THE NEW PARTNERSHIP FOR AFRICAS DEVELOPMENT (NEPAD): WHAT WENT WRONG?

PAPER ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THINKING BEYOND: JOURNAL OF ALTERNATIVES FOR A DEMOCRATIC ZIMBABWE, VOL.1, 17, 2012 TO COMMEMORATE THE 1OTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AFRICAN UNION. BY RAYMOND DAMBA As the African Union (AU) commemorates its tenth anniversary, it is imperative to reflect on its achievements; in particular the NEPAD initiative. Peddled as the panacea to Africas social, economic and political malaise in the era of globalization, NEPAD can be criticized, at best as unattainable and at worst, as utopian. At its inception, proponents of the NEPAD project envisioned a situation in which Africa would be a master of her own destiny. On the contrary, it can be averred that NEPAD was doomed to failure from its very inauguration. This paper analyses the shortcomings of one of the AUs most well intentioned but ambitious projects. According to the NEPAD framework document, its overall aim could be summed up as a pledge by African leaders to position the continent on an accelerated path of social, technological and economic development (www.afriap.org/standards.php). It was depicted by its exponents as a holistic strategic framework for the socio-economic development of Africa, and a commitment by African leaders to the people of Africa and the international community to place Africa on the path to sustainable development (Karuumbe, http://www.alm.org/index.php/nepad/71). I am convinced that NEPAD had nothing to offer except these good intentions. This is what went wrong. Like its predecessor initiatives, the Lagos Plan of Action (1980), The African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment for Socio-economic Transformation (1989) and the African Charter for Popular Participation in Development (1990), NEPAD was destined to fail. NEPAD was conceived when the debate about the 'African Renaissance' was fashionable. However, as noted above, it was not a new development initiative. There was really nothing new in NEPAD. It was an attempt to cloak the old Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) in a new garb (Hanssen and Johanssen, 2003). NEPAD was a neo-liberal Trojan-horse whose
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discourse was associated with the IMF/WB. In the circumstances, its vision was not shared by the millions of people in Africa who blamed their malaise on the neo-liberal SAP policies of the late 1980s and the 1990s. Like its predecessors, NEPAD had strings attached and was haunted by the ghost of the IMF carrot and stick policy, the graveyard of many an African economy. Its vision was contradictory in that it purported to make Africans masters of their own destiny yet its proponents had to pander to the whim of western donors. The success of NEPAD hinged on the pledge by African leaders to be in their best behavior on matters of good governance. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) which ostensibly committed African leaders to principles of good governance, transparency, accountability and respect for human rights, was problematic. Taylor (2002) quotes former President of South Africa, Mbeki, at a Conference on the African Renaissance in September 1998, as saying: we assume a stance of opposition to dictatorship, whatever form it may assume. Thus we say that we must ensure that when elections are held, these must be truly democratic, resulting in governments which the people would accept as being genuinely representative of the will of the people. Such a commitment faced its sternest test in Zimbabwe following the disputed presidential elections of 2002. The African elite club ignored allegations of violence and electoral fraud. The challenge was: who had the moral high ground of saying what against whom. President Mugabe, for example once challenged fellow heads of state at a SADC meeting to point a finger at him after former and late president Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia referred to Zimbabwe as a sinking titanic. Karuumbe asserts that the sad reality was that most of the African leaders did not have the moral high ground to throw stones at each other when they sat in glass houses of their own. The option for most was to defend each other rendering the peer review mechanism futile. The NEPAD project coincided with the so called war on terror post 9/11. In consequence thereof, the global agenda shifted from the development agenda to the fight against terrorism. As global
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priorities and the global allocation of resources changed the project was left in a quandary. The status of NEPAD with respect to African integration and interdependence was not clear. NEPAD was rightly referred to, in some documents, as the initiative / project of the OAU or "the implementation mechanism of the AU" (Karuumbe). This suggested that NEPAD and its implementing structures were in a somewhat subsidiary relationship to the AU. On the other hand, some other documents proposed greater co-operation between the AU and NEPAD secretariats, which was suggestive of an equal relationship between the two entities. This ambiguity was also reflected in that the NEPAD club to which membership had to be earned was located in the AU, an inclusive association (Ohiorhenuan, www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000548/p504_ohiorhenuan.pdf.). Inevitably, it was not clear if membership to the AU meant automatic participation in NEPAD making its fate predictable. The question of assignment and co-ordination made the NEPAD project nothing more than rhetoric in Africas political adventurism.(Nwonu, 2006). It was not clear who would do what and who would supervise who in effecting proposed tasks. As Nwonu argues, the AU has a Peace and Security Council responsible for monitoring and intervening in conflicts while NEPAD had a sub-committee on peace, security, democracy and political governance. There was an apparent duplication which made coordination a herculean task. Although NEPAD was hyped as a homegrown strategy by which Africa claimed ownership of its development, a lot depended on the political will of local and international partners to implement the project successfully (Nwonu, ibid). Western donors preferred that membership to NEPAD be earned. So, perceived bad guys of Africa, like Presidents Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and former late president, Ghaddafi of Libya could be excluded. Undoubtedly, the African elite club desired automatic membership, rendering the APRM a farce. NEPAD promised to be a people-oriented development agenda for Africans by Africans (Tandon, 2002). Conversely, the key stakeholders were not consulted. It did not emerge out of a continent - wide dialogue and therefore remained unknown outside the club of its drivers.

The dubious record of the NEPAD high priests was and has been no less important. It is paradoxical that President Wade, a fierce proponent of NEPAD, has allegedly tinkered with the Senegalese constitution to ensure for himself a third term in office. The credibility of former Presidents Mbeki, Obasanjo of Nigeria and Bouteflika of Algeria was equally dubious. As it turned out, NEPAD was a high sounding nothing whose prospects for survival were negligible from the onset.