The wailing sirens accompanying our distinguished visitors who had taken time off from their busy schedule to participate in the Poverty Conference at the Swami Vivekananda Convention Centre have been switched off. The visitors are back in their respective countries with a seemingly lighter conscience after having decried, one more forcefully than the other, the indictment that poverty represents on the human kind! As predictable, a Declaration (yet another one!) has been adopted, regrettably encapsulating more of the same rhetoric.

On the eve of the Conference, which seems to have left most people directly concerned with the theme untouched, I had made bold to wonder what it was that was going to be said here in Mauritius that had not been said in other such gatherings elsewhere. Indeed, what way forward was going to be charted that had not been drawn earlier and elsewhere?

I had somehow hoped that, collectively, the leadership of the region was going to address real problems that afflict our peoples who are in the abyss of abject poverty and commit themselves to time-bound actions to lift, if not all, at least some of them out of the rut with concomitant commitments of own funds. Perhaps all is not lost yet. Maybe, individually each country will, come budget time, address the issue in-depth and come up with some pro-poor tangible programmes.

In Mauritius, for example, hopefully, more attention will be given to such social issues as housing, health and education aimed at pulling up those at the lowest rung of the ladder? and then and only then consideration given to further lowering duties and other taxes on luxury vehicles to enable the fast and furious few well-endowed of the land, to indulge in Aston Martins, Porsches and other Ferraris! Question of having one?s priority right?

But back to the averments of last week?s conference. Allow me to share some thoughts I had put together, exactly 11 years ago this May, in a monograph I had launched here in Mauritius under the title: Policy Consensus, Strategy Vacuum. (Macmillan Kenya,1997) while addressing, inter alia, the various initiatives to give strategic direction to development in Africa. The Cairo Agenda adopted in 1995 had been one of the latest such initiatives: ? But the day-to-day reality of decision-making in most of our Member States and in the Councils of the multilateral and bilateral agencies of cooperation is overshadowed by short-term considerations of crisis management(?) If the challenge of development is really about overcoming poverty and human deprivation as well as equipping and providing our peoples with opportunities to participate meaningfully in the new global economy, we have no alternative but to proceed without further delay in laying solid foundations for the economic transformation of Africa even in our crisis management undertakings and activities. Geography and small country markets and the extreme balkanisation of the continent have conjoined to make regional cooperation and economic integration an essential part of the response to the need for strategic direction in the development effort in Africa today (...) Regionalisation of economic activity will enable our national economies to build-up capacities in all critical areas, from the absorption and generation of new technology to production and marketing, as a springboard for more meaningful participation in the world economy(?) the present status quo of policy reform without strategic direction in most of our Member States cannot be acknowledged as being appropriate and sufficient preparation for the challenges of the global economy of the 21st century.?

<I>?Regionalisation of economic activity will enable our national economies to build up capacities in all critical areas...?</I>

In the same monograph, I had stressed: ?Enough, therefore, of programmes and initiatives for Africa. Our archives are replete with such prescriptions (?) our countries need to resist being the perpetual laboratory of endogenous and exogenous plans and programmes(?) we must make progress in integrating our economies. This is the way forward in resolving the short-term crisis management/long-term development conundrum (?)The alternative can only be continued stagnation and condemnation of ourselves and our children to poverty, civil strife, violence and the pitiable objects of the rest of the world?s conscience!?

So after last week?s conference, are we any nearer to making poverty history in our region or are we likely to continue ?to be a scar on the conscience of the world??, as Tony Blair stated a couple of years ago!

<B>By Vijay MAKHAN</B>