AFRICA: TRANSFORMATION WITHOUT CHANGE (by Róbinson Rojas)(1996)
_______________________________________________________________________
TABLE 1 Population GDP GDP growth
1995 million US$ million annual average
1980-90 1990-95
Sub-Saharan Africa 583.3 296,748 1.7 1.4
East Asia and Pacific 1,706.4 1,341,265 7.6 10.4
South Asia 1,243.0 439,203 5.7 4.6
Europe and Central Asia 487.6 1,103,330 2.3 -6.5
Middle East and N. Africa 272.4 491,952 0.2 2.3
Latin America and Caribbean 477.9 1,688,195 1.7 3.2
High-income* 63.8 840,562 7.4 5.6
Industrial countries 840.1 21,644,986 3.2 2.0
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WORLD 5,673.0 27,846,241 3.1 2.0
_______________________________________________________________________
* South Korea, Israel, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and
Singapore.
Source: World Development Report, 1997, World Bank, 1997
_______________________________________________________________________
Since the end of the Second World War, the former colonies in Africa
have been under direct economic control and indirect political control
by the Western European countries which were the former colonizers.
France and Britain, that is, with some encroachment by United States and
Japan.
This neo-colonial control has its reflection in the total lack of
industrialization in the region.
Since 1958, when the Treaty of Rome was signed by the Western European
countries, their relations with African countries were very well
defined. History played a critical role in molding those relations.
The EC vision was defined as "a natural partnership" with Africa, with
specific aims:
1) build up a secure supply of raw materials, and
2) build up a secure market for European manufactured
goods, and
3) with the help of the U.S. "protect" the African
nations against the danger of becoming influenced
by the former USSR or People's Republic of China.
The former EC utilized two instruments for doing that: trade preferences
and direct aid, the latter with economic and political strings attached.
In July 1964 the system was structured in what since then have been
known as the Lome Convention even when the first two conventions took
place in Yaounde (Cameroon) and not Lome(Togo).
By the 1980s it was clear that "available empirical evidence has tended
to show that bilateral aid from EC countries has been allocated among
developing countries much more on the basis of donor interests that on
that of recipient country needs" (A. Maizels and M. Nissanke,
"Motivations for Aid to Developing Countries", World Development, vol.12,
No. 9, 1984).
By the 1980s two differing points of view about the Lome Convention:
Western European point of view: The ACP states have limited themselves
to traditional exports...they have
failed to match the productivity and
quality advances of Asian and Latin
American competitors.
ACP* countries point of view: Some elements of the Convention, in fact,
hinder the growth of African, Caribbean
and Pacific countries' exports...the
Convention's safeguard clause tends to
inhibit growth in areas where they could
enjoy the greatest dynamic comparative
advantage and provides a powerful
disincentive to their industrial development.
(* African, Caribbean and Pacific countries members of the Lome
Convention. A grand total of 70 countries linked to 15 European
Union Members)
(E. R. Gilli, "The European Community and the Developing Countries",
Cambridge University Press, 1993)
This "special relation" seems to have helped to stop African growth
between 1960 and 1975 and transforming it in a dramatic decrease until
the 1990s. The table below is illustrative:
______________________________________________________________________
TABLE 2
MARKET ECONOMIES (171 COUNTRIES).-Relative share on total
Gross Domestic Product
1960 1975 1990
Industrial (21 countries)* 82.2 79.7 82.8
West Africa (23 countries) 0.8 1.1 0.5
East and Southern Africa (27 countries) 1.6 1.4 0.9
North Africa (5 countries) 0.7 1.0 0.8
Middle East (14 countries) 0.9 3.1 2.2
South Asia (8 countries) 3.8 2.4 1.9
East Asia and the Pacific(26 countries) 1.8 2.2 3.5
Latin America (21 countries) 6.1 7.1 5.5
The Caribbean (20 countries) 0.4 0.3 0.3
Developing Europe( 6 countries)** 1.4 1.4 1.5
----------------------------------------------------------
All countries 100.0 100.0 100.0
----------------------------------------------------------
* Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finaland, France,
Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands,
New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom,
and United States.
