Sixty-sixth Ordinary Session of the Council of Ministers of the Organization of the African Unity

Statement by K. Y. Amoako,
United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary,
Economic Commission for Africa

28 May 1997,
Harare, Zimbabwe

Mr. Chairman,

Honourable Ministers,

Distinguished Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity,

Your Excellencies,

Members of the Diplomatic Corps,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour and privilege to address this 66th Ordinary Session of the Council of Ministers of the Organization of African Unity. I am grateful to my brother, the distinguished Secretary-General of the OAU, Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, for his kind invitation. I would also like to thank the Government and People of Zimbabwe for their warm hospitality and for the excellent facilities put at our disposal.

Mr. Chairman,

Honourable Ministers,

As most of you know from your own national experience, there is good news about Africa's economic performance. Last year economic growth was around 5 per cent and that compares with 3.4 per cent in 1995 and .9 per cent in 1994. Last year 31 countries had economic growth in excess of population growth rates so that per capita GDP growth was positive. From 1995-96, 32 countries grew faster than the previous three years. Only two countries experienced negative growth last year.

Fiscal and current account deficits have been sharply reduced in many countries, while substantial progress has been made with monetary stabilization and the reigning in of inflation. As a result of these positive changes, Africa is higher on the development agenda in terms of new investment interest and new trade interest. This era of optimism is due to years of hard-won daily victories of prudence, wise policies, forbearance where necessary, and boldness when possible.

Having lived through the hard times of the 1980s and early 1990s, we can all appreciate that the last thing for us to do is rest on our accomplishments. We recognize that without continued improvements in national and sectoral policies and in public administration, progress can slow and even reverse. Moreover, we know that Africa is merely beginning the long climb to an adequate life for her peoples. As the last continent to achieve independence, we have started late. Sub-Sahara Africa, with a population of approximately 590 million, accounts for 10 per cent of the world's population, yet we produce only 1 per cent of the world's gross domestic product. Additionally:

262 million of the population, or 45 per cent, live on less than $1 per day;

290 million of the population, or 50 per cent, are illiterate... including 62 per cent of our women;

200 million of the population, or 35 per cent, are without access to health services; and

274 million of the population or 47 per cent, do not have access to safe water.

With a resumption of growth, there is a substantial opportunity to improve the quality of development on our continent. The stakes in improving the life chances of our peoples through education, health, and basic social security measures go to the heart of any long-term assessment of Africa's prospects in the next decade.

Perhaps we are merely collecting the dividends of correcting our earlier poor policies. If this is true, as I think it might be, we must lay the basis for much higher per capita growth and more sustainable growth by investing in our peoples. I believe that the political rationale for such investments are equally strong, requiring a special kind of long-sighted leadership and courage, which will pay long term political dividends. Investing in people as has been seen in high performing countries here and elsewhere, is not only good development, it is good politics.

Fortunately, countries that decide to pursue such policies as universal education and health will find that they are not alone. There is now increasing attention among the UN family, including the World Bank, on social sector investment. Indeed basic education and health are the key foci of the UN's System-wide Special Initiative on Africa.

Mr. Chairman,

In most cases, donors can only react to the leadership on such issues established by national governments. Increasingly, national governments in Africa are turning to improving their social sectors.

Up to now, I have been discussing Africa as everyone does: in the generalities of regional performance and regional prospects. This is a convenient way of approaching the economic situation of 53 countries; indeed it is too convenient. We economists have a way of discussing Africa that reduces performance to averages: average performance at the national level, average continental performance by sector, and even average performance in various donor portfolios.

Yes, averages can describe, but they can also distort. Our Africa-wide economic and related data does not focus very well on the close connection between political conditions and economic performance. For the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Liberia and Somalia, and for the 12 countries harboring conflict last year, there can be no normal descriptions, no normal analysis, and no normal prescriptions.

And, as we well know, many conflicts affect the peoples and economies of peaceful neighboring countries, weakening the patterns of social behavior and social institutions which facilitate interaction and unity and holds a society together. We on the development side generally have been silent about countries with disrupted or chaotic economies. In essence, our actions say "those of you in the political sphere kindly settle the political issues, and then we on the development side will resume our work."

