Global Policy Forum

By Rubens Ricupero

The indifference of much of the world to the emerging AIDS pandemic in Africa calls to mind an observation often attributed to Stalin: The death of one human being is a tragedy, but the deaths of a million are just statistics.

Statistics say that nearly 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, half the population, live on less than $1 a day. That is 80 million more than a decade ago. In many countries, life expectancy is lower than in 1980. The sad fact is that the international community has failed Africa in the past two decades.

Africa is just too poor, and the external obstacles it faces are too large, for it to break out of the vicious circle of low growth under its own steam. In part the problem lies with excessive reliance on natural resources, which leaves African development beholden to the perverse fortunes of weather and geography. But it is the vagaries of the international marketplace that present the main obstacles to long-term growth. From 1997 to 1999, world prices of commodities, which account for 80 percent of Africa's export earnings, fell by 25 percent. More than 20 cents of every dollar earned from exports goes to servicing external debt.

The way to begin changing all that is to give African policymakers the means and the resources to shape their own economic destinies. Where should the international community concentrate its efforts? Africa has to raise investment from current levels of around 15 percent of GDP to 22 to 25 percent over the next decade to achieve growth in excess of 6 percent, a basic United Nations target.

To achieve this target, adequate financing must be found. Private capital inflows will not fill the resource gap, at least until there are real signs of success. Today those flows represent less than 2 percent of GDP for the region. Twice that amount flows out as interest payments and profit remittances. Foreign aid could have made a difference, but it has been steadily declining - down from $43 per capita in 1983 to just $30 at the end of the 1990s.

Despite the depressing arithmetic, the problem is not intractable. Provided there is political will, solutions are within reach. Aid must be increased and untied. Current levels simply perpetuate aid dependence. The only way out is to launch a massive assistance program to sustain rapid growth for a period long enough to allow domestic savings and external private flows to gradually replace official aid.

UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, has estimated that a 6 percent growth target requires a doubling of foreign aid flows from their current $10 billion. The price to pay is a relative pittance; $20 billion would mean an additional 5 cents for every $100 of consumer spending in the OECD economies.

Strong growth and investment are also needed to consolidate a domestic entrepreneurial class that can begin to diversify economic structures. Writing off Africa's debt, much of which is unpayable and stands as a permanent strain on a fragile resource base, would bolster growth prospects.

Unconditional access to the markets of industrialized nations must be granted to the goods of all African producers. No new trade round is needed to make this commitment. A greater sense of urgency and commitment from the countries that provide aid to Africa must be matched by a new sense of responsibility from African policymakers. There is a need for a greater role for markets than was allowed under the policy regimes of the postcolonial period. There is considerable scope for investment in human and physical infrastructure, and much of the initial aid should go there. The woeful neglect of agriculture in Africa must be quickly reversed. Resources also need to be expanded to strengthen administrative capacity, so as to improve the effectiveness of the public sector.

For all this to work, the international community must act in a spirit of true partnership, lest it become a spectator to a human disaster of continental proportions. Africa's progress should be the litmus test of whether we are moving to a better age, where the hopes of all the peoples of this planet can be fulfilled. The writer is secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

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