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NEPAD and AU Last update: 2020-11-27  
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The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) - An Initial Commentary - Ravi Kanbur


3. NEPAD: An Initial View
 
The NEPAD initiative is to be welcomed wholeheartedly. While recognizing the historical and colonial roots of African underdevelopment, NEPAD argues that Africa's future is in its own hands-"the hopes of Africa's peoples for a better life can no longer rest on the magnanimity of others." It candidly recognizes that past attempts "to set out continent-wide development programmes" have not succeeded, in part because of "questionable leadership and ownership by Africans themselves." It welcomes the fact that "across the continent, democracy is spreading, backed by the African Union (AU), which has shown a new resolve to deal with conflicts and censure deviation from the norm." It states clearly that "The New Partnership for Africa's Development has, as one of its foundations, the expansion of democratic frontiers and the deepening of the culture of human rights." Finally, while the financial importance of concessional external resources is recognized, it is done so in the framework of partnership between equals.
 
These overarching features of NEPAD, in particular its strong emphasis on democracy and governance, do indeed make it different from past attempts at fashioning Africa-wide initiatives for African development. However, it shares other features with past efforts that are perhaps inevitable in a wide-ranging document. Two related characteristics that stand out are its broad spread and the level of generality at which actions are discussed. Thus the document declares that
 
"African leaders will take joint responsibility for the following:
 
  • Strengthening mechanisms for conflict prevention, management and resolution at the sub-regional and continental levels, and to ensure that these mechanisms are used to restore and maintain peace;
  • Promoting and protecting democracy and human rights in their respective countries and regions, and by developing clear standards of accountability, transparency and participatory governance at the national and sub-national levels;
  • Restoring and maintaining macroeconomic stability, especially by developing appropriate standards and targets for fiscal and monetary policies, and introducing appropriate institutional framework to achieve these standards;
  • Instituting legal and regulatory frameworks for financial markets and auditing of private companies and the public sector;
  • Revitalising and extend the provision of educational, technical training and health services, with high priority given to tackling HIV/AIDS, malaria and other communicable diseases;
  • Promoting the role of women in social and economic development by reinforcing their capacity in the domains of education and training; by the development of revenue-generating activities through facilitating access to credit; and by assuring their participation in the political and economic life of African countries;
  • Building the capacity of states in Africa to set and enforce the legal framework, as well as maintaining law and order;
  • Promoting the development of infrastructure, agriculture and its diversification into agro-industries and manufacturing to serve both domestic and export markets."
 
This list should give some idea of the scope envisaged for NEPAD. The generality of the actions under each program or initiative has already been suggested in the previous section. Yet it can be argued that such a characterization is unfair, for two reasons. First, an Africa-wide program such as NEPAD is bound to be general in nature. The continent's problems are themselves broad and interlinked. Second, the document does in fact suggest prioritization. It does so implicitly by the order in which the key issues are listed-conflict prevention, democracy and governance are clearly seen as being of primary importance. Also, in the concluding sections, the document does discuss immediate priorities and "fast-tracking":
 
"Recognising the need to sequence and prioritize, the initiating Presidents propose that the following programmes be fast-tracked, in collaboration with development partners:
 
  1. Communicable diseases-HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis;
  2. Information and Communications Technology;
  3. Debt reduction;
  4. Market access."
 
However, it is not clear how exactly these or other priorities are developed, and it is equally not clear how to evaluate specific actions within each of the priority areas. As the discussion of NEPAD develops, as it moves into the implementation phase, and as demands on its limited resources multiply, there will need to be a framework in which priorities and specifics are assessed. The next section offers a particular framework to initiate the debate.

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