Addis Ababa — Opening Statement by K. Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary, Economic Commission for Africa at The Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

It is with great pleasure that I once again welcome you to Addis Ababa and ECA. You will recall that in Algiers in May 2001, we agreed to merge the Economic Commission for Africa conferences of Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Economic Development and Planning into a single Conference to improve our efficiency and impact.

In Johannesburg last year, you urged that Africa's key regional institutions strategically time their meetings to better influence international fora. As part of our response, we agreed to synchronize this Conference with the African Development Bank's Annual Meetings. I would like to thank my brother, Omar Kabbaj, for the excellent collaboration of ABD and for making this possible.

Before speaking to the issues on today's agenda, allow me to briefly reflect on the work and increasing importance of this Conference.

As part of ECA's reforms begun in 1996, we proposed some changes to the legislative machinery that guided the Commission's work. We argued that quality was better than quantity, and that we should strive to make all our meetings and conferences substantive and strategic, and to tie them more closely to Africa's development agenda. Based on this, we radically transformed the Conference of Ministers, making it more interactive, issues-driven and outcome-oriented. Now, seven years later, these conferences have become a vital event on Africa's development calendar and in the considerations of our development partners. Recent conferences fully evidence this.

In Addis Ababa in May 1999, against the backdrop of a global financial crisis, you called for the HIPC initiative to be restructured; you asked G7 countries to completely cancel debts arising from bilateral aid for the poorest countries; you proposed that the IMF refinance HIPC through gold sales; you insisted that debt relief should not come at the expense of ODA; you pushed for expanded aid flows; you highlighted the importance of improved African ownership of development programmes and the need to strengthen institutional aid delivery mechanisms; and you stressed the need to accelerate trade and investment as an important part of financing development.

In Addis Ababa in November 2000, you again raised concerns about HIPC, and restated your positions on ODA and trade; you held an important discussion on the international financial architecture and concluded that it needed reform. At that meeting, I proposed a new Global Compact for Africa's Recovery, as an outcome of the LDCs conference as well as the then upcoming Financing for Development Conference. You mandated me to prepare a detailed Compact, along with proposals on how to implement it, to be presented at the next Conference. In Algiers in May 2001, you set the course to merge the Millennium Plan for Africa's Recovery and the Omega Plan into a single African Initiative. Algiers deepened the concepts of African ownership of the development process and speaking with one voice in a new relationship with Africa's development partners. Your Ministerial Statement forcefully advised that the 4th WTO Ministerial be a 'Development Round' and it underscored the need for Africa to accelerate regional integration to increase its chances of benefiting from globalization.

In Johannesburg in October 2002, you discussed steps needed to implement the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). There you proposed concrete ways to move NEPAD forward. Your Ministerial Statement stressed aid effectiveness; proposed improved economic policymaking; endorsed unleashing the private sector and liberalizing trade; called for improving Africa's representation in trade talks; endorsed the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) as an African-owned tool for peer learning and self-monitoring; recommended the principle of transformed partnerships underpinned by African ownership and mutual accountability; and called for faster debt relief for HIPC and non-HIPC countries.

There is an added weight of responsibility in these Conferences as together we have learned to move from recommendations to action.

Many of the far-reaching proposals from your Conference in 1999 subsequently found their way onto the agenda of the G7 Summit in Cologne, Germany, as well as to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

At the Monterrey Financing for Development meeting in March 2002, your proposals on debt, aid and trade resonated with the Consensus. At the Lusaka Summit your painstaking work in advocating for a single African initiative bore fruit in NEPAD and the African Union.

In Doha, the fourth WTO Ministerial was declared a development round, just as you requested in your 2001 Conference. In Kananaskis, positions on a new Compact underpinned the deliberations as well as the G8's detailed Action Plan formulated in response to NEPAD.

And shortly after your Conference in 2002, the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee, meeting in Abuja, took up the mutual accountability issue, which you had previously raised. They requested ECA and the OECD to develop an institutional framework for monitoring progress in this area.

Your encouragement that we pursue proposals for a new relationship between Africa and its development partners has led to a major paradigm shift in the development discourse. There is now widespread acceptance of: a Compact based on African ownership and leadership; Mutual commitment to meeting shared goals and outcomes; joint responsibility for monitoring progress towards these goals; and the need to establish a mechanism for tracking progress.

In short, these Conferences have repeatedly proven to be valuable fora for advocating an African-owned and African-led agenda, and for ensuring that Africa's united voice is respected in global development policymaking. Honourable Ministers and Governors

This year's Conference is particularly significant for a number of reasons. One major reason is that we are meeting at the same time as the G8 Summit is taking place in Evian, France. Many of the issues we will discuss today are also on the table at Evian. The Summit will discuss the implementation of the G8 Action Plan and a number of key issues in the context of NEPAD, among them Peace and Security, Water and Sanitation, HIV/AIDS, and meeting the Millennium Development Goals. All in all, we can expect further support for Africa.