** Gibraltar, Greece, Isle of Man, Malta, Portugal, and Turkey.
Source: World Bank Indicators, 1997. Data available in
The Róbinson Rojas Archive (http://www.rrojasdatabank.info)
______________________________________________________________________
The process of decolonization, prompted largely by nationalist
agitation in the colonies and by other external factors, among them
United States pressure for opening up those captive markets to its
trade, was designed to oversee and orchestrate an orderly transition
to political independence. That was specially true in Africa.
The colonial powers, as if to fulfill their civilizing
mission, appeared committed to transplanting Western European type of
democratic regimes in their former colonies, without regard to
circumstances such as ethnic and tribal social organizations;
a fact which might have necessitated the search for alternative
regimes.
Already implicit in the decolonization process was the presumption
that the nation-state was a given, and that all that was needed was
to fit the state with a Western European type democratic constitution;
a democratic form of government would follow naturally.
The facts show that the colonial state was not a nation-state.
It was a colonial creature, invented without regard to
geographic and ethnic boundaries and ruled by force. Colonial
domination kept its disparate ethnic groupings together through
coercion and manipulation.
In presuming these diverse groups as part of a nation, the colonialist
was implying the existence of a common bond, cherished by all the groups,
a bond which tied them together.
This conveyed an element of consent or approval, not only about how
they were governed but on whether they wished to remain part of the
body politic. Of course, the above was not consistent with African
socio-political reality.
Historical Factors
Historical factors cannot be discounted in understanding and analyzing
the contemporary African political and economic condition.
The fact that the colonial political community resulted from conquest
provides a rich insight into its character and structure.
It was an ensemble of diverse ethnic and cultural groupings which the
colonial overlords welded into a political community. As a subjugated
people they were more or less held together by force and to the extent
that they accepted their subjugated status, the colonial overlords were
willing to reach an accommodation with them.
Thus, cooperation with a colonial regime was dictated largely by
political expediency. The appeal of the colonizers to a civilizing
mission was by no means legitimating and the colonized did not buy
into it. The colonial administrators were accountable only to their
imperial governments.
Though nationalist agitation ultimately contributed to the
decolonization process, the colonizers dictated both the pace and
outcome of the postcolonial political order in the majority of cases.
From the above, one should question the view held by most nationalists
that the advent of independence was a rupture with the colonial past
and the dawn of a new political era with former colonial political
communities now firmly mastering their own fate.
Postcolonial communities were indeed furnished with democratic
constitutions and representative institutions. Nationalist leaders
quickly replaced the colonial administrators as rulers in the new
political dispensation. Apart from such changes, little else had
changed.
The postcolonial state was in many respects not very different from
its predecessor, the colonial state. But this time shaped to create
in general an "administrative" organization by which those in the
government (civil servants) in uneasy partnership with the non-African
wealthy class were prepared to exploit the rest of the population doing
businesses with transnational corporations. The process of
decolonization, after defeating nationalistic attempts in the 1960s,
organized African economy in such a way that a wealthy white minority
in alliance with a wealthy civil servant minority, both in partnership
with transnational capital "neo-colonized" the African continent.
Economic Factors
When the African continent was invaded by the Western European hordes
the colonial overlords took a keen interest in the economic viability
of their colonies. Their colonies were to serve as sources of raw
material for their industries at home. To that end they created a dual
economy: one export led, the other for the domestic economy. In this
way, colonial African states were integrated in the capitalist world
order. This was to have a telling effect on postcolonial African
states, which, though politically independent, continued to have
dependent economies.
Colonial governments were known to exploit labor and to pay depressing
wages even when business was booming. Yet, because workers in the dual
economy could purchase goods cheaply in the domestic economy,
confrontation with the colonial administration was avoidable.
