{Senor De Macedo, two, fine.}

Thank you Mr Chairman. I presented three points to the panel as a conclusion of their lively discussion and there was no outrage from participants. So, in these three points I am perhaps reflecting what came out of a very intense discussion. The first point has to do with the national capacity and institution building. The second point has to do with excessive perception of political risk in Africa, a point that came up this morning. And the third will link to global issues. Let me take them each one in turn.

The national capacity- and institution-building is decisive here because the private sector and civil society in Africa are not organized. Even in so-called "failed states" the state remains an organization and there is no organization. in the case of business, of civil society. This is the difficulty about the point of entry when it comes to the private sector and civil society in Africa.

Now the private sector is not only important from a national, regional and continental perspective but also from a local perspective, due to the proximity of business and of civil society to people's specific problems. This is of course the reason why the principle of proximity is such an important principle in European integration doctrine (even if some think it is not as important in practice). The local dimension is essential in the credibility of what the private sector may be able to do at national, regional and continental levels.

An adversarial relation between the private sector and civil society and the State is also damaging at all levels. This is why the idea of public-private partnerships become so important at all levels. For example, the OECD has a pilot project in Mozambique attempting to enlarge the knowledge base that is accessible to entrepreneurs, very much in line with the Monterrey Declaration-paragraph 24. Such kind of initiatives could be seen as solving the national capacity and institution building in a credible manner because a broader knowledge base benefits private initiative at national, regional and international levels.

Second point, excessive perception of political risk. Here again more information and more transparency are needed. In this regard the African Economic Outlook that has already appeared once and will appear one more time this year, done in collaboration by the African Development Bank and the OECD, presents information on national economies in a comparable manner (this initiative has nothing to do, by the way, with the World Bank or the IMF even though the Bretton Woods institutions participated in the meeting launching the report).

{- Now just a query

- Is there something wrong Mr Chairman?

- Is the publicity for the ADB or the OECD, for the Development Center?

- For the ADB, sir. The publicity for the Center you made yourself

- Thank you

- Okay thank you. Thank you very much for that. It wasn’t agreed beforehand!}

In addition to intergovernmental organizations, rating agencies also have a role to play and there is certainly a lot of room for credit rating in Africa. One other important point about perception of the risk is the role of the diaspora in making risk perceptions closer to reality on the ground. There are nowadays a number of African professionals that live abroad and very often they feel a little bit alienated. There is really something that can be done there to increase their visibility at home and the international visibility of their nations or regions.

Both rating agencies and the diaspora can be seen as providing credibility to Africa. Often the lack of credibility comes from ignorance. Greater visibility for African realities would avoid that something that happens in the north of Africa may have completely unjustified ripple effects in the southern part. Of course, this was not uncommon in other continents but it has largely disappeared except in the case of Africa, where confusion is still a source of contagion.

So comparability, visibility and some presence in the media would be a way of going around this excessive perception of risk. And the spread of African risk-sharing institutions, together with rating agencies and the diaspora, will also contribute to earn credibility abroad.

The third point, and perhaps the hardest one, has to do with the link to global issues. You said yourself, Mr Chairman, this morning that we were on a road not traveled before and you used the parallel with the conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.

Maybe a slightly more amenable climate could be Monterrey where, for the first time, the UN system, the Bretton Woods institutions, and the WTO collaborated not just at the end but throughout the process, and we hope this goes on and that the link to global issues is more than rhetoric because if it is more than rhetoric, Africa could help.

In effect, many of the available governance indicators are very arbitrary and their use could damage peer pressure instead of promoting it.Actually, the unavailability of data and inadequate analysis are not the only reasons for the danger of available governance indicators damaging instead of promoting peer pressure. There is a third danger, which pertains to culture. The culture of sharing is in Africa's cultural inheritance, and it should be taken into account. The example that is very clear here is the role of the family. Institutions such as the family are very different in different parts of the world. We have to find a way of incorporating them in the way in which we build this new development paradigm coming from Monterrey. This is featured in the work program of the OECD Development Centre for 2003/04.

Greater attention to data, analysis and culture will not be effective if it does not take place at the national, regional and continental levels as envisaged in NEPAD. In fact, the experience with Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers could be helpful in making peer pressure more effective. When they are successful, these programs are done at the national level, taking into account local culture but, of course, have a link with global issues.

In closing, Mr Chairman, from these three points, let me again state what you said this morning. With the spirit that was present there, thirty some entrepreneurs and civil society representatives speaking very much to the point, there is indeed, as you said this morning, no reason to fear freedom.

{Thank you.}