Plan For A Changing Africa
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is still not widely known or well understood across the continent or
internationally. With this publication, we hope that you will learn more about NEPAD’s vision and course. We also hope that
such knowledge will make it easier for you to join in the efforts to make that vision a reality.
At the turn of the millennium, African leaders and their citizens started looking to the future with renewed hope. The
continent had come through decades of economic stagnation, poverty, corruption, authoritarian rule and devastating wars.
But the end of the 1990s brought the first signs of a new turn. Some of the region’s most protracted conflicts had begun to
wind down. Economic growth rates picked up. And in country after country, pro-democracy movements succeeded in
replacing repressive regimes with elected governments. Those positive trends gave rise to a heightened sense of purpose as
well: for Africans to take charge of their own future.
Such aspirations for a continent-wide renewal found expression in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
Adopted at a July 2001 summit meeting of African heads of state, the plan for the region’s long-term development expressed
the determination of African peoples “to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and
exclusion in a globalizing world.” It called for a new relationship between Africa and the international community, in which
the non-African partners would seek to complement the region’s own efforts. The United Nations, the major industrialized
nations and various donor agencies pledged to extend their support.
Several years after NEPAD’s launch, the plan has registered some notable advances. The articles in this special reprint
edition of Africa Renewal provide a glimpse of the changes that NEPAD has introduced and the actions it has promoted, from
agriculture and roads to nutrition and education. In line with NEPAD’s principles, African governments have also sought to
improve the way they govern and to engage with foreign donors and investors on a more equal footing. Through their
continental political organization, the African Union, they are also acting more energetically to try to resolve Africa’s
continuing armed conflicts.
The article selected here also reflect some of the debates surrounding NEPAD and the challenges confronting its
implementation. While some advocates have emphasized the plan’s progress, others — including a few of its initiators —
have expressed disappointment with the results achieved so far.
Peer Review
Most agree that one of the more notable achievements is the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). It is a voluntary self-
assessment scheme in which participating African governments submit their standards and practices of political, economic
and social governance to evaluation by other Africans. As of October 2007, more than half of all African governments, some
27 countries, had signed on to take part in the peer review. Although some civil society groups initially criticized NEPAD as
“top down” — since it was drawn up and launched by African heads of state, with little public consultation — the peer reviews
have provided some scope for non-governmental actors to assess their own leaders’ performance and to recommend further
reforms. More generally, NEPAD’s promoters have demonstrated flexibility by incorporating the ideas of African critics and
soliciting their involvement in its implementation. When NEPAD was first launched, for example, women’s groups censured
the plan for paying insufficient attention to gender issues. But since then the NEPAD Secretariat, based in South Africa, has
set up a gender and civil society unit, headed by one of the women’s rights activists who were earlier critical.
Within the broad framework of NEPAD, African experts, in collaboration with the UN’s specialized agencies and other external
partners, have made headway in identifying the programmes and policies that African countries and regional organizations
need to pursue. The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, completed in 2003, urges investments in
three selected “pillars”: extending sustainable land and water management, increasing the food supply, and improving rural
infrastructure and capacities for market access.
Practical Benefits
The African Union and the NEPAD Secretariat also launched a plan of action for science and technology, to draw on and
further develop the knowledge of Africa’s researchers, students, business leaders and villagers. Some of the practical benefits
of NEPAD initiatives are already visible, including:
• Greater use of digital technologies in the classroom
• Plans to lay underwater fibreoptic cables to strengthen telecommunications
• The introduction of improved rice and cassava varieties
• Enhancements in the nutritional level of school feeding programmes
• The promotion of solar power to lessen reliance on environmentally harmful carbon-based sources of energy.
Since one of NEPAD’s goals is to bring African countries closer together and promote trade and other exchanges among
them, plans to develop regional road, power and other infrastructure networks have been a high priority. But concrete projects
have been slow to get off the ground. Not only are the sums needed to build them large, but securing agreement among
multiple African governments and foreign financial institutions is a complex undertaking. African planners note that some
regional highway projects in Europe have taken years, even decades, to develop and build.
