DESPITE WELCOME ADVANCES IN AFRICA, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR COMPLACENCY,

SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS IN ADDRESS FOR OLIVER TAMBO LECTURE SERIES

‘Global Partnership for Development’ Remains More Phrase

Than Fact, He Says, Citing Poverty, Food Insecurity, Small Arms Proliferation

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s address at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., yesterday, on the occasion of the Oliver Tambo Lecture:

What a wonderful welcome.  I should have come more often.  One should not believe everything one hears.  Who said the Secretary-General has no friends in Washington?  Look at you today.

Mr. President [John DeGioia], members of the Faculty, Excellencies and dear friends, especially the young ones.

It is wonderful to be here today.  Let me start by saying how deeply moved and gratified I am to be giving the Oliver Tambo Lecture.  Oliver Tambo embodied the aspirations of all peoples for freedom, equality and social justice.  And I also feel particularly honoured to receive an honorary degree from this great university.

Of course, I know it is not just me you honour tonight -- you are also paying tribute to the United Nations for its global work for peace, development and human rights.

Nowhere is this work more appreciated than in Africa.

In 1997, when I became the second Secretary-General from Africa, I felt my continent was the place least equipped to tackle the three overarching challenges of our age -- the need for more security, the demand for better development and the rising cry for human rights and the rule of law.

Africa stood sidelined in the world economy.

Africa was also the scene of some of the most protracted and brutal conflicts.

And many of the continent's people felt they were unjustly condemned to be exploited and oppressed, generation after generation, since colonial rule had been replaced by an inequitable economic world order, and sometimes by corrupt rulers and warlords at the local level.

In the decade since then, Africans have undertaken a remarkable struggle to confront these three global challenges.  With unprecedented vigour and resolve, they are working to build a new, more hopeful Africa.

As they do that, my fellow Africans justifiably look to their allies in the international community for strong and sustained support.

Friends, development remains the foremost African need, both as an end in itself and as a foundation of security.  And there is encouraging progress to report.  Most African economies are now better run: inflation, averaging 8 per cent a year, is at historic lows in many countries.  Last year, Africa’s economy grew by almost 5 per cent, and is expected to do even better this year and next.

There have been welcome advances on debt relief, as well as encouraging initiatives on aid and investment.  The world has also recognized HIV/AIDS as a major challenge and a break on development, and begun to confront it.  I am proud of the role the United Nations has played in the establishment of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.  Development and the Millennium Development Goals now occupy centre stage in all the work of the United Nations.

Yet, the magnitude of African needs leaves little room for complacency.

The truth is that, for Africa, the “global partnership for development” remains more a phrase than a fact.  About 50 per cent of all Africans have never made or received a phone call.  A minuscule proportion have ever logged on to the Internet.  The global green revolution has bypassed African farmers, whose ranks have also been decimated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Ours is the only continent that cannot feed itself today, much less ensure food security for its people.  And, bucking the worldwide trend, sub-Saharan Africa has sunk deeper into poverty.  Overall, the continent lags behind in the race to achieve the Millennium Goals by 2015.

Nowhere is it more important, therefore, to ensure that the benefits of globalization are shared at every level of society.

Africa needs more and better aid, it needs fairer trade and it needs a green revolution to improve agricultural production and feed its people.

Security constitutes the second African challenge.  About half the world’s armed conflicts, and some three quarters of the UN’s peacekeepers, are in Africa.

But, compared to a decade ago, there are fewer inter-State conflicts than there used to be, and many civil wars have ended.

In Burundi, the peaceful and democratic conclusion of the transitional process was a milestone for that country and, hopefully, for the Great Lakes region.  Wars have stopped in Angola, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and southern Sudan.   Guinea-Bissau, Togo and Madagascar have all been through peaceful restoration of constitutional order. And the Democratic Republic of the Congo only yesterday held the second round of its democratic elections for the first time in 40 years.

I am proud that the United Nations assisted in all these events.  And I am proud of what my fellow Africans have achieved in ending many of the conflicts that disfigured our continent.

But, here too, we should be under no illusion.

In far too many reaches of the continent, people are still exposed to brutal conflicts, fought with small, but deadly, weapons.

Every day, in Darfur, more men, women and children are being driven from their homes by murder, rape and the burning of their villages.  Beyond Sudan, less visible but no less deadly conflicts -- in Côte d’Ivoire, Somalia and northern Uganda -- cry for African resolve and international attention.

Peace may be spreading on the continent, but a continent at peace -- which is what we are all after -- remains an idea in search of realization.  Most Africans realize today that they need to work together to pacify the continent, and I often say that no one invests in a bad neighbourhood.  And, when a continent is seen by many as a continent at war, we do scare them away, and Africans have realized that and are doing whatever they can to settle these conflicts, so that they can focus on the essential task of economic and social development.

Ultimately, a peaceful Africa requires more than the mere absence of war.  It is sustainable only if accompanied by democratic transformation and good governance, the third leg of African progress.

In recent years, the continent has experienced a democratic renaissance.  Most African States -- more than ever -- now have democratically elected Governments.  And these Governments, through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, have explicitly agreed to uphold human rights and democracy, to fight corruption and promote good governance.

Today, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the President of Liberia, is the first woman ever to be elected President of an African State.  And that speaks more eloquently than words ever could about advances in the rights of women.  So does the fact that, in sub-Saharan African countries, the share of women in single or lower houses of parliament is higher than in the developing countries of Southern or Western Asia.

Throughout Africa, ordinary citizens are engaged as never before.  From education and HIV/AIDS to good governance and human rights, a vibrant and growing civil society movement has helped energize the African agenda.  Africans are standing up for their rights and demanding them -- and they know these rights -- and Governments are beginning to listen.  Indeed, by demanding honest and accountable leadership, civil society actors are proving a critical check on Africa’s sad history of misrule.

Africa’s governance is important and the governance gains I’m referring to are real, but they remain tenuous in the face of grave challenges.  Despite elections and better leaders, bad apples remain.  And even some elected Governments continue to suppress opposition parties and tolerate large-scale corruption, or practice it.  Too often, the exploitation of natural resources continues to benefit only a few.

But, while African democracy may not be perfect, it is promising.  The more accountable Governments are, the more likely they are to be responsive to the needs of their people -- whether the need is to prevent famine, fight poverty or halt the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Africa needs more Mandelas and more Oliver Tambos.  But, an emerging generation of accountable and elected African leaders is important, and these leaders increasingly mean what they say and they do what they say.  They recognize that human rights are African rights too, and that, without good governance, no amount of aid, no degree of diplomacy and no number of peacekeeping operations can, on their own, lift Africa out of poverty, halt the spread of disease or end deadly conflict.

Now that the tide is turning and Africans are holding their leaders to account, we have a real opportunity to help Africans help themselves.

In an earlier decade, Oliver Tambo spoke of the “responsibility to break down barriers of division” and create a just and prosperous South Africa “where there will be neither whites nor blacks, just South Africans, free and united in diversity”.  Were he alive today, I know he would speak equally forcefully for all of us to join hands to break the barriers that separate Africa from global prosperity.

As Africans strive to build peace, struggle to entrench democracy and work to strengthen rule of law, we must work with them, and invest in them, to build the better future that can and must be theirs.

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For information media • not an official record