Zambia's first decade as LDC.

In May 2001, the European Union and the United Nations hosted the Third United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Brussels, Belgium. Testimony to the continuously growing number of LDCs was Zambia's first-time participation as one of the 49 poorest countries in the world.

"There are certain benefits and certain expectations when you are regarded as a poor man", said Dr. Herrick Mpuku, Zambia's Permanent Secretary of Budget and Economic Affairs, during an interview before the Conference. Zambia, which became an LDC ten years ago, did not attend the first Conference and held observer status at the second.

Expectations of increased socio-economic benefits fuelled the spirits at the commencement on 14 May of the Third United Nations Conference. At the opening session, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, "we are here to consider what kind of support would be most useful to the people of the world's 49 least developed countries and to make sure that they get it".

Representatives at the Conference spanned LDCs, non-governmental organizations, Heads of State and multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, Cisco Systems and Oxfam International. This diversity reflected the Conference's objective of including members of civil society, the private sector, as well as Governments, in the global dialogue.

Throughout the week, round-table discussions keyed in on topics which included migration and refugees, the business sector, the digital economy and youth. Thematic sessions highlighted issues such as education, international trade, energy, and human resources development and employment.

The Conference culminated in the production of a new Programme of Action report that aims to rectify the lack of implementation of policies proscribed by the Paris Programme of Action report, adopted at the Second LDC Conference in 1990. Main goals set by the Programme of Action for this new decade have been developed in a collaborative process between LDCs and their development partners, in line with UN goals for the new millennium.

The new report determines that "the overarching goal of the Programme of Action is to make substantial progress toward halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger by 2015 and promote sustainable development of the LDCs". According to the report, LDCs hope to reach a minimum gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 7 per cent per year and increase the ratio of investment to GDP to 25 per cent per year. In order to reach this goal, participation from both the private sector and civil society is essential.

"LDCs are being bypassed by the process of globalization", the Progamme of Action points out. Political as well as economic developments have left LDCs at minimal development levels.

Among such persistent economic blockades are minimal financial resources, unsustainable debt burdens, falling commodity prices, complex trade barriers, lack of economic diversification and supply-side constraints. This is despite efforts made to follow economic reform programmes delineated in the 1990 Programme of Action. Reform activities included eliminating or reducing tariffs and similar trade barriers, liberalizing currency regimes, privatizing public enterprises, establishing and strengthening institutional and regulatory frameworks, and adopting liberal investment policies. The inability to reach these objectives, however, has contributed to the failure of the Action Programme of the past decade.

According to Dr. Mpuku, the Zambian Government, since becoming an LDC, has tried to keep its policies consistent in terms of macroeconomic structural reform, while its economic and social system has undergone tremendous change. "We had a very significant percentage of our business interests being run by State-owned companies", he said.

In 1991, 280 companies were State-owned and today there are only 30. Even in the context of sub-Saharan Africa's economic performance, Zambia's economic decline has been extreme. Real GDP per capita is estimated to have decreased more than 50 per cent since 1970. Zambia was a relatively rich country in the 1960s and 1970s, and it was during the 1970s that its "fortune started going wrong". Declining prices in copper--Zambia's main export--and reduced mineral exports pushed economic collapse. Import cost problems compounded the situation, destroying that country's fiscal position and plunging the economy into a crisis. "By the 1980s our problems became quite serious and we had to engage international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF),to resolve those problems", Dr. Mpuku affirmed.

The situation improved during the early 1990s as a result of several policy shifts. In 1991, a new multiparty democratic government introduced a series of major economic reforms designed to transform the Zambian economy. A set of structural and institutional reforms was initiated, including reforms of agricultural marketing, a large privatization programme and reforms to the public sector. These policies were intended to stimulate growth, but Zambia's economic performance in the 1990s was disappointing, with GDP growth decreasing, driven by substantial declines in the mining, quarrying and manufacturing sectors. More troubling was the decline in certain social indicators. School enrolment dropped and the number of malnourished children and the under-five mortality rate rose substantially.

