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Africa: South African Churches on NEPAD
Africa: South African Churches on NEPAD
Date distributed (ymd): 020608
Document reposted by Africa Action
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africaaction.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +economy/development+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
During a press conference at the South African Council of Churches
on June 6, the South African churches issued an assessment of NEPAD
as a discussion document. A summary and the plain text version of
the document: "Un-blurring the Vision: An Assessment of the New
Partnership for Africa's Development by South African Churches," is
included below. The complete document, including footnotes and
graphics, is available as a Word file from Ms Thabitha Chepape at
the SACBC Justice & Peace Department, tel. + 27 (0)12 323 6458,
e-mail tchepape@sacbc.org.za
The document will be published in hard copy for further distribution in the coming weeks.
For more information contact:
Neville Gabriel Justice & Peace Department Southern African
Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) 140 Visagie Street PO Box 941
PRETORIA 0001 South Africa; Tel. +27 (0)12 323 6458 Fax. +27 (0)12
326 6218 Mobile. +27 (0)83 449 3934; E-mail: ngabriel@sacbc.org.za
Web: http://www.sacbc.org.za
Links to a wide variety of additional documents on NEPAD are
available at
http://www.web.net/~iccaf/debtsap/nepad.htm
See also:
http://www.africafocus.org/docs02/accr0204.php>
and
http://www.africafocus.org/docs01/eca0112.php>
A related posting sent out today contains a request for
organizational signatures on a letter to be sent to the G7 finance
ministers.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Un-blurring the Vision: An Assessment of the New Partnership for
Africa's Development
SUMMARY
Africa's social, economic, and political relations urgently need to
be transformed through a focused and determined international
effort if Africa is to be lifted out of the poverty trap. The New
Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) presents itself as a
visionary and dynamic initiative by a core group of new generation
African leaders to reconstruct and develop the continent.
Blurred Vision
But NEPAD's vision is blurred by fixing its sights on increased
global integration and rapid private sector growth as the answer to
overcoming poverty, and by its failure to engage with Africa's
people to transform the continent. The remarkable political will
generated by NEPAD must be focused into a participatory
transformation of Africa through direct, immediate, and decisive
action to overcome the causes of Africa's impoverishment.
The Role of the Church
The church is committed to engaging with Africa's legitimate
political leaders in the interests of the common good of Africa's
development. We are called by God, together with all people of
faith and good will, to restore our collective vision for 'a new
heaven and a new earth' no less than we are called to bring
individual or personal healing and peace. The church continues the
mission of Christ at the service of humanity and the earth when we
engage with NEPAD to 'bring the good news to the afflicted,
proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord'.
Proclaiming Good News
The general issues addressed by NEPAD are not entirely new but
NEPAD does contain several promising aspects that could give
renewed hope and life to Africa's people. NEPAD can strengthen
accountability and effective collaboration between African
governments in a way that has not happened before. This can build
peace and stability and holds out the possibility to develop an
authentic development model that is appropriate to Africa's needs
rather than simply adopting inappropriately imposed conditions that
damage African communities. NEPAD puts Africa's development firmly
on the global agenda and generates a new confidence in Africa that
corrects perceptions of Africa as a doomed continent.
People, Poverty, & the Prophetic Mission of the Church
NEPAD contains some problematic elements that have proven to be
ineffective in building peaceful, just, and caring societies in
Africa. Its economic strategy is discredited by the harsh impact on
the poor in African countries that have already adopted similar
policies. It pretends to be unaware of the severe negative social
impact that rapid privatisation of basic and social services has on
impoverished communities in Africa. It fails to address the
underlying power relations that constrain Africa's development. It
does not provide a decisive mechanism to repair the persistent
damage done to individuals, families, whole societies, and
environments in Africa's history. Most of all, NEPAD has neglected
Africa's people both in the process of its construction and in its
primary focus. If NEPAD does not focus on Africa's people first, it
can result in an increasingly divided Africa at the continental and
national levels.
NEPAD must focus primarily on immediate poverty eradication
interventions that will deliver direct benefits to the poor rather
than it current focus on a long-term and indirect development
strategy. Meaningful debt cancellation for Africa must be
prioritised as a pre-condition for Africa's sustainable
development, so that budget support can be provided for public
investment in social services such as health care and education and
the provision of water and electricity. NEPAD must also propose
decisive structural changes to the current international financial
and trade systems, including proposals such as an international
currency transaction tax and special protection for vulnerable
African industries.
The Pastoral Mission of the Church
The church must participate with energy and commitment in Africa's
reconstruction and development. We therefore engage with NEPAD in
a spirit of mutual responsibility and commitment to building a
better world for Africa's people. Our first task is to promote
broad-based popular dialogue on NEPAD. NEPAD's structures should
equally be directed to this purpose. Faithful to continuing the
mission of Christ, the church must also continue to raise the
collective public conscience about the ethical choices that lie at
the heart of the current global financial, trade, and political
systems in which NEPAD proposes Africa should participate more
actively.
The G7 Response to NEPAD
In the same way that African countries are willing to undertake a
path of self-criticism and renewal, G7 leaders must make a firm
commitment to support Africa according to the priorities and plans
that are set through participatory and democratic processes in
African countries. Ending the scourge of corruption cannot be seen
as the responsibility of Africa exclusively because corruption is
a global problem that could be worsened by increased foreign trade
and private investment in Africa. A G7 over-emphasis on the
"cost-free" elements of NEPAD such as peace-building and governance
issues and on private sector development alone, without a
corresponding commitment to support Africa's reconstruction and
development in additional material budget-support terms, reinforces
the distrust that makes many believe that African development based
on the hope of a new partnership with rich countries is not viable.
Un-blurring the Vision
While NEPAD's analysis of the problems that confront Africa is
accurate and its end goal of an African continent free from war and
poverty expresses the deep-felt hope of all Africans and people of
good will, the economic path it chooses is bound to fail this
mission.
