7 October 2002
Department of Economic and Social Affairs
United Nations, New York
INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
New York, United Nations, 16-17 October 2002
COOPERATION FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT:
THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION
BACKGROUND NOTE
This note is focused on the financial aspects of international development cooperation. It does not touch upon the normative role of the various organizations of the United Nations system and of the International Financial Institutions and the World Trade Organization. Nor does it try to convey the many forms that international cooperation takes as it is implemented by its numerous actors. It provides however a short presentation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
It contains four parts:
I. Aperçu of the technical cooperation activities of the United Nations system
II. Official development assistance: some features
III. Magnitude of total aid provided by the international community
IV. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development
I. APERÇU OF THE TECHNICAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES OF THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM
The information below is taken from a UNDP document produced for the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme and of the United Nations Population Fund. Its title is Information on United Nations system regular and extrabudgetary technical cooperation expenditure, 2001: Addendum, Statistical annex (DP/2002/26/Add. 1, 15 August 2002).
The “system” includes all United Nations organizations, i.e. the United Nations itself, its funds and programmes, and the specialized agencies, for a total of 27 organizations. It does not include the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO.
Technical cooperation activities are defined in the following manner in this document: “These are activities that aim to promote increasing self-reliance and thus strengthen the conditions necessary for sustainable human development. They include human resources development (education, health, social development), and managerial, technical, administrative and research capabilities required to formulate and implement development plans and policies, including the management and development of appropriate institutions and enterprises, and policy advice.”
These activities occur in some 200 “countries or areas” throughout the world. Developed countries are among the beneficiaries of technical cooperation activities, as some agencies, notably WIPO, UNESCO and IAEA, have mandates covering these countries. The countries with “transition economies” are also, and much more systematically, among the beneficiaries of technical cooperation. But the bulk of the resources channeled through the United Nations system for technical cooperation go effectively to developing countries.
In 2001, total expenditure for technical cooperation activities by the United Nations system amounted, in rounded terms, to $ 7 billion 133 million. This sum was used for the following “categories” of activities, in rounded percentages and descending order of magnitude:
- Humanitarian assistance: 28.0 %
- Health: 18.0%
- Agriculture, forestry, fisheries: 9.5 %
- General development issues: 8.0 %
- Education: 5.0 %
- Population: 4.5 %
- Social development: 3.5 %
- Environment: 2.5 %
- Industry, transports, energy, natural resources, communications and information, employment: 2.0 % each
- Science and technology: 1.5%
- Human settlements, statistics,
trade and development: 1.0 % each
- Culture, political affairs: 0.5 % each
- Others and unspecified: 3.5 %
If social development is given its comprehensive meaning, to include social “sectors”, notably health and education, and humanitarian assistance as well as population and culture, technical cooperation expenditure allotted in 2001 to this domain of activity of the United Nations system amount to $ 4 billion 526 million, or 63 % of the total. Within this domain, the overwhelming priorities were humanitarian assistance (2 billion 17 million, or 44 %) and health (1 billion 263 million, or 29 %).
Turning to recipients, the ten countries or regions having received the most technical cooperation funds from the United Nations system were, in 2001,the following: Regional Arab States (397 million), Brazil (363 million), Iraq (292 million), Regional Africa (259 million), Ethiopia (256 million), Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (247 million), India (208 million), Sudan (163 million), Regional Asia and the Pacific (155 million) and Kenya (150 million). Also, 313 million were spent at the “interregional” level, and 234 million at the “global” level.
Africa, comprising most of the countries that the United Nations considers “least developed”, benefits from a significant portion of technical cooperation funds: 41 % of the expenditures of the World Food Programme,37 % of those of UNICEF, 34 % of those of UNFPA, and 42% of those of UNDP. Asia is the second recipient, with about 33-34 % of the expenditures of these four United Nations entities. The Arab States come third for the UNDP and the WFP (respectively 9 and 13 %), and fourth for UNICEF and UNFPA (around 8 %). The countries of the former Soviet Union and of the former Eastern European region are fourth for the UNDP and the WFP (8-9%), and received 7 % of the funds channeled through UNICEF. This latter organization allocates 10% of its expenditures to Latin America and the Caribbean, while this region accounts for 11 % of the expenditures of the UNFPA, and 5-7% of the expenditures of the UNDP and the WFP. The balance of the expenditures of these four organizations is spent at the “global and interregional” level.