In the meantime, we continue to produce data as if there was normality. For example, it is unlikely that the huge demographic shifts of population loss, emigration from and now immigration to Rwanda will be reflected in most statistical series. We do not capture in our thinking:

The five million Africans who are international refugees;

The 16 million additional brothers and sisters who are internally displaced on this continent, most of whom are women and children. Liberia, for example, had an estimated two-thirds of its population displaced at the height of its conflict, while Rwanda had an estimated 40 per cent of its population uprooted;

The 20 million landmines that hamper the movement of people, goods, and services - Angola alone has 9 million land mines, which will take an estimated 50 years to clear.

More fundamentally, the development community is at a loss to suggest how best to either avoid situations, such as occurred in Rwanda, or to advise on how best to shift from such crises to more normal development. I would like to suggest that it is time for the political and development communities to collaborate much more. Permit me to venture a few suggestions for your consideration:

First, I believe that the development community, both the international donors and national financial officials, should make more assertive investments in the peace process. We must be allies in your peace building, your peace-making, and your conflict prevention work. I believe that part of the reinvigoration of the United Nations system will be to focus on making its services for the cause of peace more effective. And part of making achievement of peace more durable will be to help countries make the transit from chaos back to development far more smoothly and quickly. Many of us in the United Nations recognize this as one of the most important challenges facing our system. The United Nations has a role on these issues, and it is a role that must and will be more effective over time.

Second, nothing in our regional life can symbolize the harmony of peace and development more than continued and even enhanced cooperation between ECA and OAU. The two institutions are working together on a number of issues now. We also have joint responsibilities, along with our brother institution the African Development Bank, in promoting the Abuja process. The time is ripe to add to our agenda of cooperation exploration on how we can work even more closely in enhancing the return to peace in troubled areas. We should be learning more about the lessons within Africa on preserving development during crises and recovery of development after crises.

And I also see some urgency: we are here today, about 500 miles from Lubumbashi, but I hope we are not 500 days from being of developmental use to a new government in that country facing enormous post-crisis tasks.

Third, the battle against poverty is a battle for peace. It is no accident that fifteen of the world's twenty poorest countries, many on this continent, have experienced major conflict in the past two decades. Poverty and extreme inequality are the incubators of conflict, and should therefore be a major concern to development institutions. That is but another reason that the anti-poverty and pro-people policies I discussed earlier, namely education, health, and social security are also steps for peace.

Fourth and finally, there is a neglected appreciation of how much of a political stake we have in accelerating the process of weaving our countries together through better trade, monetary, transport, and communications linkages. These linkages will help us help each other when destabilizing natural crises occur. They will enable African peacekeeping forces to operate more quickly. And, fundamentally, they will expand our opportunities for growth and the blessings of peace, which come with growth.

The sub-regional cooperation, which is being pursued so well in Southern Africa under the leadership of SADC and its member states, is a model for the world of the peace dividends possible when neighbor works with neighbor. I believe that if we work together with even greater vigour we will see the Abuja Treaty realized.

Under the context of the Special Initiative, ECA will be redoubling its efforts. ECA will devise useful conceptual and operational mechanisms towards meeting the challenges of recovery and reconstruction on the continent. Specifically, we will work closely with other agencies to review the challenges encountered by development institutions in the area of conflict prevention, transition and reconstruction and to propose a framework - a comprehensive and interrelated package of interventions - to facilitate the transition from conflict to peace. Among the issues to be covered will include:

How to jump-start the economy through investment in key productive sectors, and support the conditions for resumption of trade, savings, and domestic and foreign investment;

How to reconstruct the framework of governance;

How to rebuild and maintain social infrastructure; and

How to provide targeted assistance to the war-affected.

Mr. Chairman,

Honourable Ministers,

It may be useful at this point to provide a brief update on the SIA. As you recall, I held a special briefing session on this Initiative last year in Yaounde on the occasion of the OAU Council of Ministers.

