Draft plan of action for the implementation of the strategy for African development for the 1980s

I UNITED NATIONS

AFRICAN INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING

DAKAR

REPRODUC

TION/O2-81

DRAFT PLAN OF ACTION

FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STRATEGY FOR AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT FOR THE 1980s

Statement of the formal opening of the fifteenth session

of the Economic Commission for Africa and sixth meeting of the Conference

\

of Ministers of Economic Development

by

Adebayo Adede.ji

United Nations Under-Secretary-General and

Executive Secretary, Economic Commission for A.frica

MARCH 1981

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Comrade Mengistu Haile Mariam,

Chairman of the Provisional Military Administrative Council,

Comrades Members of the Provisional

Military Administrative Council, Excellencies,

Honourable Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me and my colleagues in the ECA, secretariat exceeding pleasure

to welcome all of you, Hon. Ministers, Distinguished Delegates, Observers

and Participants to this fifteenth session of the Commission and sixth meeting of the Conference of Ministers, to Africa Hall ^- the headquarters

of the Commission. Most of _you have no doubt heard so much about Africa

Hall as the venue where 30 many historic meetings on the destiny of our deer continent have been held but, incredible as it may sound, this is the

first time that A.frican Ministers responsible for economic development

and Planning are meeting here. For, since the institution of the ECA.

Conference of Ministers a decade _{ago, we} have met in Tunis

(l97l)i

^Accra

(1973),

Nairobi

(1975),

Kinshasa

(1977)

and Rabat

(l979).

Thanks to the

review of our legislative organs and of the frequency of the meetings of

your Conference which took place in Rabat last year, when you decided that

Africa's economic problems and challenges warrant annual instead of biennial meetings and that at least every other year the.session of the Commission

should take place et the headquarters, we are able to gather here today

for this meeting.

I am indeed most grateful to His Excellency Comrade Chairman Mengistu

Eaile Mariam for agreeing to open this session and for the most

thought-

provoking and lucid otatement which he has delivered in his characteristic

open and frank ^manner. I am also grateful to the distinguished Secretary-

General of the United Nations who, tirelessly and in spite of all his other

concerns and commitments, has never failed to send a message of encourage¬

ment and hope to each of our sessions.

yy-;: - V-

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It is now clear, from what lias been said, that although as poor mortals we may not have the gift of prophesy, ^we did, ^{as a} Commission,

have enough intelligence and foresight•to 1change, the cycle of our meetings.

Put more than that, your Conference adopted at its Rabat meeting the Development Strategy for the African Region for the Third United Nations Development Decade and even went further to challenge ^our Heads of States

and Government by proposing to them a draft declaration on guidelines

and'measures .-for national and collective self-reliance in social and

economic development, for -thé -establishment of a New International Economic

Order,* • ■ '• ' ^{. .} t,.•

. Needless to add that our Heads of State and Government accepted the challenge by endorsing the strategy and making the Declaration ^- new known

©s'th.e Monrovia-Declaration. They even went further. At the. suggestion

of Nigeria, they adopted a resolution on the holding of a special African

•Economic- Summit - the first ever to be held in our continent by our leaders since independence. 'And in that resolution, recognising your unique role as well as your Rabat initiatives, they instructed that your Conference should be involved in the preparation for the Summit. Herein, therefore, lies the importance of this session.

Indeéél*thiã' se'skion'of the Commission is the climax of a series of preparatory meetings that have been going on since Í0 March 1980. During

the course of the past five weeks, the Ministers of Trade and Industry

have met. So also have the Government experts on science and technology

and on economic planning,.demography and statistics. In addition, we have

held a special conference on the problems of. African least-developed

countries and have convened special meetings on energy and food and agricul¬

ture. Ne have undertaken jointly with the OAU secretariat ^many of these preparatory activities.

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And now v;e have here assembled, the Ministers responsible for economic development and co-ordination at national level, to put together the

various sectoral proposals and turn them, into a well-knit and integrated .plan of action for our Heads of State and Government for their consideration

in Lagos later in the month. I can say, without any fear of contradiction,

that never before has any. Summit been ^so well, prepared for ^- "the preparation

has involved all the ministers and ministries responsible for the major

sectors identified in the Strategy as priority areas. If ï have not mentione transport and communications, it is because the ministers responsible for

this vital sector had met here in Addis Ababa last May to approve the

Programme of Action for the first phase of the United. Nations Transport and

Communications Decade.

