Integration in Africa can only be a long-term attempt to solve economic problems, because of its high absorption of scarce and therefore expensive factors of production. In contrast to integration, cooperation seems to be a more useful approach to tackle the urgent employment and growth problems.

The authors try to test statistically whether the flow of resources between poor and rich countries has in fact conformed to the “1 per cent” target defined by the United Nations. Basis for testing several hypotheses are data published by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD.