I should like to thank Ambassador Owada , the Permanent Representative of Japan , for his work as Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole for the mid-term review , which met last September . During the mid-term review of the implementation of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s ( UN-NADAF ) , we agreed that the situation remained critical and we must step up our efforts for the development of the continent .