A Decade of NEPAD - Economic Commission for Africa - uneca

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56 A Decade of NEPAD: Deepening African Private Sector and Civil Society Ownership and Partnership promote NEPAD, meant that stakeholders often were challenged to figure out how to engage with the NEPAD programme at the national governmental level. This deficiency also meant that “NEPAD projects”, even those acknowledged as part of the STAP initiatives and as part of the NEPAD Plan of Action, faltered because there was little domestic support for the programmes and initiatives, financial or otherwise. ӹ Inadequate Coordination at the Continental Level and Duplicity at the Regional Level – Again, the OSSA research confirmed the assessment made by the AU and UNECA, finding that within the first ten years of NEPAD private sector (and CSO) stakeholders were often confused and confounded by the lack of communication among the RECs, the lack of galvanizing leadership, weak follow-up mechanisms, and the lack of REC goals and priorities translating into national goals and priorities. Furthermore, the fact that there was significant (and increasing) overlap in terms of strategy and programmes among the RECs, meant that stakeholders were also confronted with duplicative initiatives with no strong rationale given to make participation in one REC the priority or more compelling than the other. For African enterprises, belonging to multiple regional business associations or programmes was also taxing financially, and in terms of time and resource investment. Lastly, during the OSSA discussions, stakeholders complained that there was a further complication in terms of duplicity in that the various G8/ donor initiatives often seemed to compete for the attention, resources and support of local stakeholders. Thus, the UK supported Commission for Africa, the Clinton Initiative of former U.S. president Bill Clinton, the U.S.’ Millennium Challenge Account, the Chinese and Indian initiatives vis-à-vis Africa, Japan’s TICAD, along with the Africa-EU Partnership, and various UN and World Bank initiatives were not always aligned, individually, nor in regard to “support” for NEPAD, and this created “noise” in regard to the implementation of NEPAD. ӹ Inadequate Engagement Efforts Made to Attract African Private Sector and CSO Stake Holders – the duplicity mentioned above also was confounded by perceptions that inadequate outreach effort was made by NEPAD to engage domestic African stakeholders with the same fervour that efforts were made to engage donor partners. Very little input was asked of the African private sector (or CSO community) and thus very little ownership was felt among African stakeholders in the NEPAD “process”, programmes or in the implementation of projects. Furthermore, the perception was that very little effort was made to segment the private sector stakeholder communities (i.e. African trans-national corporations, African chambers of commerce, Africa professional and sector associations, SMEs capable of playing a role at national level, informal enterprise that could benefit from resources/ technical assistance mobilized via NEPAD) and toward developing messages that spoke to them individually. ӹ Lack of Consistent and Positive Media Coverage – NE- PAD was also poorly publicized in the media over its first tenyears, internationally, and particularly on the African continent. In African coverage by international press (BBC, Al Jazeera, Canal Plus, CNN), NEPAD was periodically mentioned but rarely very prominently after its inaugural few years. Also very little has been done to consistently unpack NEPAD, particularly by the African broadcast media community. Efforts to translate NEPAD into local languages across the continent for national radio and television transmissions have also been negligible. ӹ Restrictive Domestic and Regional Business Climates – Although as mentioned above, African nations have been undertaking macroeconomic reform initiatives for much of the past 20 years and progress has been made, overall business climate optimization has lagged behind and this has and continues to impede African private sector growth and development. This phenomenon has help lead to the significant number of informal African enterprises that find it too cumbersome to formalize their businesses. While not specifically intended to be a constraint to private sector involvement with NEPAD, these general business climate challenges and impediments (bureaucracy and red tape, lack of procurement transparency, poor infrastructure, corruption, poor strategic planning, limited project information dissemination mechanisms, limited capital markets, high costs of formal business administrative compliance) all, indirectly, hampered private sector focus on NEPAD. ӹ (Perhaps unintended) Preference Given to Foreign Transnational Corporations Over African Private Sector – Where there have been opportunities to design, develop and implement NEPAD projects – for fees or as in-kind contributions – disproportionately international corporations and firms have been given these opportunities. Or at least that is the perception that many in the African private sector have had. This has not helped engender ownership sentiments about NEPAD within
the African business sector, and has fuelled speculation that NEPAD is a construct of foreign interests – or at best– an African inspired, well meaning, initiative, that has been co-opted by more powerful foreign interests – that from an opportunity provision standpoint will do little to change the status quo. The conclusion drawn from the various analytic exercises undertaken since NEPAD’s inception is that although there have been some successful efforts to work together Strengths • The NEPAD brand still has resonance as a catalyst for intra-African cooperation and expansion • Regional and continental expansion is in vogue and happening at a significant pace • There are still active NEPAD business bodies on the continent • NEPAD has been institutionalized within African states and many multilateral institutions • Significant donor resources have been mobilized under the auspices of NEPAD • The integration of NEPAD into the AU structure provides a chance to reintroduce the “new” NEPAD within all of the AU’s activities • The African private sector continues to improve its capacity to aggregate and associate in organized business structures • African enterprise is operating in an improving African macroeconomic environment Weaknesses • Poor communication channels between NEPAD and the private sector, generally, and particularly with the African private sector • Africa has weak structures for pan-African organized business, and no universally recognized and/or supported umbrella business organ – which also impedes information dissemination • In recent years NEPAD has been viewed as a declining brand from the standpoint of implementation efficacy – lack of visible results (at least from a private sector standpoint) • There are poor operational channels through which NEPAD can engage with the African private sector • The African private sector is comprised predominantly of SMEs and there are too few SME oriented programmes/ initiatives (and even fewer that target the informal sector) 4. NEPAD and the African Private Sector Today A Decade of NEPAD initiated by the private sector and by NEPAD, much more effort is required to establish distinct and easily accessible mechanisms to involve the African private sector in all aspects of the NEPAD process and programme – and to more fully leverage the NEPAD programme to benefit the varying segments of the African private sector. A SWOT analysis is instructive in identifying current engagement factors that impact upon the African private sector’s relationship with the NEPAD process: Opportunities • Significant growth over past ten years in intra-African trade and investment and thus increased support and capacity for regional projects • Significant growth in interest in mutually beneficial engagement between the African Diaspora and the government’s of Africa • Many Diasporans in strategically important business and political positions to help reinvigorate NEPAD brand in the North and to communicate its accomplishments • Global financial crisis presents an opportunity for intra-regional introspection and collaboration focus, Africa has not been hit as hard and still has an enviable growth trajectory compared to many regions of the world • More private finance and ODA focused on Africa than at any time in history • Increase in the number of facilities and programmes available to support private sector growth in Africa, generally, and prospectively, to support NEPAD engagement, specifically. Threats • Global economic crisis may impede donors ability to make good on pledges • Delays or complications in AU/ NEPAD integration, which is only expected to be completed in 2011 • If there is a systemic inability to adequately garner grass roots support (including from the African private sector and civil society) for NEPAD, this will ultimately weaken the NEPAD brand and cause it to lose donor support • Multinationals/ foreign governments that would prefer for business to remain as usual on the continent may work against a more significant African private sector role in the implementation of NEPAD • National level corruption, political instability • Under-capacitated RECs • The EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements which feature regional aggregations of African countries that have no correlation to the REC pillars of NEPAD 57
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