The ‘African alternative framework to structural adjustment programmes for socioeconomic recovery and transformation’ (AAF-SAP), prepared by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN ECA), was adopted at a joint meeting of African Ministers of Economic Planning and Development and of Finance held in Addis Ababa on 10 April 1989. The main thrust of AAF-SAP is its holistic nature, whereby the dichotomy between structural adjustment and long-term development is eliminated. The alternative framework also puts great emphasis on the full mobilization and efficient utilization of domestic resources and the need to establish an enabling environment for sustainable development and to adopt a pragmatic approach between the public and private sectors. At the centre of the alternative framework is the human dimension. AAF-SAP is intended for use in designing specific country programmes. It implies full democratization, calls for intensified intercountry cooperation, and constitutes a basis for constructive dialogue between African countries and their development partners. Its framework can be expressed in terms of three modules that capture the relationships between the processes of production, income distribution and the satisfaction of needs.