Thus, the proposals before you are coming primarily from your cabinet colleagues responsible for these sectors, and from your senior officials.

And during the past week, the Technical Preparatory Committee of the Whole

(another

innovation of

Rabat)

has been considering all of then with a view

to integrating and synthesizing them. The challenge therefore is plain

even if daunting. It is, put simply, to out Rabat-Rabat in terras of submit¬

ting concrete and far-reaching proposals to the Lagos Summit. This is ^your responsibility and indeed a task that you must perform, I have no doubt that, given the hard work which has been put in by your officials during the

last week, you are in a strong position to meet this challenge.

Although I have said it so often during the past months, I make no apologies for saying it again that the next decade ^- the 1920s ^- is crucial

for Africa. It is a decade that we have to answer a few fundamental questions.

What kind of political independence do we have - a genuine political sovereignty backed ^up by growing economic strength or a facade, a phony independence in which irfiile we may fly the national flag, sing with gusto

the national anthem and have all the symbols of sovereignty, we are no more and no less than economic dependencies of the industrialized economies on whom

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we depend for most of "the food we est, "the clothes ^our people wear, the shoes they put on, the modern buildings we live in, etc. Let us not kid ourselves, the next ten _years will determine in large measure .our fitness to live as genuinely independent States or, to put it ^more- bluntly, even

our fitness to survive as a people inferior to no other peoples in the universe.» We should answer clearly and unmistakably the questions what

kind of people are we and what kind of Africa do we want in the year 2QGC?

Por our reviews in EGA of the state of economic and social conditions in Africa and our efforts to peer into the future during the past few years have given cause for increasing uneasiness. This uneasiness has 'been

confirmed by the frequency with which very bleak prospects for this Begion

are foreseen in global projections of the world economy as it may very likel

be by the year 2000. Indeed, if these projections are to be believed, the 1960s and the 1970s _may be the 1990s appear in retrospect to have been

almost a golden age but we who have lived through those two decades know ver well what the reality has been like and that the very opposite has been and

still remains the case.

For, Mr. Chairman, after 20 _years of independence, ^we now find our¬

selves at a watershed marking off e period during which the much-talked-of positive link between the expansion of the economies of the advanced world and that of the Third World has clearly failed to work except for a few

oil and mineral exporting countries and the list of commodities incorporated

in shaky stabilization schemes has continued to lengthen. Primary commoc.io .trade has steadily continued to decline as a share of world trade and, even

more alarming, the share of advanced countries in world exports of primary products is increasing whilst the share of the Third World in world imports

of primary products is increasing! The Africa Region is not a significant exporter of manufactured products even with petroleum and natural ^gas included. The only apparent exception is unwrought copper metal which ^one

could not honestly describe as a manufactured product.

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Meanwhile, the door to exports of manufactures from the Third World

to the advanced, world is ^now definitely feeing shut. This in not all. We

.now know'more clearly that in regard to the products ^we exported* African

countries received only ^a small percentage of the final price as remuneration.

Even when they ^were processed before export* the method of processing were

go import-intensive as to add very little of positive value added. If we take the explicit and implicit subsidies into account, it seems likely that

we have been ending up with .a good deal of negative value added. Is it ^on

the earnings received in respect of the one or two products that individual

African countries have traditionally exported that we plan to erect a self- sustaining, self-reliant, diversified socio-economic system capable of reduc¬

ing poverty and improving living standards? This is a manifest impossibility.

Let me also draw attention to one or two other features of our past

and present economic policies. The first is that we have been proud to fee

told that in recent years we have been able to finance the bulk of capital

formation out of our own resources. Yet what kind of capital formation are

we talking about? A ^run through the kinds of products we import and their

volume trends cannot but leave us in dismay. If the kind of capital forma¬

tion we have spent twenty years of independence building up was designed

to effect the kind of structural changes required by self-sustaining and self-

reliant economic, growth should we not by now have been able to at least

produce more requirements of relatively unsophisticated engineering products, building materials, chemicals and petrochemical products and so on? Should

v/e not have been able to produce more food ^- at least in so far as technical inputs such as agricultural chemicals, improved implements, storage and preservation are concerned? Should we fee importing so much in spare parts

(some

of which our good old blacksmiths can

make),

components and accessories?

