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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
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Africa: Economic Strategy
Africa: Economic Strategy
Date distributed (ymd): 010515
Document reposted by APIC
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africapolicy.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +economy/development+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
This posting contains the ministerial statement concluding the
Conference of African Finance and Planning Ministers in Algiers
from May 8-10, 2001. Much additional information related to the
conference is available at the web site of the UN Economic
Commission for Africa (http://www.uneca.org), including press
releases with additional background on the meeting, presentations
to the expert meeting preceding the ministers' gathering, and the
full text (in PDF format) of the new ECA report Transforming
Economies, with 45 pages of text and 10 pages of tables with
economic data through 1999 on African countries and regions. The
report is based on the finding of the ECA's Economic Report on
Africa 2000, which will be available shortly.
The ministerial statement covers key topics seen as necessary for
Africa's economic advance, including health,education and
information technology as well as debt, trade, and aid, while also
stressing the diversity of Africa's economies. The ministers also
pledged to use the ECA's Compact for African Recovery as a way of
harmonizing continent-wide initiatives such as the Millennium
Partnership for the African Recovery Programme (MAP) led by
Presidents Mbeki, Obasanjo and Bouteflika, and the OMEGA Plan
proposed by President Wade of Senegal.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Economic Commission for Africa
Conference of Finance and Planning Ministers
Ministerial Statement
Algiers, Algeria, 10 May 2001
1. We, the Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Economic
Development and Planning of Africa, having met in Algiers, Algeria,
from 8 to 10 May 2001, at our Joint Conference under the auspices
of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, have reached consensus on
a number of critically important issues.
2. We agree on the overall vision for Africa's development: a
prosperous continent free of conflict in which all our people can
fulfil their potential, that participates effectively in the global
economy on an equal footing. We concur on the challenges we face in
making that vision a reality. We concur on the fundamentals for
faster and more sustained economic growth combined with poverty
reduction including food security. We recognise the requirement to
build our development upon a foundation of effective governance,
sound macro-economic management and partnership with a vibrant
private sector and civil society.
I. Challenges over the next few years.
3. Achieving our goals and vision demands a wide range of actions.
We have identified priorities to pursue, at the national,
subregional and regional levels. The first priorities are the
actions that we must ourselves take to improve governance and to
build our capacities.
4. Effective governance is the foundation for sustainable
development and poverty reduction and improved human wellbeing.
This entails a state that, inter alia, respects the rule of law,
ensures peace and stability, and enables full participation of
citizens. We particularly underscore the importance of transparent
and accountable public management systems. A dialogue on governance
in Africa will allow us to share lessons and experiences,
identifying capacity needs and best practices.
5. In this regard, we welcome and encourage ECA's work, which
provides a rigorous analytical framework for examining and
improving governance. We encourage ECA's ongoing work in promoting
good governance and other key areas and we look forward to
participating in peer reviews.
6. We welcome the urgent attention given to Africa's health crises,
noting that a healthy population is an absolute requirement for
social and economic development. We recognize the immense
challenges posed by HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other
infectious diseases. We note that the key finding of ECA's African
Development Forum 2000 on leadership to meet the challenge of
HIV/AIDS is the need to mobilize all sectors. We are pleased that
the OAU Abuja Summit held last month endorsed and adopted the
Forum's African Consensus and Plan of Action” on HIV/AIDS.
7. Preventing the transmission of HIV and other communicable
diseases and providing care and treatment for those affected, poses
far-reaching leadership challenges including strengthening delivery
systems. We must mobilize more resources to address health
challenges. We note that the Abuja Summit recommended significantly
higher national budget allocations for public health. Thus, we
welcome the initiative of the UN Secretary General to create a
Global Fund for HIV/AIDS in the order of $7-10 billion per year and
we urge that such funds be provided on a grant basis. We also
encourage collaborative efforts by Africa and the private sector to
lower the costs of critically important medications to the bare
minimum.
8. There are human capacity issues involved in almost all of our
development challenges. We note the priority of providing education
to our citizens as reinforced by the World Education Forum last
April in Dakar. Meeting the International Development Goals in
education in Africa will require bold and sustained leadership
based upon innovative planning and finance.