NEPAD's vision is blurred by setting its sights on the hope that
greater global integration will save Africa. Yet NEPAD's vision can
be restored if Africa's leaders enter into a new partnership with
their people. The vision of a new Africa dawning in the 21st
century is too precious to be lost because we failed to see that
Africa's children, men, and women are its greatest treasure.
Un-blurring the Vision:
An Assessment of the New Partnership for Africa's Development
[This paper was initially drafted by the SACBC Justice & Peace
Department. It was further developed through various ecumencial
consultations hosted by the South African Council of Churches
(SACC) and the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference
(SACBC). It was released as a discussion paper on June 6, 2002.]
1. Introduction
The world has treated Africa harshly in the past no more than it
does now. Africa in the global human community today is like
Lazarus surviving on the crumbs of the rich man's table.
While Africa holds ten percent of the world's population,
seventy-five percent of the world's people living with HIV/AIDS are
in Sub-Saharan Africa and one-third of the world's poorest people
live in Africa. Half the continent's population lives in absolute
poverty. Africa has inherited a legacy of weak states and bad
governance systems. Africa exports thirty percent more today than
it did in 1980 but receives forty percent less income from these
exports than it did in 1980 due to global forces beyond its
control. Nearly half of the estimated 515,000 women who die
annually from pregnancy or child birth are African meaning that one
African woman in 13 dies during pregnancy or childbirth.
After more than fifteen years of Structural Adjustment
Programmes (SAPS) unemployment rates are estimated to be well above
thirty-five percent on the continent. Nineteen thousand children
die in Africa each day as a result of preventable diseases and
malnutrition. Yet Sub-Saharan Africa has a foreign debt of more
than $170 billion and pays creditors $40 million a week to service
debts accumulated as a result of the cold war, apartheid, and
failed projects. Despite some remarkable African efforts at
reconciliation, endless wars and genocide have ravaged the
continent without the world being too concerned. Unscrupulous
companies have plundered natural resources, destroying whole
environments and social systems on the continent. Even still,
Africa's people have hope that a better life is possible in the
twenty-first century.
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) presents
itself as a dynamic and visionary initiative by a nucleus of new
generation African leaders to transform Africa into a continent of
peace and prosperity. It proposes to make this the African century,
through a new qualitative relationship between Africa and the rest
of the world. But NEPAD's vision is blurred by where it fixes its
sights to generate new energies for Africa's reconstruction and by
the blinkers that constrain its consideration of the realms of
possibilities for Africa's economic development. Its popular
dynamism is restricted by its failure to see beyond the dogmatic
and exclusionary tunnel vision of the emergent global state. The
political will generated by NEPAD must be focused into a truly
participatory transformation of Africa through direct, immediate,
and decisive action to overcome the causes of Africa's deepening
impoverishment.
2. What is NEPAD?
President Thabo Mbeki's inspirational speeches about the need for
an African Renaissance culminated on 11 July 2001 when the
Organisation for African Unity (OAU) Summit approved the New
African Initiative (NAI), born from the merger of President Mbeki's
Millennium Partnership for Africa's Recovery Programme (MAP) and
President Wade's Omega Plan. The Heads of State and Implementation
Committee meeting in Abuja, Nigeria on 23 October 2001 agreed on
NEPAD, finalised a policy document and accepted a governing
structure for NEPAD. This launched the implementation phase of the
NEPAD.
Conceived and developed by a core group of African leaders, NEPAD
describes itself as a 'comprehensive integrated development plan
that addresses key social, economic and political priorities for
the continent'. It includes a commitment by African leaders to
African people and the international community to place Africa on
a path of sustainable growth, accelerating the integration of the
continent into the global economy. It calls on the rest of the
world to partner Africa in her own development based on her own
agenda and programme of action.
To drive the achievement of its goals, NEPAD established an
Implementation Committee of Heads of Government, a Steering
Committee of personal representatives of each of the five NEPAD
founding countries, and five working teams to focus on specific
NEPAD initiatives as follows:
§ Peace and Security - South Africa,
with the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)
§ Economic and Corporate Governance UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
§ Infrastructure Senegal with the Africa Development Bank (ADB)
§ Agriculture and Market Access - OAU
§ Financial and Banking
Standards - ADB with Nigeria.
Algeria declared an interest in the human development sector while
Egypt has a role in the market access and market diversification
working team. In addition, a small secretariat was established in
Midrand, South Africa, to coordinate the production of business
plans for the priority areas:
* Political governance (including
Peace and Security) and Conflict Prevention, Management and
Resolution
* Economic and corporate governance including the
measurement of economic governance performance and a peer review
mechanism
* Infrastructure including information and communication
technology (ICT), water and sanitation, transport and energy
* Agriculture and market access including harmonising standards to
encourage intra African trade, enhancing trade capacity through
diversification and adding value, exchange rate management and
encouraging private sector engagement with NEPAD, and creating
uniformity and rationalisation by developing standard protocols and
guidelines for negotiating international agreements and
rationalising regional economic initiatives.
* Human development
including health and communicable diseases, education and poverty
eradication
* Capital flows including mobilising domestic
resources, maximising private capital flows, reforming official
development assistance (ODA) and identifying goals, criteria and
mechanisms for debt reduction.
These plans of action were presented for approval by the Heads of
State Implementation Committee (HSIC) at its meeting on 25 26 March
in Abuja. The final versions will be presented to the African Union
(AU) Summit in July in South Africa. The programme will also be
presented to the G7 Summit in June in Canada.