"In the postcolonial African state, the situation was slightly
different. As the state overtaxed the productive sector in its quest
for economic hegemony, which it considered necessary to gain political
hegemony, it destroyed the productive base of the state and alienated,
its producers. Acquiring both political and economic hegemony only
meant that the state had denied its people economic autonomy and,
politicized the economic process. The state now determined access to
wealth and resources and only those who could gain access to the state
were economically successful. Thus, the struggle for access to the
state intensified and all those who failed to gain access became
disaffected. Those citizens who joined civil society in its
counter-hegemonic struggle against the state came from the ranks of
the disaffected and disenfranchised." (G. M. Carew, "Development theory
and the promise of Democracy: the future of postcolonial African states",
AFRICA TODAY, Vol. 40, January 1993)
Administrative Factors
"The postcolonial bureaucracy was mainly determined by the colonial
administrative structure. In fact, the new postcolonial regimes simply
inherited the bureaucracy of the colonial governments. That this might
not have been such a good idea is suggested by two points: first, the
colonial bureaucracy was statist and overcentralized. In the colonial
state, administration was almost indistinguishable from the
government; it was in fact the government. The postcolonial state
similarly encouraged an overcentralized and greatly expanded
bureaucracy. Unlike the colonial bureaucracy it became inefficient and
wasteful, precipitating in a majority of cases an institutional
collapse. Second, since the colonial bureaucracy owed its allegiance
to the imperial government, it did not seem to change its modus
operandi in the postcolonial state. It continued to function like a
government within a government; often countermanding orders from
nationalist leaders, who in many cases were viewed economically
and intellectually as their inferiors. The bureaucracy eventually
joined the politicians in institutionalizing corruption. As the
government lost the ability to pay salaries and give other
institutional support, bureaucrats used their offices and positions to
enrich themselves at the expense of the state. All this compounded the
problem of the soft state, leading in most cases to its political
collapse." (Carew, op. cit.)
Since then, the "neo-colonization" process have been working to the
detriment of the vast majority in Africa. Consider the following
piece taken from THE ECONOMIST, November 15th, 1997:
"Zimbabwean land reform.
"Robert Mugabe's latest push for land reform has run smack into
"the British government's new guidelines on international aid and
"development. Britain will not finance the scheme for compulsorily
"buying land from white farmers because, it says, there is no
"guarantee that Zimbabwe's poor would be the benefators.
"Seventeen years after Zimbabwe's independence, ownership of land
"remains grossly inequitable. Some 4,500 white farmers own more than
"half the country's arable land while 8m black peasants are crammed
"into the remaining 40%. Nor is this the result of ancient history.
"Much of the land grab by British colonialists happened after the
"second world war.
"The burning desire of Zimbabwean peasants to get back their ancestral
"land fuelled the guerrilla war in the 1970s. Land was a main issue
"at the 1979 constitutional talks. And land is the issue the president
"returns to whenever he goes campaigning".
But, of course, if the former colonial masters refuse to finance the
land reform, that African country will not be able to return the land
robbed by Western European bandits to their rightful owners. The
above, in a nutshell, is what we conceptualize as "neo-colonialism".
Actually, in Zimbabwe there exist extensive commercial farming areas
dominated by a very small number of white farmers who receive 70% of
agricultural credit and financial arrangements to make their
businesses even more profitable, while, next door, African people
starve for lack of access to food. Whites have exclusive ownership of
half of the arable land ( moreover, the land whites own accounts for
about two thirds of the best land in the country) and, together with
transnational corporations, they also own all the industrial and
mining capital.
The above means that in Zimbabwe the urban non-black residents' income
is 40 times higher than the income of rural farmers, and about 30 times
higher than the black urban residents. This amounts to the following:
For the year 1995:
Income per capita: US$ 540 (which puts the country
among the 40 poorest countries in the world)
Income per capita for white owners
of commercial land: US$ 21,600 (which put them among
the 12 wealthiest countries in the world)
Zimbabwe, like any "neo-colony" in the modern world, is a "fractured"
society, a two-tier society, where the former colonial masters keep
being the masters, but this time with the power given by ownership
of capital and land.
This triple partnership between civil servants (including average
the military dictator), foreign capital and white owners of the best
land and capital, have been producing very good profits for transnational
corporations:
______________________________________________________________________
NET FACTOR INCOME FROM ABROAD ( profits, rent and interest paid
to foreign capital)
(US dollars 1992 value)
Average million PER HOUR
1960-1975 1976-1992
Africa -2.01 -2.39
Latin America -1.52 -4.90
Asia -0.72 -2.79
TOTAL -4.25 -10.08
---------------------------------------------------------
As percentage of total
Africa 47 24
Latin America 36 49
Asia 17 28
TOTAL 100 100
---------------------------------------------------------
Gross Domestic Product
(as percentage of total)
Africa 19 14
Latin America 40 37
Asia 41 49
TOTAL 100 100
(calculations based on TABLE 2)
---------------------------------------------------------
Foreign Direct Investment (stock)
(as percentage of total)
Africa 11* 10
Latin America 46* 36
Asia 43* 53*
TOTAL 100 100
* data for 1980
(Source: World Investment Report 1997, United Nations, 1997)
------------------------------------------------------------
Memorandum item: For the period 1960-1975, foreign capital
in Africa was making 47% of its total profits
out of 11% of its total investment.