International Promises
When NEPAD was first unveiled, the continent’s wealthy donor and trade partners hailed the plan as a framework for increased
support to the continent. There have been some signs of greater external backing. The International Monetary Fund, World
Bank and bilateral creditors granted debt relief to 18 of Africa’s poorest countries, reducing their debt burdens by tens of
billions of dollars. The big industrialized countries’ Group of Eight (G-8) pledged in 2005 to increase aid to Africa by $25 bn
by 2010, and at their 2007 summit promised $60 bn “over the coming years” to help Africa combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis,
malaria and other infectious diseases.
But the reality has not always matched the promise. Aid to Africa has actually risen by only 2 per cent since 2004. At that rate
of increase, by 2010, the G-8 countries would miss the commitments they made in 2005 by some $30 bn.
On the trade front, high tariffs and other protectionist measures in the rich countries of the North have impeded African access
to those markets. Continuing high subsidies to farmers in the US and Europe have depressed world prices for the cotton and
other agricultural products that Africa exports, thus hindering its efforts to earn more from trade. Foreign investors also remain
hesitant to put large amounts of capital into a continent that is still affected by political instability and weak infrastructure.
Self-Reliance
Given Africa’s own limited financial means, the difficulties and uncertainties of its external economic relations inevitably
affect the pace at which NEPAD’s ambitious programmes and projects can be realized. But an important aspect of NEPAD is
its emphasis on self-reliance. As much as possible, African countries are expected to mobilize more of their own domestic
resources, by fighting corruption and waste, promoting local entrepreneurial activities and widening the tax base.
African governments must take the lead, including by integrating NEPAD’s goals and priorities into their national
development plans, says Mr. Firmino Mucavele, chief executive officer of the NEPAD Secretariat. Presenting a NEPAD
implementation report to a session of the Pan-African Parliament, meeting in South Africa in November 2006, he argued that
insufficient national consensus or a lack of involvement by all stakeholders can slow on-the-ground projects. “NEPAD should
not be seen as a separate thing from national programmes,” he said.
Speaking a few months later at an April 2007 NEPAD conference in Senegal, Mozambique’s former president Joaqium
Chissano made a similar point. “We cannot expect everything from others,” he stressed. “We have to start working with what
little we have, and then others will have the will and desire to help us.”
Source: "Africa Renewal, United Nations"
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is still not widely known or well understood across the continent or
internationally. With this publication, we hope that you will learn more about NEPAD’s vision and course. We also hope that
such knowledge will make it easier for you to join in the efforts to make that vision a reality.
At the turn of the millennium, African leaders and their citizens started looking to the future with renewed hope. The
continent had come through decades of economic stagnation, poverty, corruption, authoritarian rule and devastating wars.
But the end of the 1990s brought the first signs of a new turn. Some of the region’s most protracted conflicts had begun to
wind down. Economic growth rates picked up. And in country after country, pro-democracy movements succeeded in
replacing repressive regimes with elected governments. Those positive trends gave rise to a heightened sense of purpose as
well: for Africans to take charge of their own future.
Such aspirations for a continent-wide renewal found expression in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
Adopted at a July 2001 summit meeting of African heads of state, the plan for the region’s long-term development expressed
the determination of African peoples “to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and
exclusion in a globalizing world.” It called for a new relationship between Africa and the international community, in which
the non-African partners would seek to complement the region’s own efforts. The United Nations, the major industrialized
nations and various donor agencies pledged to extend their support.
Several years after NEPAD’s launch, the plan has registered some notable advances. The articles in this special reprint
edition of Africa Renewal provide a glimpse of the changes that NEPAD has introduced and the actions it has promoted, from
agriculture and roads to nutrition and education. In line with NEPAD’s principles, African governments have also sought to
improve the way they govern and to engage with foreign donors and investors on a more equal footing. Through their
continental political organization, the African Union, they are also acting more energetically to try to resolve Africa’s
continuing armed conflicts.
The article selected here also reflect some of the debates surrounding NEPAD and the challenges confronting its
implementation. While some advocates have emphasized the plan’s progress, others — including a few of its initiators —
have expressed disappointment with the results achieved so far.
