- Ownership
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Through NEPAD African leaders intend to set out a vision for an African-owned and African-led development action program. According to the document this vision “is based on the agenda set by African peoples through their own initiatives and of their own volition, to shape their own destiny” [48]. Its concept of ownership is embedded in the mandate that African leaders derive from their people to articulate this agenda and implement it “on behalf of their people” [47]. Moreover, the authors of NEPAD recognize that
“the New Partnership for Africa’s Development will be successful only if it is owned by the African peoples….[T]he political leaders of the continent appeal to all the peoples of Africa, in all their diversity, to become aware of the seriousness of the situation and the need to mobilize themselves in order to put an end to further marginalization of the continent….We are therefore asking the African peoples to take up the challenge of mobilizing support for the implementation of this initiative by setting up, at all levels, structures for organization, mobilization and action” [51, 55, 56].
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While the political appeal of the NEPAD is rooted in development strategies and initiatives that are “owned” by African peoples, in fact it is only lately that the initiative has become known in Africa by civil society organizations, the private sector and parliamentarians. The absence of prior discussion and debate with African citizens may be problematic not only for assuring future commitment to the vision expressed on their behalf, but may also have influenced the content and priorities established already within the document. Civil society actors, for example, are concerned with its prescriptions. They are asking what is “new” in the NEPAD? Do these priorities and the “new partnerships” present real opportunities for advancing social, political and economic justice for African people? The ACF has been following closely their analysis and the implications of the NEPAD for their work.
- Structural Adjustment and Good Governance: Whose Agenda?
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African leaders situate the NEPAD within a sharply drawn understanding of an historical exploitation of African peoples and resources and they propose to reverse the current marginalization of Africa in the global economy. Fair and more equitable rules governing the integration of Africa into this global economy will, in their view, tackle the structural barriers in globalization that will lay the economic ground for addressing poverty and inequality in Africa. Many ACF partners in Africa have placed participatory local, national and regional strategies that are appropriate to the particular concerns of poor and marginalized Africans in their communities and their countries at the centre of African strategies for recovery. The NEPAD does not start from an analysis of the various expressions of these concerns. Rather its point of reference seems to be the pre-occupations of Northern donors and institutions (responsible governance in Africa, open economies, and programs of social amelioration) in the hope and expectation that these Northern actors will respond positively to an appeal by African leaders for a “new partnership” with Africa.
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In this regard, the NEPAD seems to underestimate the impact of the predominant role that Northern donors and institutions have played in Africa to date, in particular with respect to donor-imposed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). NEPAD merely draws attention to the record of SAPs’ “inadequate attention to the provision of social services” [par. 24]. Many Canadian and African civil society actors have pointed to the degree to which these policies have in fact undermined national economies, exacerbated poverty and inequalities, and eviscerated the capacity of the African state to respond to urgent social needs. African participants at an Africa-Canada Forum Workshops have stressed the continued high levels of SAP conditionality that accompany donor assistance to Africa. Promises from the EU, the United States and Canada at the recent Monterrey UN Financing for Development Conference were accompanied by explicit qualifications that increased aid will go only to countries that will “walk the hard road,” in the American President’s words, of economic, political and social reform designed by donors.
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The Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN) recently completed a three-year intensive and participatory review by civil society, national governments and the World Bank of the experience of SAPs. This review included four country studies in Africa, and concluded with the observation that
“the effects [of adjustment policies], particularly on the poor, are so profound and pervasive that no amount of targeted social investments can begin to address the social crises that they have engendered. Only restructuring of the productive sectors through more appropriate public policy can ensure economic opportunities, resources and benefits to all segments of the population.” (SAPRIN, “Executive Summary, The Policy Roots of Economic Crisis and Poverty, A Multi-Country Participatory Assessment of Structural Adjustment”, November 2001, page 24.)