For the period 1976-1992, foreign capital
in Africa was making 24% of its profits out
of 10% of its investment.
Summary: foreign capital investment in the
POOREST REGION OF THE WORLD is THE MOST
PROFITABLE OF THE WORLD.
The data is consistent with the pattern that
correlates higher levels of profits with
higher levels of poverty.
---------------------------------------------------------------
This table also was prepared by Dr. Robinson Rojas
---------------------------------------------------------------
In a word, Africa is producing very high profits for a non-African/
African minority structurally organized like in colonial times.
______________________________________________________________________
Useful additional reading: (also BOX 1)
World Bank, "Toward Sustained Development in Sub-Saharan Africa",
Washington, DC: World Bank, 1984.
P. Chabal,"Power in Africa", St. Martins Press, 1992
D. Rothchild and N. Chazan, eds., "The Precarious Balance:
State and Society in Africa", Westview Press, 1988
J. Lonsdale, "Political Accountability in African History", in
P. Chabal, ed.,"Political Domination in Africa",
Cambridge University Press, 1986.
A. Mazrui and M. Tidy, " Nationalism and New States in Africa",
Heinemann, 1984).
R. Cohen and J. Middleton, eds., "From Tribe to Nation in Africa",
Chandler Publishing, 1970.
C. Leys, "The Overdeveloped Colonial State: A Re-Evaluation",
Review of African Political Economy, vol. 5, Spring 1976.
J.-F. Bayart, "Civil Society in Africa", in Chabal, 1986,
op. cit., pp. 112-3.
Kwame Nkrumah, "Consciencism", Monthly Review Press, 1964
L. Sedar Senghor, "On African Socialism", Praeger, 1964.
G. Almond and J. Coleman, "The Politics of Developing Areas",
Princeton University Press, 1960.
R. Sandbrook, "The Crisis in Political Development Theory",
Journal of Development Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, 1976.
S. M. Lipset, "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development
and Political Legitimacy", in American Political Science
Review, vol. 53, March 1959.
G. Almond and S. Verba, "The Civic Culture",
Little, Brown and Company, 1965.
L. Pye and S. Verba, eds. , "Political Culture and Political
Development", Princeton University Press, 1965.
R. Sklar, "Democracy in Africa", in Chabal, op. cit., 1986.
T. Hodgkin, "Nationalism in Colonial Africa", Frederick Muller, 1956.
W. Tordoff, "Government and Politics in Africa",
Indiana University Press, 1984.
D. Rothchild, "Hegemonial Exchanges: An Alternative Model for
Managing Conflicts in Middle Africa", in
Thompson and Ronen, eds., "Ethnicity, Politics and
Development", Lynne Reinner, 1986.
Y. Barongo, ed., "Political Science in Africa", ZED Press, 1983.
F. Hayward and J. Kandeh, ads., "Elections in Independent Africa",
Westview Press, 1987.
___BOX 1________________________________________________________________
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TOKYO DECLARATION
ON AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT
"Towards the 21st Century"
(1996)
We, the participants of the Tokyo International Conference on
African Development (TICAD), consisting of African countries and
Africa's development partners, declare with one voice our continued
dedication to the development of Africa towards a new era of prosperity.
We, therefore, solemnly adopt the present Declaration, in the firm belief
that it will serve to strengthen an emerging new partnership for
sustainable development of Africa based on self- reliance of African
countries and the support of Africa's development partners.
Background
1. Africa's economic and social crises of the 1980s highlighted the
development challenges faced by this Continent. To address these
challenges, many African countries have embarked on far-reaching
political and economic reforms. We, the participants of TICAD, are
encouraged by signs in recent years of both positive macro-economic
performance and political development resulting from those reforms.
In so doing, we nevertheless recognize the continued fragility and
vulnerability of Africa's political and economic structures and
situations that inhibit the achievement of sustainable development.