As to the sources of technical cooperation expenditure, they are, in descending order of importance and in rounded terms, the UNDP (2 billion 27 million), the WFP (1 billion 744 million), the UNICEF (1 billion 12 million), the WHO (647 million), the UNWRA (359 million), the FAO (328 million), the UNESCO (224 million), the United Nations, i.e. the UN headquarters, UNCTAD and the Regional Commissions (115 million), the ILO (109 million), the UNIDO (74 million), the IAEA (73 million), the WIPO and the ICAO (about 41 million each), and then all the other entities of the United Nations system, none of them having a level of expenditure for technical cooperation superior to $ 20 million in 2001.
It should be noted that among the ten major recipients mentioned above, five (the Regional Arab States, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya) received the bulk of their technical cooperation funds from the WFP, while the five others were recipients of UNDP, UNICEF and the other entities of the United Nations system.
These entities of the United Nations system are financed by assessed contributions of their member states -generating regular budget expenditures- and by voluntary contributions from governments, non-governmental organizations and multilateral entities –generating extrabudgetary expenditures.
Assessed contributions play a relatively minor role in the financing of technical cooperation activities, and increasingly so, as will be noted below. In 2001, expenditures from regular budgets amounted to 424 million, or less than 6 % of the already mentioned total of 7 billion 133 million.
Technical cooperation activities are therefore essentially financed from voluntary contributions. In 2001, these voluntary or extrabudgetary contributions came from governments (70 %), non-governmental organizations (15 %), and multilateral entities (25 %).
Among the governments, the ten most important voluntary contributors, in dollars value, were the United States (207 million), the Netherlands (168 million), the United Kingdom (123 million), Italy (119 million), Japan (73 million), Norway (65 million), Sweden (48 million), Denmark (44 million), Canada (33 million), and France (26 million). Overall, voluntary contributions from governments amounted to 1 billion 116 million in 2001.
Non-governmental organizations include foundations and a few large international private organizations with a humanitarian purpose. Among those listed for contributions in 2001 are the United States Committee for UNICEF (96 million). Rotary International (19.8 million), the Bill and Melinda Gates Children’s Vaccine Program (6.4 million), the Kobe Group (6.4 million) and the Nippon Foundation (6.2 million). But a contribution of
31.9 million is listed under the rubric “others”, which, says the document, includes “all non-governmental organizations whose respective contributions to the various agencies fall below $500 000.” Altogether, non-governmental organizations contributed 189 million to technical cooperation activities undertaken in 2001 through the United Nations system.
Lastly, multilateral entities brought 25 %, or 417 million, to the total voluntary contributions for technical cooperation activities in 2001. These are first entities within the United Nations system making payments to other entities of the same system for services rendered. In 2001 these internal transfers amounted to 299 million, and were made primarily by the Department of Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat (122 million), the Montreal Protocol Fund (38 million), the United Nations Capital Development Fund (37 million) and the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (22 million). The other multilateral entities having brought, in 2001, 118 million to agencies of the United Nations system for their technical cooperation included the Humanitarian Office of the European Community (67 million), other parts of the European Community and European Union (16 million), Multidonor (4.7 million), the International Francophone Organization ( 2 million), the United States Agency for International Development (1.2 million), and a variety of comparable institutions with a public legal status.
A brief evocation of the recent evolution of technical cooperation expenditures and contributions – still drawn from the data figuring in document DP/2002/26/Add. 1 – is in order. It should be stressed that these data are all in nominal dollar terms.
Technical cooperation expenditures by the United Nations system increased steadily between 1980 (1918 million) and 1991 (4451 million), declined between 1992 (4778 million) and 1996 (4438 million), and rose again between 1997 (4766 million) and 2001 (7133 million). The year 2001 represented an increase of 16.6 % from the preceding year.
