Ten years on - NEPAD’s track record shows successes

NEPAD is a Vision and Strategic Framework for Africa’s Renewal

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, of the Republic of Niger and Prime Minister of that country from November 1997 to January 2000, is intent on taking their Partnerships and Implementation to new heights – and lengths.

What is NEPAD
NEPAD represents the wave of change that is shaping the new Africa. It represents a paradigm shift in development thinking and practice in Africa. When the African leaders founded NEPAD in 2001, they were sending a powerful message to the African and global community that Africa should not be allowed to remain the home of global poverty and marginalisation.

NEPAD is a vision and strategic action plan for addressing the challenges that are faced by the continent. NEPAD places emphasis on pushing for policy reforms and the creation of an enabling environment for Africa’s development at the national, regional and global levels.  

The key dimensions of NEPAD are two-folded – Accountability and Integration. Firstly, the programme is based on Africans counting on themselves in order to achieve the set African Union (AU) vision as espoused in the AU Constitutive Act and the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) without exclusively relying on foreign aid; and secondly, giving special focus on regional integration. African development will not be possible without regional integration.

The NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) is responsible for maintaining oversight over the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) - the African Union’s (AU) development agenda. The NEPAD Agency was preceeded by the NEPAD Secretariat, which was initially established to implemented.

Ten years on, processes and procedures have been put in place, a legal mandate secured, and partners brought on board to assist with the roll out of programmes.

The strategic direction of the NEPAD Agency is based on the following thematic areas:

a. Agriculture and Food Security;
b. Climate Change and Natural Resource Management;
c. Regional Integration and Infrastructure;
d. Human Development;
e. Economic and Corporate Governance; and
f. Crosscutting Issues of Gender and Capacity Development.

Advancing Africa’s Development through NEPAD
As an intermediary and broker, the NEPAD Agency plays a catalytic role among African constituents and partners, and between African partners and partners outside Africa. As coordinator of NEPAD programmes and projects across the continent, the NEPAD Agency has its ‘finger on the pulse’ and is in a unique position to seize opportunities to advance the AU vision for Africa’s development.

The NEPAD vision is inclusive; it reaches out to all strata of African society and shows them how they can be part of making the vision a reality. Successes over the last ten years have shown that Africans can indeed address their own development and growth and do not need to be dependent or rely on others. The direction for NEPAD and the work of the NEPAD Agency are clear. African leaders, civil society, the media, academia and development partners recognise that the work of NEPAD provides a new hope for the future development of Africa.

In Dr. Mayaki’s words: “What we need to do now is accelerate progress. We need to secure significant technical and financial resources. Although the main development partners have declared NEPAD ‘as a bold and clear-sighted vision’ and pledged support, African leaders strongly affirm that the main responsibility for Africa’s development lies with Africans themselves. Africans need to work much harder to mobilise resources from within the continent. More critically,” he continues “we need the private sector to play a much bigger part in advancing Africa’s development.”  African economies and societies have vast human and natural resources. Realising the potential of these will put Africa on a strong footing. The onus is upon Africans to realise the NEPAD vision. With its partners from both within and outside Africa and from all sectors of society, the NEPAD Agency will build on successes and make sure ‘our African vision’ becomes ‘our African reality’.

The future
With regard to the future, NEPAD is seen in a very positive light. The NEPAD Agency has highly skilled staff and an exceptionally good reputation with its partners. The strategic plan will, very strictly, encompass the mandate which has been defined for the Agency. It is building an organisational culture based on participatory mechanisms which will help to collectively describe and attain NEPAD programmes and activities.

“However”, Dr. Mayaki adds, “the principles and values of NEPAD are owned by every citizen of Africa (including the Diaspora) across various groupings and levels – the private sector, governments, regional economic communities and non-state actors. The relevance and success of NEPAD depends on the extent to which the African people and particularly civil society are involved in the process of implementing NEPAD.”

Successes
NEPAD’s track record shows that without NEPAD, Africa would not have recorded the following successes:

• There would be no method for African countries to review each other’s governance and hold each other to account;
• No African government would be pushed to allocate 10 per cent of its national budget to agriculture asis required by the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and 27 countrieswould not have signed the CAADP compact;
• A pan-African policy mechanism for reforms in the fisheries sector would not be in existence;
• Close to 100 primary and secondary schools in Uganda, Lesotho, Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal, Nigeria and Kenyawill not have benefitted in 10 years from 20 or more PCs;
• $1.5 million would not have been allocated to train nurses and midwives to post-graduate level;
• Over 300 African students would not have received high-level education on mathematical sciences throughthe African Institute of Mathematical Sciences, which is supported by African Universities in collaboration with the likes of Cambridge and Oxford;
• There would be no system to harmonise how medicines in Africa are registered, reducing a huge number of counterfeit medicines on the continent;
• There would be no research into herbal remedies to treat HIV/AIDS through the African Bioscience Initiative;
• Hundreds of thousands of women will not have benefitted from 20 million Euros, disbursed to empowerwomen in knowledge development, education, access to HIV/AIDS prevention or ICT skills through the Nepad Spanish Fund;
• There would be no forum to discuss how regional integration, trade and infrastructure can be harmonised and improved through initiatives such as the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa;
• There would be no strategic and harmonised lobbying, advocacy and knowledge sharing on behalf of Africa in areas such as debt relief, climate change and increased market access for African exports;
• There would be no framework to streamline capacity development activities across the continent;
• The Timbuktu Manuscripts would not have been preserved and there would be no attempts to digitise them as part of many Nepad-inspired cultural initiatives.

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