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New Page 6
Making NEPAD work
The
New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) was conceptualized in 1999 as an
effort for the creation of a conducive environment for economic growth and
development in both individual African countries and the continent as a whole.
The initiative aims to achieve the desired goals through the enhancement of
political and economic governance.
Primary among the aims of the
programme include poverty reduction and broad-based improvement in incomes and
quality of lives; acceleration of economic integration and reduction of costs
and risks of doing business in the continent. There is also the objective of
increasing economic output and productivity through accelerated development of
agriculture and diversification of structure of African economies. Through NEPAD,
Africa is also to seek additional capital and technical service for development.
Essentially, NEPAD seeks among
other things, to attract enhanced foreign technical and financial assistance for
the development of Africa as an impetus for African political leaders to imbibe
the cultures of good governance, democracy, and respect for the rule of law,
transparency and accountability.
The first multi-stakeholders
dialogue of NEPAD was held at Sandton, South Africa between October 22 and
23.The dialogue was designed to review progress made so far in the
implementation of objectives of NEPAD.
However, the over 250 delegates,
including arrowheads of the ideology, Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo,Thabo Mbeki
of South Africa, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria,
turned in a far less than complementary verdict. The predominant verdict was
that NEPAD has remained a mere talk shop, with its secretariat staff almost
fully preoccupied with endless conferences, workshops and organization of
meetings. This schedule and score sheet have sadly left NEPAD with nothing
tangible to show for its existence so far.
Indeed, despite the well laid out
objectives of NEPAD, African leaders and the bureaucrats they handed the
intitiative over to, have found it pretty difficult to push themselves beyond
the confines of meetings to the implementation of ideas and plans. The situation
has left many in Africa and beyond wondering the actual importance of NEPAD to
the aspiration of poverty reduction and development on the continent.
Beside being a mere talk shop,
the NEPAD ideology is yet to disprove the notion in many cynics that the
initiative is anything more than a roundabout way of collective begging by
African leaders. Most of these leaders are suspected to be least interested in
the issues of good governance, transparency and democracy in the continent which
presently contributes less than two per cent to world trade.
The growing fear is that the
NEPAD framework was cast in a very faulty foundation as it was packaged for
Africa by those who have a different idea from the continent’s leaders of what
it will require for Africa to make progress. The fact that the leaders of the
continent who showed so much enthusiasm about NEPAD in the beginning are largely
responsible for its failure to take off as anticipated seems to support this
fear. President Obasanjo captured the prospect of the project succinctly when he
pointed out that "The laudable goals of NEPAD will not succeed if we do not
courageously and comprehensively address the issue of corruption, mismanagement,
waste and misplaced priorities in our societies".
African leaders have vehemently
refused, as statistics show, to drive growth and development within the NEPAD
framework. African Development Bank (ADB), which has financed eight Short Term
Action Plans (STAP) projects valued at $372.5 million shows through its records
that of 52 facilitation projects in the STAP, fewer than half were in any stage
of implementation; of 18 capacity building projects, only six were being
implemented; and of 36 investment projects, only seven were starting to be
implemented.
The record does not represent a
commitment to growth. As it now seems, African leaders may only have succeeded
in drafting a wish list, through which they will seek foreign loans, a
substantial part of which may not be accounted for in due course.
It may be pertinent to let the
Heads of State and Government in the continent know that Africa’s development
partners and prospective donor-nations will not throw in their hard earned money
if they do not see corresponding evidence of seriousness by those who should be
most enthusiastic about the programme. Indeed, it is unrealistic to expect
foreign investors and donors to bring in their resources to a region where
indications abound that investments are still threatened by political
instability, insecurity and lack of accountability.
It is also a huge joke to solicit
financing of projects that are supposed to alleviate poverty on the continent
from those who have more that enough information about how much African leaders
are still stashing away in foreign banks. Most prospective development partners
from Europe and America are aware that some African leaders who come begging for
financial assistance on the wings of NEPAD, are indeed richer than their
countries.
Investors and donors prefer the
provision of very conducive environment for participation. Only such environment
brought about by good governance, accountability, free and fair elections,
transparent and orderly power transitions can encourage the desired development
partners to play.
The call for action by
participants at the South African multi stakeholders meet or for that matter in
any other such forum is actually a call for introspection by African leaders.
Beyond pronouncements and attending meetings, African leaders have a challenge
to practically distance themselves from those negative characteristics that have
marked their profile over the years. They should start responding meaningfully
to issues of development and growth with dispatch in transparently serious ways.
A talk shop which fails to drive growth through
project implementation will certainly not hold the world’s attention much
longer than it had done. NEPAD needs to be proved to hold out a better future
than how it is made to look at the moment.
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