This evolution of expenditures resulted from a steady decline in the late 1980s and 1990s of regular budget expenditures -coming from assessed contributions of member states of the United Nations and the specialized agencies- and from a relatively regular increase of extrabudgetary expenditures -decided upon voluntarily by the same member states and by a variety of public and private organizations. Regular budget expenditures for technical cooperation were at 320 million in 1987, 429 million in 1994, and 424 million in 2001. For the same years, the extrabudgetary expenditures of the United Nations and the specialized agencies were 484, 812 and 1613 million. These expenditures were 107, 201, and 314 million for UNFPA; 365, 801, and 1012 million for UNICEF; 791, 1394, and 1744 million for WFP; and 796, 1246, and 2027 million for UNDP. In the case of UNDP, however, 2001 was a slight recovery from a decline in 2000 and 1999.
II. OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE: SOMEFEATURES
Data used in this part are those compiled and published by the OECD in the DAC annual Development Cooperation Report and also available in electronic format to registered users on the Web site.
Official development assistance (ODA), undertaken by public institutions -governments, national public agencies, regional and international intergovernmental organizations-, is geared towards the economic and social progress of the recipients countries -it excludes military aid-, and is provided in the form of grants or loans in very favourable terms.
In the year 2000, the 22 countries that are members of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD, provided $ 36 billion of bilateral official development assistance and $ 17.7 billion of multilateral assistance, for a total of 53.7 billion. Together, these 22 countries constitute what is commonly called the developed world.
These 53.7 billion of ODA represented 0.22 % of the Gross National Income of the DAC countries. The same result was achieved in 2001. A target of 0.7% was endorsed by the United Nations at the end of the 1960s. Since many years, only five countries meet this target/commitment: Denmark (1.7 billion, i.e. 1.06 % of its GNI), the Netherlands (3.1 billion, or 0.84%), Sweden (1.8 billion, or 0.80%), Norway (1.3 billion, or 0.80%), and Luxembourg (127 million, or 0.71%). The countries with the highest national income transfer a much smaller proportion of their income to developing countries: the United States of America (10 billion , or 0.10 % of its GNI), Japan (13 billion, or 0.28%), Germany (5 billion, or 0.27%), the United Kingdom (4.5 billion, or 0.32%), and France (4.1 billion, or 0.32%).
The 0.7% target was never achieved, but better results were obtained in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by a steady decline. The average ODA of the DAC countries was 0.32% of their national income in 1989-1990. It went down to 0.22% in 1997, increased slightly to 0.23% in 1998 and 0.24% in 1999, to go back to its lowest historical point of 0.22% in 2000 and 2001.Given the renewed commitment to this form of international cooperation expressed by some countries -notably the United Kingdom- and given the promises made at the Monterrey Conference by the European Union and the United States of America for an increase of ODA of at least 12 billion by 2006, perhaps is it not utterly unreasonable to expect that 2002 will mark the beginning of a reversal of this downward trend.
The DAC countries provide two-thirds (66% in 2000) of their official development assistance bilaterally, but their reliance on multilateral institutions has increased over time: 28% of multilateral ODA in 1984-1985, 27% in 1996, 32% in 1999, and 34% in 2000. The biggest contributors in volume, Japan and the United States, gave respectively in 2000 72% and 75% of their ODA bilaterally: for Germany this proportion was 53%, for the United Kingdom, 60%, and for France 69%. For Denmark, the biggest contributor in percentage of its national income, this proportion of bilateral aid was 61%, and for the four other countries having reached the target of 0.7% it was between 70 and 73 %. Only two DAC countries, Italy and Greece, regularly channeled more than 50% of their ODA through multilateral channels.
The multilateral agencies receiving ODA from the DAC countries were, still in 2000, the United Nations organizations (5.2 billion, with 909 million for the WFP, 672 million for the UNDP, 515 million for UNHCR, and 416 million for UNICEF), the institutions of the European Union (4.9 billion), the World Bank Group (3.8 billion), the Regional Development Banks (2.2 billion, of which 1 billion for the African Development Bank, 857 million for the Asian Development Bank, and 249 million for the Inter-American Development Bank), and other multilateral institutions (1.6 billion, of which 227 million for the IMF and 53 million for IFAD.
