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.

*******