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The millennium partnership for the African recovery programme (MAP)
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| 5. Key priorities |
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- The key priority areas in which the MAP must be implemented simultaneously and interaction with one another are:
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Peace, security and governance
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Investing in Africa's people
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Diversification of Africa's production and exports
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Investing in ICT and other basic infrastructure
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Developing financing mechanisms
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| Peace, Security and Governance |
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Meaningful economic activity is impossible under conditions of armed conflict. It is also inhibited by the existence of states either captured by narrow private interests, or lacking in capacity to deliver on their development mandates. While commitments to peace and security, democracy, human rights and sound economic governance must be seen as pre-conditions for a programme of Africa's renewal, there will continue to be the need for constant vigilance, consolidation and the strengthening of capacity.
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Of crucial importance to Africa and the rest of the world is the establishment and protection of a political order and systems of governance that are:
- legitimate and enjoy the support and loyalty of the African peoples;
- strong enough to defend and advance the sovereign interests of African peoples;
- able to address the fundamental development interests of African peoples; and
- able to engage effectively with the various global processes that characterise the world economy.
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The first step is to raise and maintain the commitment to political processes that sustain equitable and effective governance. This requires bringing about democratic rule and respect for human rights, underwritten by the necessary constitutional, legislative and institutional arrangements.
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In those regions and countries marred by armed conflict, the overwhelming priorities are to achieve peace, to disarm and demobilise combatants, and to resettle refugees. Africa's capacity to prevent, mediate and resolve conflicts on the continent must be strengthened, including the capacity to deploy African peacekeeping forces when necessary. At the same time, it is recognised that sustainable peace entails creating appropriate conditions for economic development.
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If peace and security is to lead to sustained growth and development, it is of utmost urgency that the capacity of the state to fulfill its responsibilities is strengthened. These responsibilities include poverty eradication and development, ensuring democracy, popular participation, human rights and the respect for the rule of law, creating a conducive environment for private sector mobilisation, and responding appropriately to the process of globalisation.
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Only if the state is equipped with the capacity to deliver, can it provide an unambiguous and tangible indication that good governance offers a better alternative to the ways of the past. Partnerships with developed countries and the multilateral institutions to bring about sustainable economic recovery and improvements in the standard of living are critical in this regard.
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In recognition of the linkage between democracy and development, African governments have themselves made great strides in establishing democratic pluralism. Many African countries have now created more participatory political institutions, in the form of democratic electoral processes, and growing and diverse civil societies. These elements constitute essential ingredients in promoting transparent and accountable governance.
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This process has also signalled an unambiguous turn from authoritarian political structures, with the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) affirming its support for the process by its isolation of dictatorial regimes.
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| Investing in Africa's People: From Social Exclusion to Global Inclusion |
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The success of the MAP will be measured by its effect on reducing poverty and enhancing the quality of life of the peoples of the continent. We recognise that humanity in Africa faces a two-pronged crisis, expressed in widespread poverty and disease which threatens not just the prospects for improving their quality of life, but also the very preservation of the continent's existing stock of human resources.
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For example, half of Africa's population subsist below the minimum living standards of their own countries. Almost half of the continent's population lives below the income level of US $1 per day. Worst affected by poverty are the rural areas, home to four in five poor people.
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Infection rates of communicable disease are similarly daunting. HIV/AIDS, malaria, diarrhoeal and respiratory diseases are the most serious, killing or disabling millions of Africans annually. Nearly 70% of the world's infections of HIV/AIDS, and 90% of deaths, occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
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The prevalence of disease in Africa is in part a consequence of its geography, especially the tropical climate and vegetation. But the spread of disease is also closely linked to widespread poverty. The burden of coping with poverty and disease falls particularly on women, who are the primary care givers for children, the elderly and the sick.
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The empowerment of women must provide conditions in which they participate actively in decision-making, and become fully integrated into economic activities. It is essential therefore that all harmful traditional practices that inhibit the active participation of women in the development process are removed.
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In the same vein, the youth must be supported to fulfill their potential through proper parenting and upbringing, as well as through the acquisition of functional education and skills. Adequate recreational and sporting facilities, as well as opportunities in the arts, must be provided to ensure an all-round development of African youth.
