Saluting a development pioneer-tribute to Adebayo Adedeji at 80

Abstract

Statement by Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA at ACDESS Millenium International Symposium high-level policy and strategy seminar. Mr. Janneh, on his remarks highlighted that, The United Nations Intellectual History Project with which Professor Adedeji is closely associated titled its briefing note on the Commission as “Economic Commission for Africa: Fighting to be Heard”. A central theme of ECA’s knowledge and advocacy activities over the past five years has been to build on the tradition that Professor Adedeji helped to instill, which is always to underscore the importance of self-belief and to stress that economic development should be about improving the human condition. Another equally troubling dimension of Africa’s economic challenge is the incoherence of strategies especially a mismatch between short-term aims and long-term objectives and lack of linkages and coordination across sectors. ECA has tried to bring a different perspective to bear on strategies for African development. This is certainly what we tried to do under Professor Adedeji’s leadership, with the Monrovia Strategy, the Lagos Plan of Action, the African Priority Programme for Economic Recovery and the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes.