Annan urges world to liberate Africa from backwardness

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan Monday urged the international community to take measures to lift Africa, the most backward continent, out of its unenviable position.

"Nowhere is a global commitment to poverty reduction needed more than in Africa, south of the Sahara, because no region of the world endures greater human suffering," he said in a report to the General Assembly, outlining priorities for the world in the new millennium.

In his characterization of Africa's situation, Annan pointed out that economies of African countries have been growing more slowly, with its per capital income just about 500 dollars a year.

Worse still, he added, Africa receives only a tiny fraction of global private capital flows while at the same time its external debts, on which it spends more than 25 percent of its exports earnings to service, often exceeds the entire gross national product.

Africa's agriculture has not been doing well, mainly due to variable rainfall, highly weathered soils, disease and pests as well as the fact that agricultural technologies developed elsewhere have not transferred well into Africa.

Annan challenged experts in the world to find a solution to the problem of low agricultural productivity in Africa.

But he also urged Africa to deal with the political factors that are obstacles to economic progress such as the "winner-takes-all" attitude to political competition, the violations of fundamental human rights and the frequent resort to force to resolve disputes.

Happily, he said, many African countries have taken action on these issues, holding rulers who perpetrated crimes against their people accountable for their actions.

In other proposals, Annan advised that globalization be made to work all people, people be freed from want and fear and their future made sustainable.