The great and the good of Africa gather in Sandton on Friday to blow out the three birthday candles on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) cake.
Behind the fanfare, the steering committee of the continental rescue plan has to ask what there is to celebrate. But before doing that, it will have to consider exactly who’s at the party.
Four of the five heads of state comprising the Nepad steering committee — President Thabo Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika — have confirmed their attendance. Once again Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak looks like being a no-show.
If Nepad is to be taken seriously as the continent’s programme to counter marginalisation, then its steering committee has to debate the usefulness of having a member who has elected never to come in from the sidelines.
As they review challenges and opportunities, the stakeholders would be justified in hailing the political success the programme has enjoyed.
Since being introduced to the economic giants of the world at their summit in Genoa three years ago, Nepad has been given the stamp of approval by every credible organisation on the globe.
Importantly, it has become the development platform of the African Union that emerged in 2002 from the ashes of the moribund Organisation of African Unity.
Nepad has indubitably changed the agenda on dealing with Africa from a series of ad-hoc responses to crises determined by donor nations to one driven by Africans.
The notion, devised by Mbeki, Bouteflika and Obasanjo, of undertaking to meet standards of good governance, fiscal discipline and the rule of law in return for being taken seriously, has worked.
The yardstick provided to the donor community — the peer review mechanism — has achieved encouraging results.
Within two years 23 of the 53 AU member states signed up for scrutiny. Zambia is making noises about soon becoming number 24.
Four countries — Ghana, Rwanda, Mauritius and Kenya — have already been reviewed.
The breadth and depth of the reports and the responses of governments will be crucial to the long-term success of the process. Peer review is forcing African leaders to forge a new relationship with their people and would-be benefactors.
The days of unquestioning obedience is waning as Africans demand greater accountability from their leaders. This is never comfortable and nobody is feeling it more explicitly than Obasanjo.
The Nigerian leader arrives under pressure from trade unions threatening to renew their general strike against fuel prices.
Professor Chinua Achebe, one of Africa’s greatest literary figures, added to his embarrassment last week by shunning Nigeria’s second-highest award saying he was unhappy with Obasanjo’s handling of the country’s administration.
If Africans are to take ownership of Nepad, the steering committee has to ensure that it parlays its political success into tangible benefits.
African business communities particularly are sceptical about the long-term prospects of what is still very much a wish list.
An amount of $64-billion a year for Africa emerged from the G7 summit held in Kananaskis, Canada, two years ago. However, this failed to materialise, and cast doubts on the commitment of the world’s most industrialised countries to the African renaissance.
These countries — particularly France, Canada, Japan and Britain — have been actively advocating a better deal for the continent.
The Sandton gathering will be hard pressed to revitalise a world appetite for Africa that has been eclipsed by the ”war on terror”.
Over the years the Nepad objectives have been woven into the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000.
These have committed the world to, among other things, halve poverty, disease and illiteracy by 2015. At the UN General Assembly in New York last month African leaders were saying that at the current rate these goals are unattainable.
The message from Sandton will have a distinctly African flavour, but by striking a chord with the entire developing world, it will put the economic powers on the spot.