UN General Assembly
1997

activity of its own independent of Member States. It is we Member States that have not sufficiently seized the opportunity opened up by the end of the cold-war division of the world and the international tension engendered by that state of affairs. Not only within the United Nations but in general, both in the bilateral and the multilateral areas, the international cooperation being made available to the developing world today is not commensurate with the challenges faced by those countries, nor does it do justice to the tremendous effort made by those countries, including many in Africa, to make their economies business-friendly. A growing number of countries on our continent, including my own country, Ethiopia, have taken decisive measures to liberalize their economies, to cut Government spending, to institute sound macroeconomic policies and to enhance the role of the private sector and civil society. Because of these serious efforts at belt-tightening and monetary and fiscal discipline, there have been some encouraging developments over the past four years with regard to economic growth in a number of African