î bave recently visited some industrializing countries in other Regions

and I am taken aback at the rapid progress they have made and are making,

not because they are inherently cleverer than v/e are or more energetic or

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have more natural resources at their disposal but simply because they have

ceased to believe'in the export cf primary products as the engine of growth,

'and have recognized the importance of exploiting a broader natural resource base and.• of building up the capital goods industries. They now recognize

the' absurdity 'of mobilising domestic financial resources without ensuring

that these savings correspond to real resources and are matched by the capital goods industries. They .have also ceased to make the mistake cf

not identifying,'creating, instructing and supporting the agents ani instru¬

ments for converting savings into intermediate and final products. These

measures have not, for ^a variety of reasons, ended all their worries but they know, for example, that in the event of some major international

disaster which cuts them off from their supply base in advanced countries

for capital and consumer goods that they will not be helpless.

Another feature of out past and present economic policies is

that after twenty ^years of aid, technical assistance and debt accumulation

we seem to be much worse off than ever before. Should we not begin to

wonder why? So much for the past and' for the present. I now turn to the

future.

we now know that neither as primary product exporters nor as exporters

-of manufactures to advanced, countries do we in this Eegion have much of a future. There is never likely to be a reversal of international economic

relations which will once again restore the substantial and positive correla¬

tion between the expansion of advanced economics and the acceleration of

the growth and' diversification of ^{our own.} We should also take note of general unwillingness of foreign enterprises to invest in Africa as distinct

for merely recycling aid and of the possibility of a world shortage of aid

and investment finance.

But there is worse' to come. First, is the new threat posed to copper

as a raw material by the new technology of glass fibre. I am not myself

familiar with the details but references to "this threat are now beginning to

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appear in international discussions. Seconds is the anticipated, impact

of the revolution in micro-electronics combined with, automation on the economies of both the advanced and the Third World, The prospect is of

substantial increases in unemployment, in advanced countries which will clearly lead to further tightening in protectionist devices in those

countries. But more than this will be the sharp loss of comparative

advantage of the Third World in the production of labour-intensive oamifac

tures for export to advanced countries. There are other technologies with

other effects already established - such as deepsea mining - or in the

i

making." It must be borne in mind that neither glass fibre optics nor the micro-processor have been taken into account in the calculations of the

very bleak prospects for the Africa Region ~by the year 2000 seen not only

in global projections but even in dur own.

By now we must all be familiar with frightening challenge of food produce or starve or prepare to reduce the import of capital goods and

services in favour of food to meet the survival requirements of a popular expected to double from an estimated 406m in 1973 to an estimated 827m in 2000, But the demand for food is itself a demand for vast quantities of improved seeds, agricultural chemicals, agricultural implements, tools end machinery, food processing equipment, food storage and transport facilitie

and considerably enlarged R and D effectively transferred to the producer

and the _processor. It is also a demand for suitable equipment for the

utilisation of by-products of the food industries.

If we now take into account, as well, such consumer goods which

are expected to raise living levels of the mass of the African peo}5le such

as drinking water, clothing, shelter, simple medicines and drugs and other preventive health care facilities, pedal bicycles, non-electric sewing machines, etc., we should, with little imaginative effort, see what the • doubling of population will mean if we really intend not only to maintain

Í. It must be noted that not all effects are necessarily adverse but the exploitation of positive effects will have to be our responsibility.

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tbe present wretched levels of living of our populations particularly the

rural ones but to improve them marginally. I myself do not believe there

is any possibility of financing imports of the implied orders of magnitude by foreign exchange earnings, gifts or debts and I can see nc alternative

other than to plan to produce them ourselves.

We have now arrived at the moment not of one but of several truths and we must now recognize, as a.good many more developed Third World countr.

have, that self-susiainmeni and self-reliance are not the labels of rhetorical _games played in EGA meetings.

There are four questions that governments generally ash their advisers

What is wrong? What can be done about it? How can the prescription be

carried out? Who can help us apply the prescription? There is real danger

in asking such questions unless one is very careful from whom one asks

them but the most dangerous is the last question since Africans frequently rephrase if and asks Who can do if for us?

