Posted on 04/28/2003 4:53:01 AM PDT by Clive
THE New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) is a strategy document which reflects a new constellation on the African continent at the beginning of the 21st century.
But critical observers ask if this is once again old wine in new bottles. And indeed, its socio-economic catalogue offers hardly any new conceptual approach.
It reflects the dominant neo-liberal paradigm of the international financial institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
It hence offers no alternatives to the current trends of economic globalisation but instead adheres to the underlying concept of liberalised trade regimes and the dogma of the private economy.
Rather, it seeks to identify and occupy a niche to gain from the existing (though grossly unequal and discriminating) structures of the world market.
The new quality of Nepad lies not in its economic policy approach but in the hitherto unprecedented claim for collective responsibility over policy issues. The notion of "good governance" is explicitly recognised as a substantial ingredient to socio-economic development.
Nepad identifies "as one of its foundations, the expansion of democratic frontiers and the deepening of the culture of human rights". Its strong emphasis on democracy and governance is different from earlier initiatives to promote, propagate, and seek external support for African development. Conflict prevention, democracy and governance are considered of primary importance.
Critics fear, however, that this is not necessarily a tool contributing towards emancipation. Namibia's Minister of Agriculture warned in mid-April: "Nepad should not be used as a political tool to demand human rights, democracy and other unnecessary conditions by the developed world."
One might ask, of course, why human rights and democracy are considered as "unnecessary", especially in a country with a constitution like Namibia, basing its core values on exactly these notions.
Many African governments seem at best reserved and reluctant, if not dismissive towards the initiative. Those in political power find it difficult to identify immediate gains from the commitment to Nepad.
The policy issues brought forward provoke suspicion if and to what extent conditionalities are once again introduced as a political yardstick by Western industrialised countries to impose certain concepts of political culture upon African societies and those in control of political power there.
But even if this might be a valid objection, certain substantive issues do qualify without any compromise as being in line with the universal ingredients of democracy and human rights.
Compliance with such essentials would be a prerequisite for good governance whatever socio-cultural reasons might exist to justify deviations.
Hence, as long as the policy makers in a country adhere to such values and norms, no outside authority would have any reason to question the country's good governance.
Scepticism towards the Nepad credo is consequently simply unnecessary: A plural society honouring the protection of human rights of all citizens and ensuring their full civic participation in the country's matters has no reason to be afraid of any democratic notion, including the one in Nepad.
As a good governance initiative (though admittedly less so for its uninspiring socio-economic orientation) Nepad might contribute towards rehabilitating the continent currently perceived as a cradle for despotic rulers, nepotism and other forms of abuse of power.
To achieve the overdue correction of the negative image would in turn exert at least moral (and hence political) pressure on the external actors to offer more meaningful support to the new partnership which aims to reduce the continued marginalisation of a whole continent through unfair global structures.
The African Peer Review Mecha-nism (APRM) designed for implementation among the countries willing to adhere to the Nepad principles, originally promised to offer a control instrument to ensure compliance with a set of agreed virtues and norms exercised by governments, and hence a means to enhance more legitimacy when advocating African interests as interests of the African people in the global arena.
In mid-2002 Nepad - despite (and because of) the lukewarm and evasive stand on Zimbabwe by its Nigerian and South African main architects and protagonists - had managed to gain both the support by the most powerful and influential external actors represented in the G8 and the EU and formal acceptance through the AU member-states.
But the criticism articulated on the continent towards executing any degree of political normative control over affairs of other states resulted in a serious setback to its already damaged credibility.
As a substantial compromise, the APRM will concentrate more on the monitoring of socio-economic performance and will at best, with some reluctance even of Nepad member- states, undertake any co-ordinated assessment of policy issues related to the notion of good governance.
It therefore comes as a no surprise, though as another disappointment, that politicians of the calibre of Namibia's prime minister dismiss the issue of good governance in Nepad so lightly.
In early April he took the liberty to publicly consign the APRM "to the dustbin of history as a sham" and disqualified it "as a misleading new name for the old, discredited, structural adjustment fiasco".
He equated the APRM with neo-colonialism and as "a killer disease". He said "we must run away from it".
Despite all the original optimism concerning the political credo advocated by Nepad, therefore, the blueprint seems to offer in terms of its implementation procedures hardly any new approach in the practices of African political leaders.
In that sense, while it might be more than old wine in new bottles, Nepad might well turn out to be new wine in old bottles.
The result for the African continent might be far less than a victory, but closer to defeat - at least for those who consider democracy and human rights as substantial elements for any meaningful degree of development.
l Dr Henning Melber is research director at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. He was director of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit between 1992 and 2000.
The only time Africa worked was when it was mostly European colonies. I'm not aware of any African country (Sub Saharan that is) that has demonstrated the abilty to self govern. (South Africa and Rhodesia did OK until we messed up their system, but of course they were still operating in a european mode at that time)
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