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The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the third largest country in Africa, is making significant strides to extricate itself from one of the bloodiest wars in the continent’s history, which resulted in millions of deaths. Focusing on the DRC’s turnaround as well as its considerable stabilization and reconstruction challenges, Postconflict Economics in Sub-Saharan Africa draws lessons for postconflict countries worldwide. The IMF team leader and book’s editor, Jean A.P. Clement, and three contributing authors, Bernardin Akitoby, Ragnar Gudmundsson, and Charles Amo Yartey, spoke with Jacqueline Irving of the IMF Survey about what can be learned from the DRC’s experience.
In a news brief issued on June 22, IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus expressed his support for the debt relief initiative proposed at the Cologne summit. The text of News Brief 99/33, which follows, is also available on the IMF’s website (www.imf.org).
On September 6–8, the United Nations played host to the Millennium Summit, a truly international effort aimed at addressing a host of current and ongoing issues, including globalization, poverty eradication, and UN peacekeeping operations. The summit, whose official theme was “The United Nations in the Twenty-First Century,” was the scene of the largest-ever gathering of world leaders—100 heads of state and 47 heads of government. Some 8,000 delegates and 5,000 journalists also attended the event. In addition to the main summit, a series of side events were convened, including various forums for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders; the UN Millennium Women’s Summit attended by women presidents and prime ministers; and the State of the World Forum, a global network of leaders from business, government, and civil society, convened by Mikhail Gorbachev.