text: policies. Thus, in addition to creating functional economic areas around "growth centres", Governments must also provide­ adequate health and education facilities as well as a social milieu that will promote entrepreneurship even on the lower rungs of the urban hierarchy. The efficacy of population redistribu­ tion policies would be enhanced by measures to slow the rate of national population growth: transport and communication policies should provide for linkages among functional economic areas. This would encourage a more general spatial diffusion of agricul­ tural and other innovations and facilitate the movement of agricultural and light-industry outputs from rural areas to large urban markets. 33. Admittedly, the foregoing measures may not provide an op­ timal pattern of population distribution in a country. But they 137 E/ECA/CM.9/5 can reduce pressure on the many beleaguered metropolitan centres within the region. The suggested measures represent the critical minimum effort which most African countries need to exert in or­ der to make improvements in the structure of population distribu­ tion which are conducive to more broadly based and self- sustaining economic development. 138 E/ECA/CM.9/S VIII. SOCIAL TRENDS AND ~ffiJOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS A. Introduction l. The various adverse economic factors which have affected the region in the past five years have led to very modest rates of growth in the major productive sectors in the face of rapidly rising population. As a result there has been only slovJ and un­ even expansion in facilities which will encourage growth, and in the benefits of growth themselves including opportunities for gainful employment, education, health care, nutrition and sus­ tained improvements in living conditions in general. Indeed, if the current world reces~ion persists, and the cost of oil imports still continues to limit the capacity of many countries to obtain imports to support other productive activities, then the next 
analysis: The text discusses the need for Governments to create functional economic areas, provide adequate health and education facilities, and promote entrepreneurship to achieve more broadly based and self-sustaining economic development. It also mentions the importance of population redistribution policies, transport and communication policies, and measures to slow national population growth. These points suggest that the text is primarily focused on economic development and related issues.