diplomatic consensus for liberation and in prosecuting the armed struggle. 5. Today, we celebrate a fully decolonised Africa and Apartheid has been consigned to the ignominy of history. Pursuant to one of the major objective of its Charter, the OAU has strived to address Africa’s problem of poverty and under development and it adopted strategies in this regard, including the 1973 African Declaration on Cooperation, Development and Economic Independence, the 1979 Monrovia Declaration of commitment of the Heads of State and Government and the guidelines and measures for national and collective self reliance and social development for the establishment for a new International Economic Order and the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action and the Final Act of Lagos which continue to be the blue print for Africa’s integration and development. In 1987, the third extra-ordinary Assembly of Heads of State and Government adopted the African Common Position on Africa’s external debt crisis which outlines measures to address the debt crisis on the basis of cooperation, dialogue and shared responsibility on account of the interdependence between debtor and creditor countries. In response to the economic decline of the continent in the nineteen eighties, the OAU adopted Africa’s Priority Programme for the Economic Recovery and established a Special Emergency Assistance Fund for Drought and Famine in Africa. 6. In June 1991, the Treaty establishing the African Community was signed and is now in force. The Treaty seeks to build the African Economic Community through a Common Market built on the Regional Economic Communities. Today, Regional Economic Communities are consolidating and proving to be engines for integration. ECCAS, SADC, COMESA, UMA, ECOWAS, IGAD and CENSAD are making great effort at economic development and integration as well as at promoting peace through conflict resolution in their region. We remain committed to continental and global cooperation to address the key issues which impact on the development of our countries such as the excruciating external debt and globalisation. We shall build on the efforts of the OAU in developing more effective means of cooperation within the African Union and internationally. We reiterate our commitment to continue and deepen the economic reforms under way in our respective countries, to restore productivity and growth so as to reduce the present unacceptable levels of poverty of our peoples. We recognize our primary responsibility in this regard as we do also that of the International Community to render assistance.