Part I. Asserting the Role of Popular Participation
We are united in our conviction that the crisis currently engulfing Africa, is not only an economic crisis but also a human, legal, political and social crisis. It is a crisis of unprecedented and unacceptable proportions manifested not only in abysmal declines in economic indicators and trends, but more tragically and glaringly in the suffering, hardship and impoverishment of the vast majority of African people. ...
The political context of socioeconomic development has been characterized, in many instances, by an over-centralization of power and impediments to the effective participation of the overwhelming majority of the people in social, political and economic development. As a result, the motivation of the majority of African people and their organizations to contribute their best to the development process ... has been severely constrained and curtailed and their collective and individual creativity has been undervalued and underutilized.
We affirm that nations cannot be built without the popular support and full participation of the people, nor can the economic crisis be resolved and the human and economic conditions improved without the full and effective contribution, creativity and popular enthusiasm of the vast majority of the people. After all, it is to the people that the very benefits of development should and must accrue. ...
We, therefore, have no doubt that at the heart of Africa's development objectives must lie the ultimate and overriding goal of human-centered development ... We are convinced that to achieve the above objective will require a redirection of resources to satisfy, in the first place, the critical needs of the people, to achieve economic and social justice and ... to empower the people to determine the direction and content of development ...
Bearing this in mind and having carefully analyzed the structure of the African economies, the root causes of the repeated economic crisis and the strategies and programs that have hitherto been applied ... , we are convinced that Africa has no alternative but to urgently and immediately embark upon the task of transforming the structure of its economies to achieve long-term self-sustained growth and development that is both human centered and participatory in nature.
Furthermore, Africa's grave environmental and ecological crisis cannot be solved in the absence of a process of sustainable development which commands the full support and participation of the people. We believe in this context that the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programs for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation (AAF-SAP) ... offers the best framework for such an approach. We also wish in this regard to put on record our disapproval of all economic programs, such as orthodox Structural Adjustment Programs, which undermine the human condition and disregard the potential and role of popular participation in self-sustaining development.
In our sincere view, popular participation is both a means and an end. As an instrument of development, popular participation provides the driving force for collective commitment for the determination of people-based development processes and willingness by the people to undertake sacrifices and expend their social energies for its execution. As an end in itself, popular participation is the fundamental right of the people to fully and effectively participate in the determination of the decisions which affect their lives at all levels and at all times.