Statement

by K. Y. Amoako,
Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa

Johannesburg, South Africa
Friday 30 August 2002

Excellencies
Honourable Ministers
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen

Sustainability is at the core of this Summit. Yesterday, during the morning plenary session on regional implementation of the Summit outcomes, I defined sustainable development as the merger of human well-being and natural resource stewardship. I stressed that for Africa, our stakes are highest in this Summit because our sustainability issues are much more acute than in other regions of the world.

Today, I would like to reflect briefly on what sustainability means in concrete terms, to assess where we are ten years after Rio, and to share with you some of our work on tracking Africa's progress towards sustainability.

At the Economic Commission for Africa, we have developed an index that jointly measures the economic, environmental and institutional sustainability of African countries. The index seeks to answer the following questions:

§ What is the state of economic, institutional, and environmental sustainability in the countries and in the region? § What are the main obstacles to achieving sustainable development? § And what are the critical areas for policy intervention?

Combining 27 key indicators, it tracks the performance of 38 African countries between 1975 and 2000. The results of our work are sobering. While some countries have made good progress, many have slipped down the rankings. In fact, only three countries accounting for less than 10 % of the continent's population, recorded relatively high overall sustainability throughout the period. Even more telling is the fact that among the 38 countries studied, the proportion of the populations living in those with low sustainability rose from one-third between 1975 and 84 to half between 1995 and 2000.

We find that overall sustainability is positively and strongly correlated with institutional development, human and physical capital accumulation and productivity. Greater overall sustainability goes hand in hand with greater institutional constraints on the decision-making powers of the executive, greater openness of political competition and more widespread civil and political rights. In addition greater overall sustainability rises with growth in human capital, as reflected in higher infant and child survival rates, longer life expectancy, greater gender parity in education and higher literacy and school enrollment.

All this evidence points to a key message: national efforts to achieve sustainable development must emphasize productive capacity and its key determinants - namely institutions, human and natural resources.

We need to strengthen our statistical capacity to monitor our performance. However, tracking and monitoring provide only the means, and not the end. The results must be fed into a process aimed at influencing policy at the highest level. We in Africa must do better at linking results to policy change. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) provides an important framework predicated on political leadership, commitment, ownership and transformed partnership. NEPAD can provide an important impetus for ensuring timely and sustained action on the outcomes of this Summit.

In line with our mandate to help African countries monitor, diagnose and manage development challenges better at the local and regional levels, ECA will continue our work on tracking and monitoring performance and policy dialogue. We very much hope that we can make a tangible contribution to the implementation of NEPAD process and to the quest for sustainable development.