ï hope that ^we have at least answered the first question. The second questions What is the Region to do - not only about its past defective

economic base but also about its future prospects which seem to us to be

clouded with risks of economic and social and even political instability ^-

is contained in the closely-kn.it package we have put before you as a Plan

of Action for consideration and recommendation to the Heads of State and Government at the Lagos Economic Summit in response to 0AÏÏ Resolution

96(XVjT

The Plan covers food and agriculture, industry, natural resources, humar

resources, science and technology, transport, institution-building, intra-

African trade and finance. The natural resources programme is closely

linked to industry and agriculture, the two major production sectors. The

programmes for human resources development, science and technology institu¬

tion building and finally intra-African trade and transport and communieati

are similarly designed to facilitate opportunities for the enlargement of

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African markets whilst institution building' is to provide, among other things, instruments and agencies not only to promote production but also to enable governments and indigenous communities in particular to take advantage of the opportunities for market enlargement and diversification

which the implementation of the _programme will create.

What are the principal features of the development and economic growth process in Africa to which the Plan is addressed? The first objec¬

tive is to avert the,food crisis by increased intra-Áfrican production

and trade because if the crisis develops, it is likely to create more

abrupt, intensive and often long-lasting chaos than anything else. You

will recall that the Arusha Regional Conference of the Ministers of Agricul ture pointed out that the outline Regional Pood Plan for Africa should

now be translated into operational terms. Since we do not believe that

every item and _every aspect of food can be treated at once, an inter¬

agency working party comprising OAU, FAO, IFAD, WFC, ABB and EGA decided

to concentrate on cereals

(i.e.

mainly maize, rice, sorghum,

etc.),

livesio and livestock products, fisheries and forest products. These items are expected, if production and trade is not rapidly pushed, not only to open up a huge foreign exchange drain but to plunge the Region into greater

debt than can even be contemplated. And as I' indicated earlier the Industr Programme is shaped to provide the bulk of industrial inputs required b3?' tk.

food and agriculture programme.

The second objective is to promote the development of the capital goods industries in a systematic manner beginning with the expansion of the

extractive industries and the promotion of complementarities through intra- African trade up to the production of ineials and basic chemicals and beyond

We have only to take a look at the growth of engineering imports between 197? and. 1977 to realize the _urgency of action in this field.

In so far as human resources are concerned, I am not myself sure of

tfce extent to which we realize the scope of the revolution in the knowledge industry that Í3 required. One particular aspect calls for attentions the

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need to make the fullest use of all resources of skill acquisition, improve

nient and multiplication in the Region and the test of the readiness of governments to encourage economic co-operation that this will imply.

The scope of action in science and technology will be considerable

but may easily be misunderstood because of the mystique that has grown up around the subject. I should like to mention only twos firstly, that

the bulk of technology in every day use everywhere is not subject to patent rights but that we may help, by a çarelëss trade marks policy, in creating

other property rights in otherwise freely available technology. For us at this stage of development the problem is not so much barriers to tech¬

nology as inability to organise production. Tkig brings me to the next points the link between technology and production activities. These two

are inseparable and really constitute the heart of technological capability

as much in agriculture as in industry. And here I should add that there

is no particular magic in research institutes divorced from mutual inter¬

action with users of research outputs. We also need to get rid of the

idea that we need huge R&D institutions for everything. On the other hand, we do need them for some things.

As regards institution building, I regret the need to repeat two arguments. The institutional requirements for supporting ^any worthwhile

and sustained advance of any socio-economic system is considerable in

range and number. Very few of the large number of member States can supper

a basic network of such institutions at this stage. We therefore have no alternative, to proposing multinational institutions to provide strategic

services which should ordinarily be provided at the national level. The

Plan we are putting forward will call for the strengthening of many institn

tions at the national level, for improvements in co-operation among institu

tions'at multinational levels and certainly for the establishment of some

new ones probably at the MULPOC level.

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So far9 I have not spoken of the problem of energy. Any kind of expansion of industry and agriculture of the scope implied ?in the Plan will put a heavy burden on energy supply. Fortunately, ^the Region is veil endowe

with conventional renewable primary energy resources. However, the exploita

tion of these suggest a staggering amount of capital investment. I do not

believe this is wholly necessary now. What ^we ought to do is get into the vanguard of S & D, equipment production and exploitation of forms of non- conventional energy including the exploitation of small-scale hydrapower

resources.

