The New Partnership for Africa’s Development

Dr. Richard Mshomba

African leaders ­ dictators and democratically-elected leaders alike have always stated that development was their top priority. In fact, every few years, African leaders devote a summit to an initiative for economic cooperation and development. The latest of these initiatives is the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). What should we be striving for in terms of this new partnership and what exactly do we mean by development?

The term development refers to improvement in the standard of living in terms of access to basic needs and social services such as education and health care. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ranks countries based on their relative development using the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI is calculated based on life expectancy, the average years of schooling, and the average income per person. Most of the Sub-Saharan African countries are ranked the lowest. Even in absolute terms, some indicators of development, such as life expectancy, show that Sub-Saharan Africa is slipping. Certainly the need for greater development in Africa is real.

NEPAD emphasizes the role of the private sector, trade, and regional cooperation in achieving development. However, in many aspects, NEPAD is not unique from Africa-wide initiatives preceding it. Those include the Lagos Plan of Action for the Economic Development of Africa (1980), Africa’s Priority Programme for Economic Recovery (1986), the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programme for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation (1989), and the Abuja Treaty (1994). The Lagos Plan had set the year 2000 as the time by which an African Common Market ­ free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor ­ would be established. The Abuja Treaty pushed the target year back to 2022 for an African Common Market.

What may set NEPAD apart from the preceding initiatives is the way its language and economic orientation is explicitly in harmony with what is espoused by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and even the World Trade Organization. This may mean that African countries could have a better working relationship with these institutions and developed countries in general. Either that or African countries are, in effect, setting themselves up for further dependence and dominance by developed countries.

It is an understatement to say that Africa needs assistance. Nonetheless, sustainable economic development and regional integration in Africa require a commitment that is independent of foreign assistance. It must be a commitment borne out of conviction and confidence in the potential of Africa and its people. For a development initiative principally grounded in self-determination, African countries must have real ownership.

Some African leaders, led by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, have repeatedly asserted that NEPAD is owned and controlled by Africans.

However, implementing NEPAD’s ambitious programs requires 64 billion U.S. dollars annually, most of which is requested from the G8 -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, U.K, U.S., and a regular invitee, Russia. Note that already a significant proportion of the central government budgets in most

African counties is dependent on grants from abroad. As the G8 met in France in June 2003, there were complaints that Africa and NEPAD were marginalized as the G8 focused on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Regardless of how much assistance Africa needs or deserves, the focus for Africans must always be on what Africa can do on its own with careful use and management of its resources.

This requires a change in the mindset of some African leaders. NEPAD’s assumed role to bring the continent into a new age of peace, security, stability, economic growth, and prosperity is too dependent on donors (often referred to as partners). With NEPAD, African governments have committed to being accountable to donors. Some critics, including President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia, have called NEPAD, figuratively, a kneepad, that is, something to kneel on so as to beg. It is too early to predict what NEPAD will accomplish. However, the most critical partnership is neither between African leaders themselves nor between African leaders and those of the G8. The partnership among African leaders often takes the form of protecting and praising each other, regardless of merit. The partnership between African leaders and those of the G8 has always been asymmetrical.

The most important partnership for NEPAD to have a chance to achieve its goals is the one between each African leader and his or her own people. African leaders must, first and foremost, commit to being accountable and loyal to their own people. That accountability should then guide them in their interaction and accountability to other African leaders, as well as donors. African leaders must also change the mindset of dependence and refrain from personal opportunism that cost them ownership of the development programs. With a real commitment by African leaders to their people and a real focus on development, NEPAD may become a formidable initiative for development.

Richard E. Mshomba, Ph.D., is Professor of Economics at La Salle University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

E-mail:  mshomba@lasalle

Last modified: August 29, 2003.
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