By way of background, the Initiative, launched in March 1996, was a culmination of efforts of the agencies and organisations of the United Nations to determine how best the UN system could support Africa's development efforts. What makes this Initiative unique is that it is designed to support Africa-determined priorities and efforts as articulated in the Cairo Agenda for Action and adopted by the African Heads of State at the June 1995 Summit.

The priorities of the Special Initiative - human resources development and poverty reduction, fundamental survival issues of food security, governance and peace, structural transformation issues such as resource mobilisation and trade access and opportunities - are broadly consistent with those of the Cairo Agenda. The Initiative has identified and developed a set of concrete programmes that give practical and coordinated support to the objectives of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s (UN-NADAF). Indeed, the Special Initiative has been endorsed by member States during the mid-term review of UN-NADAF and by the ACC Steering Committee, as an implementation mechanism for UN-NADAF that can bring significant value-added in terms of mobilising system-wide synergies at the country level.

Although one year is too short a time to evaluate impact, I would like to highlight the significant work underway in some of the SIA programme areas to translate the SIA into practical action at the country level. In an increasing number of countries, donor support for the sector investment programmes in the priority areas of education and health are being considered under the SIA framework. A number of sector investment programmes in education (Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Malawi, Mauritius, and Senegal) and health (Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Zambia) are in various stages of preparation for presentation to upcoming Consultative Group (CGs) and round table (RTs) meetings.

Similarly, Ethiopia, Mali, and Mozambique have sector investment programmes planned in the water sector. The Zambezi river basin has also been selected to demonstrate the coordination of UN efforts and inter-agency cooperation within the context of trans-boundary river basin management and planning.

In the area of governance, a series of consultations on governance issues in Africa have been initiated with an NGO/CSO consultation in Addis Ababa last week. The outcome of this consultation will feed into the African Governance Forum in mid July in Addis Ababa and the International Summit on Governance for Sustainable Growth and Equity at the end of July in New York. In preparation for the mid-July Forum, UNDP is financing programme formulation missions to Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Togo, and Uganda. Consultations are planned with selected heads of State prior to and after the Forum.

Our next report to the ACC Steering Committee on the SIA implementation progress will take place in September 1997. It is on that occasion that I intend to report on the framework for a comprehensive package of interrelated interventions to assist countries in transition from post-conflict to normative development under the framework of the Special Initiative, and provide recommendations that best address the role of the United Nations.

Mr. Chairman,

Last year I reported to you on the reforms being conducted by ECA, and I expressed the hope that we would be providing ever more useful services to Africa. A number of quite impressive people have joined us on our senior management team to guide our programmes.

At the regional level we have recently completed two conferences. Special sessions featured internationally recognized African and non-African experts. The first conference was two months ago in Addis Ababa where the Conference of Finance Ministers convened. They were joined by 20 governors of central banks to discuss: financial sector reform, the development of capital markets, and initiatives to resolve Africa's debt problems.

The second conference was of the Ministers Responsible for Economic and Social Development and Planning which convened in Addis Ababa last month. It focused on policies to promote international investment, trade policies and the role of improved information exchange and more efficient communications to investors. Specialized high level discussions included members of the global information highway Commission.

The Ministers issued the Declaration on Accelerated Trade and Investment in Africa, which they and I commend to your attention. They addressed such critical issues as domestic savings policies, steps to expand trade and investment within Africa and beyond, and ways to strengthen and accelerate National Information and Communications Infrastructures.

Africa's economic progress, albeit indeed on average, and the pragmatic and serious accomplishments of these ministerial meetings provide a sense of optimism. We need to improve the quality of our development so that our peoples, particularly our poor peoples, can benefit far more from our progress. We can better work between and across the fields of diplomacy and development to prevent instability and to assure that if and when instability occurs the transit to development progress is as swift as possible.

These are not easy issues, but the mixture of Africa's experienced and new leaderships, found so abundantly in august groupings such as this, and are itself a cause for hope, for confidence, and for courage for the tasks ahead. I hope to again have the pleasure of appearing before you next year to discuss progress on such issues.

Thank you very much for your kind attention. You have my very best wishes for a successful meeting.