by Guebray Berhane

   ADDIS ABABA, Nov 21 (AFP) - Significant development aid, debt relief and
more open markets should be the ingredients of a "new global compact" with
Africa, a ministerial conference on the continent's development was told
Tuesday.
   What is needed is "a new global compact with Africa, not for Africa,"
said
K.Y. Amoako, the Ghanaian executive director of the Economic Commission for
Africa, a UN agency.
   The secretary general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU),
Tanzanian
Salim Ahmed Salim, called for "globalisation with a human face."
   "Take the bull by the horns" so that the idea of Africa needing "trade
not
aid ... does not become an empty phrase," said Ethiopian Prime Minister
Meles
Zenawi.
   The conference, which opened here Tuesday, brought together about 30
African trade and finance ministers, eight central bank governors,
development
ministers from Germany, Britain, Norway and the Netherlands and dozens of
officials from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and donor
states.
   "If the rich countries are willing to invest the necessary resources,
through aid, debt relief and market access, to give African economies the
jump-start they need, much of Africa should be able to put in place the
necessary political and economic reforms to ensure that their economies take
off," urged Amoako.
    The Ghanaian also called for "a substantial, but carefully agreed and
phased injection of official development assistance (ODA), which would be
linked to performance indicators agreed by both sides."
   Noting the "negative impact to our continent" of the declining level of
ODA, Salim said this was "happening at a time when most of our countries are
grappling with severe external payments problems and when private capital
inflows, particularly foreign direct investment (FDI), have remained below
expectations."
   In 1998, Africa received just one percent of the world's total FDI,
according to the ECA.
   Amoako called for "some preferential access, at least in the short run"
for
African states.
   "Africa must be enabled to export much more and to absorb much higher
levels of FDI," said Meles.
   According to UN and World Bank estimates, Africa accounts for one percent
of the world's total GDP and less than two percent of total exports.
   Three out of four Africans, some 640 million people, live on less than
two
dollars a day.
   Meles called on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) to "accord non-reciprocal and privileged access to their markets for
African products."
   In exchange for partners' future investments, African countries should
undertake to set up policies favouring exports, attracting private
investment
and stimulating diversification and liberalisation.
   Africa should also carry out profound political reforms tied to
transparency, responsibility and good governance and stop conflicts that
destroy the continent's development, Amoako added.
   Salim said: "What we are calling for is not an act of charity towards the
least developed countries but rather a genuine international cooperation and
solidarity in support of the efforts that these countries have deployed."
   Last month, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD)
also called for a "new deal" for the world's 48 poorest coutries, 33 of
which
are in Africa.
   gue/afm/gd

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