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African governments have a responsibility to pursue policies that raise the quantity and quality of basic service delivery through improved provision of safe drinking water, sanitation and health services, as well as promotion of awareness campaigns to combat disease.
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Investing in the health, education and other basic needs of Africa's people is a moral imperative in its own right. But development experience shows clearly that human development reinforces economic growth, and that continued economic growth is partly dependent on the degree to which growth and human development are mutually reinforcing.
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Within an appropriate policy environment, economic growth is the most effective vehicles for fighting poverty. Rising output and employment are prerequisites for a sustainable poverty reduction programme. It is generally accepted, however, that poverty reduction must be at the core of any growth process from the outset.
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The enhanced capabilities of a better educated, higher skilled and healthier population lead to higher output derived from greater worker productivity, the ability to create, adopt and attract new technology, the quality of policy-making and investment decisions, and the management of the key institutions of a well functioning society.
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Integrated approaches to poverty reduction, in which a range of activities and engagements can be mobilised around a common framework, represent an important opportunity for the peoples of Africa, and others that would seek to participate in their upliftment.
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Enhanced access to quality education that equips people not only with knowledge, but also with work-related skills, is critical to building households' assets and sustaining growth. As households accumulate assets, their access to credit also improves, leading to improved living standards and increased opportunities for more earnings.
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There is growing evidence from Africa and elsewhere that poverty and exclusion are reinforced not just by low levels of income and wealth, but also by their highly unequal distribution. The pace of poverty reduction can be accelerated by broadening access to capital assets through appropriate redistributional mechanisms. In Africa, negotiated land reform is the most important vehicle for asset redistribution.
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| Diversification of Africa's Production and Exports |
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While there remains scope for improvement in Africa's performance in traditional primary exports, there is a pressing need for diversification of the economic activities in which Africa is engaged. Africa's comparative advantage lies in its rich supply of agricultural, mineral and aquatic raw materials. While extracted in Africa, much of the value added to these raw materials takes place outside the continent.
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This situation must be reversed through a process of African industrialisation based on up-stream and down-stream activities associated with the resource endowments of the continent. Employment creating manufacturing has an important role to play in raising Africa's competitiveness and value-adding.
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Three sets of conditions must therefore be met if these goals are to be achieved. Diversification into the production of internationally competitive goods will require, in the first place, policies that foster appropriate regulatory and macroeconomic conditions, and support economic activity with necessary infrastructure. Secondly, enhancing Africa's ability to export processed goods will also entail the attraction of domestic and foreign investment into both the extractive sectors of the economy, and into down-stream processing activities. Finally, existing developed country barriers to some processed goods produced in African countries will need to be removed if these goods are to find markets.
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An important part of the effort to diversify exports must be the further development of the tourism sector. Even though tourism has increased in several African countries over the past decade, the MAP will aim to accelerate its further growth through improving the co-ordination across African countries with regard to marketing efforts in the developed countries, transport and other tourism-related infrastructure and services, border crossings, and support for the development of cultural and historical tourism.
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| Investing in ICT and Other Basic Infrastructure |
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The inadequacy of Africa's infrastructure provision has been central to the continent's inability to establish a vibrant manufacturing sector based on its relative strategic advantages and resource endowments. The quantity and quality of basic infrastructure has a fundamental effect on the costs of other goods and services in a modern economy. Africa's ability to diversify its economies will rest on the ability to harness a structurally low-cost energy platform, an efficient transport and logistical system, and ICT and social infrastructures that attract modern production facilities.
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Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) is a major driver of the global revolution. ICT is used at all levels of the production process, in large and micro enterprises, in urban and rural areas. But the benefits of ICT extend beyond efficiency gains in production and trade, in that it can bring the latest in science and knowledge to the remotest parts of the world. As such, great possibilities exist for Africa to leapfrog various stages of development.