NEPAD Steering Committee Members
Country Representatives
Algeria Amb M"hamed Achache & Amb Rabah HadidN
Egypt Amb Mona Omar & Amb Raouf SaadN
Nigeria Amb Isaac Aluko-Olokon & HC Tunji Olagunju
South Africa Prof Wiseman Nkuhlu (chair) & Mr Smunda MokoenaN
Senegal Dr Cherif Salif Sy & Mme Gnounka Diouf
Source: Southern African Regional Poverty Network
3. Our Motivation for Assessing NEPAD
The church is no expert on social, economic, and political
development. It does, however, have a rich history in human
development. Indeed the church must articulate its concern for
humane development. Through its global rootedness in local
communities on both sides of the poverty and riches divide, its
primary concern for the poor, and its profound influence on
Africa's historical development, the church is well-placed to
articulate an informed assessment of the possibilities that NEPAD
offers.
The church continues the mission of Christ at the service of
humanity when it engages NEPAD. We declare with Christ: "The spirit
of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news
to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives,
sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a
year of favour from the Lord".
The church is called by God, together with all people of faith and
good will, to restore our collective vision for 'a new heaven and
a new earth' no less than we are called to bring individual or
personal healing and peace.
Accordingly, our comments on NEPAD are informed by:
- The experience of the majority of people in impoverished African
countries and the experience of participation in popular struggles
for global social and economic justice in a world that is rapidly
undertaking a process of globalisation
- Analysis arising out of a process of attempting to understand the
motivations for, dynamics within, process towards, and content of
the current NEPAD proposals, through engagement with the NEPAD
secretariat, discussions with some NEPAD engineers, participation
in seminars and public events on NEPAD, engagement in civil society
forums intended to analyse NEPAD, and a general assessment of the
social, political, economic, and ecological terrain in which NEPAD
emerges
- Reflection that gives rise to an evaluation of NEPAD based on
values and principles inherent to the church's tradition of social
engagement: Justice based on our belief in the equal and inherent
dignity that the Creator instils in all people, and on our belief
that all people should equitably be afforded the gifts of life to
attain their full human development. Solidarity that gives social
and material expression to the common humanity we share in a
communion held by our faith in a common Source. The common good
that places a premium on the collective best interests of the human
community, irrespective of economic status, ethnicity, nationality,
gender, or religion. Subsidiarity that recognises the individuality
and human agency inherent to persons, and offers people the
opportunity to participate effectively in the decisions that affect
their lives. The common destiny of goods that sees all material
resources in the first instance as public goods in the stewardship
of all humanity, so that in the interests of the common good, a
social 'mortgage' is understood to be in effect on privately held
resources. The integrity of creation that transcends narrow human
self-interest into a symbiotic respect for the Earth and the
universe of which we are part, so as to limit our negative impact
on the life of the world for all generations to come. The primacy
of the poor that places greatest priority on removing the
structural imbalances that cause large numbers of people to suffer
because they are denied the means to make a living and live in
material dignity. Reconciliation that seeks to actively transform
histories of division, oppression, destruction, and abuse into
respectful, corrective, truthful, and healing relations. Peace the
goal of inclusive, collective well-being which recognises the
dignity of all people and the integrity of creation, and manages
conflict in a manner that promotes human progress.
This assessment is intended to stimulate further and more focused
debate about what NEPAD means for us as Africans and as Christians.
It does not pretend to be either exhaustive or definitive, but is
meant to encourage discussion, reflection, and action. It is a
preliminary articulation of a considered position on NEPAD that
goes beyond rhetoric and public posturing, in the firm belief that
a better world is possible for Africa's people.
4. Signs of the Times
NEPAD is not the first development plan put forward by African
leaders. There have been other plans that have not mustered the
required international political will to be implemented, such as
the Lagos Plan of Action (1980).
Leaders of industrialised countries have argued that NEPAD is more
acceptable than previous plans because:
- Africa's current trend demands immediate intervention if the
Millennium Development Goal of halving world poverty by the year
2015 is to be met;N
- NEPAD says what donor governments have been waiting to hear for
a long time but have not heard in previous plans;N
- NEPAD has 'ownership' across the African continent; andN
- No amount of Official Development Aid (ODA) will fix Africa's
problems without private foreign direct investment (FDI) as a top
priority, as NEPAD proposes.
Nor are the issues addressed by NEPAD entirely new. Particularly
over the past eight years, debates have raged within international
institutions and national political processes about many of the
issues that NEPAD identifies as key areas for Africa's recovery,
much of it focused on the economic and political relations between
North and South countries. NEPAD takes a particular approach to
these various issues that is characterised by an effort to
transform North-South relations into one of "partnership". This can
be interpreted to be a pragmatic, middle way approach that tries to
blur clear choices between, for example, immediate poverty
eradication programmes and long-term economic growth strategies, or
debt cancellation and sustained debt servicing.
A review of the various issues that have been under the spotlight
in the past period is instructive for a credible assessment of
NEPAD's positions.
4.1. Conditionality From Below
NEPAD is essentially about the problem of conditionalities
associated with international financing arrangements. It is an
initiative by a nucleus of African governments to take ownership of
determining the conditions under which international financing is
provided so as to ensure the coherence, consistency, and political
legitimacy of such conditionality.
Church-based agencies active in campaigns and movements (such as
the Jubilee movement) for global social and economic justice argued
in the past for 'conditionality from below'. This was intended to
be a form of self-imposed conditionality by African countries
through processes of popular civil society participation as
compared to conditions being unilaterally imposed by creditors and
donors. It was meant to ensure that international financing and the
proceeds of debt cancellation are channelled to poverty eradication
rather than savings, arms procurement, new debt servicing, or other
expenditure that would not directly reduce current levels of
impoverishment, through nationally determined democratic processes.
4.2. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers
In 1999 2000, the multilateral institutions partly adopted these
arguments under the rhetoric of "ownership" through the
introduction of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF),
i.e. the renamed Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF).