TICAD intends to give further impetus to these reforms, taking into
account the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in
the 1990s (UN-NADAF).
2. With the end of the Cold War, African countries and the
international community now have an opportunity to share a broader
common understanding of the need for dynamic development cooperation.
The development of the Continent has emerged as an imperative in our
search for a better future.
3. While special consideration should be given to obstacles confronting
Africa, we are determined to strengthen our collective forward-looking
efforts for the development of the Continent. This has been the spirit
in which we have conducted our deliberations on the issues central to
sustainable development in Africa.
4. These issues include the on-going process of simultaneous political
and economic reforms, the necessity of increased private sector
participation in domestic economic activity, the promotion of regional
cooperation and integration, and the detrimental effects of humanitarian
emergencies on Africa's socio-economic development. We recognize that
the Asian experience of economic development and the catalytic role of
international cooperation offer hope and provide a challenge for
African economic transformation.
Political and Economic Reforms
5. Convinced of the advent of a new international era, we, the African
participants, reaffirm our commitment to pursue and further strengthen
political and economic reforms, in particular democratization, respect for
human rights, good governance, human and social development, and economic
diversification and liberalization. To achieve sustainable, broad-based
economic growth, we, the participants of TICAD, believe that more open,
accountable and participatory political systems are vital, including a
stronger role for civil society. We recognize that political, economic
and social reforms must be initiated and carried out by African countries
themselves, based on their visions, values and individual socio-economic
background. Africa's development partners should therefore support
African initiatives in these areas.
6. We, the participants of TICAD, recognize that simultaneous
implementation of political and economic reforms, while conducive to
development, may often entail painful transition processes. The
interaction between political and economic reforms, which over time
should be mutually reinforcing, is a complicated process which requires
support to bring about progress. We, Africa's development partners,
reaffirm our commitment to providing priority support to countries
undertaking effective and efficient political and economic reforms.
We, the participants of TICAD, also reaffirm our commitment to enhancing
constructive dialogue to facilitate the reform processes.
7. We, the African participants, reaffirm our commitment to improving
the quality of governance, in particular, transparency and accountability
in public administration. We recognize that criteria for public
expenditure should aim at enhancing overall socio-economic development
and reducing non-productive expenditures. The building of human and
institutional capacities for sustaibale development is essential for all
of these objectives. We commit ourselves to creating the enabling
environment for training, retaining and effective utilization of human
resources and improving institutional capacities. We, Africa's
development partners, will enhance our support for African capacity
building including improved technical assistance.
8. We, the participants of TICAD, reaffirm that structural adjustment
programmes should take more actively into consideration the specific
conditions and requirements of individual countries. We reiterate that
political and economic reforms should ultimately lead to the alleviation
of poverty and enhanced welfare of the entire population. To that effect,
structural adjustment programmes should contain, more than in the past,
measures to improve the access of the poor in particular to income
earning opportunities and to effective social services, while seeking to
shield them as far as possible from adverse social consequences.
Increased priority should be given to investment in human capital through
nutrition, health and education programmes, especially to improve the
situation of women and children. Additionally, noting that the overall
economic development in Africa has not kept pace with Africa's rapid
population growth, we recognize the importance of sound population
policies and call upon African Governments and the international
community to address this issue within the socio-economic development
process.
Economic Development through Activities of the Private Sector
9. The private sector is vital as an engine for sustainable development.
We, the participants of TICAD, agree that though foreign aid has an impact
on development, its role is only supplementary in magnitude and catalytic
in nature. We recognize that a workable and practical cooperation
between government and the private sector is a key factor for development.
A climate of trust between these two actors should be encouraged and
interaction promoted. We realize that political and economic stability
is a prerequisite to commitments for long-term investments.
10. We, the African participants, are determined to continue policies
which foster a greater role for the private sector and which encourage
entrepreneurship. While stepping up deregulation measures, we will
provide and maintain, in cooperation with our development partners,
physical infrastructure and viable administrative, legal and financial
institutions. We consider in general the informal sector as a source of
vitality for African economies which deserves support in order to further
mobilize entrepreneurial capacity, generate employment, and to facilitate
the transition into the formal economy.
