How can we explain the increased marginalization of developing countries in international trade when such trade is expanding at an ever-faster rate and when it rose above $3 trillion in 1989? How can we avert our eyes from the multitudes of men and women who live in poverty and need -far more than a billion of them -and whose number is continuing to increase? Is it possible to continue to ignore the social and political costs the developing countries must pay for their courageous implementation of structural-adjustment programmes, merely to see those efforts reduced to nothing in the long run because of fluctuations in the prices of raw materials due to the hazards of the international economic environment, which is fundamentally unfavorable to them? Indeed, the vast majority of those countries continue to be crippled by debt servicing and by a drop in export earnings caused, on the one hand, by the two-fold phenomenon of a drop in raw-materials and commodities prices and, on the other hand, by the continued presence of the industrialized countries• protectionist trade barriers, which deny the products of their most dynamic sectors access to the markets of those developed countries, and by restrictions on technology transfers, while at the same time they are confronted with a reduction in sources of external financing and with a stagnation in official development aid. The economic situation in Africa remains critical, and in this year that marks the end of the implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development 1986-199~ we are forced to note that the international community has not fulfilled the commitments it made at the thirteenth special session of the General Assembly on the critical economic situation in Africa, which was held in May 19 86. RM/19 A/S-18/PV.3 87 (Mr. Ghozali, Algeria) 
**Analysis**
The text primarily discusses the economic situation of developing countries, specifically their struggles with debt, trade barriers, and fluctuations in raw materials prices. It also touches on the lack of fulfillment of international commitments to aid these countries. These themes suggest that the text is more focused on economic development and international trade than other categories.

**Category**
Economic development, International trade