They made national processes for compiling Poverty Reduction
Strategy Papers (PRSPs) mandatory for all highly indebted poor
countries (HIPCs) that wanted to qualify for debt relief under the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank's HIPC initiative.
However, after active participation in national PRSP processes,
PRSPs were widely regarded by popular civil society organisations
across Africa as a waste of time, even though the IMF/World Bank's
internal review of the PRSP process declared a consensus that PRSPs
were valuable processes that were improving, but that HIPC
countries had to be more "realistic".
Many countries were rushing through inadequate PRSP processes
because PRSPs were tied as a condition for debt relief, and
national PRSPs had to go back and forth between the HIPC countries
and the IMF/World Bank up to six times for amendments before they
were to be finally approved by the IMF/World Bank. In the end,
PRSPs turned out to be little more than the old Structural
Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). They were not delivering enough debt
relief to be able to seriously address poverty. However, not all
African countries are classified as HIPCs Nigeria and South Africa,
for example, do not fall into this IMF/World Bank category and
therefore did not qualify for any debt relief under this plan.
4.3. An African Negotiating Bloc
As a result of the political impasse in delivering meaningful debt
cancellation the global movement for socio-economic justice
(including the churches) made strong calls on African governments
to stand together as a political bloc, a "debtors' cartel" that
would share a negotiating position. This position was strengthened
through the experience of the 1999 World Trade Organisation (WTO)
meeting in Seattle which failed to open a new round of trade
negotiations because most African governments adopted a common
position which they were not prepared to compromise unless previous
unresolved WTO discussions relevant to Africa's needs were
finalised.
The promotion of the need for African governments to stand together
was intended to move towards a position of debt repudiation if
meaningful debt cancellation was not delivered by the end of the
year 2000. However, debt repudiation was considered to be a
non-viable option by the G77 Havana summit because of the unique
situations of some poor countries that would be unable to survive
the economic consequences.
4.4. Ending Wars & Building Solidarity
The churches and the global movement have also been very critical
of the wars and massive expenditure on armaments that have
continued to plague Africa since colonial times. With its focus on
poverty eradication, the churches have demanded an end to wars and
have promoted the development of greater solidarity amongst the
peoples of Africa Anglophone-Francophone, North-Sub-Saharan,
South-West, etc.
4.5. Free Market Fundamentalism
The socio-economic justice movement in Africa, with strong support
by the churches, heavily criticised the market fundamentalist
paradigm that has increasingly gripped the continent's national
macro-economic policies, directly linked to the conditionalities
associated with international financing and policy advice from the
IMF/World Bank. The major critique has been that market
fundamentalist structural adjustment programmes across Africa have:
* deepened poverty;
* been designed to ensure maximum debt repayment;
* increased inequality;
* resulted in spiralling unemployment;
* led to increased costs for basic services, food, fuel and energy
supplies, and social services;
* left African economies more vulnerable than they ever were
before;
* promoted values were detrimental to social development in Africa;
and
* deepened social and political instability on the continent.
4.6. Transparency & Democracy
A related major concern for the churches and global public action
campaigns has been democratic control of governments through
participatory processes, especially in determining economic
policies. The trend of increasing dependence by African governments
on advice from institutions like the IMF and World Bank has led to
a corresponding decrease of transparent and accountable processes
of democratic public policy decision-making. Parliaments throughout
Africa routinely do not have control over budget choices, nor do
they participate effectively in monitoring public expenditure.
There has especially been strong resistance by national treasuries
and the international financial institutions to ensuring effective
parliamentary (and thus, public) oversight on new borrowing.
4.7. Perceptions of Africa
There has been ongoing concern amongst key African development
practitioners that the continent is portrayed exclusively as a
hopeless case of endless wars, corruption, disease, and
dictatorship. The May 2002 cover story of The Economist, for
example, declared Africa to be "The Hopeless Continent". The
natural beauty, cultural richness, hospitality and sense of
celebration, richness of natural resources, academic excellence,
and technical skill throughout the continent does not form part of
the image of Africa that most leaders and citizens of countries
outside the continent have. Most of all, examples of progress or
sites of commercial development or beauty are either ignored or
seen as "un-African". This perception has a serious negative impact
on Africa in many spheres.
4.8. Africa on the Global Political Agenda
Africa had largely fallen off the global political and development
agenda since the end of the cold war. Recent global socio-economic
justice campaigns sought to place Africa, as the continent with the
most extreme poverty, squarely back on the agenda by exposing the
contradictions in current development paradigms as they played
themselves out in Africa. However, the global political and
economic policy regime resisted any real engagement with the debate
on the terms outlined by the public action groups and succeeded in
constantly out-manoeuvring campaigners, including the churches, in
the global public perception. They succeeded, for example, in
creating the false perception during the 1999 G7 summit in Cologne
that the debt crisis had been resolved.
4.9. Immediate Action on Poverty
An overriding concern in the many public action campaigns that were
undertaken in recent years was to ensure that economic systems are
transformed to deliver direct and immediate benefits to the poor in
Africa through global structural and policy changes to the current
system and through redistributive measures. However, the global
economic policy regime maintained the ideological position that
private capital led economic growth, in the hands of a few, would
eventually 'trickle down' to the poor and that that was the most
effective and sustainable way to overcome poverty.
4.10. Power Imbalances
The limited success of concerted global action by civil society
organisations to secure a better deal for the world's poor exposed
the problematic of the power relations and economic interests that
underlie the contradictions in the current form of globalisation.
It became clear that the mobilisation of greater popular opinion
and action was required to expand the boundaries of the political
space in which the debate occurs so that the current national and
international power relations may be shifted in favour of the poor
and excluded.
4.11. Privatisation
Major political conflict and social instability across Africa has
arisen over the experience of widespread privatisation of social
services and state assets. Rapid privatisation and restructuring
has led to spiralling joblessness and increased costs for basic
services across Africa, according to many different civil society
organisations and official statistics. However, privatisation was
strongly defended by the global political and economic regime,
including some African political leaders, as a necessary mechanism
to provide investment opportunities that would attract foreign
direct investment.
