CIAO DATE: 01/06

Can NEPAD succeed without prior reform?

Abstract

The New Partnership for Africa's Development or Nepad has been enthusiastically pushed by a select number of countries in Africa, as well as by the G-8, as a means to stimulate what has been termed the "African Renaissance" (see www.uneca.org/nepad/nepad.pdf). Nepad was launched in Abuja, Nigeria, in October 2001; it arose from the mandate granted to five African heads of state (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa) by the then Organization of African Unity (OAU) to work out a development program to spearhead Africa's renewal.

Nepad has succeeded in placing the question of Africa's development onto the international table and has managed to obtain a fairly high profile and awareness. In doing this, Nepad has claimed to be a political and economic program aimed at promoting democracy, stability, good governance, human rights, and economic development on the continent. Nepad has been essentially sold as a bargain: African countries will set up and police standards of good government across the continent—whilst respecting human rights and advancing democracy—in return for increased aid flows, private investment and a lowering of obstacles to trade by the West. An extra inflow of $64 billion from the developed world has been touted as the "reward" for following approved policies on governance and economics.

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