The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) marks the beginning of a new phase in cooperation between Africa and the international community. This document, which outlines NEPAD’s vision for African development, is underpinned by the belief that the continued marginalisation of Africa from the globalisation process and the social exclusion of the vast majority of its peoples constitute a serious threat to global stability. NEPAD calls for the reversal of the marginalisation of Africa by changing the relationship that sustains it.
NEPAD is the development programme of the African Union (AU) and was proclaimed by the Heads of State of the African Union in Abuja in October 2001. NEPAD is derived from the shared conviction among African leaders of the urgent need to eradicate poverty and to place their countries on a path of sustainable growth and development. NEPAD differs from all previous plans and initiatives in support of Africa’s development and is envisaged as a long-term African-owned and African-led development programme.
In addition to providing a common vision for African development, NEPAD outlines a detailed programme of action for sustainable development. This involves:
- Firstly, recognising the conditions for sustainable development, which consist of peace, security, democracy, good governance, human rights and sound economic management.
- A twin-track approach to meet the conditions for sustainable development through: (i) a peace and security initiative to build Africa’s capacity to manage conflict and (ii) a democracy and political governance initiative to strengthen the political and administrative framework of participating countries.
- Focusing on sectoral priorities to bridge existing gaps in infrastructure, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), human resource development, agriculture, the environment, science and technology platforms and culture.
- Bridging the digital divide by investing in the ICT sector, which is crucial for establishing knowledge-based economies, fostering intra-regional trade and accelerating Africa’s integration in the world economy.
- Mobilising resources through a two-fold approach based on (i) a capital flows initiative and (ii) a market access initiative.
- The capital flows initiative seeks to increase domestic resources and private capital flows, the extension of debt relief and higher levels of official development assistance (ODA).
- The market access initiative aims to increase the diversification of production, create a regulatory framework for the mining sector, increase competitiveness in manufacturing, and promote African exports and the removal of non-tariff barriers.
NEPAD offers a historic opportunity for developed countries to enter into a genuine partnership with Africa, based on mutual interest, shared commitments and binding agreements. At the same time, NEPAD calls for a new relationship between Africa and the international community to overcome the development chasm that has widened over centuries of unequal relations. This involves:
- Establishing a new relationship with development partners, in particular, industrialised countries and multilateral organisations.
- Addressing existing problems and inefficiencies in the delivery of aid such as the need to negotiate and account separately to donors. Country programmes should be the point of departure for this new relationship.
- Setting out mutually agreed performance targets and standards for both donors and recipients to enable an assessment of whether failed programmes result from poor performance on behalf of African recipients or bad advice from donors.
- Ensuring that industrialised countries and multilateral organisations fulfil their obligations in the area of conflict prevention, debt reduction for heavily-indebted African countries, debt relief for middle-income countries and reversing the decline in ODA flows.
- Providing technical support to accelerate the implementation of the programme of action, including strengthening Africa’s capacity in planning and development, financial infrastructure and regulation, infrastructure, auditing and accounting.