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Structural adjustment is much debated. Earlier African initiated proposals for alternatives to Bank/IMF designed adjustments, such as the Lagos Plan of Action, were rejected out of hand by donors as “unrealistic.” In contrast, the NEPAD, which places a new partnership with the North within the World Bank’s comprehensive development framework, is seen by Northern donors as “forward looking” and a “realistic” assessment of the importance of African initiated reforms for the management of development resources. Will SAP conditionalities continue to set the underlying context for the new partnerships with Africa on the part of Northern donors? At the March Financing for Development Conference, as noted above, conditionality was an even stronger element of aid financing. The US attached to its pledge of $5 billion in increased aid “eligibility criteria,” including acceptance of donor-defined “solutions” for reducing poverty, that is, trade liberalization, privatization, cost recovery social services and foreign direct investment from the industrial North. What implications do these policies have for realizing the goals of the NEPAD for reducing poverty and creating sustainable livelihoods for the majority of Africans who live in poverty?
- Rights, Citizenship, Democracy and Gender Equality
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Issues of governance are a central concern for the NEPAD. African leaders will take joint responsibility for “promoting and protecting democracy and human rights” and “promoting the role of women” [49]. However, the primary focus for the Democracy and Governance Initiative is “to contribute to strengthening the political and administrative framework of participating countries…” [80]. 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. A number of commentators have raised a concern that the NEPAD gives insufficient attention to a rights-based approach to meeting African development needs. Support by African leaders for the principles of civil and political rights, transparency and accountability remain at the level of overarching purpose, but seem to find little concrete expression in the proposed activities for realizing the Democracy and Governance Initiative.
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Competent public administration, strengthened parliamentary oversight, judicial reform, and anti-corruption measures have an important place in achieving good governance for any country. But institutions of governance are not politically or socio-culturally neutral. Africa has a rich associational and community life, which is central to the day-to-day livelihoods of African people and to their empowered participation in civic life. Respect and inclusion of this richness, including provisions that accommodate the inevitable tensions of political life, are essential to democratic governance in Africa.
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The goals of the NEPAD will not be achieved through technical and administrative fixes. Reducing poverty is deeply rooted in a politics that engages people, particularly the poor and the powerless, in negotiating with each other, with their governments, and with international actors for policies and rights that advance all aspects of their livelihoods. Development is not simply a question of the management of resources, but is about how these resources are put to use, and in response to whose needs. This is a matter of conscious decision-making in which the power to decide is a contested terrain.
African civic organizations play development roles in their countries well beyond that of program implementers, as contemplated in the NEPAD, a blueprint in which they have had little influence to date. These concerns regarding the vital role of politics and participation in development are compounded by NEPAD’s silence on civic engagement, as leaders alone are assigned the role to “periodically monitor and assess the progress made by African countries in meeting their commitment towards achieving good governance and social reform” [84]. Democracy is never ensured through horizontal accountability. Vertical accountability of elected leaders to citizens is crucial. It is critical for the long-term promotion of democracy that civil society actors along with individual citizens be able to monitor their own governments and demand accountability for fostering democratic political processes and for meeting the development goals that address their needs and aspirations.
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Core labour standards (i.e. freedom of association and collective bargaining; elimination of forced labour; abolition of child labour; and elimination of employment discrimination) must figure in any meaningful discussion of development and the impact of globalization in Africa. These internationally recognized worker rights relate strongly to the principles set out in NEPAD, yet the document’s economic model and the initiatives it proposes do not address adequately the marginalization of workers and their rights in Africa. Job creation, in sustainable conditions that respect internationally recognized core labour rights and the environment, should be made a priority in a plan for poverty eradication in Africa. To date, however, most processes around Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers – the recent framework for World Bank and IMF lending and debt relief programs, a framework endorsed by NEPAD – have not included the participation of trade unions.
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The NEPAD is also largely silent on the rights of African women in the expression of the various Initiatives for African development. Their role is mentioned “in the domains of education and training”, in “the development of revenue-generating activities”, and in “their participation in the political and economic life of African countries” [49]. The feminization of African poverty is well known. Fifty-two percent of women in Sub-Saharan Africa are functionally illiterate (ECA, 1999, Sixth Regional Conference on Women: Evaluation Report on Women and Poverty). NGOs and independent researchers have documented the disproportionate negative impact of structural adjustment policies on women.
