UNCTAD HOSTS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT
Press Release
AFR/101
TAD/1859
UNCTAD HOSTS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT
19980924 GENEVA, 24 September (UNCTAD) -- Senior government officials from African countries and representatives of international organizations are meeting in Mauritius today and tomorrow for an international conference entitled, African Development in Comparative Perspective. The Conference has been organized by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Mauritius, with the support of the Government of Japan.The objective of the conference is to re-examine international and national policies which could accelerate growth and investment in Africa and translate the continent's recent economic recovery into sustained development.
The African economic recovery, which began in 1994, has given grounds for renewed optimism, both within and outside the continent. However, the recovery is patchy. It has not been underpinned by a strong investment performance, and it is highly vulnerable to a downturn in commodity prices such as recently took place. Despite multiple adjustment efforts, structural constraints and institutional weaknesses continue to prevent, or limit, domestic economies from improving their supply capacity. Moreover, Africa has continued to receive minimal flows of foreign direct investment.
Rapid trade and financial liberalization coupled with the withdrawal of government from agricultural marketing has thrown up a new set of problems for policy makers. The room for manoeuvre by governments is still severely limited by States' foreign debt overhang. The post-Uruguay Round trading environment has limited some policy options, but has also provided new opportunities not yet fully exploited.
In this context, a rethinking of international and domestic policy approaches is required in order to translate the current recovery into stronger and sustained growth. This calls for promoting pragmatism, drawing lessons from experience gained during the adjustment programmes, as well as from the earlier drive for national development.
Such a process of reflection and stock-taking could be fruitfully animated by putting African development experience in a comparative perspective. The conference is providing such an opportunity, drawing, in particular, on lessons from experiences in East Asia and elsewhere.
The principal document for the conference is Part Two of UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report 1998: African Development in a Comparative Perspective (see document TAD/INF/2761). * *** *