By the turn of this century, sub-Saharan Africa had experienced 25 years of economic and political disaster. While "economic miracles" in China and India raised hundreds of millions from extreme poverty, Africa seemed to have been overtaken by violent conflict and mass destitution, and ranked lowest in the world in just about every economic and social indicator. In the May/June 2008 issue of the Boston Review, economist Edward Miguel tracks comparably hopeful economic trends throughout sub-Saharan Africa and suggests that we may be seeing a turnaround. Nine experts, including Rosamond L. Naylor and Jeremy M. Weinstein, gauge Miguel's optimism.

"The global food crisis exposes the fragility of sub-Saharan economic progress," writes Rosamond Naylor. "Although the overall economic situation in sub-Saharan Africa appears to have improved in recent years, any discussion about a sustained turnaround for the region must consider the rural sector and the role of agricultural development in improving the life of the poor."

"We might ask whether Africa's new democracies are democracies at all," says Jeremy Weinstein. "While the small (but unnoticeable) uptick in Africa's recent economic growth is not in dispute, its causes are not entirely clear."

The diplomatic initiative launched by President Bush in the wake of North Korea's nuclear weapon test in October 2006 has made substantial progress in rolling back the nation's drive to become a nuclear power.

That success, however, will be for naught if the administration fails to follow through on promises it made to encourage the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to destroy its nuclear weapons programs. The United States must honor its commitments in order to begin normalizing relations with North Korea.

Unfortunately, a recent barrage of criticism against the administration's policy aims to derail this process. Even as Pyongyang has taken more than 80 percent of the required steps to disable its Yongbyon nuclear weapons facilities, the fulfillment of US obligations has stalled.

The critics who want to stymie all forward movement, are, for the most part, the same specialists who can take credit for jettisoning in 2003 the agreement with North Korea, known as the 1994 Agreed Framework, which had stopped its plutonium production for almost a decade. Only after the collapse of the Agreed Framework did the North Koreans process the fissile material needed to build and test nuclear weapons. Three years later, in 2006, the president adopted a more realistic policy that is now under attack.

Many of the policy's critics denounce a declaration of the North's nuclear programs that has not yet been finished and argue that we must have clarity about North Korea's role in the construction of a Syrian nuclear facility and its uranium enrichment path to nuclear weapons.

Whatever the role of Korea in the Syrian reactor project, that facility no longer exists. Israel destroyed it last September.

Last year, the United States downgraded from medium to low its confidence level that North Korea continues to pursue a uranium enrichment program. In October, Pyongyang allowed US inspectors into a missile factory, where it said that aluminum tubes suspected of being used in that program were being remade into missile parts. North Korea handed over aluminum samples that later showed traces of enriched uranium, but analysis was inconclusive.

The United States apparently has secured Pyongyang's agreement to pursue these types of "clarifying" activities. Moreover, China has agreed on the importance of a verification regime aimed at assuring a "complete and correct" declaration, and a key goal of the next round of talks would be to fashion that regime.

Recent developments are even more impressive. On May 8, the North Koreans passed to a US State Department official a trove of 18,822 pages of operating records for the Yongbyon 5MWe reactor and reprocessing plant, which date back to 1986. That is 18,822 pages more than we ever had before, and begins a verification process previously impossible.

Also, the International Atomic Energy Agency and US nuclear experts have overseen the shutdown and continuing disablement of all key plutonium production facilities at Yongbyon. Discussions have been held to ship out the monitored unused reactor fuel rods.

If diplomacy is to succeed, Washington needs to begin delivering on some of the promises it has made as part of the Six-Party agreements. It must move toward normalizing relations with Pyongyang: That means beginning "the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state-sponsor of terrorism" and starting to "advance the process of terminating the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to the DPRK."

We know that North Korea seeks better relations with the United States to create the environment essential to facilitate economic recovery, give it more diplomatic space, and smooth the way for an upcoming political succession. Since the New York Philharmonic concert in Pyongyang last February, it has begun portraying the United States in a more positive light to its own people, laying the groundwork for a major breakthrough in relations with the United States.

This breakthrough is needed if the United States is to achieve its ultimate objective: to cap, roll back, and completely eliminate the North's nuclear weapons program.

Critics in Washington, like those in Pyongyang, are afraid of exploring the future and only want to cling to the past. That isn't the way out.

John W. Lewis, professor emeritus at Stanford University, is coauthor of "Negotiating with North Korea: 1992-2007."

New Beginnings, a nonpartisan policy study group of former senior U.S. officials and other experts on Korea, will discuss the results of President Lee's visit and the prospects for forging a real partnership with South Korea at the World Affairs Council, San Francisco on June 3.

Panelists:

Michael H. Armacost, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and the Philippines, and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; currently the Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow, Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University

Evans J.R. Revere, President of the Korea Society, and former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affair

Gi-Wook Shin, Director of Shorenstein APARC and Professor of Sociology, Stanford University

Daniel C. Sneider, Associate Director for Research, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University, and formerly a foreign affairs correspondent and columnist

David Straub, Pantech Research Fellow at Stanford's Shorenstein APARC, and a former State Department Korean affairs director

Bruce Pickering, Executive Director of the Asia Society Northern California (moderator)

This event is co-sponsored by the Asia Society of Northern California and World Affairs Council.

Shorenstein APARC is pleased to announce that Alisa Jones has been chosen as the 2008-2009 Northeast East Asia History Fellow.

