POVERTY IS NOT A FATALITY

No country is not a member of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) forever. Countries currently classified as such should not regard it as a salvation refuge. They must keep on striving to expect to overcome one day a situation that others already consider as irreversible.

The United Nations established in 1971 the group of the Least Developed Countries on the basis of criteria such as low national income, low human development level and economic vulnerability. According to the United Nations, the LDC country is a country structurally handicapped in its development, with more than half of its population being illiterate. It is in the least developed countries, the majority of which (34) are in Africa, that malnutrition and AIDS… are still rampant. They are also areas of tension that destroy populations.

The 49 LDCs as a whole have a population of 630 million inhabitants representing about 10o/o of the population for less than 1o/o of the over all world income. Since 1990, the flow of capitals towards LDCs have decreased by 39o/o in terms of real value per inhabitant while all foreign direct investments have dropped steeply by 1.4o/o .

Therefore, LDCs need to be attended to in a special way by the international community as part of their development efforts. This is yet what the international community is being doing through the organization of various meetings to agree on assistance programmes in favour of these countries. I would like to mention Paris Conferences (1981 and 1990) and Brussels Conference in 1990 which resulted in the adoption of specific programmes of action in order to give a real and clear impectus to LDCs development takeoff.

But beyond all these programmes, LDCs need specific reforms at national level.

At political level, these reforms consist in consolidating democracy and good governance ; LDCs should be managed so as to enable each citizen to participate in his country’s development.

At the economic level, LDCs should be able to control the management of their economy and finance, strengthen the material bases of their economies by modernizing agriculture, that is improving ways and means of production, and by diversifying crops; according to the statistics of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), ‘’the survival of a considerable portion of LDCs population depends on agriculture’’. LDCs should seek to improve the business environment ; this implies a full liberalization of the economy.

On the social level, the Least Developed Countries should implement a policy in favour of their most deprieved cross-sections of their population, improve their health indicators, the quality of health care and the way of attending to emergency, treatment strengthen unemployment control reducing social unequalities…

BENIN, member of LDCs, has embarked on that line byadopting a five-year programme of action. The BENIN government programme of action shows some apparent signs of a well thought reorganization. However, such a programme can only be implemented through the strong will of all soons and daughters of the Republic of BENIN