There were few advocates for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) in the US, Stephen Hayes, President of the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) said on Wednesday.
Hayes was speaking in the session on the Nepad peer review mechanism and the role of the private sector at the second African Investment Forum (AIF) in
Johannesburg. The Nepad Secretariat together with Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) and South Africa’s Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) are hosting the AIF.
”In the US media, Africa is a non-entity, so the heat generated in the European press over the peer review mechanism just does not exist in the US media. Rather, bad practices in country ‘z’, such as the unilateral changing of contracts, is spread rapidly by word of mouth in the CCA, as there are only some 160 companies in the CCA representing 85% of American investment in Africa. The fact that Botswana is rated better by Transparency International than the US is irrelevant to most businesses,” Hayes said.
”I worry that the stock of American investment in Africa continues to decline. It is now at the lowest level in 27 years and that should be a worry for the US economy. I also worry that the emphasis in the Millenium Challenge Account of rewarding only certain countries creates its own problems.
”If Senegal for example is awarded some money from the account that then may encourage immigration from other countries that could overwhelm Senegal’s limited resources. Capacity constraints in government and business in Africa are endemic and I would suggest that regional business schools and technical colleges be established to overcome these capacity constraints,” Hayes concluded. I-Net-Bridge