A/42/427
English
Page 81
The seriousness of the African crisis cannot be overemphasized and in its entirety, it should really engage the whole world. The lives of 400 million people living in Africa today are imperilled. And many more people yet to be born will tare a very bleak future unless effective solutions are found and found quickly.
It requires of course very little imagination to appreciate the fact that it is not only Africa that is in danger. In the long term the entire world economy could be threatened not only because of the indivisibility of human welters but because of Attica's crucial position in the global economy as a source of a large number of vital raw materials.
Maxime Ferrari
Director, UNEP Regional Office
for Africa
WCED Public Hearing
Harare, 18 Sept 1986
placed some 35 million lives at risk in 1984/85, and as the drought receded some 19 million people continued to suffer famine.[1] Malnutrition and hunger have weakened much of the population, reducing their productivity, and made more of them (especially children and the old) more susceptible to debilitating diseases and premature death. The crisis has reversed progress in supplying safe drinking water and sanitation.
17. It is now more widely recognized that it is necessary to deal with the long-term causes rather than the symptoms. The vast misery brought on by the drought in Africa is now generally acknowledged, and the world community has responded with a substantial emergency programme. But emergency food aid is only a short-term reaction, and, at best, a partial answer. The roots of the problem lie in national and international policies that have so far prevented African economies from realizinq their full potential for economic expansion and thus for easing poverty and the environmental pressures that it generates.
18. The resolution lies in large part with African decision makers, but the international community also has a heavy responsibility to support Africa's adjustment efforts with adequate aid and trade arrangements and to see to it that more capital flows into poorer nations than out. These two complementary aspects of the resolution of the problems have been fully recognized by the African countries themselves[2] and generally acknowledged by the international community[3] The World Bank estimates that even if external economic conditions are favourable over the next five years, and even if African governments implement key policy reforms, a substantial gap will still remain between the finance or debt relief available on current donor policies and the amounts needed to prevent a further deterioration in the living standards of low-income Africa.[4] And there is no money in this grim equation for restoring the damaged environment.
- ↑ UN. General Assembly, 'The Critical Economic Situation in Africa: Report of the Secretary General', A/S-13/z, New York, 20 May 1986.
- ↑ Organization of African Unity Assembly of Heads of State of Government, Africa's Priority Proqramme of Action 1986-1991 (Addis Ababa: 1985).
- ↑ UN General Assembly. United Nations Programme of Action for African Economic Rcovery and Development (New York: 1986).
- ↑ World Bank, op. cit.
