Nepad’s scope is broad and ambitious and places accountability firmly on the shoulders of African leaders. Jonathan Katzenellenbogen looks at progress.
Although it is largely a vision rather than a specific set of projects, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) has given vigour to breaking the entrenched pessimism about Africa’s future. That may be because of the political commitment to an African owned and led programme that addresses development and governance problems. Nepad’s break with the past is widely viewed as stemming from the direct responsibility that African countries say they are taking for governance issues.
Nepad is a pledge by African leaders to eradicate poverty, ensure growth, participate in the world economy and ensure improved governance. While only 14 of the continent’s 53 countries are considered democratic by most standards, Nepad has been endorsed by African leaders as the development programme of the African Union, the continent-wide organisation.
Even though it may have yet to deliver anything in tangible terms, as a vision and a pledge agreed to by all members of the African Union, Nepad has set a standard by which governments can be held to account by their own people and the international community.
The initiative has been embraced to varying extents in different African countries. Ghana and Kenya have government departments dedicated to dealing only with Nepad matters. In some others, there are Nepad committees that discuss ways of implementing the initiative.
Although some aspects of Nepad are still on the drawing board, the partnership has captured the imagination of Africa and the world as a means for the continent to break out of economic decline and poverty.
In the endorsement for their Africa Action Plan, the Group of Eight (G8) advanced industrial countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US – declared that Nepad is “a bold and clear-sighted vision of Africa’s development”.
Through Nepad, African countries have been able to gain a special hearing from G8 leaders with a meeting on the sidelines of the annual summit. G8 leaders have also appointed personal representatives to monitor the partnership’s progress and expand the relationship with it.
Donors have pledged to increase aid to the continent but it will inevitably be distributed on the basis of political favouritism guided by certain strategic considerations, such as the war on terrorism, as well as those countries that implement Nepad principles on governance.
International homage
Most G8 countries, but particularly the UK and France, pay considerable rhetorical homage to Nepad. The US does not do this, stressing instead its own approach through the Bush administration’s Millennium Challenge Account. This will back those who “walk the talk” on reform and governance.
The big threat to G8 enthusiasm over Nepad is the continuing crisis in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe, by the accounts of most of the observer missions, was not re-elected in a free and fair presidential election in March 2002. The violations of the rights of opposition supporters and a self-inflicted food crisis that has forced large-scale relief from the UN World Food Programme have highlighted what is among the worst situations in Africa’s post-independence history.
Failure by Mr Mugabe’s neighbours to speak out collectively against Zimbabwe’s steady demise into a failed state or to place direct pressures on the ruling party is increasingly viewed as a test of credibility for Nepad.
Business endorsement
Captains of industry have given enthusiastic endorsements to Nepad. At the June 2002 World Economic Forum’s southern African summit, business leaders committed their companies to upholding the best standards of corporate governance, improving social responsibility and providing support to African governments.
The outside world may see Nepad as an initiative to improve governance in Africa, but many African leaders also see it as a mechanism for re-ordering the continent’s relationship with the outside world. That includes greater market access for products and substantially increased private capital as well as aid flows.
The initiative’s priorities and the work programme are organised around the areas of the African Peer Review Mechanism, market access and the promotion of intra-African trade as well as increased access to industrialised country markets, agriculture, human resource development, the provision of key infrastructure to facilitate regional integration, information technology, energy, transport, and water and sanitation. Official Nepad documents emphasise consistently that it is Africa’s five regional economic communities – Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Southern African Development Community, Economic Community of West African States, Communaute Financiere Africaine Franc Zones and Arab Maghreb Union – that bear the primary responsibility for project implementation.
With the political endorsements having been achieved since the release of the Nepad document in October 2001, and the secretariat having drafted plans, Nepad is about to face its first batch of tests with the implementation of peer reviews and the urgency of getting its infrastructure project started.
With leaders having pointed to the economic benefits, the mere mention of Nepad may have raised economic expectations in some countries. However, because of its emphasis on the need for improved governance and accountability, it may also have expanded democratic space in some countries. In Kenya, for example, organised business met with the previous and autocratic president, Daniel Arap Moi. According to what has now become legend, he was told in no uncertain terms that his country could not possibly live up to the Nepad ideals to which it had agreed because there was such pervasive corruption.
Nepad will always be caught between the expectations for more immediate action – such as on the gross human rights violations in countries such as Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Sudan and the Ivory Coast – and the politicians’ emphasis on the long-term vision. If there is an area in which tangible progress is imminent, it is the peer review mechanism.
Pioneering programme
With peer review, African countries are, to a large extent, pioneering because this mechanism does not exist in as comprehensive a form anywhere else in the world. Under the programme, expert teams drawn from institutions such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank, the Africa Commission on Human Rights and a host of partner civil society research groups will review aspects of political, economic and corporate governance.
