Africa calls for stengthening of private initiatives

Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Advisory Panel on ways to assist the New
Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) has recommended significantly
increasing international support for the initiative and unleashing the
continent's tremendous development potential by harnessing the creativity
and dynamism of its private sector. Strengthening the private sector, in
its widest sense, depends on educating an efficient, supportive and capable
public sector and improving economic and political governance, areas which
require policy action by the African countries, the 13-member Panel's
report says.

The private sector, the role of which is stressed in the report, must be
assisted through such measures as providing credit, establishing clear
property rights and providing technical assistance, wherever necessary, the
Panel says. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank should
put greater emphasis on the private sector's role within the framework of
national poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs), it adds. It cautions
that reducing trade barriers must be carefully planned and the structure of
African trade kept in view. "For instance, a reduction of agricultural
subsidies in the European Union and the United States of America could
harm, not help, the many African nations that are net importers, rather
than exporters, of agricultural goods," the report says.

The reduction of African trade barriers could enable the African nations to
benefit from trade between developing countries, it adds. While the number
of bilateral and subregional preferential trade agreements are increasing
in Africa, the Panel says the completion of the World Trade Organization's
(WTO) Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations is an important
priority for African nations and it urges NEPAD to show "fulsome support"
for it.