Excerpt from
          AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
                   ANNUAL REPORT, 1999

Title: International Development Goals and African Prospects in the 21st
Century

Africa enters the new century facing enormous challenges.  Close to 350
million people live on US$1 or less a day, and up to 150 million children
live below the poverty line.  Africa is the only continent where the number
of the poor is increasing.  Although Africa’s economic performance over the
last five years represents an encouraging improvement on that of the first
half of the decade, current growth rates are generally inadequate for
effective poverty reduction.

The central challenge for development that confronts Africa and its
partners is to accelerate broad-based economic growth in order to meet the
now universally accepted International Development Goals.  These goals fall
into three major groups:

Economic well being
Reducing the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by at least one-
half by year 2015.

Social development
Attain universal primary education in all countries by year 2015;
Progress in gender equality and the empowerment of women by eliminating
gender disparity in education by year 2005; Reduce by two-thirds the 1990
mortality of infants and children under five years and reduce maternal
mortality rates by three-quarters of the 1990 levels by year 2015; and
Improve access to reproductive health services through the primary health
care system for all individuals of appropriate ages, by the year 2015.

Environmental sustainability and regeneration
Implement current national strategies for socially responsible sustainable
economic development, in every country by 2002; and,
Ensure an effective reversal of current global and national trends in loss
of environment resource by 2015.

Africa’s situation is particularly difficult because the growth rate
required to secure these goals, especially for reducing is high relative to
the expectations that would be reasonable in light of its experience.
Recent studies have shown that four percent of the poor in Africa would
need to move out of poverty each year until the year 2015 to meet the
internationally agreed goal of reducing the proportion of the poor by one-
half by then.  The rates of growth required to meet the development goals
and reduce poverty vary among African countries depending on initial levels
of per capita income and patterns of income distribution.  They are
estimated at five percent in the relatively more prosperous countries in
North and Southern Africa, and eight percent in the relatively poorest
states in Central, East and West Africa.  Clearly, such growth rates exceed
those attained by even Africa'’ better performers during recent years,
though a few high performers have demonstrated that they can reach these
levels.

Other regions of the world, particularly the Asian countries, have
succeeded in reducing poverty in a relatively short time.  So while the
goals for Africa are ambitious, they are not impossible.  There is a
precedent for change and reason, therefore, for optimism given appropriate
economic and social reforms.

African countries will thus need to deepen their economic reform efforts.
Sound economic management and appropriate structural policies that
stimulate private initiatives, boost the supply response, and diversify the
pattern of production are needed to reach the necessary growth rates.
These priorities are reflected in the Bank Group strategy:
- accelerating sustainable economic growth;
- building human capital through efficient delivery of social services and
sound population policies;
- creating the non-economic foundations necessary for sustainable
development, especially gender mainstreaming, environmental management and
the pursuit of good governance; and
- promoting regional integration, which provided economies of scale and
opportunities to pool resources for investment.

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