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The ICT infrastructure deficit - the digital divide - needs to be addressed as a matter of particular urgency if Africa is to escape from the trap of social exclusion and marginalisation. The benefits of ICT extend beyond efficiency gains in production and trade. Coherent and holistic ICT policy and regulatory frameworks at national, regional and continental levels are essential for the development of an infrastructure that maximises the use of technology in the provision of health, education, social services and environmental management, thus offering Africa a tangible opportunity to leapfrog the stages of development.
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The provision of integrated infrastructure systems is of strategic significance in tapping Africa's considerable resource endowment. It is particularly important in developing agriculture and agro-processing industries on the one hand, and in developing and conserving the environmental domain on the other. Clearly, Africa's agricultural development has to be managed in an environmentally sustainable way, requiring scientific monitoring and advanced technology - critical elements of the 'knowledge economy'.
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| Developing Financing Mechanisms |
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Financing development will require the mobilisation of vast resources from both inside and outside the continent. This is clearly impossible, however, as long as African countries continue to bear the burden of unsustainable debt. Such debt remains a heavy burden blocking Africa's development, notwithstanding debt reduction initiatives, and must be addressed as a precondition for a meaningful partnership between African and developed countries.
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A strategy to attract requisite capital falls into three broad areas. The primary aim of financial policy must be to lower the risk perceptions of potential portfolio and direct investors in Africa. On the one hand, this entails improving the credibility of public financial authorities and the soundness of the public and private financial institutions.
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This should serve both to attract private sector equity, lower the cost of loan capital - much of which is in private hands - as well as mobilise effectively savings generated on the continent itself, which can be expected to grow with improved economic performance. In this regard, particular attention must be paid to creating the conditions for Africans who have moved their savings off the continent to repatriate this much-needed capital for the financing of African development.
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On the other hand, reducing risk entails the establishment of policy certainty and consistency, and access to an efficient, modern infrastructure system that is supportive of the speedy movement of goods and services. Certainty and speed are two critical requirements that characterise the behaviour of international capital flows, and consequently the ability to attract equity investments.
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Ensuring resource allocation to those areas that provide the best returns is the second element of a strategy to attract capital for investment. In effect, an appropriate combination of economic and social returns represents a form of risk and revenue sharing between the public and private sectors.
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Financial engineering and risk management will be crucial in financing the provision of the infrastructure spines required for sustainable accumulation. This will encourage the crowding in of private capital to finance investment projects in mining, agriculture, industry, tourism, and other sectors linked to the immediate use of such infrastructure.
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The delivery of economic infrastructure requires the mobilisation of private capital, both domestic and foreign, in partnership with public expenditure and targeted aid where appropriate. Much of the infrastructure that is needed to create basic social conditions and human resource development will have to be financed through government expenditure and grant allocations.
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The third element is to fill the gap between required and available funding with a combination of deep and far-reaching debt reduction together with targeted official development assistance.
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At the same time as the financing gap is addressed by these measures, it must be recognised that the size of this gap can be reduced significantly by improved access for African exports to developed country markets. Such measures that provide for a sustainable mobilisation of finance would curtail significantly the further entrenchment of aid dependence.
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Accordingly, official development assistance must be targeted to catalyse a more lasting market-driven accumulation process, and which among other objectives, links aid to the technical skills that are required for a modern infrastructure.
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The more programmable and manageable the nature of targeted aid, the easier it is for the state to assume responsibility for the provision of development finance outside the targeted areas. This has the advantage of allowing the state to use the savings generated by debt reduction to provide for those basic social services that sustain the development process.
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| Programme of Action |
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In the light of the serious situation described above, African leaders recognise that it is their duty and responsibility to accelerate the development of the continent by ending its marginalisation and promoting its integration into the global economy. The leaders have decided to embark on a comprehensive programme of action with the following objectives:
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restoring peace, stability and security on the continent, and promoting democratic systems of government;
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promoting development, reducing poverty and attaining of International Development Targets for health, education and gender equality; and
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raising investment capital from domestic and foreign sources through lowering the risk associated with investing and doing business in Africa.
