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Compliance, Conditionalities and the role of Independent Monitoring in the Implementation of NEPAD
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| 1. Introduction |
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Whilst NEPAD represents a huge opportunity for the peoples of Africa this opportunity will only be realized if the NEPAD initiative is transformed from being a partnership between African leaders and industrialized states into a social contract between African governments and their own people. The commitment by NEPAD partner states to uphold global standards of democracy and good governance provides a unique opportunity to strengthen the relationship of accountability between African governments and their citizens. Improved governance within African states would lead to improvements in service delivery and increased investment in domestic infrastructure. On this basis NEPAD could successfully attract external aid and investment.
But if additional aid and investment are to be based on improvements in governance and accountability within African states then international donors and investors will require detailed and accurate information about the resources currently available to these states and how effectively these resources are being managed. International donors and investors are unlikely to be swayed by mere commitments alone. After all, if African states are currently mismanaging their own tax-payer’s money what guarantee is there that they will manage international tax or investment funds any more efficiently?
In this light two mechanisms will be critical to the realization of the objectives of NEPAD. Firstly, a credible means of attaching conditionalities to investment/aid needs to be found, and a credible structure will need to be developed to manage the process of directing and allocating investments/aid to qualifying states. Secondly, credible and effective monitoring mechanisms will need to be established to determine the level of (legislative and institutional) readiness as well as actual compliance by signatory states with NEPAD principles. Both of these mechanisms would need to win the endorsement of African states and would require the active support of civil society in signatory states.
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