Official development assistance was conceived as a global form of solidarity between developed and developing countries, and the logic of it, in moral terms, was that the poorest countries should benefit the most from this aid. In an imperfect world, however, moral criteria are mixed with other often legitimate considerations, and are not always dominant. The least developed countries – a category of countries defined with some precision and objectivity by the United Nations- received in 1989-1990 37.3% of total bilateral and multilateral ODA from the DAC countries, and this proportion declined to 30.3% in 1999-2000. During the same period, “other low-income countries” increased slightly their share -from 31.1% to 34.4%-, “low middle-income countries” also increased their share -from 25.4% to 30.5%-, whereas “middle-income countries” went from 6.2% to 4.9 %. This evolution is all the more significant that the number of least developed countries has increased -they are currently 49, mostly in Africa- and that their overall economic and social situation remains extremely precarious. Also, multilateral institutions, regional and international, followed the same broad pattern as bilateral donors. The Monterrey International Conference on Financing for Development “urged developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts toward the target of 0.7 % of GNP to ODA to developing countries and 0.15% to 0.20 % of GNP of developed countries to LDCs.”
In regional terms, this trend of relative neglect of the poorest countries is apparent in the steady decline of the proportion of ODA allocated by bilateral donors and multilateral institutions to Sub-Saharan Africa: 37.7% in 1989-1990, 34.1% in 1994-1995, and 29.4% in 1999-2000. During this same 1990s, the share of the Middle East and North African region also declined: 13.7%, 12.6% and 10.6%. So did South and Central Asia, albeit only slightly: 16.0%, 15.5% and 15.6%. The Latin American region increased somewhat its share – 11.1% in 1989-1990 and 12.7 % in 1999-2000, while the region “Other Asia and Oceania” increased it markedly – 19.5% at the beginning of the decade, 21.8% at mid-decade, and 23.7 % in 1999-2000-, and the region Europe even more markedly- 2.2%, 4.2% and 8% at these same dates. This last growth is attributable to the European Community, to bilateral donors, and to International Financial Institutions. The United Nations system increased its ODA to this region from 1.2% in 1999-2000 to 10.3% in 1994-1995, but then reduced it sharply to 5.0% at the end of the1990s.
The distribution by domains of the 36 billion of bilateral official development assistance provided by DAC countries in the year 2000 shows that 30.9 % went to “social and administrative infrastructure”, 16.8 % to “economic infrastructure”, 9.7 % to “emergency aid”, 7.1% to “commodity aid and programme assistance”, 5.3 % to “agriculture”, 2.3 % to “industry and other production”, and 27.9 % to a category “other”, which includes “action related to debt”, “administrative expenses”, and “unspecified” uses of ODA.
Within the domain “social and administrative infrastructure”, are the following sectors: education, health, population, water supply and sanitation, government and civil society, and other social infrastructure/service. Education is still a priority for a number of bilateral donors. Even if one regroups health/population/water supply and sanitation into one category, education remains the first most important destination of bilateral ODA for ten of the twenty-two DAC countries, including Canada, Denmark, France and Germany. But, as noted for the technical cooperation activities of the United Nations system, health and related sectors receive increased attention from public and private institutions of the developed regions. Japan, for instance, devoted 15.9 % of its bilateral aid to this domain.
The evolution of the distribution of bilateral ODA over the last decade indicates that “social and administrative infrastructure” and “emergency aid” increased notably their share (from 23.6 to 30.9 % and from 1.6 to 27.9 %), while the other sectors experienced a decline, sharp in the case of “industry and other production” (from 13.5 % to 2.3%). This evolution by sector took place in a context of stagnation -decline in real terms- of the total amount of bilateral aid given by the DAC countries: 35.8 billion in 1989-1990 and 36.0 billion in 2000, in current dollars.
It should be noted, however, that the grant element of total bilateral ODA from the DAC countries has reached 95.4 % in 1999-2000, as compared with 91,3 % in 1989-1990. Also, aid is less and less “tied” to the donors countries. Roughly, with some problems of definitions and reporting, the OECD estimated that about 80 % of bilateral ODA was “untied” by the year 2000.
III. MAGNITUDE OF TOTAL AID PROVIDED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
As indicated above, the total amount of technical cooperation expenditures by the United Nations system was $ 7 billion 133 million in 2001. Secondly, bilateral official development assistance (ODA) from DAC/OECD member countries to developing countries and “transition economies” amounted to 36 billion in 2000. In addition these DAC/OECD members provided 17.7 billion of ODA to the multilateral institutions of the
United Nations system and to the World Bank, but the great part of this goes to the already mentioned technical cooperation activities of the United Nations system and to the World Bank.