4.12. Reparations
There have been consistently growing calls for the beneficiaries of
slavery, colonialism, and apartheid to institute measures to repair
the legacy of social, political, economic, environmental, and
cultural damage that was done to Africa in its history. Proposed
measures included acknowledgement of past wrongs, truth-telling,
compensation, debt cancellation, preferential terms of
international trade, structural changes to global economic and
political systems, and some form of reconstruction plan for Africa
along the lines of Europe's post-Second World War 'Marshall Plan'.
These calls have been met with cynicism and rejection in
international business and political circles, including during the
2000 United Nations' World Conference Against Racism.
The standard way for North-country governments to deal with the
issue has been to state that they want to focus on building a
better future for the world rather than focusing on what happened
in the past. However, this thinking is shamelessly turned around
when addressing questions of increasing poverty and inequality in
the world undercurrent systems by saying that the historical
development of the world over the past two hundred years reveals a
dramatic trend of reduction in poverty and inequality.
5. Which Wedding Garments to Wear for the New Partnership?
A key method for evaluating NEPAD is to assess the extent to which
it offers possibilities to resolve the above problem areas relevant
to North-South relations and Africa's development needs. Of course,
we should not expect perfection from NEPAD. It is presented as a
starting point. It presents only a framework. Nonetheless, it is a
framework according to which we can assess the general direction
that is taken. NEPAD may be seen as Africa's attempt to present
itself in an acceptable manner to participate in the globalisation
wedding feast. But the kinds of garments NEPAD chooses are telling
of whose feast it is, who its guests will be, and what the quality
of the marriage will be.
5.1. African-Owned Conditionality?
The NEPAD framework provides the possibility for African-controlled
conditionality, even though it is an inadequate process in its
current form. It is determined by a nucleus of new generation
African leaders and is endorsed by the Organisation of African
Unity (OAU). G77 leaders have also been consulted about its
content, even though its shape has clearly been determined in
consultation with the IMF/World Bank and the G7. As an outline of
the conditions to which African leaders pledge themselves in
entering into a partnership with the industrialised countries,
NEPAD does not offer any dramatically new conditions. It largely
follows the kinds of conditions that have been demanded by creditor
and donor countries in the past, both in terms of governance and
economic strategy. However, it does include a proposed process for
mutual North-South evaluation and accountability, even though this
is not developed adequately.
5.2. Beyond Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers?
It is still unclear whether NEPAD intends to replace the PRSP
process or whether it simply intends to place the PRSP process
within a more developed framework.
Conflicting messages have been given by NEPAD spokespersons about
this, even though the NEPAD document does indicate that debt relief
should be linked to clearly identified poverty reduction plans.
While NEPAD could potentially remove IMF/World Bank control of
PRSPs, this would only affect countries that explicitly commit
themselves to NEPAD. That would amount to the same kind of imposed
conditionality on individual countries according to a similar
framework as used by the IMF/World Bank, albeit now from a source
closer to home. However, NEPAD can expand the scope of the poverty
eradication debate to all African countries rather than only the
HIPC countries because of its pan-African ownership.
NEPAD should be seen as an African continental PRSP. It follows the
same logic and structure as recommended by the IMF/World Bank in
developing national PRSPs, except that civil society participation
has been omitted, as may be seen in the diagram alongside.
5.3. A New African Bloc?
NEPAD is a promising initiative to develop dynamic collaboration
and accountability between African governments in a way that has
not happened before. It proposes to develop a code of conduct for
African leaders that will include a limitation of terms for heads
of state or government, as well as an independent peer review
mechanism that will make its reports public. In many ways this is
driven by a 'new-boys club' rather than the established 'old-boys
club' of the past. However, understood in the context of shifting
geopolitical alignments on the continent, this holds out the danger
that the continent may be divided along two very clear lines: those
backing NEPAD and those resisting it. Nonetheless, NEPAD holds out
the possibility of creating an African bloc of leaders that can, if
their policy and strategy advice is appropriate, radically alter
the path of Africa's future participation in multilateral
organisations.
5.4. Ending Africa's Wars
Highest priority is given to conflict management and resolution and
peace-building as a precondition for sustainable development. The
problem of conflict and wars in Africa is correctly associated with
concerns around Africa's natural resources, systems of governance,
and broader issues of poverty. African governments that have been
actively involved in NEPAD have already undertaking some promising
initiatives to end Africa's great wars and to promote political
rather than military processes for resolving conflicts that may
arise. However, the Sudan war remains the biggest challenge to
NEPAD's peace-building initiative. How African governments respond
in resolving the Sudan war will be the biggest test for NEPAD's
general objectives of building an African consensus for peace and
prosperity on the continent.
5.5. The Free Market & Africa's Recovery
The Model of Development: NEPAD fails to offer any alternative to
the dominant market fundamentalist development model that places
unquestioning faith in uncontrolled, private sector led, rapid
economic growth as the answer to the problem of rampant poverty,
despite the evidence that this strategy in fact deepens poverty,
increases unemployment, and widens inequality in the short and
medium term, while making national economies extremely vulnerable
to speculative capital and 'market sentiment'. NEPAD in fact
promotes a market-driven strategy as the solution to Africa's
problems, effectively sacrificing the poor who are here now for
some uncertain end in the distant future.
Social Spending: NEPAD will require more fiscal austerity from
African governments, especially in the delivery of social and basic
services. Even though health care and education are addressed in
the document, this cannot be interpreted to mean additional
resources for education and health care being channelled through
national budgets. Rather, resource mobilisation will happen through
'public-private partnerships', special global funds, and other
unreliable measures.
