Africa presents a mixed picture. Growth is projected at 2.75 percent in 1999, lower than earlier expected, reflecting the persistent weakness of non-oil commodity prices. Once again, we see the importance of diversification in order to put our economies on a higher growth path. It is, however, important to note that many African countries are in the process of implementing wide ranging political, social and economic reforms designed for growth and sustainable development. The ultimate goal is to overcome the scourge of poverty and to do this we have to ensure much higher growth rates than even the 5 percent projected by the Fund for Africa in 2000.
Globalisation presents many challenges as well as many opportunities.
Our continent must ensure that it can address the challenges and grasp the opportunities so that we may indeed realise the hope and the aspirations of all of our peoples. We have to do this if the next century is indeed to be the African century. In order to ensure that the African continent will not be marginalised in the global economic system it would be critical that our countries find ways to become better integrated into the global economy to enable our economies to take advantage, among others, of capital flows for investment purposes. This is one of the areas where international financial standards and transparency regarding foreign investment can be expected to play an important role. It has also become clear that our countries need to find ways to strengthen regional integration, not only as a means of promoting trade but also of mobilising capital for development.