Inter Press Service - October 16, 2002
Michee Boko

The statement, by 500 African legislators who met in Cotonou, Benin last week, endorses the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

NEPAD is an initiative of Presidents Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria.

It aims to speed up Africa's development, through foreign investment and aid in return for good governance.

The Forum of African Parliamentarians, a body that groups African legislators, says NEPAD "constitutes a new framework for interacting with industrialised nations and multilateral organisation. It is based on an agenda worked out by Africans for the future of Africa".

"NEPAD seeks to bridge the gap between Africa and developed world; it also seeks to encourage African countries to uphold the rule of law; as well as tap foreign investment to develop the continent," President Wade explains.

For NEPAD to operate smoothly, however, it requires peace and good governance on the continent in order to secure investments from the Group of Eight (G-8).

G-8 comprises Germany, the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.

NEPAD concentrates on five priority areas: information and communication technology; human resources (such as ending Africa's 'brain drain', fighting malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis); agriculture; preserving the environment; and fighting poverty.

Infrastructure is NEPAD's strategic goal. If Africa had similar infrastructure as the developed world, argues NEPAD, the continent would be able to boost production and improve its exports. NEPAD hopes to break with the concept of "national development" and focus on "regional development' ', in order to make better use of the continent's limited resources.

NEPAD's overriding goal is to achieve 7 percent annual growth, instead of the present 4.3 percent a year, for the continent. By achieving that goal, NEPAD hopes to halve the number of Africans living below the poverty line -- of one U.S. dollar a day -- by 2015.

African leaders say they need 64 billion U.S. dollars annually in aid and investment in a bid to combat poverty, diseases, and reconstruct the continent.

"NEPAD is first and foremost a programme, not a philosophical discourse, " says Mathieu Kerekou, President of Benin.

"NEPAD's greatest attribute is its pragmatic approach to our continent's problems," says Adrien Houngbedji, Speaker of Benin's Parliament, and co-president of the African-Caribbean-Pacific/European Union Joint Assembly (ACP-EU).

"To me, NEPAD is Africa's response to its problems," says Ali Nouhoum Diallo, Speaker of the parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Of the world's 49 Least Developed Countries (LDC), 37 are in Africa. Furthermore, the 27 poorest countries on the planet with the weakest human resources are all in sub-Saharan Africa.

Africa is the world's only continent where widespread poverty and illiteracy among adults (nearly 60 percent) increased rather than decreased during the 1990s, and where the rate of school attendance and child vaccination (which has dropped to less than 50 percent) also went down. Out of the 300 million people suffering from malaria, 270 million live in Africa.

Since 1990, life expectancy fell from an average of 50 years to 47. Only 55 percent of Africans have potable water and sanitation. Out of 1,000 Africans, only 32 have access to a telephone and only nine out of 1,000 have a computer, according to the Forum of African Parliamentarians.

"NEPAD is an attempt to offer hope to both the present and future generations of Africa," says Diallo.

He wonders about the fate of earlier blueprints like the 1979 Lagos Plan of Action and structural adjustment programmes.

He also wonders about the health of regional groupings like ECOWAS and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). "Is NEPAD too late?" Diallo asks. His pessimism tends to lend credence to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), who believe that "NEPAD was conceived behind closed doors and does not reflect Africa's priorities".

"It's important that we don't get lost in a proliferation of programmes and projects, all well meaning, but which result in spreading ourselves too thin," says Miguel Angel Martinez, the vice-president of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly ACP-EU.

But Diallo also sees a glimmer of hope. "Let's persevere so that NEPAD doesn't turn out to be just another new pipe-dream project," he says.(END/IPS/AF/DV/TRA-FRE/MB/SZ/MN/02)

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