In the news: Africa not forgotten.

• Position: United Nations Department of Public Information

African countries have been strongly voicing their fears in recent months that the continent is being "marginalized". Recent speeches by African Heads of State in the general debate at this year's General Assembly gave ample evidence of their concern that, with the end of the Cold War, developments in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Middle East are preoccupying the majority of leading donor countries.

Yet the experience of the Department of Public Information in lauching the Secretary-General's Report on the Critical Economic Situation in Africa has shown that there remains substantial international interest in the continent, even when dramatic events are happening elsewhere in the world.

The Report was issued towards the end of August, when the world was still intensely preoccupied with the failed attempt to overthrow Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Nevertheless, thanks to a concerted media campaign that combined substantive and well-presented information material with a series of press conferences and briefings by senior UN officials in different capitals, coverage in the world's media was remarkable. This coverage created considerable interest in the actual two-week Ad Hoc Committee Review of the UN Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development (UNPAAERD) held in New York in the first two weeks of September.

Some 200 articles have appeared so far in newspapers throughout the world on both the Report itself and on...