New Partnership for Africa’s Development

The 1950s and 1960s witnessed the first wave of Africa’s independence from centuries-old colonial rule, heralding a new era of hope for sociopolitical and economic development in the continent. However, many decades later, the continent is still dogged by rising levels of poverty, foreign debt, diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and endemic political conflicts and crises of governance in countries such as the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Egypt.

New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is an African Union–initiated project with its secretariat located in South Africa. Following the adoption of the Constitutive Act of the Organization of African Unity, which established and launched the African Union in Nigeria on October 23, 2001, NEPAD was endorsed by the heads of state and governments ...