General Assembly Session 63 meeting 3

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by the President of the United Republic of Tanzania and Chairman of the African Union.

President Kikwete (Tanzania)

I thank Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for conceiving the idea of holding this high-level meeting devoted to discussing Africa's development needs. I also congratulate the Secretary-General on his report on Africa's development needs: state of implementation of various commitments, challenges and the way forward (A/63/130).

Africa deserves this kind of attention because it is the poorest of the five continents. With respect to human development indicators, Africa scores the lowest on almost all of them. The Secretary-General's report quite extensively and competently covers Africa's needs and challenges for development. Certainly, numerous studies, publications and multilateral conferences have elucidated and arrived at a consensus as to what constitutes Africa's development, what impedes it and what needs to be done about it. The list of Africa's development needs is long, from provision of basic social and economic services to ensuring food security and increasing people's incomes through transformation of the productive sectors.

The Secretary-General effectively reminds us in his report that one critical thing that is preventing Africa's development needs from being met is a lack of the requisite resources. Development requires huge amounts of resources. Unfortunately, because of its lower level of development, Africa does not have sufficient resources to pull itself out of the poverty trap. The Secretary-General's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Africa Steering Group has, among other things, quantified development assistance needs with a view to meeting the MDGs, which forms the backbone of Africa's development challenges.

One good thing about those facts is that all of us in the international community and on the continent recognize Africa's acute resource constraints. We also know that African Governments have been taking measures to tackle the development challenges using the few resources available to them. Another good thing is the fact that the international community has been generous enough to assist African nations with resources to complement their efforts. Unfortunately, the resources being committed and made available are not sufficient to lift Africa out of the poverty trap quickly. One unfortunate thing is the fact that many of the resources promised by the developed countries are not being provided.

I would like to take this opportunity to express Africa's disappointment at the failure of the developed nations to honour their commitments to provide resources to deal with the challenges of Africa's development. Allow me to use this forum today to call for a new impetus in meeting those commitments. It is the historic duty and a moral obligation of the developed nations to help the needy in Africa; it is not a question of charity.

As we meet here today, it is important to recall the Monterrey Consensus, adopted by heads of State and Government in March 2002. The Consensus provided a key framework for the financing of development. We in Africa saw the adoption of the Consensus as an important step in scaling up efforts to mobilize domestic and external resources for our development and that of other needy developing nations on this planet.

It is only prudent that, as we elevate Africa's development agenda as a matter of global concern, we take stock of where we are in the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus and other decisions taken and commitments made in various forums. I am delighted to note the efforts of the Secretariat and the General Assembly in that respect, particularly through the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development that took place here in New York in October 2007 and the Follow-up International Conference on Financing for Development to Review the Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, which will take place in Doha later this year.

We in Africa are appreciative of the various efforts made in recent years to address the challenges of financing Africa's development needs. Those efforts are reflected in the 2005 World Summit Outcome, the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the communiqué adopted at the 2005 Gleneagles summit of the Group of Eight (G8). We are also thankful to the G8 countries for paying increasing attention to the development issues affecting Africa.

However, while all those efforts have provided additional momentum for the implementation of the commitments made by world leaders in the Monterrey Consensus, we in Africa are increasingly concerned at the persistent gap between what has been promised and what has been delivered. Collectively, the G8 is badly off track to fulfil its development assistance promises to Africa. I am told that, in total, G8 assistance to sub-Saharan Africa has increased by only $2.3 billion since 2004, whereas it should have increased by $5.4 billion during that period. If current trends continue, African countries will not be able to mobilize the resources required to finance the public investments critical to achieving the MDGs. Now is the time for the friends of Africa in the developed world to walk the walk. If they do not do so now, it may be too late as far as meeting the 2015 targets is concerned.

The amount of aid provided is as important as the quality of that aid. While we appreciate the fact that some of the developed countries have stepped up their efforts to meet their commitments, one concern for us in Africa is that most of the recent decrease in aid is due to debt relief and humanitarian assistance, and so does not reflect additional resources available to finance development programmes. Indeed, when those two components of aid are removed, it is clear that there has not been any significant change in real aid flows since 2004. Therefore, if donors are to meet their pledges to double aid flows to Africa by 2010, there has to be a significant scaling-up of aid this year, next year and the year after that.

Before I conclude, I would like to underscore the fact that Africa is not a hopeless case. We are not desperate, nor have we resigned ourselves to a state of helplessness. We are determined to wrestle ourselves out of our predicament. All we are saying is that we need the support of the developed members of the international community to complement our efforts. We thank our development partners for the invaluable support extended to us over many years, but much more needs to be done. That is all we are asking. It can be done; let us all play our part.

The President

I thank the President of the United Republic of Tanzania and Chairperson of the African Union for the statement he has just made.