Dakar | Monday
THE New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) is a global plan aimed at lifting Africa out of its acute poverty through increased foreign investment, both private and public, and good governance by the continent’s leaders.
A two-day summit on financing the initiative opens in the Senegalese capital Dakar on Monday in the latest step towards concretising the programme, endorsed at the 37th summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in July 2001 in the Zambian capital Lusaka.
The leaders in Lusaka pledged “to work together to promote peace and stability, democracy and healthy economic governance.”
Nepad is an amalgam of the Omega plan of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and the programme for Africa’s rebirth during the millennium conceived by South African head of state Thabo Mbeki along with his Algerian and Nigerian counterparts Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Olusegun Obasanjo.
The Nepad plan came into fruition after intense discussions in July in Pretoria among representatives of these three countries and South Africa.
According to a document released in Pretoria, it combines “a development strategy and detailed action plan” to usher in “a new era of partnership between Africa and the developed world.”
It said Africans realised that they “held the key to proper development” and called upon the “world to complement these efforts.”
Nepad has identified areas of key priority including infrastructure, energy, new technologies, health, education and environment and recognised the need for good and transparent governance and democracy.
At the end of last year Dakar announced the allocation of some key points to various heads of state.
Nigeria was entrusted with attracting investment and erasing fiscal anomalies, while South Africa was put in charge of good governance, Egypt will tackle access to developing markets, Senegal will handle infrastructure and environment and Algeria has the human development dossier.
Nepad has a four-tier governing structure. Its steering committee is made up of personal representatives of the five initiating states — Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa. – AFP