UN General Assembly
1994

In any event, for the countries of the South, the success of existing or future machinery for cooperation will depend on the role reserved for development activities and for the reduction of inequity. Here, the new World Trade Organization, which from January 1995 will replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, will have to respond to the needs arising from differences in the level of development of the rich countries and of the less-well-off countries. After 30 years of independence, we must observe that African States do not always have the means to satisfy their peoples' health, educational and cultural concerns. Numerous factors contribute to keeping our countries in the spiral of underdevelopment. The first is that our countries are unable to process the commodities they produce or set their prices. This leads to a drastic deterioration of the terms of trade, because the prices of raw materials are not indexed to those of the finished products.