9. Information and communications technologies hold the promise of
enormous positive influence on our countries' economic and social
development. We urge the development of ICT as an integral
component of our continent's national and regional development
agenda. To this end, we recommend that the necessary economic,
institutional, social, legal and fiscal environment be established
to boost ICT in our countries. We call upon our international
partners to treat ICT as a special priority for Africa's
development. Hence we invite them to consider launching a special
initiative to support harnessing of ICT for development as defined
in the African Information Society Initiative and updated in the
African Development Forum 1999. We urge that Africa's ICT
priorities be specifically addressed by the G-8's Dot Force and the
UN ECOSOC's IT initiative, among others.
10. The complex problems of financing development through aid, debt
reform and trade, pose a number of pressing issues which we have
addressed in this and previous ECA Conferences and which require
deepened and improved partnership with the international community.
11. Every serious analysis of our development prospects concludes
that notwithstanding critical tasks we must do ourselves, making a
clear breakthrough to higher growth in most of our countries
requires a significant increase in official development assistance.
At the same time, we fully recognize that while much has been
accomplished with aid, the record of aid effectiveness has been
quite mixed. In this context, we call for a fundamental
transformation of the aid relationship based on principles of
African leadership and ownership of visions and goals for
development, stable long-term resource flows, a transformed
partnership based on mutual accountability and commitment towards
shared development outcomes, and recognition of Africa's diversity.
12. We wish to underscore the importance of the diversity of our
economies. There are countries making solid progress towards
establishing strong institutional capacities for sustainable
development, including a sound macroeconomic foundation, effective
governance, and peace and stability. There are also a range of
other countries, including those mired in conflict and those
emerging from conflict. In addition, there are the challenges faced
by small island and land-locked countries. Different policies are
required by countries and, in turn, appropriate responses are
needed from the international community to the range of
circumstances present in Africa.
13. We recognise the recent evolution of development cooperation
based on the diverse circumstances and performance of African
countries. First, where countries have established or are well on
the way to establishing an enabling environment for sustainable
development and poverty reduction including effective public
management systems, they can absorb a full range of enhanced
assistance, including budget support and predictable long term
commitments, aimed at achieving major development goals. These
countries have the conditions in place to effectively use expanded
aid flows. Second, where countries are some distance from putting
in place these governance and macro-economic fundamentals,
concerted internal efforts and focused international support should
be able to bring these countries to the point where they can take
advantage of a fuller range of development support. Thirdly, those
countries emerging from conflict require different strategies and
support to enable them to resume the course of development. Support
to such countries should be flexible and, in regards to debt
arrears, should be generously handled. In this regard, we welcome
special mechanisms, such as a Post-Conflict Fund, recently proposed
by the World Bank. The objective is to help move all countries as
rapidly as possible to the point where they can take advantage of
a full range of enhanced assistance.
14. We believe that a more rapid and sustainable exit from debt is
imperative. We urge a more rapid implementation of an enhanced and
expanded HIPC. Eighteen African countries have now reached their
decision point under the enhanced HIPC framework but of these only
one has reached its completion point and six more could do so
during 2001. We also urge the World Bank and the IMF to provide the
necessary technical assistance and policy support to help advance
the remaining African HIPC countries to the decision point and
expedite those that have reached decision point to reach their
completion point. But, we note that the debt situation of a number
of non-HIPC including middle-income African countries is still to
be resolved. Realizing that inclusion of these countries in
programs of relief may well require additional resources from the
international community, including collateral and guarantees for
new bond flotations and partial remission of debts, we urge
recognition of the stakes for all of Africa in finding solutions to
this issue. We therefore urge the international community and in
particular the G-8 to initiate a review of the individual debt
problems of these hard-pressed African countries and to launch a
joint process with each one aimed at achieving a sustainable debt
position. We also appeal to the international community to augment
resources necessary for a responsive HIPC program and to provide
debt relief to other needy cases.