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While interactions between the various dimensions of gender inequality and poverty are complex, an analysis of gender relations is fundamental to achieving the goals of the various Initiatives in the NEPAD to affect change and address poverty. Gender relations in many societies are also highly contested. Women’s organizations and movements are active throughout Africa and one increasingly finds women’s advocates within African government ministries. In many of these same countries, women’s organizations will be at the forefront of social, economic and political activities to hold their governments accountable to commitments made in the NEPAD. Africa-Canada Forum members and partners have brought to our attention both these dimensions – consideration of the feminization of poverty and the promotion of women’s rights in development by diverse popular organizations in Africa –as essential elements for assuring that poverty-focused development in Africa truly expresses values of equality, social justice and African ownership.
- Failed States and the Peace and Security Initiative
- African leaders say that they have learned “from their own experiences” that “peace, security, democracy, good governance, human rights and sound economic management are conditions for sustainable development” [71]. In order to ensure peace and security on the continent, they propose a three-part intervention: promote such long-term conditions; build the capacity of African institutions for conflict prevention and resolution; and institutionalize the commitment of African leaders towards the core values of the NEPAD. At the very least, it can be said that these engagements are very weak considering the experience of millions of Africans, victims of past (the genocide in Rwanda; Liberia; Ethiopia and Eritrea...) and current conflicts (Algeria, Angola, Burundi, DRC, Sierra Leone, Sudan...). Further, the nature and diverse causes of these wars are ignored.
- According to the NEPAD, peace and security require political measures to reduce the social and political vulnerabilities from which conflicts emerge. Yet, none of the proposed measures in the NEPAD includes the commitment to respect international laws that protect territorial integrity, national sovereignty, the right to a nationality, the respect of minorities, etc. – even though the lack of respect of these rights is at the core of several conflicts.
- It is necessary but clearly insufficient to propose that African conflict-prevention institutions, such as the 1993 OAU Mechanism for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts, or other regional organizations, be reinforced. The nature and scope of some conflicts require the intervention of the international community as elsewhere in the world. Two reports commissioned by the UN, the 1999 Carlsson Report on UN actions during the genocide in Rwanda and the 2000 Brahimi Report by the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, denounced the double standard with regards to conflicts depending on whether they take place in Africa or on another continent. These two reports recommended a complete reorganization of peacekeeping operations in order to make them truly effective.
- Further, the NEPAD fails to address the increasingly common and lethal conflicts where the parties – neighboring states, private enterprises or warlords – aim to secure access to natural resources (diamonds, coltan, petroleum, wood, etc.). Such illicit trading which feeds war will not end without resolute engagement and concerted action on the part of African heads of states and of the wealthy countries where these products are sold.
- Trade, Investment, Sustainable Growth and Development
- The NEPAD affirms the historical context for African impoverishment in its integration “into the world economy mainly as a supplier of cheap labour and raw materials”. Opportunities “to use the mineral and raw materials to develop manufacturing industries and a highly skilled labour force to sustain growth and development was lost” [19]. Despite the costs to date of globalization for Africa, African leaders are convinced that “the advantages of an effectively managed integration [into the global economy] present the best prospects for future economic prosperity and poverty reduction” [28].
- The preponderance of those Initiatives outlined in NEPAD, which also have very specific action plans attached, focus on economic and corporate governance, on sectoral priorities (for information and communications technologies, energy, transport, manufacturing, diversified production, mining), on promotion of exports and market access, and on promoting private capital flows and the private sector in general. Action plans for social investment priorities are more vague and are seen as important underpinnings for political stability and a skilled and healthy workforce. These latter priorities seem to be directed mainly to assuring “the continent’s international competitiveness and to enable her to participate in the globalization process” [98].
- The economic circumstances of African countries are very diverse. Many African civil society organizations stress the importance of shaping economic policies to improve the livelihoods of the majority who live in poverty. Many Africans have experienced impoverishment as a result of current forms of global integration of African economies and clearly this experience suggests that perhaps only a minority of Africans will fully benefit from greater integration into the global economy.
