A leading African academic has warned that the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) is at risk of being overshadowed by the Commission for Africa, an initiative of the British government, and lead the continent into a new kind of colonialism.
Professor Dani Nabudere, a prominent political analyst, claims: ”Nepad could become an appendage of the Blair commission. It would remove the initiative from African leaders. [British Prime Minster Tony] Blair would become a colonial governor. It would be a process of recolonisation.
”Nepad has placed more emphasis on winning the support of donors. It diverted discussion on to things like the benchmarks for partnership. This brought us to peer review. Many African leaders are not in a position to talk about good governance benchmarks and have no interest in doing this because they are dictators.”
The continent’s democratic deficits influenced G8 leaders at their Kananaskis meeting in Canada in 2002 when they worked out a plan to isolate aspects of Nepad for fast tracking. They pushed for the setting up of a commission to see how they could support Africa’s recovery plan.
Last week the World Economic Forum Africa summit in Cape Town focused on attracting investors to the continent by means of good governance and democracy.
”But the same people decided this at Durban three years ago and we don’t see any movement,” said Nabudere before launching an attack on the monopoly donors and the international community exercises over project planning on the continent.
”Our people on the ground are becoming suppliers of data to consultants.”
Capacity challenges on the continent and the brain drain are issues that the custodians of Nepad have to wrestle with. It’s estimated that up to 50 000 Africans with PhDs, trained on the continent at great expense to taxpayers, are working abroad.
”Britain is taking doctors and nurses from Africa while Blair is trying to help Africa with the Africa Commission. So Britain is actually part of the problem. We need to make conditions attractive for African intellectuals to work in their own countries,” said Nabudere, one of the first Ugandans to become a barrister in London. His international exposure during the Sixties still forms an important part of his thinking as does his stint as his country’s minister of culture and community development in the interim government following the fall of Idi Amin in 1979.
”We need to have a continental programme dealing with infrastructure, energy, railways, road systems and transport across lakes.
”For example, we might have tried a road from Cape Town to Cairo. It would be a major achievement.
”In the present situation Nepad wants the continent to form regional blocks to decide on priorities based on regional needs. But these regional blocks are not in a position to work out priority lists.
”Many new ventures are based on old projects that they failed to implement in the first place. For example, look at rural education in South Africa. The money is there but there is no capacity to develop that education. And that’s 10 years after transformation.”
Nabudere maintains that Nepad’s goals cannot be achieved under existing global economic conditions. He bemoans the lack of intervention by African leaders to stop the rate of urbanisation on the continent.
”In the eyes of African bureaucracy, rural areas are something that must disappear. The bright lights of the cities are an increasing attraction. They see no need for sustained development in the rural areas.
”Most developed countries have a strong rural component. Britain and France, for example, spend vast amounts improving conditions of rural dwellers. There are many advantages to stopping the drift to the cities. The cost of building houses in rural areas is much lower.”
The Ugandan academic advocates a ”move to growth points” that would increase employment in rural areas. Parallel to this the health care and education system should be brought in line with ”the needs of the people”.
”White farmers in South Africa see rural life as worthwhile. They believe they can have a meaningful life in the country. People throughout Africa must learn this.
”Planning in Africa is about urban life. Peasants are being exploited because co-operatives have been wiped out. African countries need to revive and expand those co-operatives and concentrate heavily on both adult and juvenile education. If the rural-urban divide persists, there will not be transformation.”