Summit on the NEPAD evaluated its implementation and made recommendations for Challenges ahead
During an extraordinary Summit held in Algiers (Algeria) on 21st March 2007, around twenty Heads of State and Government from Africa evaluated the implementation and realization of the NEPAD. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) has been conceived as a strategy to set conditions (strenghten good governance, democracy, prevent and manage conflicts, develop physical infrastructures and ICT, etc.) for Africa’s development. Unfortunately, so far, and since its adoption in 2001, the NEPAD didn’t meet expectations African leaders and analysts placed into it; for instance, the construction of infrastructures, that is supposed to strengthen regional integration and boost intra-african trade within sub-regions and Africa at large, experienced some delays which kindled some critics and doubts about the NEPAD’s efficacy to support Africa’s long walk towards sustainable growth and development.
Despite these difficulites, one must take into consideration the numerous challenges (economical, political, technological, social, cultural, etc.) Africa is facing, and therefore bear in mind that achieving these objectives will require sustainable efforts and commitments. In that respect, African leaders and analysts should try to improve the NEPAD instead of undermining its work, considering it an usefulness instrument and calling for the creation of another institutions or initivitives. The multiplication of institutions will not necessarily create development. To illustrate that fact, the existence of several (sometimes competing) sub-regional and regional organizations throughout African, aiming at enhancing Africa’s integration does not necessarily positively impacted on the continents’ integration. We must rather try to improve existing institutions and programs. The summit also raised lack of sufficient financial support from the international community to fund the construction of infrastructures.
The NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) which met during that event, took note of the joint proposal by the African Union Commission and the NEPAD Secretariat of the integration into the Processes and Structures of the African Union (AU) whose objective is certainly to rationalize and coordinate efforts at the continental level to carry out with more efficiently NEPAD’s projects and avoid duplication; the HSGIC also concluded that the NEPAD is a Program of the AU which constitutes a philosophical framework, a vision and mission for Africa, not an implementing institution. Furthermore, it precised that the implementation of the NEPAD should be done through countries, Regional Economic Communities (REC), Development institutions requires, Bilateral and Multilateral organizations.
Some precisions have also been made relating to the organizationnal structure of the NEPAD; with regard to these clarifications, the NEPAD Secretariat is to be conceived as a technical body, and the HSGIC as an executive body which provides leadership and political orientation to the NEPAD Secretariat. The HSGIC also recommended the creation of a Planning and Coordinating Authority whose profile and structure should be defined later.