The World Bank, through the International Development Association (IDA), which is its financial arms for its ODA type of grants and loans for the financing of a large variety of projects and programs, transferred in the year 2000 $ 4.2 billion to “low and middle income countries.” This category of countries correspond more or less to the category of developing countries as used by the United Nations, plus the “economies in transition” of Europe in the year 2000, $ 3.6 billion, and the middle income countries, having accounted for $ 0.6 billion. The regional distribution of these 4.2 billion was the following:
- Sub-Saharan Africa: 1.9 billion
- South Asia: 1.1 billion
- East Asia & Pacific: 0.6 billion
- Europe & Cent. Asia: 0.3 billion
- Latin America & Caribbean: 0.2 billion
- Middle East & North Africa: 0.1 billion
The Regional Development Banks, also in 2000, gave $1.2 billion of equivalent ODA to the same low and middle income countries, with the following distribution:
- South Asia: 453 million
- East Asia and the Pacific: 291 million
- Sub Saharan Africa: 268 million
- Latin America & the Caribbean: 174 million
- Europe & Central Asia: 46 million
- Middle East and North Africa: 10 million
Thus, adding -in descending order of magnitude- the bilateral aid from the member countries of the Development Assistance Committee, the expenditures for technical cooperation activities of the United Nations system, the net financial flows in grants or concessional terms of the World Bank to low and middle income countries through its International Development Association, and the same flows from the Regional Development Banks, gives an order of magnitude of the efforts made by the international community to assist its needy members. In rounded terms, in 2000/2001, these efforts amounted to:
- From bilateral aid: 36.0 billion
- From technical cooperation by the UN system: 7.1 billion
- From the IDA of the World Bank: 4.2 million
- From Regional Development Banks: 1.2 billion
- TOTAL: 48.5 billion
This total includes aid to the transition economies of Europe and Central Asia. A rough estimate is that the share of developing countries, in the traditional UN sense, was 45 billion.
Moving to the private realm, net private capital flows to “emerging markets” are estimated at 123 billion in 2002, with the following regional distribution:
- Asia and the Pacific: 60.7 billion (53.4 in 2001)
- Latin America: 29.2 billion (45.6 in 2001)
- “Emerging markets” of Europe: 23.9 billion (16.4 in 2001)
- Africa and the Middle East: 9.2 billion (10.6 in 2001)
This estimate of 123 billion for 2002 represents a sharp decline from an annual average of 187 billion during the last ten years, with a peak at 328 billion in 1996. Net private capital flows accounted for 4 % of the GNP of “emerging markets” in 1994 and will account for only 2% in 2002. (the source here was the Institute of International Finance, as quoted by IPS, Terranova, UN Journal, Vol.10, no 171, Friday 20 September 2002).
Overall, on an annual basis, there is still more capital leaving developing countries than there is capital coming to these countries. Estimates of this “reverse flow”, or “net transfer of financial resources to developing countries” put it at minus 170 billion dollars for the year 2000. This staggering figure represented a steady worsening of the situation since the mid-1990s: 1993: +66.2 billion, 1995: +39.9 billion, 1996: +18.5 billion, 1997: -5.7 billion, 1999: -111.2 billion. There was no reversal of this trend in 2001 and 2002. (see UN/DESA, World Economic and Social Survey 2001 (E/2001/50/Rev.l, ST/ESA/276) ).
IV. THE NEW PARNERSHIP FOR AFRICA’S DEVELOPMENT
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), was adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity meeting in Lusaka in July 2001 and launched one year later in Durban when the OAU was officially replaced by the African Union. It was originally elaborated by the leaders of South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Senegal.
NEPAD was blessed by the “Heads of State and Government of eight major industrialised democracies” (G8) and the representatives of the European Union as early as June 2002. The G8 took a number of engagements in support of NEPAD in eight domains ranging from Promoting peace and security to Improving water resource management and including Strengthening institutions and governance. The G8 stated that NEPAD was “first and foremost a pledge by African leaders to the people of Africa to consolidate democracy and sound economic management, and to promote peace, security and people-centred development”. The G8 undertook to “establish enhanced partnership with African countries whose performance (will) reflect the NEPAD commitments (…) Our partners will be selected on the basis of measured results.”
