From Africa Recovery, Vol.12#1 (August 1998), page 19
The Secretary-General's key recommendations include:
On arms and arms trafficking
-- UN Member States should pass laws enabling prosecution in national courts
of violations of Security Council arms embargoes.
-- The Security Council should urgently consider how the UN might help compile, track and publicize information on arms trafficking.
-- African governments should reduce purchases of arms and munitions to 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product, and maintain zero-growth on defence budgets for the next decade.
On sanctions
-- Economic sanctions are too often a blunt instrument, and should be better
targeted, for example, by freezing the assets of decision-makers, their
organizations and their families and through restrictions on travel.
-- Combatants should be held financially liable to their victims under international law, where civilians have been deliberately targeted; international legal machinery should be developed to help find and seize the assets of transgressors.
On refugees
-- An international mechanism should be established to help host governments
maintain the security and neutrality of refugee camps. Such camps should
be located away from borders; combatants should be separated from genuine
refugees.
On structural adjustment
-- The Bretton Woods institutions should consider providing "peace-friendly"
structural adjustment programmes.
-- Conditionalities must not be antithetical to a peace process; donors should not cut off funds from a weak government making good-faith, popularly supported efforts to implement peace agreements.
On development assistance
-- Aid should be restructured to focus on high-impact areas (rural water
supply, basic education, primary health) and to reduce dependency.
-- Donors should strive to ensure that at least 50 per cent of their aid to Africa is spent in Africa.
-- New sources of funding are required from donor countries.
On debt and trade
-- The scope of the Highly-Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative of
the World Bank and International Monetary Fund should be greatly expanded
since only four African countries have so far met its conditions.
-- All creditors should convert into grants all remaining official bilateral debt of the poorest African countries.
-- Creditors should consider clearing the entire debt stock of the poorest African countries, as requested by the OAU.
-- The Group of 8 industrialized countries should consider eliminating trade barriers to African products.
On the Security Council
-- The Security Council should meet every two years at ministerial level
to assess efforts undertaken and actions needed to support peace and development
in Africa.
-- The Council should consider convening, within five years, a summit-level session for the same purpose.
On international business practices
-- Countries implementing the Convention Combating Bribery of Foreign Public
Officials in International Business Transactions should set a timetable
for early enactment of national legislation.
-- The OAU should draw up by the year 2000 an African Convention on the
Conduct of Public Officials and the Transparency of Public Administration.
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