15. We reaffirm our belief that trade will continue to generate
essential resources to finance development. We underscore the need
to rejuvenate the commodity sector, including by identifying ways
and means to regain market share. While we acknowledge the recent
European Union commitment to remove duties on 'all but arms,' we
urge all international partners to remove all further barriers to
trade--in particular tariff peaks and tariff escalation. Particular
urgency is required for the provision of duty free, quota-free
access for essentially all products originating from low-income
African countries. We also call for simplification and
harmonization of existing rules of origin to help ensure that
African countries benefit from the market opportunities granted, in
particular, by value-added production.
16. We agree that Africa's position at both the Third Conference on
Least Developed Countries and at the Qatar Conference of the World
Trade Organisation should be to advocate that the next round of
trade negotiations should be a 'Development Round.' A development
round should be based on the principle of fairness to the
developing countries and be particularly responsive to the
aspirations of African countries. During the Uruguay Round
negotiations the rich countries pursued the interests of their most
powerful political constituencies. The weaknesses in the capacity
of the poor countries to link their trade issues with their broad
and complex development agenda meant that their core interests were
not considered for negotiation; nor were they adequately prepared
to press their case and obtain more favorable outcomes. The
development round must lead to legitimate environmental and labor
concerns being implemented fairly and not by capricious unilateral
actions. The development round must lead to wide-ranging mechanisms
to ensure increased resource flows to poor countries. It should
also lead to effective technical assistance to enable the fuller
and fairer integration of the poorest countries into the global
trading system. To these ends, African countries should have a
common position and act together in the next trade round.
17. We also endorse the long-term goal of reducing and ultimately
ending dependence upon aid. This requires far more reliance upon
domestic and foreign private investment, which, in turn, underlines
the need for governance reforms and macro-economic management in
many of our countries.
18. Globalization is both a reality and a long-term opportunity for
Africa. But to take advantage of this opportunity requires an
increase in our competitiveness fostered by an expansion of our
internal markets. We are committed to accelerating the
regionalization of our continent. To this end we must take added
national measures to promote inter-regional linkages in
transportation and communications as well as to harmonize our trade
regimes.
II. The Compact for African Recovery:
Operationalizing the African initiative
19. Because of our shared vision and our shared commitment to face
the challenges outlined above, we welcome the Millennium
Partnership for the African Recovery Programme (MAP) led by
Presidents Mbeki, Obasanjo and Bouteflika, and the OMEGA Plan
proposed by President Wade of Senegal, which were presented in
Sirte, Libya, to the African Heads of State and Government. We
support the recommendation of our African leaders to work towards
a single initiative. We concur that such an initiative should
provide an appropriate framework for Africa's development.
20. In this spirit, we have considered the Compact for African
Recovery tabled by ECA. We recall that the Eighth Session of the
Conference of African Ministers of Finance held in November 2000,
adopted a resolution requesting the Executive Secretary to develop
a Compact for Africa's Renewal. We congratulate the ECA for the
quality of the document on the Compact for African Recovery, which
has been articulated by ECA in response to this request. We
strongly encourage ECA to continue working as an instrument for
facilitating and promoting the single initiative it continues to be
developed.
III. Concluding Issues
21. We believe that our joint Conferences--namely Africa's
Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Economic Development and
Planning--are useful and appropriate forums for discussion of the
agendas ahead of us in the foreseeable future. We have hereby
decided that these Conferences should be merged and henceforth
should meet annually. Recognizing the importance of a single
initiative of African Heads of State, we request the ECA to
schedule its next joint conference to examine the most effective
way we can help to implement it. In this respect, we call upon ECA
to undertake the necessary preparations for convening that meeting.
22. We note with satisfaction the Regional Cooperation Framework
presented by UNDP, which, developed in close cooperation with ECA,
will make an important contribution to the achievement of the new
vision for Africa.
23. We thank our experts who did an excellent job to prepare us for
this meeting. We also deeply appreciate the role of the secretariat
of the Economic Commission for Africa for its extensive and
effective preparation of the Conference.
24. We also appreciate very much the warm hospitality and
leadership shown by President Bouteflika and the Government of the
People's Democratic Republic of Algeria in graciously hosting this
Conference.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by
Africa Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information
Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa).
Africa Action's information services provide accessible
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human rights.
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