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a declaration on NEPAD in September 2002. NEPAD was welcomed as “an African Union-led, -owned and –managed initiative” and as “a serious commitment to addressing the aspirations of the continent”. The Assembly also affirmed that international support was “essential”.
NEPAD takes the form of a comprehensive document of about 65 pages starting with the following statement: “This New Partnership for Africa’s Development is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development, and, at the same time, to participate actively in the world economy and body politic. The Programme is anchored on the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world”. This Introduction also refers to “centuries of unequal relations” between Africa and the international community, especially the highly industrialised countries.
The document then has a part on “Africa in Today’s World: Between Poverty and Prosperity”, stating in particular that “as part of the process of reconstructing the identity and self confidence of the peoples of Africa it is necessary that (their) contribution to human existence be understood and valued by African themselves”, and that “Africa has a major role to play in maintaining the strong link between human beings and the natural world”. And, “in this new millennium, when humanity is searching for a new way in which to build a better world, it is critical that we bring to bear the combination of these attributes (resources, cradle of humankind, relation with the environment) and the forces of human will to place the continent on a pedestal of equal partnership in advancing human civilization”. This part concludes with an analysis of globalisation and a call for a “commitment on the part of governments, the private sector and other institutions of the civil society, to genuine integration of all nations into the global economy and politic.”
This is followed by a statement on “The New Political Will of African Leaders”, taking responsibility for the fulfilment of eight objectives, including “conflict prevention, management and resolution”, the “promotion and protection of democracy and human rights”, “macro-economic stability”, “transparent legal and regulatory frameworks for financial markets”, the “promotion of the role of women” and the “development of infrastructure, agriculture and its diversification into agro-industries and manufacturing to serve both the domestic market and exports markets”. Then is an “Appeal to the Peoples of Africa”, called upon “to take up the challenge of mobilizing in support of this initiative in order to put an end to further marginalisation of the continent and to ensure its development by bridging the gap between Africa and the developed countries”.
The bulk of the NEPAD document is its Programme of Action entitled “The strategy for achieving sustainable development in the 21stcentury”. It has a section on “Conditions for sustainable development”, a section on “Sectoral priorities” and a section on “Mobilizing resources”.
The “conditions” comprise the “Peace, Security, Democracy and Political Governance Initiative” and the “Economic and Corporate Governance Initiative”. Also mentioned is the “need for African countries to pool their resources and enhance regional development and economic integration on the continent in order to improve international competitiveness”. The notion of “essential regional public goods” is introduced with the following examples: transport, energy, water, information and communication technologies, disease eradication, environmental preservation, and provision of regional research capacity. The goals and targets of the United Nations Millennium Declaration are explicitly endorsed for the African continent.
There are six “sectoral priorities”, relating to infrastructure, human resources –including “reversing the brain-drain”-, agriculture, environment, culture, and science and technology. The policies and targets enumerated under these six sectoral priorities have the common objective “to bridge existing gaps between Africa and the developed countries so as to improve the continent international competitiveness and enable it to participate in the globalisation process.”
Mobilizing resources is envisaged through the “capital flow initiative” and the “market access initiative”. For the estimated 7% annual rate of economic growth considered necessary, notably to reduce by half the proportion of Africans living in poverty by 2015, an annual “resource gap “ of $64 million has to be filled. This will require increased domestic savings, but “the bulk of the needed resources will have to be obtained from outside the continent”. The document stipulates that “participation in the Economic and political Governance Initiatives is a prerequisite for participation in the Capital Flows Initiative.”
The NEPAD document ends with the outline of a “new global partnership” and with a short part on implementation. There is a “Heads of State Implementation Committee”, composed of the heads of State promoters of NEPAD plus ten others. A “peer-review” mechanism will be also be put in place.
NEPAD was preceded by two comparable overall strategies for the development of the African continent elaborated under the auspices of the United Nations. First was in 1986 the United Nations Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development, followed in 1991 by the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa. The latter was subjected, at the request of the Economic and Social Council, to an independent evaluation conducted by a panel of 12 members under the chairmanship of Mr. Kwesi Botchwey. The report of this panel was issued in June 2002 under the title Independent evaluation of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa (A/AC.251/9). Its findings are of great interest to illustrate the problems that NEPAD will have to overcome and are most relevant for a debate on international cooperation and its effects on the social development of developing countries. These findings are summarized below.
