Report of the ninth meeting of the conference of ministers of African least developed countries

Abstract

Structural change is the very essence of development, and in the context of the Substantial New Programme of Action {SNPA), the most important structural transformations envisaged were in the form of reducing dependence of the economy on a single sector- agriculture - and a mono export economy. Moreover, the underscored intra and inter-sectoral bottle-necks such as land rights and tenure in agriculture,aging and import-dependent capital stock in industry, the physical disjunction between producing and marketing centres due to rudimentary transport networks, and the extremely slender skilled manpower base were commonly recognized to be areas of economic activity where the market alone could not provide a definite solution. The ushering of structural transformation by determined economic planning was, and remains to be the single most important objective of development policy in the LDCs.