularly of agricultural commodities, Africa’s development partners have cost the continent more potential income than the foreign aid it receives. Increased market access could dramatically change the resource picture.

Fifth, learning from each other. For example, if we look at HIV/AIDS, two African countries -- Senegal and Uganda -- have succeeded in rolling back the tide. They are not the richest countries in Africa. They have simply snapped out of denial and demonstrated the political will to fight this disease which is robbing Africa of its youngest, its brightest, its best.

In October this year, ECA will convene the Second African Development Forum (ADF 2000) under the theme "AIDS: Africa’s Greatest Leadership Challenge". In this regard, I am pleased to note that this year’s OAU Summit will feature a special session on AIDS.

Through the ADF process, ECA and its partners can contribute tangibly to the fight against AIDS, and can complement the efforts of the OAU in galvanizing political leadership.

We have chosen the theme for a good reason. We believe that sparing Africa of the worst possible social and economic consequences of AIDS demands strong leadership at various levels in Africa and the global society we live in. Strong leadership is needed at the political level, at the community and civil society level, at the private sector level. We also need leadership in the arena of new knowledge on the pertinent issues, and in recommendations for action – on the part of Africa and on the part of the developed countries.

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our analyses and services at ECA, including awareness-raising, consensus-building and policy fora, have been oriented to facilitate progress on these key challenges to Africa.

I should like to particularly draw your Excellencies’ attention to the findings of our analysis in three critical areas:

First, HIV/AIDS and worsening poverty all threaten to reverse the fragile gains that women have made since the watershed Beijing conference five years ago. Ironically, if genuine equality between men and women had been achieved -- if women had a real stake in the economy, if they had a voice in matters of war and peace and if they had the power within relationships to insist on safe sex -- we are convinced that all three of these scourges would be on the decline.

Second, the emergent information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer enormous opportunities for improving and cutting the costs of social services. Basic education could be vastly improved, for example, through distance learning for teacher training. The World Health Organisation (WHO) asserts that "40% of health is exchanging information". Many of the problems of health prevention relate to poor communications and limited access to information. ICTs are of enormous value in the control of epidemics and contagious diseases.

Third, the regional integration so central to your deliberations here offers immense opportunities for achieving economies of scale with regard to social investment. Let us take the case of higher education that has the unique feature of being the most expensive form of education investment per beneficiary.

A regional approach can reduce cost, maximize the benefits, enhance quality and benefit more people. It could help countries revitalize the contribution of education to economic growth, poverty reduction, and to the development of more inclusive, cohesive, democratic and regionally integrated societies. It could enhance the capacity to produce top quality managerial and research manpower and improve the relevance of learning through development of local content in the curriculum. It would strengthen the capacity to produce affordable reading material rich in local content. It would also exploit the opportunities provided by distance learning, including more effective use of national, sub-regional, regional and global education resources and serving isolated communities.

We believe that this initiative will increase the regional knowledge and experience of future leaders, thereby strengthening future political commitment to regional integration.

The creation of a United States of Africa will open many more opportunities for such initiatives.