- As an example, the initiative for mining stresses “[improving] the quality of mineral resource information” and “[creating] a regulatory framework conducive to the development of the mining sector” [159]. The Africa-Canada Forum in collaboration with African and Canadian partners has noted the strong role of Canadian mining companies, among others, in exploring and extracting Africa’s mineral wealth. Pressures from the World Bank and IMF to maximize foreign currency earnings from exports leave African governments highly vulnerable to the unequal power of large resource transnational companies who maximize their own advantage. With support from the World Bank and donors, including Canadian technical assistance aid, more than 30 governments have already revised and liberalized their mining codes to attract foreign investment. All the new codes share similar characteristics: equal status for national and foreign companies; substantial reductions in taxation on the sale of mining products; fixed and long-term commitments on royalty rates; elimination of taxes on companies' imports; and transferable and mortgageable rights of exploitation for mining sites. These initiatives and those proposed by the NEPAD take little account of the social and environmental impacts that mining and energy development projects have on local communities and on local economies that sustain livelihoods for thousands of nearby inhabitants.
- Pro-poor strategies for African sustainable development require the mobilization of African and international financial resources. The NEPAD makes important proposals for actions to mobilize these resources. African leaders commit to assessing country plans prepared for initiatives arising from the NEPAD in terms of their poverty and gender impacts, both before and after implementation. But to what degree have such assessments informed the specific sectoral action plans being proposed? Both NEPAD’s overall orientation towards attracting foreign investment and large-scale market intensive solutions to development challenges facing Africa [for example agriculture, paragraphs 132-137] suggest that poverty and gender impacts have yet to be taken into account.
- African economies are handicapped by unfavourable terms of trade, generally attributable to the fluctuations and overall decline of the prices of the small range of primary commodities upon which their export sectors tend to depend. Between 1970 and 1997, the cumulative loss in terms of trade amounted to 119% of GDP, because Africa pays increasingly higher prices for imports while exporting its products at ever lower prices (T. Hormeku, 2002, presentation to ACF). This means that there is a net transfer of resources from Africa to the rest of the world. NEPAD does not significantly address this economic injustice, instead calling, for instance, for improved infrastructure to allow the international community “to obtain African goods and services more cheaply” [101].
- NEPAD and Northern donors forcefully promote foreign direct investment (FDI) as a pillar for the development of the continent. Yet analysis shows that such investment tends to go to economies that have already experienced a certain level of growth. It follows that as a continental initiative, such a strategy is likely to be beneficial not to the poorest countries but rather to the middle or higher-income ones. Further, sectors that are profitable for foreign direct investment do not necessarily correspond to priority areas of investment for people-centred development. In other sectors, opening the economy prematurely to competition from foreign firms threatens national industries that require protection to assure livelihoods and time for them to eventually become competitive. In several documented cases, reliance on market forces and privatization has destroyed institutions that could play a role in integrating African economies, such as marketing boards and rural banking. Finally, it is well documented that the vast majority of the profits earned by foreign corporations active in Africa are not reinvested in local economies. NEPAD proposes nothing to counter this situation: on the contrary, the emphasis on attracting FDI might lead to an unhealthy competition between African countries for this capital, in which they are likely to negotiate downwards conditions to protect the environment, royalties, and direct economic benefits for citizens.
- Social Development
- As noted earlier, ACF members and partners in Canada and Africa believe strongly that development and access to social services must be affirmed as the fundamental rights of African peoples, and their provision a responsibility of African governments. Rights to education and health, for instance, are not stressed in NEPAD – rather, the document states that the objective of investments in social sectors is to enable Africa “to participate in the globalization process” [98]. For instance in NEPAD the value of health is not set out as an objective in and of itself, but instead health is to be promoted because it “contributes to increase in productivity and consequently to economic growth” [131]. The ACF and its members and partners believe that the equation should be reversed: economic growth is to be valued not as an end in itself; rather, its value must be measured against its contribution to an improvement in the lives of the poor, fulfilling their social, economic and political rights.
