UN General Assembly
2003

growers will intensify as the market becomes ever more distorted. Considering that cotton production, which represents a tiny fraction of the economic activity of the industrialized countries, is a key element of the poverty reduction policies and a basic factor of the political and social stability of the States of Western and Central Africa, it is easy to take the full measure of the bias to which we are subject. What is true for cotton is just as true for most of the agricultural products of the developing countries. We must therefore work to redress such injustices. The duty of solidarity in favour of development is a moral duty for the countries of the North. Such solidarity is an urgently-needed response to the destitution of our populations, especially since it addresses peoples more than Governments. This implies in no way that developing countries should be taken in charge, but that they should be helped to assume responsibility for their own futures. As for Africa, it has come to see that its salvation lies in