DEVELOPMENT: UNDP Backs US Role in African Economic Growth

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 1999 (IPS) - The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is spearheading a major effort to promote U.S. private sector development in the economically-neglected continent of Africa.

UNDP’s Africa Bureau will sponsor a workshop in Houston, Texas, next week – running parallel to a summit meeting of five African heads of state, four prime ministers and other senior officials from 26 African countries.

The African leaders are scheduled to meet U.S. entrepreneurs and chief executive officers of some of America’s largest corporations at a trade and investment conference scheduled for April 24-28.

“Though American prosperity rests mainly on its domestic market, the U.S. cannot disregard a growing market of more than 700 million consumers,” says Thelma Awori, Assistant Administrator of the Africa Bureau.

The conference, titled “Attracting Capital to Africa Summit,” is being organised by the Corporate Council on Africa, a US-based non-governmental organisation.

Awori says that U.S.-African collaboration and cooperation may take various forms and shapes – “but it has always existed, as one out of every 10 American has an African ancestry.”

“Our aim is to use the event to generate new ideas and concrete proposals on how to make the African private sector the engine of economic growth,” Awori notes.

The Heads of State at the summit are Presidents Festus Mongae of Botswana, Omar Bongo of Gabon, Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea. Additionally, the prime ministers of Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, as well as the Vice-President elect of Nigeria also are due to attend.

Representatives of other countries include Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Egypt, Mozambique, South Africa, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabawe.

The UNDP-supported workshop will analyse the problems of the private sector and suggest approaches to help Africa attract foreign direct investment.

Last week UNDP also co-organised a major Business Conference with the state of Connecticut in which several senior African government officials participated.

The agency has pointed out that the African continent not only is resource-rich but also represents about 20 percent of the world’s land mass and more than 10 percent of the world’s population.

Africa also has large and varied quantities of almost all the precious ores as well a substantial oil deposits. About a third of crude oil imported to the U.S. is from Africa. “Such resources play an important role in the world economy,” says Awori.

In 1997, U.S. companies exported 6.1 billion worth of American products to sub-Saharan Africa. During the third quarter of 1998, this increased by 6.0 percent.

According to UNDP, U.S. exports to sub-Saharan Africa was 30 percent larger than U.S. exports to all the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.

U.S. exports to South Africa alone virtually equaled U.S. sales to Russia, where population is more than three times larger and equal to the total exports to all of Eastern Europe.

The New York-based development agency says that it is “more than ever committed to the development of Africa.”

Currently, one third of UNDP’s core resources of 928 million dollars, and two-thirds of its non-core resources of 947 million dollars, goes to support UNDP programmes in sub-Saharan Africa.

UNDP has no restrictions in the use of core resources but non- core resources are specifically earmarked by donors to particular projects, countries or regions. A total of about 50 percent of all UNDP resources – both core and non-core – goes to sub-Saharan Africa.

Addressing a recent region-wide meeting of UNDP’s Africa-based resident representatives, UNDP Administrator James Gustave Speth said that while far too many African countries are engaged in conflict, many are making significant headway in creating conditions of peaceful, equitable development.

“Economically, many countries have undertaken steps to promote vibrant private sectors as well as regional cooperation, by liberalising trade and exchange controls,” he said.

While Africa is behind other regions in attracting foreign direct investment, seven countries – Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, Tunisia and Uganda – stand out in terms of both investment flows and their growth in the period 1992- 1996, when compared to developing nations as a whole, he said.

Speth said that for Africa, economic prospects will be highly dependent on three primary factors: the international price of commodities; the magnitude of resource flows; and progress in resolving the debt crisis.

But growth will also be based upon efficiency in domestic resource mobilisation, equity in resource allocations, and success in creating a stable, enabling environment that inspires confidence and liberates the creativity and industry of Africa’s own people.

For the international community, the challenge is to help Africa achieve these objectives by promoting free and fair trade, by facilitating foreign investment and private sector development, and by promoting, the empowerment of Africa’s own people and institutions, he said.