The Commission is convinced that by supporting small scale farming, providing them with the right inputs to increase productivity in a sustainable way, it can make a real contribution to the overall goal of catalysing a green revolution in Africa.

At the beginning of May, an international conference will be held on the subject of ‘Towards a green revolution in Africa’.

Nonetheless, any strategy still based solely on generous international humanitarian aid – Mr Anan has called for a tenfold increase in the UN Assistance Fund – will not be effective in the long term unless the international community starts a 'green revolution' in Africa.

Because rapidly expanding human populations have devastated gorilla and common chimpanzee habitats in East and West Africa, the relatively intact forests of western equatorial Africa have been viewed as the last stronghold of African apes.

FUTURE EU RELATIONS WITH THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES OF AFRICA, THE CARIBBEAN AND THE PACIFIC The Council took note of a presentation by Commissioner PINHEIRO of the Green Paper adopted by the Commission on 20 November which formulates a number of key questions and options for discussions with all interested parties on the possible shape, content and scope of the future post Lomé IV relationship, taking into account the unprecedented changes which have been taking place in the international scene, in the ACP States and in the European Union since the Lomé IV Convention was signed. The Council welcomed the Commission's Green Paper and had a ...[+++]first exchange of views on future EU relations with the developing countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

We must either have a green revolution in Africa such as there was in South Asia, or we must use technologies in creative ways to increase the productivity of the agrarian land that remains.