NEPAD: Between hope and despair

Is the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) a panacea for Africa's development problems or just another fad destined for the continent's development cemetery? This question has been posed since the inception of NEPAD in 2001. And it keeps on popping up like the proverbial frog on the beer mug. The popular and/or political critique is that NEPAD is a creation of some few African leaders, notably Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, with backing from the West. And that is why even the Namibian government was initially skeptical about the whole idea, especially with regard to the peer review mechanism, one of its central pillars.

That critique is justified but there is the risk of throwing out the baby with the bath water. Ideas must be looked at from their own internal strength and coherence and not necessarily where they originate. This, however, is not to disregard issues of democratic participation and the question of power in the generation of ideas. There is (or should be) a difference between setting an agenda for popular discussion and debate and pushing that agenda onto a passive populace. Agendas must, ideally, become blueprints and visions only after an exhaustive public debate and some degree of consensus.

What we need to do therefore is to look backward in order to move forward - historically speaking. We need to ask: what happened to the long and worthy list of similar grand plans, ideas and initiatives meant to accelerate the development of Africa over the past three or four decades since independence? The architects of NEPAD have to answer that question much more comprehensively before they can convincingly present their case. Or have they? Secondly, we need to adopt a critical and deconstructionist attitude, i.e. lay bare the plan to see what its strengths and weaknesses are and how it can situate itself within the broader trajectory of contemporary global forces - the content and context interlink.

A quick visit to the African development cemetery would reveal the following deceased uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters of NEPAD:
1. Brandt Report in the 1970s,
2. The Revised Framework of Principles for the Implementation of the New International Order in Africa (1976),
3. the Monrovia Strategy (1979),
4. the Lagos Plan of Action (1980) - the continent's flagship initiative,
5. the Final Act of Lagos (1980),
6. the World Bank Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa also in the 1980s,
7. Sub Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Development,
8. Africa's Priority Program for Economic Recovery (1986-1990),
9. UN Programme for Africa's Economic Recovery and Development (1986),
10. The African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programme for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation (1989),
11. the African Charter for Popular Participation for Development (1990),
12. The UN New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s (1991),
13. the Berg Report,
14. World Bank's report (2000): Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?

The list is staggering, frightening but also sobering and shows how terribly short the life expectancy of an African development kit is. This point to the following: the overlapping nature of the plans, their non-implementation because of lack of political will or resources and sometimes due to sheer opposition from those who call the shots - the so-called development partners. And finally, it points to their competing and contradictory nature. Some of these plans end up being transformed or merged with others, thus leading to new ones and so the game of preparing Africa for its proper place under the sun continues infinitely. The result, of course, is the continuing untold suffering and toil of the African masses.

There is yet another subtle aspect about plans, visions and initiatives that is less recognised, especially in positivist scholarship, for plans are usually used as a way of demarcating boundaries and framing the way problems and issues are thought about. It is a process of excluding alternatives which are sometimes not acceptable to those drawing up the plans. Because one is in a sense saying: this is the way we should think and ultimately proffer solutions to this or that problem. And in certain instances, especially those plans that are couched in futuristic terms, they serve to postpone problems and thus ease demands on the political system at least for a while - Namibia's Vision 2030 is a case in point.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) must be seen in that light. Like its predecessors, for example, it metamorphosed from the merger of the Millennium Africa Recovery Plan and the OMEGA plan - leading to the New African Initiative (NAI) and eventually to NEPAD. So, the fundamental question is whether NEPAD will succeed where others wavered. How different is it from the others or what has changed, locally and globally, since the inception of NEPAD to make it succeed? On what grounds does it stake its claims as the panacea for the Continent's declining fortunes or more broadly as the harbinger of the much-talked-about African Renaissance (itself an essentially contested idea)?

Before venturing into tackling these questions, one has to spell out very briefly what NEPAD is. So what is it? "This New Partnership for Africa's Development is a pledge by African leaders based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and sustainable development and at the same time to participate actively in the world economy and body politic."

A number of aspects are immediately discernible from this statement. These are:
1. the emphasis on African ownership of NEPAD and the role and responsibilities of leaders to see the plan through.
2. Second is the commitment to forging a new partnership with the West and international financial institutions (IFIs).
3. Thirdly, there is talk of creating an enabling environment by minimising conflict through the promotion of good governance, macroeconomic stability, maintaining transparency and accountability in both the public and private realms.

These elements are seen as the right mix for pursuing the NEPAD development agenda, which include, inter alia, social and economic regeneration of the continent, poverty reduction and economic empowerment of the people. And like many other plans before it, NEPAD is also premised on sectoral strategies - and all sectors are ably covered. This entire venture is not without a heavy price tag, as an estimated US$64 billion per year is needed to achieve an annual seven percent growth rate. Where is the money and resources going to come from?

A number of strategies are envisioned. A capital flow and market access initiatives - to include domestic savings and investment, debt cancellation, production diversification, foreign direct investment, access to foreign markets for Africa's primary commodities, etc. But it is also hoped that the bulk of the money will come from the so-called development partners - the industrialized West, the G-8 and IFIs.

Proponents of NEPAD points to the peer review mechanism and its commitment to good governance and to the fact that it does not heap blame on the West for the continent's problems as some of its strongest trump cards. Perhaps that is why the G-8 countries are said to be supportive of NEPAD. It is the in-thing in town.

For example, in a recent speech at Makerere University, the Commonwealth's Secretary General, Don McKinnon, spoke in glowing terms about NEPAD-Commonwealth relationship, saying, "The Commonwealth is also very supportive of NEPAD. Our strategic collaboration with NEPAD on economic and political issues will, I'm sure, bear fruit, and we look forward to the development synergies in many areas, including the NEPAD Peer Review Mechanism." Fine words indeed. But are they going to take Africa to greater heights this time around?

One doesn't want to pour cold water onto the continent's new child. But looking back, NEPAD is likely to flounder like many of the previous plans. First of all, there is basically nothing new in the NEPAD which has not been encapsulated in the previous plans before it. In fact, some like the Lagos Plan of Action or the Revised Framework referred to earlier on, were more "African" and more "radical" as they put more emphasis on self-reliance, self-sustainability, democratisation of the development process and finally, a fair and just distribution of the fruits of development through the progressive eradication of unemployment and widespread poverty.

None of these radical agendas got implemented as they were resisted and eventually jettisoned. Instead, we ended up on the West/World Bank's favourite agenda, structural adjustment programmes. It will really take a great leap of faith to assume that NEPAD will succeed.

As it stands now, NEPAD's agenda reflects many of the assumptions that characterized the neo-liberal socio-economic and political programmes that were designed for Africa in the late 1980s and 90s. We have noted earlier that some of the previous plans failed because of lack of political will and resources and sometimes resistance from the international financial institutions. Other scholars have been pointing to Africa's over-reliance and dependency on the goodwill of others and the unpredictable fluctuations of the world market, which Africa has no control over.

Although some naïve individuals keep telling us that more globalisation, not less, is good for Africa despite the negative consequences to the contrary. As Samir Amin has noted a few years ago, Africa is already the most globalised continent in the world and yet the most marginalised. Yet NEPAD still advocates for greater participation in the world economy. But on whose terms?

Professor Adebayo Adedeji recently wrote that: "By trying to march towards its future hand-in-hand with its colonial, monocultural, low-productivity and excessively dependent and open economy, Africa has ensured no dignified future for itself." And this is probably the fate that will befall NEPAD and thus Africa.