Dated: May 2003

TRADE: Much more needs to be done to eliminate trade barriers that continue to impede African exports. These obstacles include agricultural subsidies in developed countries that tend to flood world markets with surplus food supplies and hinder the export of African farm produce, along with other tariff and non-tariff barriers. NEPAD's implementation, Annan says, would benefit from "a renewed and strengthened commitment by the developed nations to eliminating the various constraints on the export of Africa's processed, semi-processed and agricultural goods." In addition, more international support is needed to help remove Africa's "supply-side constraints," that is, support its efforts to produce and export a more diversified range of goods.

AID: Recent pledges of more aid by donor countries, especially at the March 2002 UN-sponsored International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, will help reverse the recent trend toward declining aid. But set against the magnitude of the tasks facing Africa, those measures may be insufficient. To meet the challenge, he estimates, "aid to Africa would need to be at least doubled." (In 2000, aid to Africa amounted to $15.7 bn, with $12.7 bn going to sub-Saharan Africa.) This aid would help Africa boost its investments in education, health and infrastructure, in turn stimulating productivity and economic growth, which are essential for poverty reduction.

DEBT: "Faster, deeper and broader" debt relief is required under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative (HIPC) currently being implemented by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The financial resources committed to the initiative should be increased, and HIPC's debt sustainability analysis should be based on "more realistic projections" of the country's future export earnings.

CAPACITY-BUILDING: For a long time, Annan notes, "technical assistance" - the use of foreign consultants paid out of aid allocations - has accounted for a significant share of bilateral aid to Africa. It would be better to redirect such resources toward human and institutional capacity-building in Africa, he suggests.