A Decade of NEPAD - Economic Commission for Africa - uneca

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8 A Decade of NEPAD: Deepening African Private Sector and Civil Society Ownership and Partnership 7% per annum for the next 15 years toward ensuring that Africa would be able to achieve the targets agreed to under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): ӹ The eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, ӹ Universal primary education, ӹ Gender equality and the empowerment of women, ӹ Reduction in child mortality, ӹ Improvement in maternal health, ӹ The reduction and greater prevention of HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases, ӹ Environmental sustainability, and ӹ The development of a global partnership for development. The outcomes expected from the NEPAD programme include: ӹ reduced poverty and inequality, ӹ diversification of productive activities, ӹ enhanced international competitiveness and increased exports, ӹ increased African integration, and ӹ increased employment, economic growth and development. NEPAD was also expected to mobilise implementation supporting resources by: ӹ Increasing domestic savings and investments; ӹ Improving management of public revenue and expenditure; ӹ Improving Africa’s share in global trade; ӹ Attracting foreign direct investment; and ӹ Increasing capital flows through further debt reduction and increase ODA flows. Strategically, it was intended that NEPAD would realise its aims through the promotion of policy reforms and increased investment in the following priority sectors: ӹ Agriculture; ӹ Human development with a focus on health, education, science and technology and skills development; ӹ Building and improving infrastructure, including Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Energy, Transport, Water and Sanitation; ӹ Promoting diversification of production and exports, particularly with respect to agro-industries, manufacturing, mining, mineral beneficiation and tourism; ӹ Accelerating intra-African trade and improving access to markets of developed countries; ӹ The environment. Lastly, toward achievement of the NEPAD aims, the key action areas under the Programme involved the following: ӹ Governance – The operationalisation of the African Peer Review Mechanism; ӹ Infrastructure -Facilitation and support of the implementation of the short-term, medium and long term regional infrastructure programmes; ӹ Agriculture – Facilitation and implementation of the food security and agricultural development program in all sub-regions; ӹ Trade, Debt Relief and Improved Assistance – Facilitation of the preparation of a coordinated African position on Market Access, debt relief and ODA reforms; ӹ MDGs – Monitoring and intervention as appropriate toward ensuring that the Millennium Development Goals in the areas of health and education were met. Early Period Since its inception, NEPAD has experienced four eras of leadership that have coloured the progress of the initiative and impacted upon how it has been received on the continent.
Starting Up – The Nkuhlu Era (2001 – 2005) The inaugural CEO of NEPAD was Prof. Wiseman Nkuhlu, an economic advisor to former South African President Thabo Mbeki. During this early period of NEPAD’s existence, the initiative captured the imagination of the development world and was hailed for the fact that it marked the first time that African states had forged a common initiative to change their relationship with the global community – toward partnership, and most importantly, African-led partnership. During this era, while there was recognition that intra- African partnership was important and many fora were held across the continent to introduce prospective stakeholders to NEPAD, the key focus of the NEPAD communication strategy was on engaging the continent’s external multilateral and bi-lateral “partners”, particularly the G8 countries – on matters such as debt relief, increased aid, and greater inclusion in donor decision making processes. Across the globe, Africa’s development, trade and investment partners were introduced to NEPAD’s tenets and with the convening and information dissemination power of patrons such as the Bretton Woods and United Nations organizations, efforts were speedily begun to mould existing development strategies related to Africa to fit within the NEPAD paradigm. A key early NEPAD success during the Nkuhlu era was the development of the first ever regional peer review mechanism in 2002, the African Peer Review Mechanism. A Panel of Eminent Persons was appointed to coordinate the APRM process and soon after the APR Secretariat was established alongside the NEPAD Secretariat in Midrand, South Africa. In November 2003, the Africa Partnership Forum was established as a way of broadening the high level G8/ NEPAD dialogue to include Africa’s major bilateral and multilateral development partners. Meeting twice a year and co-chaired on an alternating basis by representatives of the African Union and NEPAD and by G8 and non-G8 OECD countries, the APF became a major forum through which NEPAD and the AU engaged the international donor community. 4 4 www.africapartnershipforum.org 2. The Evolution of NEPAD A Decade of NEPAD One of the challenges faced by NEPAD, however, was the fact that in its early days, it proved more difficult than anticipated for the member states to accelerate the alignment of their national development strategies and programmes with regional economic development strategies, generally, and regional economic community (REC) led infrastructure development strategies, in particular. Implementation of the NEPAD programme was further hampered by the fact that the REC institutions had overlapping membership and were relatively weak in terms of their capacity to design, develop, finance and implement their programmes. As NEPAD evolved, the process of incorporating the programme into the development and political infrastructure of each African union member country took place at varying speeds, with vary degrees of penetration into existing bureaucracies, and with varying resources allocated to support NEPAD related initiatives. The focus on African ownership during this era was also unfortunately stunted by the fact that the NEPAD programme was perceived by many constituents in Africa as a top down edict into which they had made little contribution. Much of the discussion among civil society, in particular, focused on why the NEPAD programme had been developed in such relative isolation. In large part because of the initial focus on debt relief and the priority given to engagement with “external” partners at the inception of NEPAD, Africa’s civil society viewed the initiative with significant distrust and umbrage as discussions within the continent’s external partners were pursued in the name of Africa’s citizens – but largely without their direct input. The other challenge to NEPAD’s development was the fact that resources to fully develop the “Plan of Action” were not immediately forthcoming from the member states and as such there was significant reliance on donor support for the implementation of NEPAD – which directly undercut the African autonomy and ownership that its founders sought to create at inception. A further limitation to the effective implementation of NE- PAD was the fact that establishing the NEPAD Secretariat 9
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NEPAD and the African Civil Society
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International Classification of Non
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people and their civil society orga
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To facilitate broader knowledge of
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Under the theme “Strengthening De
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Key Stages Key Actors Sensitization
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Regional Poverty Observatory, the S
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NEPAD African Private Sector and CS
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ӹ Office of NEPAD and Regional Int
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In terms of organization of resourc
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• NEPAD-Spanish Fund for the Empo
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ӹ African Capacity Building Founda
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Conclusion The African Union’s NE
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References AfDB (2009) Africa’s D
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Secretariat and the Secretariat of
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