"Policy inconsistencies and a lack of clarity in terms of what we intended to achieve made it difficult for us to make progress in terms of a reform programme", Dr. Mpuku said. "This is what led us to decline. Per capita income declined, our capacity to find various services to our people declined. Our development profile was becoming so bad that we had to redefine our status to become an LDC."

Zambia's economy recovered in 1999 with a GDP growth rate of 2.4 per cent, the IMF reports. Despite this upturn, poverty has increased dramatically, as has inequality in urban and rural areas due, in part, to job losses resulting from trade liberalization and privatization programmes. Approximately 70 per cent of the country's population lives in extreme poverty without access to social services, in poor and overcrowded housing conditions, and without sufficient basic food intake, the IMF says.

Poverty in Zambia is multifaceted: rural poverty, at 83 per cent, according to the IMF, is deeper and more prevalent among female-headed households and small-scale farmers.

Urban poverty, on the other hand, is estimated at 56 per cent. Lack of social services for health, nutrition, water and sanitation, in addition to little or no access to employment, have surfaced as significant challenges for the urban poor. Furthermore, major health problems, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, thwart attempts toward sustainable development. "We have to put in place right policies", Dr. Mpuku said. "But also we need the support of our development partners, so we attach a lot of importance to this Conference."

Clearly outlined goals and overseas development assistance from development partners and industrialized countries are very important, Dr. Mpuku said. In addition, he would like to see increased foreign investment in his country and access to developed countries' markets. "It is not just a question of depending on aid and grants. The only way we can guarantee our own growth is through adequate access to markets of developed countries to ensure that our growth is sustainable." Tariff and non-tariff barriers must be removed so that Zambia and other LDCs have ensured market access. Given the opportunity, Zambia could produce a variety of products to be sold in the world market. "Our beef is very good", he pointed Out as an example. "I think we can work together and try to see how our capacities of world trade can be expanded."

As is the case with many LDCs, Zambia is highly dependent on its main export--copper. When the country faced a downturn in copper exports, its economy was rattled. "If we could diversify our export base and export meat, we can export flowers, we can export other mineral products and hopefully other manufactured products, I think then we are on a much more sustainable growth path as an economny," Dr. Mpuku said.

The Programme of Action highlights the importance of partnership between the LDCs, their development partners and civil society in fostering economic growth and development in an increasingly globalized world. LDCs have committed themselves to concrete stepts in attaining the overarching goal of reduced worldwide poverty by the year 2015.

The seven strategic commitments are: fostering a people-centred policy framework; good governance at national and international levels; building human and institutional capacities; building productive capacities to make globalization work for LDCs; enhancing the role of trade in development; reducing vulnerability and protecting the environment; and mobilizing financial resources. Dr. Mpuku envisions an adequate mechanism for following up and ensuring that these commitments are monitored annually, "a process which the LDCs must have commitment to and must also own. Own in a sense that they believe in what is contained in the Declaration, and try their best to abide by it and also ensure that the development partners abide by their commitments."

During the final week of the Conference, the G77 proposed that the Secretary-General establish a permanent office of LDCs, which would ensure follow-up, monitoring and the successful implementation of the Programme of Action. As opposed to the decades defining the previous two conferences, there is now "a spirit of seriousness, understanding and consensus" by the developed countries and the development partners. According to Dr. Mpuku, there is also a spirit of seriousness from the LDCs in terms of economic and structural reform that shows how committed they are to serious economic advancement and realizing the dreams of their people. "I would like to be optimistic. I think the ground at the moment is all set for the future of a good economic management and I think everyone will put in his or her very best to support it. I have reason to be confident."

At the closing ceremony of the LDC Conference on 20 May, Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, concluded: "The LDCs are not only recipients of aid ... but they also have a lot to give. They have creativity, they have labour to offer, and the products of their imagination ... they have the capacity to contribute to the emergence of a true globalization ... that can promote understanding, cross-fertilization of cultures, communication among human beings, and a dialogue of civilizations. This is the real aim of this Conference."

Nadja Schmeil, an intern with the Chronicle and a graduate of Columbia University's School of International Public Affairs, travelled to Zambia as a consultant for UNICEF to design an institutional analysis of community schools.