Addis Ababa — The following document was released by UN Economic Commission for Africa: Some 350 participants from 24 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa kicked off a three-day Conference here to assess the status of implementation of the goals and targets agreed in Copenhagen four years ago at the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen.
Ministers were present from 15 of the represented countries, with participation cutting across NGOs, subregional organizations, representatives of bilateral development partners, and multilateral institutions, among others.
In his welcome remarks, Professor George Saitoti, Kenya's Minister of Planning and National Development, said the aim of the Nairobi conference was to monitor, rather than to fully evaluate, compliance to the actions agreed in Copenhagen, and would provide a forum for countries to share experiences on how they had addressed the problem of poverty.
"In doing so," stressed Prof. Saitoti, "we must thus take into account changes in the global economy such as globalization, dwindling resources, liberalization, international capital flows and their effect on our vulnerable economies."
In her opening statement, Ms. Lalla Ben Barka, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), noted that 32 of the world's 45 Least Developed Countries were in Africa. This fact, coupled with the high number of African heads of state or government who attended the Copenhagen Summit, represented "an eloquent testimony to the high priority which countries in Africa attached to resolving [its] social development problems".
The good news, said Ms. Ben Barka, was that overall, African economies had demonstrated encouraging economic performances since Copenhagen, growing at a rate of 3.2 per cent in the four years after the Summit as compared to by 1 per cent in the two years preceding the Summit. Yet the growth still fell far short of the rates required to reduce poverty by half by the year 2015. ECA estimates that sustained GDP growth rates of 8 per cent for East Africa and 6 per cent for Southern Africa.
Furthermore, in most countries of the region, the positive growth achievements had not been matched by recovery in the social sectors. "A major problem", stressed Ms. Ben Barka, "is the fact that per capita GDP growth has been too minuscule to have a significant impact on the social sectors". Secondly, there had not been sufficient political will to divert the required resources to social development, with the result that social development indicators had deteriorated in many countries.
The Conference - the first of three subregional follow-ups to Copenhagen taking place in 1999 - is being co-organized by ECA and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in collaboration with the Government of Kenya.
MS. Thelma Awori, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of UNDP Africa, lamented the fact that more than 300 million Africans live on less than a dollar a day, that a quarter of African children do not go to school, that half of Africa's people had no access to clean water, and that one per cent of women die in childbirth: She asked the gathering: "How can these things be in a continent so richly endowed with natural resources, and human resources? Who is benefiting from the wealth of Africa and to what are her brilliant minds directed? On what are the minds of our leaders focused if not addressing this fundamental contradiction of deep misery amidst great wealth?".
The UNDP Assistant administrator outlined some essential elements of UNDP's vision for the future: Africa must be free from the chains of debt, war and violence, and must embrace good governance and human rights, she stressed.
A series of recommendations emanating from a one-day pre-conference gathering of civil society groups were presented on behalf of 20 NGO umbrella networks representing more than 14,000 organizations from 10 countries in the East and Southern Africa subregions. These included calls on governments to:
- place poverty eradication at the top of the national agenda; - lobby through the ECA, Southern African Development Community (SADC), East African Community (EAC), COMESA, Organization of African Unity (OAU) and G77, for debt cancellation and utilization of the resources saved for poverty eradication and employment creation; - take steps to accelerate women's access to and control over land and credit for increased productivity;
The Conference is examining progress in four clusters: Poverty Reduction; Employment Creation; Achieving the Objectives of the Social Sectors; and Governance. Background papers on the four themes were presented after the opening session, by UNDP, ILO, UNICEF and ECA respectively.
Participants split into four working groups in the afternoon to interact on the key themes in more detail. The working sessions resume early Tuesday, followed by an official opening ceremony to be presided over by Kenya's Head of State, President Daniel Arap Moi.
A subregional conference for North Africa is due to take place in Marrakech, Morocco from 23-25 March 1999. Preparations are also underway for a similar conference covering the West and Central Africa regions.
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For English and French language documents relating to the subregional conferences, please visit our Website at : http://www.un.org/depts/eca
For further information, please contact:
Peter K.A. da Costa Senior Communication Adviser Office of the Executive Secretary Economic Commission for Africa C/o United Nations Office in Nairobi (UNON) Nairobi, Kenya Tel: +254-2-62 25 57 Fax: +254-2-62 39 30 E-Mail: dacosta@igc.apc.org dacosta@africaonline.co.ke
