Details of African Recovery Plan

Details of an African recovery plan, which is a combination of South Africa's Millennium African Recovery Program (MAP) and Senegal's Omega Plan, were published Friday in Johannesburg.

The publication followed discussions between South African President Thabo Mbeki and his Senegalese counterpart Abdoulaya Wade, who is now on a visit to South Africa.

The plan, to be jointly presented to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit in Lusaka, Zambia next week, commits Africans leaders to "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 plan demonstrates the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalizing world.

"The continued marginalization of Africa from the globalization process and the social exclusion of the vast majority of its peoples constitute a serious threat to global stability," the plan says.

It outlines the following goals for African countries:

-- To achieve and sustain an average gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of above 7 percent a year for the next 15 years;

-- To reduce the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by half between 1990 and 2015;

-- To enroll all children of school age in primary schools by 2015;

-- To make progress towards gender equality and empowering women by eliminating gender disparities in the enrollment in primary and secondary education by 2005;

-- To reduce infant and child mortality ratios by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015;

-- To reduce maternal mortality ratios by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015;

-- To provide access for all who need reproductive health services by 2015; and

-- To implement national strategies for sustainable development by 2005, so as to reverse the loss of environmental resources by 2015.

The plan calls for effective measures to ensure that the 7 percent annual GDP growth rate be achieved.

It says the success of African recovery depends on the following key elements:

-- Promotion of peace, democracy, human rights and sound economic management; and

-- Regional cooperation and economic integration.

The plan stresses the importance of having access to sufficient energy in promoting African economic development.

The plan calls for the establishment of an African Forum for Utility Regulation and establish regional regulatory associations to ensure that Africa's energy objectives be achieved. These objectives include:

-- to increase from 10 percent to 35 percent access to reliable and affordable commercial energy supply by Africa's population in 20 years;

-- to improve the reliability and lower the cost of energy supply to productive activities to enable an economic growth of 6 percent a year;

-- to reverse environmental degradation associated with the use of traditional fuels in rural areas;

-- to exploit and develop the hydropower potential of Africa's river basins;

-- to integrate transmission grids and gas pipelines so as to facilitate cross-border energy flows; and

-- to reform and harmonize petroleum regulations and legislations in the continent.

The plan says a task team will be established to recommend priorities and implementation strategies for regional projects, including hydropower generation, transmission grids and gas pipelines.

According to the plan, African heads of state will also seek to secure an agreement, negotiated with the international community, to provide further debt relief for countries participating in the recovery plan.

In this regard, a forum will be established, in which African countries may share experiences and mobilize for the improvement of debt relief strategies.

According to the plan, a series of measures will be taken by African countries for the implementation of the plan. They include:

-- First meeting of the proposed African initiative Heads of State Implementation Committee will be held this month to lay the ground work for the plan's implementation;

-- A Committee of Ministries of Finance and Central Banks will be commissioned to conduct reviews of current economic and corporate governance practices in the various regions;

-- A Committee of Ministers of Foreign Affairs will be set up to review capacity-building needed for peacekeeping structures at both the regional and continental levels;

-- A task team will be set up to undertake sectoral needs assessments at national, regional and continental levels;

-- Several special task teams will be set up to lead the high- priority programs, i.e. the eradication of infectious diseases, infrastructure and information and communications technology, and

-- The United Nations Economic Commission on Africa will be commissioned to prepare special reports on each of the prioritized areas for consideration by the Steering Committee appointed by the Heads of State Implementation Committee.

Under the plan, engagements with the world community will include meeting with the leaders of the G-8 to discuss support of the program in Genoa, Italy later this month, holding a special session of the United Nations General Assembly on the African initiative in September, and a summit of world leaders to deliberate on financing the African initiative in Senegal in October.

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