Peer Review
Most agree that one of the more notable achievements is the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). It is a voluntary self-
assessment scheme in which participating African governments submit their standards and practices of political, economic
and social governance to evaluation by other Africans. As of October 2007, more than half of all African governments, some
27 countries, had signed on to take part in the peer review. Although some civil society groups initially criticized NEPAD as
“top down” — since it was drawn up and launched by African heads of state, with little public consultation — the peer reviews
have provided some scope for non-governmental actors to assess their own leaders’ performance and to recommend further
reforms. More generally, NEPAD’s promoters have demonstrated flexibility by incorporating the ideas of African critics and
soliciting their involvement in its implementation. When NEPAD was first launched, for example, women’s groups censured
the plan for paying insufficient attention to gender issues. But since then the NEPAD Secretariat, based in South Africa, has
set up a gender and civil society unit, headed by one of the women’s rights activists who were earlier critical.
Within the broad framework of NEPAD, African experts, in collaboration with the UN’s specialized agencies and other external
partners, have made headway in identifying the programmes and policies that African countries and regional organizations
need to pursue. The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme, completed in 2003, urges investments in
three selected “pillars”: extending sustainable land and water management, increasing the food supply, and improving rural
infrastructure and capacities for market access.
Practical Benefits
The African Union and the NEPAD Secretariat also launched a plan of action for science and technology, to draw on and
further develop the knowledge of Africa’s researchers, students, business leaders and villagers. Some of the practical benefits
of NEPAD initiatives are already visible, including:
• Greater use of digital technologies in the classroom
• Plans to lay underwater fibreoptic cables to strengthen telecommunications
• The introduction of improved rice and cassava varieties
• Enhancements in the nutritional level of school feeding programmes
• The promotion of solar power to lessen reliance on environmentally harmful carbon-based sources of energy.
Since one of NEPAD’s goals is to bring African countries closer together and promote trade and other exchanges among
them, plans to develop regional road, power and other infrastructure networks have been a high priority. But concrete projects
have been slow to get off the ground. Not only are the sums needed to build them large, but securing agreement among
multiple African governments and foreign financial institutions is a complex undertaking. African planners note that some
regional highway projects in Europe have taken years, even decades, to develop and build.
International Promises
When NEPAD was first unveiled, the continent’s wealthy donor and trade partners hailed the plan as a framework for increased
support to the continent. There have been some signs of greater external backing. The International Monetary Fund, World
Bank and bilateral creditors granted debt relief to 18 of Africa’s poorest countries, reducing their debt burdens by tens of
billions of dollars. The big industrialized countries’ Group of Eight (G-8) pledged in 2005 to increase aid to Africa by $25 bn
by 2010, and at their 2007 summit promised $60 bn “over the coming years” to help Africa combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis,
malaria and other infectious diseases.
But the reality has not always matched the promise. Aid to Africa has actually risen by only 2 per cent since 2004. At that rate
of increase, by 2010, the G-8 countries would miss the commitments they made in 2005 by some $30 bn.
On the trade front, high tariffs and other protectionist measures in the rich countries of the North have impeded African access
to those markets. Continuing high subsidies to farmers in the US and Europe have depressed world prices for the cotton and
other agricultural products that Africa exports, thus hindering its efforts to earn more from trade. Foreign investors also remain
hesitant to put large amounts of capital into a continent that is still affected by political instability and weak infrastructure.
Self-Reliance
Given Africa’s own limited financial means, the difficulties and uncertainties of its external economic relations inevitably
affect the pace at which NEPAD’s ambitious programmes and projects can be realized. But an important aspect of NEPAD is
its emphasis on self-reliance. As much as possible, African countries are expected to mobilize more of their own domestic
resources, by fighting corruption and waste, promoting local entrepreneurial activities and widening the tax base.
African governments must take the lead, including by integrating NEPAD’s goals and priorities into their national
development plans, says Mr. Firmino Mucavele, chief executive officer of the NEPAD Secretariat. Presenting a NEPAD
implementation report to a session of the Pan-African Parliament, meeting in South Africa in November 2006, he argued that
insufficient national consensus or a lack of involvement by all stakeholders can slow on-the-ground projects. “NEPAD should
not be seen as a separate thing from national programmes,” he said.
Speaking a few months later at an April 2007 NEPAD conference in Senegal, Mozambique’s former president Joaqium
Chissano made a similar point. “We cannot expect everything from others,” he stressed. “We have to start working with what
little we have, and then others will have the will and desire to help us.”
Source: "Africa Renewal, United Nations"
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