UN General Assembly
1998

better regulation of small arms and small-calibre weapons. In this case my country welcomes the measures taken to strengthen the Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Lomé. For several decades our Organization has been seeking to adopt a coherent approach to effectively meet the major challenges of poverty and development, in particular by working to establish a strengthened world partnership to finance development. It is time, therefore, to reverse the trend of reduced official development assistance and to join our efforts together to increase the scope of that assistance by revising its modalities. In this respect my country expects a great deal from the second Tokyo International Conference on African Development, set for October 1998. We expect that Conference to explore new strategies for mobilizing official development assistance and to reaffirm the international community?s commitment to make the development of Africa one of its priorities. It is indispensable, moreover, resolutely to implement bold policies to relieve and even to forgive the external debt of the poorer countries as part of a general agreement