A/42/427
English
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- poverty and hunger leading to environmental degradation. deteriorating agriculture, and hence more poverty and hunger:
- falling savings and a neglect of new investment in the wake of growing poverty:
- high infant mortality. poverty, and lack of education:
- high population growth rates; and
- a flight from rural hunger to the cities, leading to explosive levels of urban growth and squalor. compounding the problems of inadequate food supplies.
13. The situation is not everywhere so bleak. Some nations have coped well, and some far-reaching and courageous policy reforms begun in the last few years have begun to bear fruit. Encouragement also comes from South Asia, where a comparable crisis 20 years ago has given way to an upward spiral of rising food production, diminishing (but still vast) poverty, slowing population growth, rising savings and investment, and greater attention to the long-term questions of environmental management and appropriate technology.
14. Among the many causes of the African crisis, the workings of the international economy stand out. Sub-Saharan Africa's economic well-being depends even more than low-income Asia's on developments in the world economy. Within the last decade, many sub-Saharan countries have been hit by adverse trends in commodity terms of trade and external shocks such as higher oil prices, fluctuating exchange rates, and higher interest rates. Over the last 10 years, the prices of me)or commodities such as copper, iron ore, sugar, ground-nuts. rubber, timber, and cotton have fallen significantly. In 1985. the terms of trade of sub-saharan countries (except oil-exporting countries) were 10 per cent below 1970 levels. In countries eligible for funds from the International Development Association (IDA), the average fall was well over 20 per cent, with even greater drops in some, including Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zaire, and Zambia.[1]
15. The problem has been compounded by growing difficulties in attracting development capital from the industrial world. At the same time, debt repayment and interest charges have risen. Debt service rose in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole from 15 per cent of export earnings in 1980 to 31 er cent in 1986.[2] This combination of events has led to a situation where net resource transfers to the area fell from an estimated $10 billion a year in 1982 to $1 billion in 1985.[3] Thus nations have been able to import far less. In countries eligible for IDA loans, the import volume per person in 1984 was only 62 per cent of the volume in 1970.[4] Imports for agriculture – machinery, fertilizers, and pesticides – and of essential supplies to meet basic needs have all been cut. The combination of adverse international and internal factors cut per capita income by 16 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa between 1980 and 1985.[5]
16. The economic difficulties of sub-Saharan countries have had devastating social impacts. Declining per capita food production has contributed to growing undernourishment. The recent drought
