New Partnership for Africa's Development

THE NEW PARTNERSHIP for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a vision and strategic network for Africa's renewal. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) mandated that the heads of five African states (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa) create an integrated socioeconomic develop framework for Africa, which was then formally adopted at the OAU meeting in July 2001. This framework was required to combat rising levels of poverty in Africa, underdevelopment, and the continent's marginalization.

The framework aims “to eradicate poverty; to place African countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development; to halt the marginalization of Africa in the globalisation process and enhance its full and beneficial integration into the global economy and to accelerate the empowerment of women.” NEPAD aims to build on previous, largely unsuccessful attempts to create partnerships through consensus-building and broad-based support from governments throughout Africa.

NEPAD has adopted the following guiding principles: good governance as a basic requirement for peace, security, and sustainable political and socioeconomic development; African ownership and leadership as well as broad and deep participation by all sectors of society; anchoring the development of Africa on its resources and resourcefulness of its people; partnership between and amongst African peoples; acceleration of regional and continental integration; building the competitiveness of African countries and the continent; forging a new international partnership that changes the unequal relationship between Africa and the developed world; and ensuring that all partnerships with NEPAD are linked to the Millennium Development Goals and other development goals and targets. It is hoped that, by explicitly employing the language and methods of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, NEPAD will be successful in fostering international confidence in its ability to support and sustain large-scale flows of foreign direct investment.

NEPAD plans to achieve its goals by establishing the conditions for sustainable development (for example, peace and security, democracy, regional cooperation and integration, and capacity building), policy reforms, increased investment, and resource mobilization. NEPAD is in itself potentially of value, but must be set in the context of generally poor macroeconomic performance in much of Africa; the continued extreme vulnerability to external shocks, famine, and pestilence; and also the very widespread belief that the continent's governments are mostly corrupt. While allegations of corruption are in many cases true, the problem did not prevent states of east Asia from enjoying rapid industrialization, and does not affect international opinion to the same extent as it does in Africa.

The economic basis of the NEPAD program depends to a considerable extent upon the ability to attract inward foreign direct investment, which has been slow to arrive. A lack of transparency prevents investments from seeking market access, and general insecurity has inhibited resources seeking access. Previous attempts at foreign direct investment have become discredited through association with unpopular autocratic leaders, environmental despoliation, and general exploitation of the local people.

In its place, there is a need to upgrade the competitiveness of African industries, especially export industries, and above all, fair access to the domestic markets of developed nations such as was accorded to the Asian Tigers. The 2005 G-8 Summit was very successful in achieving debt relief but less spectacularly successful in terms of economic fairness and market access.

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