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To achieve these objectives, African leaders will take joint responsibility to:
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strengthen mechanisms for conflict prevention, management and resolution at the regional and continental levels and ensuring that these mechanisms are used to restore and maintain peace;
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promote and protect democracy and human rights in their own countries and regions, by developing clear standards of accountability, transparency and participatory governance at national and sub-national levels;
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revitalise and extend the provision of education, technical training and health services, with high priority given to tackling HIV/AIDS and other communicable disease that threaten Africa;
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build the capacity of the states in Africa to set and enforce the legal framework as well as maintain law and order, an essential requirement for promoting economic activities and development;
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restore and maintain macro-economic stability, especially by developing appropriate standards and targets for fiscal and monetary policies, and introducing appropriate institutional frameworks to achieve these standards;
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institute transparent legal and regulatory frameworks for financial markets, the auditing of private companies and the public sector, and infrastructure sectors;
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promote the development of agriculture and its diversification into agro-industries and manufacturing to serve both domestic and export markets; and
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promote investment in infrastructure construction and sustainable operation, in order to reduce the cost of doing business in Africa and to promote human development.
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Such a programme of action will be implemented under the leadership and direction of the African Heads of State or Government. They will take responsibility for:
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formulating milestones and timeframes to measure progress in achieving the three objectives specified above;
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creating the necessary capacity to manage the proposed programme of action; and
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ensuring its implementation and the monitoring of its progress.
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In implementing the programme of action, joint activities and initiatives involving several countries will be undertaken using, wherever possible, a multi-track approach. This will serve to enhance the implementation and monitoring of progress, and to promote deeper economic integration among African countries.
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| Partnership with Developed Countries and Multilateral Institutions |
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The African leaders realise both the keen interest of developed countries and the multilateral institutions to participate in the renewal of Africa's development and the advantages of such participation. The leaders of developed countries and the multilateral institutions are therefore invited to join this initiative as partners.
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The new partnership will be anchored on the following principles:
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African leadership and responsibility for the development of the continent;
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binding commitments by the developed countries and multilateral institutions to an agreed set of obligations with accompanying milestones and timeframes; and
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agreement on the objectives and programme of action specified above.
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The African leaders envisage that the obligations and responsibilities for the developed countries and multilateral institutions will be to:
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support materially mechanisms and processes of conflict prevention, management and resolution in Africa, as well as peacekeeping initiatives;
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accelerate debt reduction for heavily indebted poor countries, in conjunction with more effective poverty reduction programmes, for which the Strategic Partnership with Africa and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers initiatives are an important starting point;
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reverse the decline in ODA flows to African and other developing countries, and meeting the target level of ODA flows equivalent to 0.7 per cent of each developed country's GNP within an agreed short-term period. Increased aid flows will be used to complement funds released by debt reduction for accelerating the fight against poverty;
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translate into concrete commitments the international strategies adopted in the fields of education and health;
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facilitate the development of a partnership between states, international pharmaceutical corporations and civil society organisations to urgently secure access to existing drugs for Africans suffering from infectious diseases.
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countries into markets of the developed countries through bilateral initiatives, and negotiating more equitable terms for African (and other developing) countries in the WTO multilateral framework;
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work with African leaders to encourage investment in Africa by the private sector in developed countries, including the establishment of insurance mechanisms and financial instruments which will help lower risk premia in Africa;
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raise consumer protection standards for exports from developed countries to developing countries to the same levels applied in developed country domestic markets;
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ensure that the World Bank and other multilateral development finance institutions participate as investors in the key economic infrastructure projects, to support the securing of private sector participation;
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provide technical support to accelerate the implementation of the programme of action, including strengthening capacity in planning and development management, financial and infrastructure regulation, accounting and auditing, and infrastructure construction and management;
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support governance reforms of multilateral financial institutions to better cater for the needs and concerns of developing countries, especially those of Africa; and
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set up co-ordinated mechanisms to combat corruption.
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| Mechanism for Directing the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Programme
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The MAP will be directed by a Forum of African Heads of State or Government. The functions of the Forum will be to:
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make decisions about sub-programmes and initiatives within the framework of the programme of action, including sequencing of initiatives and identification of implementing agencies. These decisions will be binding on participating countries;
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review progress on implementation of past decisions and take steps to address problems and delays; and
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make decisions about additional participants in the Forum.
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