We are intensely conscious of the fact that many African plans

founder on the rock of implementation and we sometimes are led to believe

that the availability of finance is identical with capabilities of implemen¬

tation, This is probably because of ^our extreme dependence on imported intplementers. As it is likely that these may be mere scarce, or less willin

or more expensive than in the past, we ought to give thorough and imaginativ

consideration to the agents and instruments of implementation - and there

are at least four issues involved? their identification and specification!

the evaluation of their capabilities to play specific roles and the supports thejr may require for playing those roles; the need to instruct or authorise them as to what to do, how and when, etc.; the means of monitoring them or in some cases of ensuring accountability. I do not propose to outline fully

here the challenge of implementation or to adxròcate particular steps for meeting this challenge. I 0 ly want to argue:that it will call, in- some sense, on the total mobilisation of some forms of national, multinational

and regional resources and that it will place unprecedented demands cn the entrepreneurial ánd'management' capabilities of civil services and.public enterprises and on their sense of commitment to purposes wider than their

own interests.

Many sceptical people will think the Plan ambitious or unrealistic

or even wild. They will point at the billions of dollars it-will involve

even when we take account of the double counting, between sectors.- They will

deride the possibility of training the very large numbers and variety of

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high and middle level personnel and workshop operatives. They will point

to the physical impediments to intra-African trade. They will ^argue the impracticability of altering existing structures of industry and the accre¬

tions of interest around them. They will once again bring up the ghost of

■the resistance of Africans to change and the congenital laziness of African

(doubtless

including all of

us!).

A.ll these we have thought .about and each time we ask ourselves where

are the shoes, clothes, food, water, medicines and drugs, pedal bicycles, sewing machines, building materials, etc., for the 327m people of Africa in

2000 to come from - if we do not begin now, somehow? What will happen when unemployed young and old, ^men and women race from village to city and back

carrying increasing frustration and rage with them? What really stops us since we have the population and the natural resources? What ^we lack are the know—how and the self-confidence and the gust and commitment to get

on with the job.

I am convinced that the main thing is not to dwell on impossibilities.

When Columbus set out to cross the Atlantic or Vasco da G-ama to circumna¬

vigate the world ^{no one} knew whether it could be done. What ^we need is the

self-confidence that we can, nay must do it and to organise the thinking

of how to implement the Plan - and then do it.

One of the critical questions which the Plan raises is the mobilisa¬

tion of financial and real resources" for its implementation and here we must distinguish between financial and real resources and between domestic and

external resources and take full account of the links _among them. We must

also bear in mind that the central issue is not simply the amount of resourc concerned but the objects to which they are applied and the objectives

prompting this application.

In so far as the mobilisation of domestic financial resources

(i.e.

domestic

savings)

is concerned I believe we need to weigh the possibili¬

ties of new methods of mobilization including life insurance, unit trusts,

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save-as-you-go schemes, and to give greater attention to the promotion of

traditional rural and small scale savings arrangement» fairly well known throughout the Region. In spite of the low income money earnings of the

bulk of our, people, it is surprising how much of money incomes flow from

the r.aral to the urban areas to finance housing, construction, and consumption.

It is also astonishing what rural communities have been able to dc

once they accept a challenge to do-it-yourself and are shown how to do it.

In effect we have to take into account the savings and investment potential

of different segments of our populations. We believe that intér-country sharing of experiences will make a substantial contribution to the mobilisa¬

tion of savings at different income levels and within different income groups.

In addition to domestic personal savings there is domestic corporate

savings ^- i.e. mainly the profit, allocation to reserves, and re-investment policies in both the private and the public business sectors.

However, the very nature of underdevelopment has created situations

in which the availability of domestic financial Savings is unwatched by the availability of domestic real factor inputs

(particular

mixes of skilled production manpower, entrepreneurial and management manpower, raw materials

B & D facilities, institutional services and, more than anything else, capabilities for converting raw materials into investment goods, i.e. the capital goods producing

industries).

The gap, as has often been pointed

out by African financial authorities, is not so much finance as real factor inputs, including sufficiently well trained and experienced managers and

a sufficient spread of entrepreneurial talent and it is here that imported

resources, particularly technical assistance, could be used to improve and expand supply. I do not wish to take up more time on this issue as I

propose to invite not only the AACB and the African Monetary Centre but also development banks and corporations, etc., to assist ^us in examining the problems of mobilisation of domestic financial resources.

