African governments will work with big business to launch projects that will shore up the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) continental economic rescue plan, Mozambique’s President Joaquim Chissano said on Tuesday.
Chissano, who also chairs the African Union, spoke at the opening of a three-day World Economic Forum (WEF) for Africa conference that will shine a spotlight on Nepad, launched three years ago to lift the continent out of poverty.
”When we talk about Nepad it is really about a partnership between business and the public sector. We will continue the study of Nepad with business and create possible projects,” Chissano said.
Billed as ”Africa’s Davos”, the meeting brings together at least three heads of state and about 700 delegates from 48 countries who will over the next three days look at how business can engage in the continent’s homegrown plan.
Other than Chissano, South African President Thabo Mbeki is attending along with Zambia’s Levy Mwanawasa.
Nepad is seeking to encourage investment and trade by embracing key principles such as good governance and public financial accountability.
Two years ago, at the end of the WEF’s meeting, held in the South African port city of Durban, the plan received strong backing from business, with about 130 major companies signing up to it and other firms following suit.
But not a single company has so far invested in any of Nepad’s 20 high-profile projects mooted to the private sector, aimed at improving the continent’s dilapidated infrastructure.
A reluctance by business to get involved threatens to derail Nepad’s ambitions.
The WEF’s Africa director, Haiko Alfeld, said last week: ”Clearly there is a problem. We hope to take this process forward.”
”We want and hope that this [meeting] would catalyse developments and catalyse partnerships, galvanise action that will bring tangible results.”
Chissano held out a hand to big business on Wednesday.
”We are in an era where the word ‘partnership’ has taken on a new significance. This is a summit not of African leaders and heads of state, but a summit for all,” he said.
The WEF also released the result of an annual survey of 25 African countries that placed Botswana at the top as Africa’s most competitive country, followed by Tunisia and South Africa.
But the survey also painted a bleak picture of the state of the continent’s economies, including saying ”the long-awaited renaissance of the African economy has not taken place”, describing dismal performance as ”the worst 20th-century tragedy” after decolonisation.
Botswana scored highest in sectors such as the quality of its public institutions and macroeconomic climate, while following short on the heels of South Africa in the field of technology.
It was followed by Tunisia and South Africa while Zimbabwe, Angola, Mali and Chad were at the bottom end of the scale.
In general, the survey criticised development on the continent.
”Indeed, it is very hard to pinpoint a single group of African economies that have experienced high, sustained per capita income growth,” it said.
It added that most sub-Saharan African countries are worse off economically today than they were directly after decolonisation. — Sapa-AFP