- In Africa, the impact of HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases on the labour force, investment, education systems, communities and families is both a consequence and a cause of the growing crisis of poverty. Therefore, any African recovery plan that aims to eradicate poverty must include a strong public health policy and framework. Twenty years of cuts to public health programs under structural adjustment have left health infrastructures underdeveloped and impoverished. This inadequacy must be seen as an urgent target for international action, rather than as an insurmountable obstacle or an excuse for denying equitable access to health care and medicines. While the improvement of health infrastructures is recognized as a sectoral priority in the Human Resource Development Initiative within the Program of Action section of NEPAD, public health infrastructure development is not mentioned as a priority for immediate implementation [Section VII]. There is also no discussion of the problematic restrictions of WTO intellectual property rules on access to medicine.
- The ACF and its partners are extremely concerned that NEPAD encourages the privatization of social infrastructure such as the provision of water. For instance, in the section “Bridging the Infrastructure Gap,” private foreign finance is said to be essential and public-private partnerships are encouraged [103, 105, 106]. Privatization of social services has been a key feature of structural adjustment programs, and its deleterious impact on the poor and especially on women has been unequivocally documented by independent researchers as well as by our member organizations.
- Agriculture and Environment
- NEPAD rightly points to the lack of attention paid to the agricultural sector and rural development in recent years in Africa, despite the fact that the majority of the continent’s people – and over 70% of Africa’s poor – live in rural areas [132,137]. The ACF and its partners, however, have expressed concerns about the industrialization model of agricultural and rural development that is proposed in NEPAD. Elsewhere, notably in parts of Latin America, such strategies, while they may have had some success in increasing national productivity, have too often transformed farmers into landless, underpaid agricultural workers in cash crop production, leading to their further impoverishment.
- A pro-poor strategy for the development of agriculture needs to be designed with the active participation of the women and men who farm the land in Africa at all levels of decision-making, in order to ensure that changes take into account the knowledge of farmers, and that increased production benefits them. Changes must be sustainable in the long term, protecting both the environment and rural livelihoods. National legislative and economic frameworks need to be put in place that ensure food security for citizens through actively supporting agricultural production and facilitating local transformation and marketing of produce.
- In the introductory section of NEPAD, it is stated that “Africa has a very important role to play with regard to the critical issue of the protection of the environment.” The “minimal presence of emissions and effluents that are harmful to the environment,” as well as the “ecological lung” provided by the continent’s rain forests are portrayed as a “global public good that benefits all humankind” [10]. We welcome a statement encouraging the development of solar energy resources [112], but note that despite a pledge by NEPAD authors to ensure that resources are preserved, the document fails to give the development of renewable sources of energy the priority it deserves. Also, even though NEPAD itself recognizes that the expansion of industrial production contributes to environmental degradation [37], its economic action plans, heavily oriented towards the development of private industry, do not offer concrete measures to ensure that such industrialization will not harm the environment and therefore prove unsustainable. Further, while “the communities in the vicinity of the tropical forests” are depicted as causing the destruction of the forests in their consumption of trees for fuel [13, 112], the well-documented role that transnational corporations and large donor-funded energy and resource extraction projects have often played in such destruction is not acknowledged in the document.
- As an example of the weakness of the environmental analysis in NEPAD, “global warming,” one of the eight sub-themes targeted for priority intervention within the Environment Initiative, calls for “monitoring and regulating the impact of climate change” and for fire management [141]. This is a far cry from the call by many Southern civil society actors for Northern countries to acknowledge their ecological debt to the South. Those calling for “climate justice” point out that over 80% of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere – the primary gas contributing to climate change -- has come from the extensive use of fossil fuels by Northern countries for nearly two centuries. Thus, not only have industrialized countries disproportion-ately benefited from the unsustainable use of the earth’s non-renewable energy resources (a global public good), they are primarily responsible for climate change. Yet the impacts of climate change will be more severely felt by the vulnerable countries of the South, including Africa, where experts predict increasing floods and droughts (Kairos, 2002, “Focus on Climate Change,” www.kairoscanada.org).
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