Addis Ababa — ADF III Reports Will Correct Our Past Errors, says Amara Essy

The Secretary General of the OAU, Mr. Amara Essy said in Addis Ababa yesterday that the reports of ADF III would "help correct the mistakes which African countries may have made in their past integration efforts," adding: "We will see our shortcomings and imperfections in the report that we draft".

In an address at the opening of ADF, Mr. Essy said:

* The ECA had a mine of information that the OAU would continue to tap into in the pursuit of the mandate to establish the African Union. ADF III would add value to the effort being made by OAU to set up the African Union which is poised to be the solution to the conflicts that were draining Africa's blood, its balkanization, national egoism and many other impediments to the development of basic infrastructure and human capital.

* He was asked how he planned to set up an African Union within one year when it took Europe 50 years to set up the EU. "It is failure that helps you to improve. We have failed (in the process of integration) in the past, but we have the commitment to build a strong African Union and make a success of it."

* The new forms of partnership will facilitate the active participation of economic operators in Africa and regional dynamics will eventually transcend national dynamics.

The Executive Secretary of ECA, Mr. K.Y Amoako urged participants to share their concerns and ideas about regional integration in Africa. He offered his own concerns as follows:

* Economic integration has to be fostered at all levels "offering support for the informal sector, facilitating growth of micro, small and medium sized firms, reducing trade based upon corrupt practices and fostering trade and investment by large local and international firms that can pursue sub regional and regional economies of scale.

* A number of public goods have to be fostered through integration. These include peace and security, social development, common environmental challenges and scientific expertise and research of all kinds.

* More efficient ways are needed to regionalize. The existing 13 RECs are pieces of puzzle which do not fit well together - which is why almost all of African countries belong to more than one of these RECs; 27 belong to two RECs; 18 belong to three and one country belongs to four.

* What should be the pace of integration? Up to now, the pace had been deliberate and slow; but now, we are moving to a much faster timetable. We must look for ways to accelerate the process, identifying and using best cases from within Africa and around the world. Decision on pace should be ambitious but the pace should be doable.

* A new way is needed to conceptualize and finance regional integration which calculates not only what it will cost to integrate but what it will actually cost us if we do not move to effective political and economic integration. And, lastly,

* Successful integration requires finding the ingredients of a real political consensus throughout society so that the new regional solidarity can be created and sustained in popular imagination and in viable institutions.

In a statement read on his behalf by Mr. Cyril Enweze, Vice President Operations, the President of the African Development Bank, Mr. Omar Kabbaj, said the Bank's regional integration activities were in:

*Policy based operations and policy dialogue supporting national and regional measures

*Development and maintenance of regional infrastructure

*Private sector promotion and investment

*National and regional institutional capacity building, and

*Promotion of sustainable development.

He said these activities were pursued at the following levels: multinational, country, private sector and regional and international organizations.

* At the multinational level, ADB has committed close to US$821 million to finance projects and provide technical assistance to about 136 multinational schemes.

* At the country level, where the bulk of the Bank's resources are devoted, ADB has provided US$41.3 billion. Through its national intervention strategies and resource allocation system, ADB also strives to achieve synergy in its operations and measures undertaken by member states.

* At the level of economic operators where ADB assists the private sector, the Bank had approved US$747 million as at the end of last year. To enhance economic and political integration process, ADB also has financed and co-financed several policy based programs with regional dimensions such as the Tariff and Competitiveness Promotion Program in Senegal, the Azitoi Power Project in Cote d'Ivoire, the South Africa Infrastructure Fund, the Public Procurement Reform for COMESA, the facilitation of regional trade through the harmonization of tariff in Ghana's Economic Support Operation and the project for the Study on Higher Education of WAEMU.

Mr. Kabbaj said ADB had also learned the following valuable lessons:

* Infrastructure projects, especially in transport sector - with the exception of Air Afrique, perform better than projects in other areas. The more the parties involved in an integration initiative are committed and backed by local public support, the higher the probability of success.

* To ensure sustainability of regional projects, ADB needs to collaborate closely with the relevant regional and sub-regional institutions in the area of capacity-building and training.

* Good governance and a strife-free environment are needed to establish the enabling environments and market-based integration initiatives. ADB needs to lock in co-financing arrangements involving external financiers and the beneficiary countries.

Earlier, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Mr. Meles Zenawi, said the issue of regional integration was "the premier political and economic challenge that Africans are facing today". He said:

* While Africa was endowed with enormous assets that form the basis for integration, it is very much "short of those critically important human and infrastructural capital that need to form the foundation for effective integration. This makes the integration we require as a matter of survival in its most literal sense, appear so complex and an uphill struggle."

* African leaders had committed themselves to the maximum practical level of economic and political integration. "There can be no other meaning for the Constitutive Act of the African Union which we have embraced," he said.

* If Africa is to succeed with regional integration, the efforts must be followed by political will, not merely expressed in documents. The Prime Minister also said that Ethiopia would continue to be committed to regional integration and African unity "because of our conviction that this is also in the interest of Ethiopia as it is in the interest of all African countries at the individual level." [ADF3]