UN General Assembly eager to find solutions to Africa's challenges

The leaders have also recommitted themselves to a global partnership to help the continent halve poverty, illiteracy and other socio-economic ills by 2015.

Member States participating in the high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Africa's development needs also stressed that poverty eradication, particularly in Africa, was the "greatest global challenge facing the world today," according to UN website.

In a political declaration adopted on Monday, world leaders noted that, despite recent considerable improvements, the full and timely achievement of the global anti-poverty targets that make up the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remained elusive.

The declaration highlighted a number of areas where further efforts were needed, including the moblisation of resources and debt forgiveness.

Tackling HIV and AIDS and other diseases, and boosting conflict resolution, as well as addressing the impacts of climate change and the global food crisis were also stressed.

UNGA President Miguel D'Escoto said Africa's challenges were still enormous: "Brave as its nations may be, and we know that they are brave indeed, Africa cannot move ahead on its own."

"To consolidate the progress made and reach our goal of empowering Africa to meet the development challenges it faces, all of us in the international community, especially donor countries and the Bretton Woods institutions, must fully honour our commitments and substantially complement the efforts of the African nations," he said.

While welcoming the commitments made by Africa and its partners so far, world leaders further recommitted themselves to "reinvigorate and strengthen a global partnership of equals...with the explicit objective of turning existing commitments into concrete actions."

In doing so, the UN News Centre website stated, world leaders have committed to strengthen support for the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) - the continent's overarching framework for socio-economic sustainable development.

A new report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, released ahead of Monday's meeting showed that while most of Africa's economies were now growing more rapidly than they did a decade ago, the continent remained "off track" in its quest to achieve the MDGs.

"No one is more alarmed than you at the current trends, which indicate that no African country will achieve all the Goals by 2015," Ki-moon told the Assembly.

"But I am convinced that through concerted action by African governments and their development partners, the MDGs remain achievable in Africa."

He noted that it will cost an estimated $72 billion per year in external financing to achieve the Goals by 2015.

Monday's meeting, which included a series of round-table discussions, was held ahead of a high-level gathering to be convened by Ki-moon and D'Escoto on Thursday to review progress to date, identify gaps and commit to concrete steps to ensure that all countries can achieve the MDGs.

On Monday, Minister Dlamini -Zuma addressed the UNGA on behalf of South Africa.

The South African delegation included Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Director-General of Foreign Affairs Ayanda Ntsaluba, Ambassadors Dumisani Kumalo, Chris Pepani, Abdul Minty, George Nene and Basso Sanqu.

With this year's theme "The impact of the global food crisis on poverty and hunger in the world as well as the need to democratise the UN," South Africa focused its attention on food security, UN reform, peace and security in Africa.

It further spent time discussing climate change, promotion of South-South co-operation as well as the review of the MDGs, which aim to globally halve poverty and unemployment by 2015.

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