Debt Cancellation: NEPAD will propose a new approach to debt relief
in that it links debt relief to government revenues and government
spending on poverty reduction programmes according to nationally
determined goals. The problem is that NEPAD is expected to propose
a cap on debt servicing up to 10% of government revenues in this
way. Such projections on debt sustainability are similar to those
of the IMF/World Bank that have failed to deliver meaningful debt
relief. Much more significant debt cancellation is required if real
inroads to counter poverty are to be made. NEPAD, if taken
seriously by industrialised countries within the framework of a
'new partnership' with Africa, should offer the prospect of total
debt cancellation for a new beginning. In addition, special
consideration must be given to odious debts such as those of
Nigeria and South Africa.
A central concern about NEPAD's debt relief proposal is that the
problem of debt is located within NEPAD's resource mobilisation
initiative rather than identifying debt cancellation as a priority
pre-condition for sustainable development. The problem relates to
NEPAD identifying the conditions for sustainable development in
Africa as the exclusive responsibility of Africans, without
explicitly naming North-country responsibilities such as debt
cancellation and the need to adjust the global economic system to
be more just, transparent, democratic, and accountable.
Trade: NEPAD strongly advocates increased African access to
European and North American markets through the removal of trade
barriers in those regions and free-market determined prices for raw
materials through the removal of state subsidies especially to
agricultural production in those regions.
Rich countries subsidise their agricultural products to the tune of
$1 billion each day, leading to massive over-production of
agricultural products that are dumped on African economies. This
drives down prices for agricultural products so that African
countries get far less for their products than their actual worth.
In addition, when Africans export products to rich countries they
face high trade tariffs designed to protect rich country
industries. In a classic example of double standards, this causes
poor countries to lose more than $100 billion a year double what
they get in development aid from rich countries, while at the same
time Africa is under strong pressure from rich countries in the WTO
to rapidly remove trade barriers that protect its vulnerable
industries. The opening up of Africa's markets is supported by
NEPAD in the framework of increased regionalisation and
participation in the global economy.
Given strong European resistance to opening their markets to easy
foreign agricultural trade as evidenced in trade negotiations
between the European Union and South Africa, as well as the recent
introduction of heavy tariffs on the export of European steel to
the United States of America, it is very doubtful that the worlds
richest countries will treat politically weak African countries
favourably by giving in to fair terms of trade.
In any event, only those African countries with a strong export
capacity will possibly benefit from fairer terms of trade. Even
then, large monopoly agribusiness interests will be the winners
rather than small-scale farmers who produce primarily for local
markets and thus provide food security in underdeveloped countries.
Even though market access for African products is a big problem for
exporting African countries, the focus on market access is
inaccurate in its identification of the central problem for Africa
in the global trading system. The real problem relates to the
indiscriminate removal of protections on trade in industry,
services, and agriculture being enforced upon Africa in the WTO,
leading to increased food and economic insecurity. NEPAD's market
access focus promotes a model of export-oriented growth. This
strategy ignores the need to reorient production from export
agriculture based on big landed and corporate interests to
small-farm based production systems producing principally for the
local market and protected by tariffs and quotas from unfair
competition by subsidized products dumped by the Northern
countries.
5.6. Democratic Participation?
NEPAD completely failed to meaningfully engage with communities and
civil society organisations concerning its process and content.
This highlights the problematic trend in the "globalised" world for
major national and international priorities to be determined
outside of democratic processes in un-transparent, unaccountable
processes in the international sphere. While NEPAD, by design, did
not include space for civil society input into its initial
development, it did, by design, include high-level consultation
with the IMF/World Bank and leaders of industrialised countries and
the private business leaders.
However, an assessment of public participation in the NEPAD process
does not hinge on whether this or that particular group was
consulted. It is more about the strategic orientation and content
of NEPAD. The point is that NEPAD, in its current form, is not
informed by the lived experience, the needs and knowledge of the
communities it is meant to represent in a new vision for Africa's
development. There can be no sustainable development without the
participation of the communities affected.
5.7. Changing Perceptions of Africa
NEPAD is in many respects a marketing strategy for Africa that
attempts to overcome the negative image and sentiment that Africa
generates in the consciousness of many political, business, and
civil society circles outside the continent. It has, for whatever
reasons, received much acclaim and has won international political
respectability that could be harnessed for the benefit of the
continent.
5.8. Africa on the Global Agenda
NEPAD has succeeded to engage the global political and economic
powers in a direct dialogue on the course of Africa's development
so that the upcoming G7 Kananaskis summit has Africa and NEPAD as
a major theme. The political will that has been generated through
the NEPAD process as a result of energetic work by Africa's
leaders, represents a major achievement for NEPAD that must be
applauded. However, the direction in which that political will has
been mustered is ambiguous at best. It remains to be seen whether
the political will can be sustained if democratic processes alter
the direction of NEPAD's primary focus.
5.9. Poverty is a Secondary Focus
The strategies adopted by NEPAD are intended to deliver long-term
and indirect poverty alleviation through mechanisms that have not
yet delivered real benefits to the poor in African countries that
have tried them. NEPAD has no clear plan to address the current
crisis of impoverishment that is rampant across Africa, including
the joblessness crisis. In its current form, it is therefore not a
plan that can be relied on to deliver immediate benefits to the
growing numbers of impoverished people in Africa. This is a major
problem that cannot be avoided in a development plan for Africa
such as NEPAD.
5.10. Redistributing Power?
The current international power relations determine the boundaries
of possibility for developing an effective development plan for
Africa. NEPAD does not make clear proposals to change the current
power relations that are the single biggest obstacle to Africa's
development. It in fact proposes greater participation in the
current international political and economic governance structures
and processes as they are now, in the framework of 'a new
partnership'. However, 'partnership' in a context of seriously
disproportionate power relations, amounts to little more than
domination.