Alisa Jones received her MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and her PhD from the University of Leeds. She has recently collaborated on various book projects addressing the role of history textbooks, historiography, and popular culture in shaping public memory and national identities across East Asia.

As the Northeast Asia History Fellow, Alisa Jones will be a resident at the center for one academic year. During her year at the center, she will be researching on issues of historical memory, identity, conflict and reconciliation in the Northeast Asian region. She will also teach a credited Stanford lecture or seminar course through the university's center for East Asian and present a lecture on her research topic.

This fellowship was made possible through the generosity of the Northeast Asia History Foundation

Ten 2008 POSCO NGO Fellows were selected by the Fellowship admission committee during the second POSCO NGO Fellowship Conference held on May 1 and 2 at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

George Washington University:

Ms. Gyung Lan Jung, Center for Peaceful Future of Korea

Mr. Hyun-Mo Choi, Korea Migrant Workers' Human Rights

Indiana University:

Mr. Seoung-Hwan Jeon, National Council of YMCAs of Korea

Mr. Jae-Seok Kim, Gwangju Citizen's Coalition for Economic Justice

Columbia University:

Mr. Tae Ho Lee, People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy

Mr. Boyoun Joung, Korea Youth Corps

University of British Columbia:

Ms. Jeong Sook Park, Korean Women Link

Ms. Hee-Seon Jeong, Seocho Volunteer Center

Stanford University:

Ms. Hye-Jeong Kim, Korea Federation for Environmental Movement

Mr. Hyun Gon Jung, Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation

The Bush administration's North Korea strategy is being criticized from the right and the left for letting Pyongyang off the hook. Some advocate scuttling the six-party talks. Others suggest slowing our own compliance with the agreement to get North Korea to make a full declaration of its nuclear program first. We disagree with both positions. Our mantra should be: It's the plutonium, stupid.

North Korea does have the bomb -- but a limited nuclear arsenal and supply of plutonium to fuel its weapons. The Yongbyon plutonium production facilities are closed and partially disabled.

In separate visits to North Korea in February, we concluded that the disablement was extensive and thorough. We also learned that Pyongyang is prepared to move to the next crucial step of dismantling Yongbyon, eliminating plutonium production. This would mean no more bombs, no better bombs and less likelihood of export. After this success, we can concentrate on getting full declarations and on rolling back Pyongyang's supply of weapons and plutonium.

We must not miss this opportunity, because we have the chance to contain the risk posed by North Korea's arsenal while we work to eliminate it. As dismantlement proceeds, negotiations should focus concurrently on the plutonium declaration, the extent of the uranium enrichment effort and Pyongyang's nuclear exports.

Pyongyang's declaration of 30 kilograms of plutonium (sufficient for roughly four to five bombs) falls short of the estimate of 40 to 50 kilograms, based on our past visits. We believe that North Korea is prepared to produce operating records and permit access to facilities, equipment and waste sites for verification. Obtaining and verifying its declaration of plutonium production and inventories is imperative. Let's proceed.

Pyongyang continues to claim that it has made no efforts to enrich uranium, despite strong evidence to the contrary. Although it appears unlikely that these efforts reached a scale that constitutes a weapons threat, a complete accounting is required. Dismantlement of the Yongbyon facilities should not, however, be postponed to resolve this issue. In October 2002, the Bush administration accused North Korea of covert uranium enrichment, only to have Pyongyang withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and produce plutonium to fuel the arsenal that we are now attempting to eliminate.

Nuclear exports are of greater concern. As recently revealed evidence demonstrates, North Korea sold nuclear technology to Syria, much as it sold missile technology. North Korea must cooperate if we are to get to the bottom of the Syrian incident and ensure that it is not repeated elsewhere. Israel eliminated the Syrian threat, for now, by bombing the reactor at Al Kibar. But it is imperative that Pyongyang reveal the nature and extent of its export operations and, most important, whether it has similar deals underway with Iran.

We do not advocate letting Pyongyang off the hook, but a "confession" regarding Syria is not the critical issue. We have good knowledge of what the North Koreans supplied to Syria. What we really need is information from North Korea that will help us deal with potential threats. For example, was North Korea acting alone, or was it part of a more sophisticated proliferation ring involving Pyongyang's trading partners and suppliers? North Korea's leadership must resolve all three declaration issues fully, and these will take time to verify.

To ultimately succeed in the peaceful elimination of nuclear weapons, we must understand why North Korea devoted its limited resources to going nuclear. The September 2005 six-party joint statement addresses many of these concerns, promising mutual respect for national sovereignty, peaceful coexistence, and a commitment to stability and lasting peace in Northeast Asia, as well as normalization of relations. Given the acrimonious history of our relations, such steps require a transformation in the relationship between North Korea and the United States, a change that will first require building trust -- step by step.

The six-party negotiations have put us on that path, and there is much evidence of winds of change blowing in North Korea that will make navigating that path easier (the recent New York Philharmonic concert in Pyongyang is one such symbol of change; the joint industrial facility at Kaesong is another). But North Korea's reluctance to provide full declarations and the Syria revelations have moved us in the wrong direction.

Nevertheless, walking away from the talks or slowing them at this point would be counterproductive. Instead, in its remaining months, the Bush administration should focus on limiting North Korea's nuclear capabilities by concluding the elimination of plutonium production. If it can also get answers on the Syrian operation and resolve the question of uranium enrichment, it will put the next administration in a stronger position to finally end the nuclear threat from North Korea.

Siegfried S. Hecker and William J. Perry are with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Hecker was director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1986 through 1997. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 through 1997.