Africa Finance Ministers to Meet on Loans

Finance ministers from 50 African nations are gathering in Harare for a U.N.-sponsored conference today to map out strategies for solving the continent’s most pressing problems--foreign debt, population explosion and dwindling forests.

The conference is the annual four-day executive meeting of the African Development Bank, and the ministers, who make up its board, will allocate $7.2 billion in new bank loans for 1987-1989.

They also are expected to repeat demands that foreign creditors reschedule or waive outstanding debts and that the developed nations agree to a “new economic world order,” a phrase that encompasses massive aid to developing countries, high prices for their raw material exports and better loan terms.

The African Development Bank was set up by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in 1963 and grants interest-free loans for development in agriculture, education, health, public utilities and transportation. The loans are repayable over 50 years.

About 1,000 delegates are expected at the meeting, including representatives of 26 supporting countries such as Argentina, Britain, China, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Bank President Babacar N’Diaye of Senegal said this year’s meeting is crucial to solving Africa’s economic crisis. He told a news conference Friday that the bank governors would seek agreement on a “line of action” to tackle the key problems.

Among those problems:

- Foreign debts totaling $162 billion. Debt payments sapped 22.3% of Africa’s export income last year.

- Dwindling forests, eroding soils and falling water tables, which threaten the physical resources that underpin economies.

- The highest annual population growth rate in the world, 3.02%.

Africa has 25 of the world’s 34 poorest countries.