by Chen Yao, Sun Yongming

    ADDIS ABABA, July 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Africa has set the goal of achieving full integration by 2030, as a major effort for Africans to realize their long-cherished dream of "African Renaissance," but enormous obstacles still lie ahead, posing severe challenges to the ambition.

    Analysts say if these hurdles, popping up almost everywhere, are not properly tackled, they might derail any development plan on the world's poorest and most-troubled continent, however ambitious it is.

    The obstacles to Africa's continental integration are many and diverse, and the African Union (AU) has just defined as priorities14 of them to address in the years to come in a strategic plan endorsed by African foreign ministers attending the four-day FifthOrdinary Session of the AU Executive Council in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, with insufficiency of the political will and peace related problems at the top of the list.

    The proposed strategic plan, to be submitted to the upcoming third AU summit for adoption on July 6-8, warns of a tendency of Africa's marginalization in face of an increasingly globalized world economy and maps out a roadmap for the continent to obtain full integration.

    The strategic plan "offers a comprehensive roadmap for achieving our collective vision of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa," said K. Y. Amoako, under-secretary general of the United Nations and executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, when addressing the opening of the AU Executive Council meeting on Wednesday.

    The AU has tried to be pragmatic in laying out the strategic plan, by pointing out protruding obstacles facing Africans in major areas of economic, social, political, environmental, cultural, sporting and technological life of the continent.

    According to the strategic plan, top priority should be given to fostering the political will of AU members as the legitimacy and efficacy of the integration process call for greater politicalclarity on the part of members.

    However, differences remain between member states when it comesto adopting and implementing integration initiatives, affecting the legality of the process, which is considered as the engine of African integration.

    It is equally stressed in the strategic plan that more efforts should be made to purposefully address peace and security related problems in Africa.

    Some four decades after independence from colonial rule, the African continent continues to grapple with numerous inter-state, intra-state, ethnic, religious and economic conflicts with catastrophic consequences both from humanitarian and socio-economic standpoints.

    Official figures indicate that not less than 26 armed conflictserupted in Africa between 1963 and 1998, affecting the lives of 474 million people representing 61 percent of the continent's population and claiming over seven million lives.

    One of the consequences of the armed conflicts is the emergenceof refugees, currently estimated at 3 million, and displaced persons predicted at not less than 20 million, many of whom live in very difficult condition without adequate assistance from national governments or the international community.

    All this has long been one of the main obstacles to developmentin the region.

    Greater importance should also be attached to eradication of the most serious pandemics, particularly HIV/AIDS which is spreading all over the continent with devastating effect, and malaria which, as is now known, seriously impacts on the continent's productivity.

    More than 95 percent of the 36 million people affected by HIV/AIDS in the world, that is 25.3 million, live in sub-Saharan Africa. In eight African countries, at least 15 percent of the adult population is infected and AIDS will claim about a third of the youths now aged 15 years there, most likely to increase the quantitative and qualitative human resource deficit.

    Lack of resources to finance development constitutes another hurdle to the materialization of the objective.

    The insufficiency of internal savings to finance national development is a problem that has been underscored many a time. Besides, despite structural adjustment policies, the continent remains in the throes of relatively low-level productivity, the specializations inherited from the colonial economy that has hardly evolved, and a largely inadequate industrialization base.

    This situation has resulted in ineffective infrastructure development, especially transport, communication and energy, whichare primary sectors of vital importance.

    The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa estimates that Africa has to double its economic growth rate, currently at 3.5 percent on average, raising it to at least 7 percent a year, if it is to attain the objective of halving the proportion of population living in extreme poverty on the continent by the year 2015. This presupposes massive investment to the tune of 40 percent of Africa's gross domestic product.

    Yet, unfortunately, this seems impossible, taking into consideration Africa's economic performance over the last years and its relatively unfavorable business environment.

    Other impediments include the qualitative and quantitative human resource deficit, the fragility of eco-systems and their vulnerability to climatic vagaries, and the problem of digital gap.

    These obstacles, none of which is easy to overcome, underscore the fact that the scenario of a peaceful and prosperous Africa canbecome full reality only at the cost of unrelenting struggle on several fronts.

    It is certainly going to be a long-drawn struggle in view of the oppositions, constraints, rigidities and inertia to be combated.

    That is why Alpha Oumar Konare, chairperson of the AU Commission, has called for immediate joint efforts by African governments and people toward their common goal.

    "Africa may be a major opportunity and Africa must be a major opportunity, if we hold each other's hand, if we act as of today instead of tomorrow for tomorrow will be late," Konare said on thesidelines of the ongoing AU Executive Council meeting. Enditem