11. We, the participants of TICAD, are convinced that further
improvements in financial systems and practices are needed to stimulate
domestic savings investment, and to prevent and reverse capital flight.
12. In support of these efforts, we, Africa's development partners, shall
continue to provide assistance in order to improve the enabling
environment which requires economic reforms and privatization, the
building of human and institutional capacities, and the development of
financial intermediation. We recognize the importance of appropriate
insurance and guarantee schemes to protect private enterprises investing
in Africa from political and economic risks.
13. We, the African participants, affirm the central importance of
international trade to our future development prospect. We, Africa's
development partners, will work to facilitate market access for African
products globally and to assist in up-grading and diversifying African
exports. We, the participants of TICAD, support the vital role of
private associations such as the African Business Round-Table and confirm
the usefulness of investment - and trade-promotion initiatives within
Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world.
Regional Cooperation and Integration
14. We, the African participants, reaffirm our vision and aspiration for
ultimate regional integration and cooperation goals as embodied in the
Abuja Treaty establishing the African Economic Community. We, the
participants of TICAD, realize that although these goals have been, since
the early years of independence, a logical development strategy for
African countries, most of which have small national markets, greater
efforts must now be made in promoting inter-regional trade and investment.
15. We, the African participants, will ensure that our commitments to
regional schemes are fully incorporated in our national development plans,
policies and programmes.
16. We, Africa's development partners, welcome and support the renewed
commitment to regional cooperation and integration as has been recently
demonstrated by African countries. These regional arrangements should
continue to be consistent with the multilateral open trading system, and
contribute to trade expansion. We will continue to extend our support to
African countries' efforts aimed at reducing obstacles to integration
through measures such as reduction of trade and investment barriers and
policy harmonization, and to viable regional endeavours particularly in
the area of infrastructure development and capacity building. We, the
participants of TICAD, believe that regional integration should also be
pursued by encouraging private sector initiatives, adopting consistent
and gradual approaches for broadening exchanges and rationalizing
existing schemes.
Emergency Relief and Development
17. We, the participants of TICAD, note with great concern that over the
last two decades, and particularly in recent years, that a large number of
African countries have suffered and are still suffering from natural and
man-made disasters. The international community has responded generously
to these situations since the early crises in the 1970s.
18. These disasters have constrained development in many African
countries, destroyed the very basis for development, increased the number
of refugees, and diverted human and financial resources that otherwise
could have served development purposes.
19. We, the participants of TICAD, realize that man-made disasters are
the result of a complex interplay of political, economic and social
factors. In this context, lack of democratization and respect for human
rights and the rights of minorities are among the root causes of these
disasters.
20. We, the participants of TICAD, accept that responsibility for
disaster prevention and management rests primarily with Africans
themselves. We, the African participants, are therefore determined to
devote our efforts to addressing the root causes of these disasters.
We also confirm the critical role of regional cooperation as demonstrated
in the past. We, the participants of TICAD, underscore the need to
establish effective mechanisms for prevention, preparedness and management
of man-made and natural disasters in general, and to strengthen food
security schemes in particular. We, therefore, welcome the decision of
the Organization of African Unity to establish the Mechanism for Conflict
Prevention, Management and Resolution and pledge our support to strengthen
the effective functioning of this mechanism. We also reaffirm our
willingness to assist victims of disasters, and urge the removal of all
hindrances to effective distribution of relief supplies.
21. We, Africa's development partners, having recognized that there is a
continuum between emergency relief and development, will ensure that the
humanitarian assistance for the affected communities continue to be
provided for resettlement, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
Asian Experience and African Development
22. Over the past 30 years, in contrast to Africa, the countries of East
and South-East Asia have achieved high rates of growth in per capita
income. We, the participants of TICAD, are mindful that in view of the
differing international and internal conditions no one model of
development can be simply transferred from one region to another.
Nevertheless, we acknowledge some relevance of the Asian experience for
African development. The very diversity of successful Asian countries
gives hope that lessons can be drawn for African development.
23. We, the participants of TICAD, have noted that as demonstrated by
the successful examples of the Asian development experience, the backdrop
of development success lies in the combination of a strong commitment by
the leadership and the people to economic prosperity, appropriate
long-term development strategies and functional government adminstration
to pursue these strategies coherently.
