ECHOING the dismay recently expressed by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma about the state of the African Union’s (AU’s) finances, Dr Ibrahim Mayaki, CEO of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) said he was disappointed that 80% of Nepad’s programmes were funded by external partners.

"I think that with ownership being a key value of Nepad we need to reduce that dependency," Dr Mayaki said in a recent interview with Business Day.

He outlined his plans for Nepad for next year, and, looking back over the organisation’s first decade, highlighted some of its successes and failures — chief among them the high level of donor funding.

Dr Mayaki explained that he would like to see the ratio reversed, but to achieve that certain conditions had to be met. "Member states need to see us behaving efficiently. If they see that they will put in more money. The second condition is the political will within the countries."

The same challenges face Ms Dlamini-Zuma, who was "shocked" when she took office as commissioner last month to find only 3% of the organisation’s programmes are financed by member states.

The brainchild of Thabo Mbeki and the former president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, Nepad was founded in 2001 at a time when the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s structural adjustment programmes had been discredited and the promotion of poverty reduction strategies and the UN’s millennium development goals (MDGs) brought economic progress into sharp focus.

The institution was tasked with poverty eradication, the promotion of sustainable growth and development, increasing Africa’s integration into the world economy, and the empowerment of women. It was to be the continent’s instrument for attaining the MDGs.

There was a pronounced overlap between the AU Commission and Nepad, resulting in inefficiencies and institutional jealousies, admits Dr Mayaki. But a long harmonisation process has helped to define the roles and responsibilities of the two institutions.

Dr Mayaki now sees Nepad as one part of a continental super-structure that has the UN Economic Commission for Africa playing the role of think tank and the African Development Bank as financier, while the AU Commission oversees development of regional integration policy with Nepad on the ground to implement it.

Dr Mayaki says one of Nepad’s greatest successes during the past decade has been the development of continental frameworks such as the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme, and the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa. "We were not used to thinking about the regional integration agenda in terms of continental frameworks, regionalised and then implemented nationally," he explains.

Pointing to the organisation’s "physical achievements", Dr Mayaki singled out progress in the construction of the ACE (African Coast to Europe) submarine fiber optic cable to boost internet access; the creation of power pool interconnections in West and East Africa; and, in Southern Africa, the improvement of the north-south corridor.

To cement these achievements and for the successful completion of the first phase of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (2012-20) Nepad needs to channel $68bn over the next 8 years to 51 infrastructure projects (24 in transport, 15 in energy, 9 in water and 3 in information technology).

Dr Mayaki says Nepad’s interaction with civil society and the private sector has to be improved.

"As an institution we did not give civil society a sufficient role and that really impacted on our visibility," he says.

Nepad’s engagement with the private sector "has to be a partnership where the private sector feeds into the design process of a project so they have ownership".

Looking forward to next year he singled out four key issues on Nepad’s agenda: significant growth in the implementation of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa; moving beyond the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme towards rural transformation; the reinforcement of activities in capacity building; and the advancement of women’s empowerment.

Source: Business Day (http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/africa/2012/11/19/nepad-aims-to-get-off-beggars-kneepads)