Critical analysis of the country presentations of African Least Developed Countries in the light of the Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act of Lagos

Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to assess how individual national structures have responded to the call for socio-economic change as outlined in the Monrovia Strategy and the Lagos Plan of Action, Naturally such an assess ment has to be based on the national .long-term plans of the individual African countries. Unfortunately it has not been possible to collect all national plans that have been launched or formulated since the adoption of the Lagos Plan of Action by the African Heads of States and Governments in April I98O, However, the ECA secretariat was fortunate to have had programmes prepared by individual African least developed countries in the framework of the Substantial New Programme of Action for the 1980s. It is on these individual country programmes that the present paper is based, the present paper is divided into two main parts. Part one examines the over-all broad objectives and general policies of development especially in respect of self-reliance, self-sustainment and welfare of the African people and contains an analysis of the problems of development and management of national resources (natural, including energy, human, financial and institutional) and co-operation arrangements at the bilateral, sub-regional and regional levels. Part two examines sectoral transformational strategies and policies in agriculture, industry, and transport and communications.