General Assembly approves call for special assembly session on critical economic situation in Africa.

General Assembly approves call for special Assembly session on critical economic situation in Africa

A special session of the General Assembly at the ministerial level will be held from 27 to 31 May 1986 to consider in depth the critical economic situation in Africa. The special session will focus on the rehabilitation and medium-term and long-term development problems and challenges facing African countries.

The Assembly, in adopting resolution 40/40 by consensus on 2 December, also made provision for the establishment of a Preparatory Committee to undertake the necessary preparations and ensure the session's success.

The Secretary-General was asked to submit "action-oriented proposals" to deal with the situation in Africa, particularly the major developmental areas identified in the 1984 Declaration on the Critical Economic Situation in Africa annexed to General Assembly resolution 39/29.

He was also requested "to continue to monitor the emergency situation, to assess the needs and responses, to maintain the system's capacity to respond to the continuing emergency in the affected countries" and to report to the Assembly in 1986.

Melchior Bwakira (Burundi), on behalf of the African Group, following adoption of the resolution asked Africa's partners to join them "in preparing for a new kind of development for Africa and thereby in contributing to the strengthening of international cooperation".

Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar told the Assembly that the international community "must attack the fundamental problem of long-term development with the same sense of collective urgency as characterized the response to the drought". Failure to recognize the fact that emergency aid, recovery and development were a continuum of required action, would result in a "recurring cycle of crisis and will condemn millions of our fellow human beings to lives of poverty and degradation", he said.

Referring to the Organization of African Unity proposal for the convening of a special session of the Assembly, the Secretary-General said that the work of such a session "should be directed towards achieving practical agreement on action".

Looking back on the efforts of the past year to avert the danger of starvation which threatened more than 100 million people in Africa, he said he had been "deeply moved by the overwhelming response of voluntary organizations as well as ordinary citizens throughout the world".

The emergency had not ended, said the Secretary-General. Although rains had come to some areas and prospects there had improved, one season of rain did not mean the end of the famine. He listed urgent non-food emergency requirements which had not been adequately met and urged Member States to continue their generous support.

The emergency had highlighted the seriousness of the underlying development crisis in Africa, the Secretary-General continued. Africa was "the only continent where standards of living have declined in the past decade and continue to decline today".

Failure to respond earlier to the drought-related crises, of which there were ample warnings, had resulted in "an untold number of deaths and the crippling of a young generation", said the Secretary-General. "We cannot let that happen again. Let us act now with urgency and with compassion".

Report: The Secretary-General's report (A/40/372-E/1985/104) provides background data on the situation in sub-Saharan Africa and reviews emergency action taken by African countries and the international community.

Regarding longer-term action, most African countries have since 1980 sought to address their economic problems. Through adjustment efforts, often supported by financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, curtailment of imports, currency devaluations, and debt rescheduling, the current deficit balance of sub-Saharan Africa was reduced to $11 billion in 1984, the report says.

On the domestic front, efforts have been made to mobilize domestic savings, public investment budgets were trimmed and public finance deficits largely reduced. Measures to restore both internal and external balance resulted in a decline in growth and were carried out at high economic and social cost.

The next five years would be crucial for sub-Saharan Africa, faced as it is with the double challenge of economic problems and severe drought, the report states. There is a need for more vigorous action to consolidate the response to the emergency situation and to relaunch the development process. In all programmes of external assistance, concerned donors and institutions should make increased efforts to step up the involvement of Africans in the decision-making process as well as in the design and execution of projects.

In particular, the report continues, full participation of the rural population in projects directly affecting them should be further enhanced. Also, there is a different mix of problems in each country and each Government has different views on its priorities. That means that solutions must suit the individual needs of countries and a country-level approach should in most cases be used in addition to proposed global approaches.

Measures to deal with the emergency and the need to concentrate on activities to relaunch economic development are closely interrelated, the report concludes. The emergency is a result of both drought and economic hardships and dealing with the emergency consists not only of responding to famine problems, but also of providing the foundation for resumption of economic progress.

Relaunching the process

The report states that African Governments recognize the need to conserve scarce resources and undertake corrective measures to redress the situation. The donor community acknowledges knowledges that it has an active role to play in support of the adjustment efforts mounted by concerned African countries. There is general agreement that solutions must be found to redress hardships caused by the burden of debt servicing.

The report makes recommendations in six priority areas:

Agriculture: The agricultural resource base mut be rehabilitated, states the report. It quotes the Memorandum of the Economic Commission for Africa Conference of Ministers (E/1985/122) which stated that "the poor performance in this sector has been at the root of the economic backwardness, stagnation and decline in many African countries". There is need to review the best policy for each country and to realize that commodity exports and crop production are aspects of the same strategy of achieving external balance and sustainable development. Proper pricing policies play a significant role in increasing production but to peasant farmers of the region, price is meaningful only if it helps them buy essential needs which are often imported items and not always available.

Agricultural practice must be modernized and introduction of appropriate technology, credit facilities and effective extension services must be speeded up. Ways must be found to increase productivity per producer.

Better pricing policies will not be sufficient to help peasants who cannot produce enough for their own needs, the report states, as their problems lie in soil degradation through erosion, desertification, climatic factors and lack of logistical infrastructure. Priority must be given to research, in particular on drought-resistant species.