5.11. The Lure of Privatisation
NEPAD adopts rapid and extensive privatisation in various forms as
a key strategy to offer investment opportunities, attract foreign
investment, and develop infrastructure across the continent. It
does this in a way that pretends to be unaware of the severe social
consequences of such measures, especially in a context of
widespread poverty and inequality.
5.12. What About Reparations?
Only passing mention is given by NEPAD to Africa's history of
slavery and colonialism with no mention of the need for
reparations. This represents a political decision by NEPAD's
engineers to avoid the politically charged language of historical
justice and reparations. However, NEPAD presents itself in many
ways as a post-colonial Marshall Plan for Africa's recovery.
However, reparations remain a major concern not only amongst the
Southern African victims of severe human rights violations under
apartheid, but among a wide variety of civil society groups across
the continent.
Paying individual compensation to such victims relates not only to
Africa's distant past but also to the negative environmental,
health, and human rights impact that trans-national corporations
continue to have in many parts of Africa. NEPAD does not provide
any framework for resolving these concerns. Nor does it provide an
ethical basis for engaging with business leaders to contribute to
Africa's reconstruction or protective guarantees that the rights of
Africa's people and environment will be defended under NEPAD so
that Africa does not pay twice for its freedom.
6. That We May Have Life
The church has a duty to engage with Africa's legitimate political
leaders in the interests of the common good of Africa and the
world. We do this in a way that respects our unique areas of
competence, with a fundamental commitment to raising the legitimate
hopes and aspirations of those who are excluded. Accordingly, the
church engages with NEPAD as a flawed and inadequate but welcome
initiative for Africa's inclusion as part of the global human
community.
6.1. Mustard Seeds
NEPAD contains several important elements that could be further
developed into effective mechanisms for Africa's reconstruction and
development. These signs of hope present us with unique
possibilities for growth if they are affirmed and nurtured:
6.1.1. NEPAD could remove the unilateral imposition of
conditionalities by donors if it is a process that is determined by
African leaders through participatory democratic processes at the
national level.
6.1.2. NEPAD can provide an authentic African development model to
respond to widespread poverty if it is informed by the real needs
of impoverished communities.
6.1.3. NEPAD provides a real possibility to develop more effective
collaboration and accountability between African governments in the
interests of Africa, especially in multilateral forums, if it is an
inclusive process across Africa.
6.1.4. NEPAD generates focused and widespread political will to end
the wars that continue to plague Africa.
6.1.5. NEPAD can be an effective mechanism to transform the global
perception that Africa is a lost continent.
6.1.6. NEPAD can be an effective mechanism to engage industrialised
countries in an honest, transparent, and ongoing discourse about
Africa in the context of globalisation, so as to transform
incorrect assumptions about the benefits of the globalisation
enterprise.
6.1.7. NEPAD can provide an alternative model for debt cancellation
that goes beyond the current impasse.
6.2. Building on Unstable Ground
Some crucial aspects of NEPAD are very disturbing. Despite
widespread public discontent, NEPAD makes proposals that have not
proven to be effective to build stable, just, and caring societies
in Africa:
6.2.1. NEPAD articulates the serious negative impact on Africa of
"globalisation's" market fundamentalist development model but then
goes on to adopt and promote more of the same model as the solution
to Africa's economic problems. NEPAD's macro-economic framework
must be seriously questioned on the basis of the current experience
of the poor in African countries that have already adopted these
policies.
6.2.2. NEPAD pretends to be unaware of the severe negative impact
that rapid privatisation of social and basic services has on
impoverished and highly indebted communities.
6.2.2. The process that gave rise to NEPAD glaringly neglected
popular participation in any meaningful form. There can be no real
development without the participation of Africa's people at all
stages of the process.
6.2.3. NEPAD fails to address the underlying international and
national power relations, structures, and processes that will
ultimately determine the success or failure of the process.
6.2.4. NEPAD does not offer clear prospects to resolve the call for
reparations that are due to Africa's people.
6.3. Restoring our Vision
Africa's reconstruction and development is our collective
responsibility. The church must participate with energy and
commitment in this task. Accordingly, the following proposals are
made to correct the failures of the NEPAD process and to improve
its content and focus:
6.3.1. NEPAD must recognise that Africa requires a fresh start.
Africa cannot begin to develop unless the massive current social
backlog is directly addressed as a first step. NEPAD should
therefore include, as a priority, an additional programme to
deliver immediate and direct anti-poverty interventions that will
lift the poor out of their current suffering. NEPAD, in its current
form, is a long-term strategy that hopes to deliver indirect
benefits to the poor. An additional new anti-poverty programme
should include short-term job-creating infrastructure development
programmes, development grants to individuals such as South
Africa's proposed Basic Income Grant, subsidies for the provision
of basic services such as water and electricity, comprehensive
programmes for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, greater
protection for small industries that are particularly vulnerable to
the forces of globalisation, and land transfers to households.
6.3.2. Meaningful debt cancellation must be prioritised as a
precondition for the success of any other medium or long-term
strategy for social and economic recovery.
6.3.3. NEPAD must give higher priority to rapidly increased
investment in social services such as health care and education,
rather than the low priority that social services are currently
given in NEPAD's plans.
6.3.4. NEPAD must support proposals for corrective changes to the
international financial system such as the proposed international
currency transaction tax that could be implemented at national
level, and that a set proportion of the revenues raised in rich
countries should be directed to Africa's reconstruction and
development.
6.3.5. NEPAD must address the call for corrective action to repair
the damage caused to individuals and communities as a result of
Africa's history of slavery, colonialism, and apartheid.
6.3.6. Broad-based national popular consultation processes must be
initiated across Africa to review the NEPAD programme. To this end,
a civil society liaison unit should be established within the NEPAD
secretariat and national civil society representatives should be
elected to participate in official NEPAD discussions.