The programme is voluntary, however, and so far only 17 governments have signed up for reviews, well short of the 53 African Union members that are eligible. But, significantly and to much international surprise, Angola is one of them – it has been under pressure to show transparency on the sources and uses of oil revenue. South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria are also among the 17.
Peer reviews are due to begin imminently in four countries: Ghana, Kenya (although it might be delayed because of a constitutional dispute), Mauritius, Rwanda. Botswana, Africa’s paragon on governance and economic growth, said it would not benefit from a review and it would take up too much time for senior civil servants.
It is reckoned that a review will take six to nine months on average – between the arrival of a review team and the public release of its report. Reports will be discussed with governments prior to release so that they can correct any factual errors, but they will not have the right to amend commentary. To ensure that there is no political interference, one of seven eminent Africans tasked with ensuring the independence and integrity of the process will accompany review teams.
African political leaders have frequently said that the purpose of the peer review process is more about learning than criticism. However, as the reports will be released publicly, there may well be naming and shaming. The integrity of peer review will face its real test when it deals with a country that has volunteered for review but has developed an aversion to further reforms.
Peace and security
There have also been strides in setting up structures for peace and security in Africa’s emerging architecture. Nepad gives considerable emphasis to conflict prevention, management and resolution mechanisms as preconditions to end wars and ensure a reduction of poverty.
At the core of this is the African Union’s Peace and Security Council (PSC), which grants the body unprecedented rights of intervention in a wide variety of crises whether it be for humanitarian reasons or narrowly defined security purposes. Under the charter of its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, intervention was only possible in the most extreme circumstances.
The PSC met for the first time earlier this year and has yet to exercise its powers. A test of its structure and substance is imminent. Where and how it will choose to exercise its powers is not yet clear.
Once the African Standby Force is established, to which most armies on the continent will make some contribution, the PSC will have considerably more authority at its disposal. This force will consist of five brigades, one from each region, which can be called upon for a variety of policing and peace building tasks. The timetable suggests that over the next five years there should be a number of such brigades in operation.
With Nepad’s vision of economic development, it is infrastructure projects that probably count most in the mind of popular opinion. Politicians and civil servants tend to stress that the partnership is not about projects, but these may be the only means of demonstrating tangible success.
Much of the rationale for these projects lies in the need for networks of region-wide infrastructure to stimulate intra-Africa trade and ultimately the co-ordination of policy to gain economies of scale. Africa’s developing country competitors, such as Brazil, China and India, already possess these.
Infrastructure plans
In the areas of infrastructure, energy, agriculture, water and sanitation, Nepad planners have stressed the need to fast-track projects, most of which need to bring together a number of countries and have stalled for various reasons.
Nepad’s short-term action plan on infrastructure lists 20 priority projects. Power system projects include the West Africa Power Pool, the Ethiopian- Sudan Interconnection, a West Africa Power Pool, and a Mozambique-Malawi Interconnection. An oil pipeline is envisaged between Kenya and Uganda. And two gas pipelines are planned: one for West Africa and one between Libya and Tunisia. There are also proposals for further study of a hydro-electric scheme on the Congo River at the Inga Falls, a Democratic Republic of Congo-Angola-Namibia Interconnection, and ways of co-operating on the development of renewable energies and in improving energy efficiency.
In the areas of water and sanitation, proposed initiatives include creating an improved environment for co-operation among the nine countries of the Nile River basin, support for integrated water resource management in southern Africa, and strengthening the financial basis for a more desirable access to water resources.
Other projects are aimed at upgrading regional road networks, and expanding and rehabilitating ports, including the construction of container facilities. The railway programme includes support for granting concessions to run railways and improving the policy environment, rehabilitation of rail networks in East Africa, and a number of feasibility studies for rail links in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Agriculture projects
In agriculture, much of Nepad’s progress has been in the preparation of projects for rehabilitation and extension of areas under irrigation, plus investment in research in areas that can generate successes. These include the development of banana tissue culture, the West African Casava initiative, and investment in further research in the recently developed Nerica rice variety, which is better suited to African dry land conditions than are conventional varieties.
Nepad is also being used to fast-track continent-wide information and communication projects, including the East African fibre-optic submarine cable that will link Durban to Djibouti with landing points in all countries and islands along the coast. There are also plans for an African Virtual University and an e-Schools initiative.
Nepad’s scope could be viewed as too broad and ambitious, and as lacking in a focus point, other than improved governance. That may be the nature of a grand vision for economic development that has the potential to halt the pessimism about the continent.
Having let loose a Nepad vision painted in such broad strokes and on such a large canvas, African leaders may now find themselves far more accountable than ever before.