First is the overall performance of Africa in the 1990s:
- A poor economic performance –a rate of growth of about 3% on average instead of the 6% envisaged in the New Agenda- attributable to the following reasons: a failure of the promised external support to materialize, as ODA declined by 43 %; a lack of trade opportunities and a lack of economic diversification, plus a deterioration of the terms of trade; the mixed results of the liberalization, privatization and market-based reforms, as macro-economic policies were improved and inflation was controlled but growth was not restored and social conditions deteriorated; a low rate of investment and a significant capital flight; and internal factors, notably failings of governance marked by despotism and corruption and sometimes associated with rent-creating economic policies.
- A mixed result regarding the integration of rural economies into their national contexts and the achievement of food security, with significant progress in North-Africa and stagnation in sub-Saharan Africa. There was a drastic reduction in budgetary outlays to agriculture by African Governments and the donor community, including international institutions, in the framework of the adjustments programmes of the period.
- Significant strides in the process of democratization, with elections becoming the norm, and the OAU having increased its normative role regarding the rule of law, respect for human rights, as well as conflict resolution.
- The flourishing of civil society, reflected in the growth of non-governmental organizations, including women’s organizations, although the full potential of organized civil society in the democratic transformation process is hampered by grudging government support in many African countries.
- Significant progress in enhancing economic cooperation at both the sub-regional and continental levels, as launched with the Abuja Treaty establishing in 1991 the African Economic Community and culminated with the African Union in 2002.
- A significant progress also in the number, quality and scope of South-South cooperation especially for Africa-Asia cooperation, but the full potential of South-South cooperation is still constrained by poor communications infrastructure and the lack of adequate follow-up mechanisms.
- A mixed performance with the human dimension of development, encompassing population, education, health and women in development. The ecological and physical dimension of development remains a major problem for the future of Africa,s development. There was a slight improvement in enrolments in primary and secondary education, but the primary level enrolment was insufficient to reverse the setbacks of the 1980s. The notion of free education for all virtually disappeared over the decade. A number of major diseases overwhelmed the health systems in most of the region. Women in Africa formed networks and partnerships to deal with every aspect of the issues significant to their lives. Overall some progress has been made in pursuing the goal of integration of women in development, but enormous gaps still remain too be overcome.
As to the lessons learned and the conditions for the success of new initiatives, notably NEPAD, they are the following:
- Conflict and development are mortal enemies. The assurance of peace and security must be the primary responsibility and highest responsibility of African countries.
- International development cooperation in support of Africa’s accelerated development will need to be based on a major revision of the dominant thinking that has guided multilateral and bilateral programmes in Africa throughout the past two decades. The overriding reliance on liberalization, privatization and market-based reforms has distinct limits and has, in many cases, proved counterproductive in accelerating development and alleviating poverty.
- Every African country must evolve its own development strategy, based on a long term vision.
- Donors and international financial institutions would need to do more than pay lip service to African ownership; they would need to allow space for policies designed by democratically elected governments working with civil society.
- Commitments must be kept. African have come to embrace improved standards of governance as a fundamental condition of economic development. Donors have also an obligation to deliver on the promises they make regarding financial support, including debt relief and ODA. Workable mechanisms should be developed for monitoring both commitments.
- There is a need for sustained advocacy for African Development.
- There is a need to increase the efficiency and relevance of the United Nations. The UN should be given the financial means to undertake activities in Africa. Reallocation of resources would constitute a minor change so long as the global budget for the operational activities of the United Nations and its agencies remains so modest. Cooperation needs to be improved. Within the United Nations itself significant progress has been achieved but the process must be pursued. At the national level, the common country assessment and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework should be developed in cooperation, to meet the needs expressed by the countries in their national development strategies. At the regional level the United Nations system needs to be better primed. More needs to be done to curb inter-agency rivalries and make for greater policy cohesion.
In his recent report, Strengthening of the United Nations: an agenda for further change, the Secretary-General indicated the following: “One area in which clarification is especially needed is in the delivery of technical cooperation to developing countries. Almost all United Nations entities provide technical cooperation in some form or another. Clarifying who does what in this area is particularly important, given the increasing resources, capabilities and programme reach of the international financial institutions (…) A document clarifying roles and responsibilities in the area of technical cooperation will be prepared by September 2003.”