Oecd Urges Common Action On Poor Nations

Rich nations, urging action to stem Third World conflicts, called on Tuesday for a new coherence in policies including on trade, aid, and arms exports to bring developing countries into the mainstream of the world economy.

Wars have set back development severely in many countries, including in some of the poorest; excessive military expenditures have too often taken priority over more productive public investments... the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the OECDs development arm, said.

But humanitarian assistance was not a substitute for sustained political action, it said in a statement after a two-day meeting of development ministers.

Ministers had pledged to work within their governments to ensure all policies on security, political and economic relations and development aid went in the same direction.

 

Harmonised and responsible behaviour with respect to the supply of military goods, especially the supply of small arms, is critical, it added.

The policy statement, the fruit of two years work, was the latest attempt to revive enthusiasm for helping developing countries, where armed conflicts most recently civil war in Zaire have eclipsed efforts to boost economic development.

James Michel, who chaired the DAC meeting, stressed that despite the latest war in Zaire, there was no reason to give up hope on the development effort in Africa.

There are parts of Africa that are conflict-ridden and there are parts of Africa that are doing amazingly well. Africa is not falling apart, he told Reuters.

Its a big continent, a lot of different things are happening there, some of them are good, he said.

Ministers had all acknowledged the need for coordinated policies.

They recognise the need to work with colleagues within governments to ensure all our policies are coherent.

The United States has said it wants to make helping developing countries a priority at a summit of the Group of Seven rich nations in Denver next month, and has suggested opening up trade with Africa to help the continent.

Michel said though that lowering tariff barriers to boost trade was not enough.

If you open up trade but with someone with no capacity to produce...their ability to walk through open doors is rather restrained, he said. You need to have coherence, you cant do it all with aid, you cant do it all with trade.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have also launched an initiative, along with the Paris Club of creditor nations, to provide debt relief to the worlds poorest countries, many of them in Africa.

The various initiatives are meant to tackle worries that developing countries are being left behind by globalisation the rise in world trade and increasing interdependency of national markets as tariff and other barriers come down.

The OECD ministers also agreed to monitor application of provisions being introduced into aid procurement contracts to prevent bribery, and to encourage reform of government administration to discourage corruption.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is working on wide measures to combat corruption.