About 20 African heads of state and government began a summit meeting in Algiers on Tuesday to review the continent’s homespun development plan Nepad, which seeks to boost growth in Africa in exchange for good governance.
The meeting, which is co-chaired by the president of host nation Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, current head of the African Union (AU), will focus on progress in implementing the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) and assess the governance records in Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius and Rwanda.
Launched amid great fanfare in 2001, Nepad aims to lift the continent out of poverty by attracting investment to end dependence on aid.
One of Nepad’s key achievements so far has been the launching of a peer review system that allows countries in Africa to name and shame states on the continent that fail to live up to a set of agreed principles of good governance.
Thus far, some two dozen countries have come forward to sign up to the Peer Review Mechanism (PRM) and the first assessment reports are due to be published next year. – AFP