Modernization of agriculture in Africa that fails to include women is unlikely to be successful, the report states. Better access to water and fuel would lighten their duties enabling them to contribute more fully to agricultural modernization.

Industry and infrastructure: Priority should also be given to rehabilition, maintenance and repair of exisitng industry and infrastructure, says the report. The recent problems of sub-Saharan economies have meant increasing neglect of capital stock. In particular, emergency operations have highlighted the inadequancy of transport infrastructure. As recommended in the Economic Commission for Africa Memorandum, there is need to channel efforts to measures for the rehabilitation and revitalization of Africa's "ailing manufacturing enterprises during the current emergency situation".

External trade: Prospects for non-traditional commodity exports need to be closely examined, the report states. Also, with support from donors, national stabilization funds for main export commodities could be created to stabilize income to producers and protect them from exchange and price fluctuations. Such actions would complement global mechanisms such as the Common Fund for Commodities, the Compensatory Financing Facilities or the Stabex arrangements.

Social aspects: Population policies should ensure compatibility between demographic trends and the desired pace of economic growth. Infrastructure should strengthen human capacity; education, drinking-water, health, domestic fuel and housing. The key role of food aid in those subsectors should be noted.

Human resources: The effective development and use of human resources is central to reactivating the development process in most sub-Saharan African countries, the report states. Qualified Africans working abroad must be attracted to return to their countries; African Governments might wish to take advantage of the programme whereby United Nations staff can serve their Governments for fixed periods. The Organization is seeking to increase its support for rebuilding and strengthening administrative and management capabilities in sub-Saharan Africa.

External resources: Restoration of external resources could be achieved by a combination of means, for example, an increase in balance-of-payment support schemes, or cancellation or rescheduling of debt payments. Different combinations could be worked out for different countries but vigorous action should be taken, taking into account the interrelationship between debt payments, export earnings and net financial flows. Many sub-Saharan countries cannot possibly repay the existing debt as scheduled; the reduction in net financial flows projected for the coming years, largely as a result of debt repayment, makes it impossible for most african countries to maintain an adequate level of production and protect underprivileged groups. An increase in direct net financial flows from donor to recipient countries is needed as well as adequate funding of special programmes devised by multilateral financial institutions for African countries.

Debate: Senegal, on behalf of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), said that the 1984 Declaration on the Critical Economic Situation in Africa had contributed to "what may be considered the awakening of the international community to the serious problems of Africa". Senegal expressed the deep gratitude of the OAU, and of Africa, to all who had responded so generously to the appeal.

Despite the attention and generous sympathy which the emergency had attracted, however, structural economic problems "could exhaust the economies of African countries seriously affected by the crisis" if appropriate energetic measures were not very speedily taken. The world economic crisis had had disastrous and alarming consequences for the economies of African countries, whose prospects of development had never been as dubious as at present, Senegal said.

After describing the "gloomy and alarming picture" of the situation in Africa (see box), Senegal outlined the priority programme adopted by the OAU in July.

The programme was based essentially on five measures: accelerated implementation of the Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act of Lagos; improvement of the food and agricultural situation in Africa; lightening of the external debt burden; the working out of a common platform for action at the sub-regional regional, continental and international levels, and action against the effects of South Africa's policy of destabilization on the economies of the States of southern Africa. In that context, the OAU had called for an international conference on the foreign debt of African countries and an international conference on sanctions against South Africa.

A special Assembly session should focus on "the restoration of our economies, as well as on medium-term and long-term development problems". Above all, it would enable a comprehensive analysis of problems and mobilize the international community and financial institutions to contribute with lasting effect to Africa's economic recovery.

Most of the other 34 speakers in the debate agreed that it was necessary to address the medium- and long-term situation in Africa and supported the proposal to devote a special session of the Assembly to the critical economic situation in Africa. Many speakers paid tribute to the response of the United Nations system to the emergency in Africa, and to the work of the Office for Emergency Operations in Africa in particular.

Luxembourg, on behalf of the European Economic Community and Portugal and Spain, said that the Community had adopted in November a plan for the rehabilitation and recovery of the African countries which had been most affected by the drought. The plan was aimed at guaranteeing continuity between the "Dublin Plan", adopted by the EEC in 1984, to assist the eight African countries most affected by the famine, and the implementation of the third Lome Convention. The EEC and its member States "willingly give their support "to the proposal for a special session of the Assembly on the critical situation in Africa.

Other developed countries expressed support of Africa's development efforts and endorsed the idea of a special session. In that regard Finland, on behalf of the Nordic countries, emphasized that the session should be carefully prepared and "should aim at action-oriented results." The priorities of the African countries themselves provided a natural point of departure for the consideration of long-term development in Africa.

The United States said that the primary focus should be on rehabilitating Africa from it devastating crisis and "on restarting the largely derailed engines of long-term development".

The USSR said that it would be naive to think that the crisis "was exclusively the result of unfavourable elimatic conditions or the demographic factor". The primary cause was "rooted in the colonial period."

On behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries, Yugoslavia said that the key problem was "to help Africa embark on the path of development". The Group of 77 fully supported the holding of a special session of the Assembly and also supported the proposal to hold an international conference on the external debts of African countries.

"An international consensus was forged" to avert mass starvation in Africa, said India. The task was now "to bring a measure of improvement" to the lives that were saved.