The analysis of the nature and causes of Africa's socio-economic and
political development problems contained in the New Partnership for
Africa's Development (NEPAD) document is on the mark but the solutions it
proposes are dubious, a meeting of national church representatives
concluded at the end of a one-day consultation in Pretoria yesterday.
NEPAD is the proposed plan by heads of African governments and states to
put the continent onto a path of sustainable development through
democratic governance, peace-building, economic growth, and a new
contractual framework with industrialised countries.
"The process that gave rise to the current NEPAD document is seriously
lacking because there has been no consultation with Africa's citizenry,
without whose active participation there can be no real partnership and
no real development", said Neville Gabriel, director of the Southern African
Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) Justice & Peace Department which
hosted the consultation.
"While we fully encourage the need for Africa's leadership and peoples to
build consensus and stand together for African reconstruction and
development through visionary new initiatives like NEPAD, we believe that
the process and content of such an initiative must necessarily be
informed
by popular participation at all stages if it is to succeed", he said.
The meeting pointed to sections of the NEPAD document that highlighted
the contradictions between NEPAD's problem analysis and the solutions it
proposes, especially relating to current debates about economic
globalisation.
"NEPAD correctly states that current 'globalisation' policies fail to
lift Africa out of socio-economic decline but then goes on to say that Africa
therefore needs more of the same policies", said Mongezi Guma, director
of the South African Council of Churches' (SACC) Ecumenical Service for
Socio-Economic Transformation, pointing to paragraph 64 of NEPAD as an
example.
"While growth rates are important, they are not by themselves sufficient
to enable African countries to achieve the goal of poverty reduction. The
challenge for Africa, therefore, is to develop the capacity to sustain
growth at levels required to achieve poverty reduction and sustainable
development." (NEPAD, paragraph 64)
The meeting resolved to further assess NEPAD's content and process
through
ongoing discussion forums. Participants expressed the churches'
willingness to contribute to the NEPAD process through continued
engagement, information generation, analysis, and community consultation.
The meeting was addressed by Smunda Mokoena, South Africa's
representative
on the NEPAD Steering Committee based in the NEPAD Secretariat, and
economics professor Michael Samson, from the Economic Policy Research
Institute.
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