But clearly, while Evian is another step in the right direction, a number of fundamental issues of concern to Africa will remain unresolved. Our discussion today of mutual accountability and policy coherence is intended to accelerate progress on the unfinished agenda of market access, ODA, debt relief and commodity price stabilization.

Your recent conferences have been instrumental in ensuring that aid effectiveness is at the heart of discussions between Africa and its development partners. As we seek to advance mutual accountability and policy coherence, the emphasis is increasingly on concrete mechanisms to monitor progress.

o this end, we at ECA, together with the OECD, have proposed a joint review of development effectiveness to enable Africa and its partners to take stock and monitor performance. The NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee asked us to prepare the proposal, and have endorsed our progress. What we have in mind is a mutual review conducted every two years, based on reports produced by ECA and the OECD Secretariat.

Indicators will need to be developed and data will need to be culled on the areas of greatest concern to Africa. We envisage the report being presented every two years to this Conference, and believe that this will further strengthen the practical relevance of these meetings. Your views today will be critical in shaping and finalizing the joint review process.

We cannot talk about aid effectiveness without talking about the IMF and its role in Africa. The IMF has been, and will continue to be, an important actor in Africa's development. I welcome the Fund's current review of its instruments, policies and procedures. At our third 'Big Table' meeting in January this year, those of you who attended will recall the discussion on the role the IMF should play in low-income countries. To contribute to the process, we agreed that a special Big Table on this subject would be convened later this year, prior to the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings. Many of you serve as Governors of the World Bank and IMF. And we are joined here today by a number of Executive Directors. So today's discussion will contribute in many ways to the upcoming Annual and Development Committee meetings.

I think we can all agree that despite the considerable progress signaled by our development partners endorsement of the HIPC initiative, the debt burden continues to weigh heavily on Africa. Even with its limitations, HIPC has made clear that debt relief is a viable instrument for financing Africa's development. But what I believe we must do now is to think beyond HIPC, and consider what comes next in our collective struggle to manage this heavy economic burden.

The need to further the debt relief agenda has been cited by many African leaders, including President Wade of Senegal, at the suggestion of whom ECA will convene, in September of this year, an African Experts Group Meeting on debt relief. Building on this meeting, and consistent with our efforts to ensure that Africa's agenda is thoughtfully and thoroughly represented in international fora, I am proposing today that ECA convenes, in early 2004, an International Conference of African Debt Relief.

I believe that we can, and must, take the initiative to design the policies, instruments and initiatives that can constitute the next step in the international community's efforts to reduce Africa's debt burden. I urge all you Honourable Ministers gathered here today to lend your support to the proposed Conference.

Four years ago in this room Chairperson, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot and I engaged you on HIV/AIDS. We spoke of the emerging impacts of the pandemic on Africa's development. Today it is far clearer that HIV/AIDS is causing devastating damage to our economies. Projections show that in our most severely afflicted countries, GDP could fall significantly by 2020.

Nearly a million African students a year lose their teachers to HIV/AIDS. And, according to FAO, 7 million agricultural workers have already died of AIDS and at least 16 million more will die by 2020. What these figures show is that enhancing development effectiveness must include mitigating the scourge of HIV/AIDS. That is why the Secretary-General of the United Nations has asked me to chair a Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance, that will, among other things, develop tools for policymakers to quickly grapple with, and hopefully reduce the impacts of the pandemic. Your advice on the issues of greatest priority for this work and on the right macro-policy responses to HIV/AIDS will be welcome.

How will today's discussion make a difference in the coming weeks and months? I have already mentioned the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and IMF, which will take place in Dubai in September, and the next meetings of the Development Committee. There, the role of the IMF will surely be discussed and our views will be heard. Also in September, the 5th WTO Ministerial Round will take place in Cancun, Mexico. We must make sure that Africa's unfinished trade agenda -- including the unfettering of market access, protection of intellectual property rights and removal of non-tariff barriers -- is addressed as part of the discussion on policy coherence. Finally in October of this year, the third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD III), as was the case in previous TICADs, will place emphasis on social development, private sector participation and good governance in Africa. The deliberations of this Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development could make an important contribution to the outcome of TICAD III.

Time is short, Chairperson, and I will not venture to review other matters since your experts have gone through them in some detail. Indeed, I cannot conclude my statement without expressing my sincere gratitude to the Committee of Experts for their exceptional work. I would also give a special vote of thanks to the Chairman of the Committee of Experts, who will shortly be presenting to you the report of your Experts. The efficient and substantive way in which he presided over the proceedings was simply exceptional.

It is a full agenda. I thank you for being here and I look forward very much to your views and recommendations