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Close links 'between domestic financial resources and foreign exchange availability bas already been pointed out and I now want to bring out ^a point which may have so far been concealed; the overriding importance of

close monitoring of the use of foreign exchange,' bearing in mind our implied argument that the number one priority is know-how. I am saying now and

will repeat below a point which has been made to me in some industrializing

countries ï have recently visited; what we require is ten years of belt tightening, careful planning, and the self-confidence to go ahead at full

stretch to make the first major breakthrough. Once this is achieved the

next decade becomes much easier. To refuse to really face the first ten

years is to refuse to face and shape Africa's future.

Elsewhere, I have drawn attention to the growth of invisibles and

to the prospects of considerable foreign exchange savings. I propose,

again with the help of the AACB and other institutions to look closely

into this but by far the more important aspect is the mechanism that govern¬

ments institute for closely monitoring and regulating expenditures under

this item of the national accounts. I intend to intensify our efforts in training national accounts experts to not only e.ccelerate their preparation

but to make full use of them for this particular purpose among others.

We now come to mechanisms of redeployment relating particularly to

multinational projects. Here,', .should liké to recall that in Rabat

consideration was given to the secretariat's proposal of specialized regions

financial institutions dealing with areas requiring massive financial

resources such as the mining, building and construction transport, chemical

and other heavy industry in so far as these were not susceptible to small

scale production technologies. This proposal was accepted and is incor¬

porated in the Strategy. My own conviction is that the Region is far more

capable of mobilizing financial resources for its own purposes than it has

been led to believe.

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I have_s without outlining in full some of ^our ideas on how financial

and; real resources are to be mobilized and redeployed, said enough. I

hope to indicate that we are giving thought to some of the practical impli¬

cations of implementation. Our view is that neglect of this aspect paves t

way to failure.

Before i close 1 want to refer to one more issue. Whether in the negotiations of LOME II cr in Manila at UNCTAD Y, or at Mew Delhi at unido III, we have often been criticized by representatives of the advanced world

that our demands are diffuse, lack concretejlae» ©nd priority and couched in general financial terms, making commitments by them difficult or impossible

I feel that after the further refinements in the Plan which ^we propose this charge will no longer be sustainable but all this depends on the exter

which governments regard the Plan ^{as a} broad basis for individual, or collective concrete negotiations taking account, of course, of individual

circumstances.

This then is the rationale behind the Plan of Action before you. We

have also gone beyond merely drawing up the Plan and have given some

thought, however tentative, to its implementation and the mobilization of

resources for this purpose. We offer no apologies for the scope and magnitude :of the Plan. It only reflects the scope and complexity of the challenge before us. And we have either of two choices? to survive and prosper or to perish or at best be the underdogs and the second class

citizens of the world whose continent combines the worse possible oddities

the largest number of least-developed countries, the largest number of mos

seriously affected, the peoples who wait for crumbs from the master's

table. Por me the choice is clear. And if I may dare speak on your behalf

and on behalf of all self-respecting Africans, the choice is one of surviv

and the laying of the foundation for an enduringDAfrican socio-economic prosperity.

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Let us therefore present our Heads of State and Government with the greatest and most exciting challenge of our times - a programme of action

in the socio-economic field which, if successfully implemented, will lay

a solid foundation for self-sustaining and internally-generated processes of development based on the achievement of an increasing measure of self-

reliance.

To Lagos let ^us all go with proposals that will provide an answer

•'to the yearnings -ëf"milïidns of our people to give economic meaning to

our political indepenclènce.

Tc Lagos let us go determined that ^our political independence will

not remain a sham because of our unhealthy economic dependence and deterio rating economic conditions.

To Lagos let us go determined to a man that we will fight the ^war

for Africa's economic emancipation as relentlessly as we had fought the

war for political freedom realizing in fact that political freedom without corresponding economic emancipation and steadily improving standard of living for the mass of our people is defeat for our governments and the

entire African people and victory for our enemies who in any case have

never believed in our capability to sustain our political independence through the initiation of the process of internally generated and self- sustaining development.

Let us therefore resolve once and for all to confound our detractors and defeat our enemies by our commitment and fay our action through the adoption and full implementation of the Draft Plan of Action before ^ycu.