African ministers tackle economic challenges of 1990s.

Ministers at the twenty-sixth session of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the seventeenth meeting of the Conference of Ministers 9 May-13 May, Addis Ababa) agreed that the UN Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development, 1986-1990, had little positive impact on the continent's economic performance over that five-year period. For the twelfth year in a row, they noted, the standard of living of the average African had fallen.

Participants proposed that the international community support a form of debt cancellation. Africa did not need more programmes; rather, current programmes should be properly implemented, they stressed.

ECA Executive Secretary Adebayo Adedeji urged the Commission, the Organization of African Unity and the African Development Bank to continue to assist African Governments in meeting the challenges ahead.

The Ministers reviewed possible actions to meet the economic challenges facing Africa in the 1990s and considered how to reverse the socio-economic decline afflicting the continent Over the last decade. They proposed a new international agenda for cooperation" to provide Africa with the resources it needs for economic reform.

Other issues addressed included the relationship of the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action and the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes to economic recovery efforts and regional cooperation.

The Conference also agreed that African countries suffering from the economic repercussion of the Gulf crisis should benefit from the global compensation fund to be established for front-line States.

Antoine Blanca, Director-General for Development and International Economic Cooperation, said in a 9 April meeting that the international community all had to contribute to sustain Africa's growth and development. He added that a study on how to diversify commodities-the main source of earnings for Africa-was well under way.

In its decennial review of the Lagos Plan, the Conference stressed that a big part of the crisis in Africa had been one of development planning. According to a group of experts which met in December 1990 to discuss the Plan, future implementation should include: the integration of African cultural dimensions in development plans and programmes; a greater focus on human resources; the enhancement of popular participation; the need to keep a balance between population and the environment; and the enhancement of sectoral linkages and subregional integration.

Conference Chairman John Chizu, Zambia's Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: "There is no other way out." African countries must come together as an integrated force to promote their own destiny.

The Programme of Action will be the subject of a final review and appraisal at a 10-day session in September in New York.