6.4. Dealers in the Temple
Faithful to continuing the mission of Christ, the church must
continue to raise the collective public conscience about how
current global financial, trade, and political systems hurt the
poor throughout the world, in the same way that Jesus "upset the
tables of the money changers and the seats of the dove sellers".
The power relations that determine the limits of possibility for
transforming global structures into just and caring systems remains
the biggest challenge to Africa's reconstruction and development.
The Earth is the household of God; humanity is God's temple. The
global human community is called to live in dignity and solidarity.
A better life is possible for Africa's people.
7. Diversion & Selectivity: The G7 Response to NEPAD
An assessment of NEPAD would be incomplete without an assessment of
how the G7 will respond to it. NEPAD has been given centre-stage
during the 2002 G7 summit in Kananaskis, Canada. In response to
NEPAD, the G7 have emphasised that Africa should not expect too
much too soon, especially not a general commitment to mobilise the
$64 billion that would be required to ensure NEPAD's success. Their
Africa Plan to be announced in June 2002 is expected to contain
three components:
* A "paradigm shift" in development thinking on Africa.
* Five action areas based on the Millennium Development Goals,
especially to halve world poverty by the year 2015, and chosen in
partnership with African governments: - Peace & Security -
Governance - Knowledge (more than education) and Health - Trade &
Investment - Water.
* An "enhanced partnership" with those countries that have already
demonstrated to their African peers that they are living up to
their NEPAD commitments.
Concern must be raised about exactly what the nature of the G7's
paradigm shift on Africa will be. It is evident that there will be
two elements to it:
- Certain African countries that fully adopt the NEPAD model will
be selectively favoured by the G7 above other problem countries
that do not toe the line. NEPAD's proposed peer review mechanism,
including a code of conduct for African leaders, will be used as
the primary mechanism for determining NEPAD's winners and losers in
Africa. While NEPAD presents itself as a framework for more
effective African solidarity and collaboration, this is a recipe
for increased competition and division in Africa
- NEPAD sees private capital investment as the missing link for
Africa's development. It is effectively a model to attract foreign
direct investment as the primary strategy to promote rapid economic
growth. The G7 will happily support this model of development above
increased ODA, debt cancellation, and direct poverty eradication
programmes.
The G7 are, in effect, supporting the cost-free aspects of NEPAD
while avoiding a renewed commitment to provide additional resources
for Africa's development. The result will be the diversion of ODA
and other financing sources to indirect support such as policy
advice and to private sector development rather than direct budget
support to poor countries according to their nationally determined
poverty reduction priorities.
A recently leaked European Union Commission (EC) document sent to
African and other developing countries demanding immediate
privatisation of key service sectors including water, gives an
indication of the kind of development the G7 will promote in their
"action areas" under NEPAD. The EC has demanded further trade
liberalisation in the provision of basic services to communities
across the continent. Essentially the request made by the EC is a
demand to fast-track privatisation even if it undermines national
sovereignty.
European companies who are keen to extend their economic interests
in water privatisation, for example, around the world will be the
primary beneficiaries. But the privatisation of water has a
terrible track record. For many people in South Africa, for
example, particularly minimum-waged or unemployed women, water
bills have suddenly accounted for close to half their monthly
income.
A G7 over-emphasis on peace-building and governance issues in
Africa without a corresponding commitment to support Africa's
reconstruction and development in material budget-support terms
does not inspire confidence in NEPAD. This wait-and-see attitude
reinforces the distrust that makes many believe that African
development based on the hope of a new partnership with rich
countries is not viable.
In the same way that many African countries are willing to
undertake a path of self-criticism and renewal, G7 leaders must
make a firm commitment to support Africa according to the
priorities and plans that are set through participatory and
democratic processes in African countries.
8. Conclusion
NEPAD is an ambiguous plan. While its analysis of the problems that
confront Africa is accurate and its end goal of an African
continent free from war and poverty expresses the deep-felt hope of
all Africans and people of good will, the economic path it chooses
is bound to deny Africa's hopes.
NEPAD proposes greater African incorporation into the current
global economic system as the solution to Africa's economic
problems. This ignores the fact that part of the problem is that
Africa is already more integrated into the global economy than any
other continent, to the detriment of Africa. Africa is already too
economically dependent on the rest of the world. Its trade with the
rest of the world accounts for 45.6% of its total economic activity
while the same ratio is only 13.2% for North America, 12.8% for
Europe, 23.7% for Latin America, and 15.2% for Asia.
The extent to which civil society structures in Africa are able to
hold their governments to account through democratic processes will
be the extent to which governments are accountable and transparent.
A recovery plan for Africa should focus its vision in the first
instance on direct and immediate measures to assist local
communities to break out of the poverty trap. This can be an
effective way to boost people-centred economic growth that builds
social stability, human security, and prosperity in Africa.
However, not all Africa's problems can find their solution in that
way. Challenges to end regional wars and to support international
efforts for conflict resolution in particular countries require an
international focus that is entirely necessary.
NEPAD's vision is blurred by setting its sights on the hope that
greater global integration will save Africa. This arises from the
absence of popular participation in determining its focus. Yet
NEPAD's vision can be restored if Africa's leaders enter into a new
partnership with their people. The vision of a new Africa dawning
in the twenty-first century is too precious to be lost because we
failed to see that Africa's children, men, and women are its
greatest treasure.
"The continent's struggles for self determination and racial
equality, particularly the campaign against apartheid, helped shape
many international human rights instruments. This is a debt the
world owes to Africa, but which is not often recognized. Africa's
recent initiatives for political and economic recovery offer
opportunities for the international community to begin to redeem
that debt. We must create true partnerships with African peoples
and institutions if real change is to take place in the material
conditions of the people and enduring democratic foundations are to
be strengthened or built." Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, 10 December 2001
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by
Africa Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information
Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa).
Africa Action's information services provide accessible
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
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