The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is an important statement by African leaders. The engagement of the G8 countries to respond to this initiative with an Action Plan at the June 2002 Summit represents an important political moment.
After an initial process of consultation with its member organizations and colleagues and partners in African civil society, the Africa-Canada Forum, a working group of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, wishes to stimulate debate by expressing the following concerns with regards to NEPAD:
- NEPAD is a starting point for discussion in Africa, but did not result from participatory local, national and regional strategies, appropriate to the particular concerns of the poor and marginalized in African countries. The absence of prior discussion and debate with African citizens raises issues of commitment to democratic participation, and is also reflected in the content and priorities established in the document.
- NEPAD’s primary audience is clearly not African citizens but rather Northern donors and institutions. For instance, NEPAD underestimates the deleterious impact of donor-led development programs in Africa, in particular the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) that have undermined national economies, exacerbated poverty and inequalities, and eviscerated the capacity of African states to respond to urgent social needs.
- NEPAD rightly seeks a new partnership with the North, but then places this partnership within the World Bank’s “comprehensive development framework”, which implies specific conditionalities being linked to further aid and debt reduction. Such conditionalities not only often impose measures that are detrimental to the poor, they also endanger national sovereignty and the ultimate goal of vertical accountability of elected African leaders to citizens.
- The primary focus for the Democracy and Governance Initiative of NEPAD is the political and administrative framework of participating countries. But the worthy goals of NEPAD (poverty eradication, democratization, human rights promotion) will not be achieved through technical and administrative measures. Rather, it is critical for the long-term promotion of democracy and for the equitable distribution of economic benefits that civil society actors be able to monitor their own government and demand accountability. Yet NEPAD is largely silent on civic engagement.
- NEPAD gives insufficient attention to a rights-based approach to meeting African development needs. Appreciation of social rights (education, health) are seen at best as an issue of greater access to services, rather than as rights inherent in citizenship. Further, the fact that NEPAD encourages privatization of social infrastructure endangers the rights of those who cannot afford user fees for basic services.
- NEPAD’s gender analysis fails to address the gender politics and inequalities at the root of the feminization of poverty and does not capitalize on the strength of women’s organizations in Africa, which have been at the forefront of social, economic and political activities to hold governments accountable.
- With regards to the Peace and Security Initiative, none of the proposed measures in the NEPAD includes the commitment to respect international laws that protect territorial integrity, national sovereignty, minority rights, etc. NEPAD fails to deplore the double standard that has led to a scarcity of constructive, multilateral intervention by the international community in African wars. NEPAD does not address the specific problems associated with conflicts around access to, exploitation of, and the often illicit trade in natural resources.
- NEPAD aims to achieve internationally agreed upon development goals through greater integration of Africa in the current model of economic globalization. Yet many Africans have experienced impoverishment and the loss of livelihoods due to the premature opening of economies or to their integration in the global economy as purveyors of cheap primary commodities. Clearly this experience suggests that only a minority of Africans will benefit from greater integration into the global economy, without significant reform to international trade, investment and political regimes.
- African governments are highly vulnerable to the disproportionate power of large transnational companies who maximize their own advantage when they invest, typically taking little account of the economic, social, and environmental impacts of their activities. This is one of the reasons why the ACF is worried about the centrality of the strategy of stimulating growth through foreign direct investment (FDI) in NEPAD, especially given the absence of a call in the document for corporations’ home countries to legislate so as to ensure corporate social responsibility world-wide. Further, FDI tends to go to economies that have already experienced a certain level of growth, so this strategy is likely to broaden inequalities on the continent.
- The industrialization model of agricultural and rural development promoted in NEPAD has threatened rural livelihoods in many developing countries.
- The NEPAD’s Environment Initiative is very weak. For instance it does not offer concrete measures to ensure that industrialization and energy projects will not harm the environment – instead NEPAD blames environmental destruction on the poor. The document also fails to call for climate justice.
- NEPAD calls for a "new partnership," but for the most part shies away from calling for the kinds of initiatives that would truly benefit Africa, such as: (1) fundamentally reforming global trade and investment regimes and (2) ensuring effective participation, transparency and fairness in the governance of multilateral institutions. NEPAD sidesteps the fact that African governments have tabled major proposals at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for substantive reform.
- While African leaders justly challenge Northern donors to reform ODA delivery mechanisms and to meet the UN target of 0.7% of their GNP, the G8 has already indicated that NEPAD will be used to target aid only to a short-list of “winners” in Africa. Such a triage is likely to result in even further reductions in aid to those countries most disadvantaged by the global economy. A more promising approach would be to reinforce governance and democracy by redirecting significantly more ODA to African unions, media, associations, human rights groups, etc.
- NEPAD does not go far enough in its proposals with regards to debt, since it does not call for full cancellation of the debt owed by the poorest countries. NEPAD also fails to call for the de-linking of debt relief from continuing structural adjustment conditionalities.
In conclusion, the ACF believes that the launch of NEPAD and the current G8 interest in Africa must be the occasion for a profound questioning of the dominant, neo-liberal model of development, which has clearly failed African peoples, and for the promotion of alternatives. It is imperative for civil society voices to be able to participate meaningfully in this debate.
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