We examined the challenges and problems of resource mobilisation for
development, and noted that NEPAD
- ignores the question of people's ownership and control of African resources, and disregards the people as the most vital resource and purpose of development;
- will not mobilise Africa's rich natural resources for African development but for further foreign exploitation and plunder;
- has nothing to say about the mobilisation, redistribution and utilisation of African land for development, particularly for women;
- focuses heavily on external financial resources without concern for the costs, and the negative economic, social, and environmental effects of foreign investment and liberalised capital flows
We conclude that:
- The unrealistic hopes for external financial resources will, as always, not be forthcoming, as already evident in the recent G8 response to NEPAD.
- The 'donors' or aid givers have shown that they will decide separately which countries they will/will not support and on their own policy terms and self-interests.
- The 'debt relief' offers by the G8 will, similarly, be very limited and only offered to those governments which dutifully follow neo-liberal and gender blind precepts.
- Such limited debt 'relief' will, nonetheless, not go even to such countries but to bail out the creditors.
- The whole NEPAD 'fundraising' project is a non-starter, and we will focus our efforts on appropriate resource mobilisation, including African financial resources now legally and illegally outside of Africa; and relate all such resources to alternative development strategies based on collective self-reliance.
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