Global Policy Forum

Significant development aid, debt relief and more open markets should be the ingredients of a "new global compact" with Africa, a ministerial conference on the continent's development was told yesterday. What is needed is "a new global compact with Africa, not for Africa", said KY Amoako, the Ghanaian executive director of the Economic Commission for Africa, a United Nations (UN) agency.

The secretary-general of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Tanzanian Salim Ahmed Salim, called for "globalization with a human face". Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said: "Take the bull by the horns" so that the idea of Africa needing "trade not aid is not an empty phrase." The conference, which opened in Addis Ababa yesterday, brought together about 30 African trade and finance ministers; eight central bank governors; development ministers from Germany, Britain, Norway and the Netherlands and dozens of officials from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and donor states.

Amoako said: "If the rich countries are willing to invest the necessary resources through aid, debt relief and market access to give African economies the jump-start they need, much of Africa should be able to put in place the necessary political and economic reforms to ensure that their economies take off." The Ghanaian also called for "a substantial, but carefully agreed and phased injection of official development assistance which would be linked to performance indicators agreed by both sides".

Salim, noting the "negative (effect on) our continent" of the declining level of official development assistance, said this was "happening at a time when most of our countries are grappling with severe external payment problems and when private capital inflows, particularly foreign direct investment, have remained below expectations". In 1998, Africa received just 1% of the world's total foreign direct investment, according to the Economic Commission for Africa. Amoako called for "some preferential access, at least in the short run" for African states. Meles said: "Africa must be enabled to export much more and to absorb much higher levels of foreign direct investment."

According to UN and World Bank estimates, Africa accounts for 1% of the world's total gross domestic profit and less than 2% of total exports. Three out of four Africans, about 640-million people, live on less than $2 a day. Meles called on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to "accord nonreciprocal and privileged access to their markets for African products". Amoako said Africa should also carry out profound political reforms tied to transparency, responsibility and good governance and stop conflicts that destroy the continent's development.

Salim said they were not calling for charity for the least developed countries but "a genuine international co-operation and solidarity in support of the efforts that these countries have deployed".

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