24. We have also noted that the policy factors which contributed to the
remarkable performance of East and South-East Asia have included
(1) the rational application of macro-economic policies and maintenance
of political stability,
(2) the promotion of agricultural production through technological
research and innovations as solid basis for socio-economic development,
(3) long-term investment in education and human resource development as
priority of development strategy,
(4) market-friendly and export-led policies to advance and adapt modes of
production in order to increase opportunities for trade and economic
growth,
(5) measures to stimulate domestic savings and capital formation by
developing financial intermediation and by expansion of banking services
at the community level,
(6) policy emphasis on the privatesector as an engine of growth and
development, and
(7) early implementation of land reform.
25. We, the participants of TICAD, recognize that development achievement
in East and South-East Asia have enhanced opportunities for South-South
cooperation with Africa. We welcome the interest shown by some Asian and
African countries in promoting this cooperation.
International Cooperation
26. We, the participants of TICAD, have concluded that the current
situation in Africa calls for increased solidarity among us to act in
full partnership to address this situation. This new partnership should
be based on Africa's objective to achieve self-reliance on the one hand
and responsive support by Africa's development partners on the other.
27. We, the participants of TICAD, agree that stability and security are
prerequisites to sustainable development, and that it is essential to make
efficient use of scarce resources and to minimize military and other
unproductive expenditures.
28. We, the participants of TICAD, realize that development calls for
full participation by the people at all levels, who should be galvanized
toward action as agents for progress. In this regard, we acknowledge the
dynamic and diversified role of African women in various sectors of the
economy and recommend that special measures by taken to promote their
rights and roles in order to enhance gender equity and to remove all
legal, social and cultural barriers for advancement of women.
Furthermore, we recognize the need to enhance cooperative efforts with
local NGOs and other institutions of civil society which play
constructive roles for African development.
29. We, Africa's development partners, will make all efforts to enhance
development assistance to Africa, despite current global economic
difficulties. This assistance will be increasingly oriented toward the
priorities set by African countries. In making commitments to continued
and enhanced cooperation, we will take into account the expectation of
our constituencies that resources by spent where they are most
efficiently utilized for the greatest development impact.
30. As African countries are at various stages of development, and have
different cultural and historical backgrounds, we, Africa's development
partners, may take differentiated approaches as we plan and implement our
development cooperation, with due regard to aid coordination.
31. We, Africa's development partners, will apply a comprehensive
approach covering aid, trade, debt strategy and investments. We, the
participants of TICAD, reaffirm that debt and debt service still pose
serious difficulties to many African countries. We emphasize the
necessity to urgently address the debt issue within the overall context
of debt relief and flows of new financial resources for development. We
confirm the validity of the international debt strategy and invite the
Paris Club to continue reviewing the question of debt relief for the
poorest highly-indebted countries, especially with regard to earlier
reductions in the stock of debt on a case by case basis. We urge creditor
countries to take into account the difficulties that heavily indebted
African countries are now facing.
32. We, the participants of TICAD, reiterate the importance of a
successful conclusion to the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations and will
make all efforts to remove trade barriers and other trade practices that
prevent the expansion of African exports including exports to other
African countries. We underscore the importance of primary commodities
for many African countries' export earning and the need for
diversification to reduce the volatility of these earnings.
33. We, the participants of TICAD, confirm that United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development (UNCED) agreements should be steadfastly
implemented with a special emphasis on balanced relationships among
agriculture, population and environment policies, particularly drought
and desertification.
34. We also recognize that many of the gains made in Africa are
threatened by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and related diseases which are already
of a disastrous proportion in some countries. There is a need for a much
stronger response by Africa and its development partners, for preventing
and controlling these diseases including caring facilities as well as
measures addressing its socio-economic impacts.
35. We, the participants of TICAD, pledge to take, in our respective
spheres of responsibility, measures aimed at advancing the spirit of this
Declaration through effective policies and actions. We have entrusted
the three co-organizers of TICAD with evaluating and reviewing progress
made towards the implementation of this Declaration. Ultimately, we
intend to hold a conference of a similar magnitude and membership at the
latest before the turn of the century.
* * * * *
By virtue of the deliberations, guidance and consensus of the
conference we believe that prospects for significant development of
Africa have been greatly enhanced.
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RRojas Research Unit/1996
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