The United Nations system-wide special initiative on Africa: ten-year, $25-billion drive for development.

Africa is at a critical point in its history--full of renewed promise but beleaguered by economic and social emergencies that continue to drain precious resources. Recognizing this challenge of global development, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on 15 March launched a ten-year, $25-billion UN System-wide Special Initiative on Africa.

A multi-billion dollar programme of concrete actions designed to accelerate African development, the Special Initiative aims over the next decade to greatly expand basic education and health care, promote peace and better governance, and improve water and food security.

The UN system's most significant mobilization of support ever for the development of a continent's people and its largest coordinated action, the Special Initiative will also be backed by a year-long effort to mobilize worldwide political commitment and support for the development activities of African countries. Some of these activities are already under way.

Participating in the global launch were James D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, and the executive heads of UN agencies in Geneva, Nairobi, New York, Paris and Rome.

A live link-up to Addis Ababa enabled Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and current Chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim to provide an official response on behalf of Africa. Mr. Zenawi said the Initiative was "fully in line with Africa's priorities and interests", and was being launched at a time when there was a need for steps to ensure its development.

Paying for progress

In comparison to the $767 billion the world's nations spent in 1994 on military preparations, the financial resources needed to implement the Special Initiative seem modest. The UN has broken down the various components of the Initiative into two types: those requiring substantial resource mobilization and implementation, and those calling mainly for strengthening and rationalizing existing efforts. The lion's share of the $25 billion will come from a reordering of priorities in

African national budgets, and reallocations of existing levels of multilateral and bilateral official development assistance (ODA), as well as new resources. The exact mix will be determined through a series of consultations at the regional and national levels.

The Initiative will also try other ways of releasing funds for development, including deeper debt relief, enhancing South-South cooperation, expanding trade opportunities and moving private investment and new technology into Africa.

"The issue is how we spend the money", Mr. Wolfensohn said at a 15 March press briefing, in which heads of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) also participated. Spending existing amounts efficiently would make a major difference. Putting the sum into perspective, he noted that private investments were over three times the size of ODA--$170 billion compared to $50 billion. One of the outcomes of the Initiative should be an improvement in how resources were used, not just how much was actually generated, he stressed.

At the launching ceremony, Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali called on the international community "to demonstrate its commitment to the development of a continent which remained a source of constant concern". But the Initiative was also a message to men and women in Africa, he said. The international community was telling them that Africa had not been abandoned and, more than ever, it was under the watchful eyes of the world. He would make every effort to make sure that the Initiative would not fail and its goals would become a reality, translated into concrete initiatives that would change the lives of those men and women.

"Now is the time for the United Nations, and the international community as a whole, to stand together with Africa, its leaders and its people. Now is the time for us to forge a new partnership", he declared, adding that as Secretary-General, "this is my goal, and my commitment".

Crisis or opportunity?

At a time when conditions are improving for many peoples in the world, the hard-scrabble existence of many Africans seems to go on, despite sustained efforts by African Governments and civil society and the international community. Of the 48 least developed countries in the world, 33 are in Africa. Today, 365 million Africans--roughly 50 per cent--live in absolute poverty, and Africa is the only region in the world where poverty is expected to increase during this decade.

Africa's annual rate of population growth is the highest in the world, with serious implications for sustained economic growth and sustainable development. The number of undernourished has risen to nearly 200 million, and the continent, once a net exporter of food, has become a net importer. An estimated 11 per cent of its total land area is at least moderately damaged by water or wind erosion, and more is threatened by desertification and other scourges--cold confirmation that the continent is suffering from degradation of its natural resources base.

By 1994, the external debt of Africa had risen to $313 billion, equivalent to 234 per cent of export income and 83 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP)--comparatively higher than in any other region. Exports have stagnated and by 1992 real commodity prices had fallen to half their 1979-1981 average levels.

And there are the flash points. Civil violence in Burundi, Liberia and Somalia and genocide in Rwanda have at one time or another made the headlines. But that is only part of the African reality, and not the most representative. Often with UN assistance, political liberalization, slow and uneven though it might be, is now taking root in a number of States, such as Comoros, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali and Sierra Leone. Long-running civil wars in Angola and Mozambique have ended, and rehabilitation and reconstruction are gaining ground. In South Africa, the dramatic demise of apartheid brought with it non-racial democracy. In 1990, Namibia entered the ranks of independent, democratic States.

African Governments have also undertaken a number of difficult political, social and economic reforms that are providing new dynamism for rapid, sustained recovery. A climate conducive to increased domestic and foreign investment is being created; capital markets are being formed; and African entrepreneurship is expanding. Average rates of economic growth in the past two years have improved.

According to the Secretary-General, in a 6 May message to the annual session of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA): "The aim of the Special Initiative is to add momentum to Africa's development at this time when prospects for economic recovery are greater than ever."

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