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 _____________________________________________________________________________________ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------