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| The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) - An Initial Commentary - Ravi Kanbur |
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| 3. NEPAD: An Initial View |
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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.
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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
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"African leaders will take joint responsibility for the following:
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- 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."
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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":
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"Recognising the need to sequence and prioritize, the initiating Presidents
propose that the following programmes be fast-tracked, in collaboration with
development partners:
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- Communicable diseases-HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis;
- Information and Communications Technology;
- Debt reduction;
- Market access."
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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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