Report on ECA - executed technical co-operation projects

Abstract

The 1989-1990 periods bore a particular significance for ECA's technical co-operation activities in Africa. Not only was the region on the threshold on a new and crucial decade, but also all assessments on its achievements during the 1980s concurred on the conclusion that it was a lost decade to Africa. Meanwhile, in the course of the 1980s, new problems and crises had developed and gained added momentum, among which: (a) Increasing mass poverty and persistent decline in real per capita income; (b) Declining agricultural, food and industrial production; (c) High demographic growth; (d) A crushing debt burden; (e) Shrinking external financial flows; (f) The debilitating effects of structural adjustment programmes; and (g) Social and political instability. These developments compelled urgent initiatives in technical co-operation activities, as regards the identification and prioritization of problem areas, the mobilization of resources and the allocation of such resources among different areas of concentration where ECA was to direct primarily its technical assistance efforts.