Examining the Political Economy of NEPAD: A Case Study of today's Neo-Liberal Agenda and Elite Politics

Examining the Political Economy of NEPAD:
Today’s Neo-Liberal Agenda and Elite Politics

By: Dina Khorasanee

April 4th, 2005


But then I slowly saw that not only was I not free, but my brothers and sisters were not free. I saw that it was not just my freedom that was curtailed, but the freedom of everyone who looked like I did. That is when I joined the African National Congress, and that is when the hunger for my own freedom became the greater hunger for the freedom of my people. It was this desire for the freedom of my people to live their lives with dignity and self-respect that animated my life…Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me…

It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

-Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom



I. Introduction
“So, comrades, let us not pay tribute to Europe by creating states, institutions, and societies which draw their inspiration from her [Europe].
Humanity is waiting for something from us other than such an imitation, which would be almost an obscene caricature.
If we want to turn Africa into a new Europe, and America into a new Europe, then let us leave the destiny of our countries to Europeans. They will know how to do it better than the most gifted among us.
But if we want humanity to advance a step further, if we want to bring it up to a different level than that which Europe has shown it, then we must invent and we must make discoveries.
If we wish to live up to our peoples’ expectations, we must seek the response elsewhere than in Europe.
Moreover, if we wish to reply to the expectations of the people of Europe, it is no good sending them back a reflection, even an ideal reflection, of their society and their thought with which from time to time they feel immeasurably sickened.
For Europe, for ourselves, and for humanity, comrades, we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man.”
Frantz Fanon

Reflecting on these words forty years later, one might be left with a vision of today’s President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, shaking his head in disappointment while saying: “But Fanon, you had it wrong, and Africa has suffered because of it. Surely the most gifted of us can and will turn Africa into a new Europe. We will call this, our ‘third’ chance, the ‘African Renaissance’ , and this new man, Thabo Mbeki.” However, others may contend with this image, claiming that Mbeki only echoes Fanon’s words when saying, only a few weeks ago, “[that] what we are saying as Africans [is], we have to decide for ourselves what is good and bad, what is right and wrong for ourselves. Be our own judges, and honest judges, and in that context I believe Africa’s intelligentsia has a central role to play.” Today the African continent and her people are faced with two important questions: Are African leaders only reproducing the political economies that have to a great extent scarred much of the continent? Or, are we truly before a ‘third moment’ in African history?
Attempting to answer these questions, this paper will evaluate the political economy of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). It takes a close look at the process leading up to its adoption in October 2001, the political economy it advocates, and the consequences of its particular developmental approach on the present and future development possibilities in Africa. The first part of this paper focuses on some of the regional and international initiatives towards Africa’s development in response to the economic crisis of the 1970s and 80s. The second part outlines the core structure and content of NEPAD, and identifies some of the concerns and possibilities addressed by various authors. Here I will identify NEPAD’s central objectives by looking at what the document includes as well as what it leaves out. In these sections I argue that NEPAD is only the last of many African regional documents, but its uniqueness is in its embrace of the global neo-liberal economic order.
The final section develops from the previous one by taking a critical approach to the political economy of NEPAD from three different perspectives. One, it looks at the viability of NEPAD’s ability to follow through on its own objectives. Second, it points to those issues that the document has left out or briefly touched on, and looks closer at the consequences that this has for different political, social and economic areas of development. Third, the paper tries to show how the political economy of NEPAD is paradoxical, and moves away from a citizen centred approach to development on the African continent. This is where I argue that African leaders have appropriated a liberal ideology, defined by the international donor community as economic rationalism. These critiques are based on the works of both African and non-African scholars and agencies alike. By bringing together different perspectives on NEPAD, I hope to provide a balance sheet for evaluating the political economy of this most recent comprehensive partnership initiative for Africa’s development. We will see if this evaluation brings us any closer to answering the questions posed earlier, namely, are we seeing the start of a bright new era in the history of African leadership and development able to lift much of the African population out of poverty, conflict, and economic crisis? I will argue in this final section that this is not the case; instead, NEPAD is by and large an uncritical appropriation of Western neo-liberal paradigms, and that this approach has potentially negative consequences for Africa’s development. Therefore, the critiques made here of NEPAD are similarly the critiques made of today’s neo-liberal global order.
II. Trajectory of Africa’s Development Policy: A Case of Convergence?
While NEPAD has revitalized the African development debate, it “is not the first ‘home grown’ solution to the African crisis.” So why then is NEPAD hailed by the international community for its uniqueness as an African initiative? As I argue in this section:
“Past initiatives were ignored by the international community partly because the international environment at the time was not ripe enough for alternative solutions and partly because they contained issues that contradicted policies supported by the international community…The overwhelming global attention and support enjoyed by NEPAD derives from its embrace of Western development ideas as well as changes in the global political economy that have made reformist ideas more acceptable.”

The former dependency approach of the African development model adopted by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) have been largely pushed aside in NEPAD, making room for the neo-liberal approach adopted by the World Bank, IMF and other international donor institutions, albeit ‘new’ and ‘reformed’. It is of no wonder then that three years after the World Bank adopted a new approach to development called the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF), and two years after Joseph Stiglitz’s article entitled “Participation and Development: Perspectives from a Comprehensive Development Paradigm,” African leaders came out with a similar document called the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. In this section I draw the reader’s attention to the changes in development strategies, both coming from the African continent and from the trans-national community. This section takes much of its findings from Francis Owusu’s article, “Pragmatism and the Gradual Shift from Dependency to neoliberalism: The World Bank, African Leaders and Development Policy in Africa.”
a. The African Context in the 1970s
While Africa’s economic growth and development can barely be understood and evaluated through broad generalizations, in order to avoid moving away from our present discussion, I will only outline some continental trends that have inspired many of the developmental responses to the African crisis in the 1980s and 90s. From the 1960s through to late 1970s, two thirds of the lowest per capita income countries were located in Africa, and many countries experienced negative growth rates of per capita food production [17 to 29 countries out of a total of 45]. This, in turn, led to large amounts of food imports to non-oil producing African countries at a cost of $1.9 billion dollars in 1973, and $6 billion in 1980. Additionally, while an average of only 12 countries had negative GDP growth rates in the 1960s, the average increased to 20 in the 1970s. Furthermore, international debt had risen from $9.02 billion in 1970 to $49.6 billion in 1978. The general world experience of high inflation and recession during the 1970s did not hit any region harder than it did Sub-Sahara Africa.
Furthermore, some African countries had also to deal with severe domestic difficulties. Coups, civil strife and ethnic violence were all influenced by and had influence on political, economic and social instability and inequality. Partially as a result, the population in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1970s suffered from extremely low life expectancy at birth (45 years), and an infant mortality rate of 138 per 1,000 live births. Both indicators are the lowest of all regions of the world. In economic terms, these indicators translate to low levels of production in the public sector, contributing to unemployment in the urban areas and underemployment in the countryside.
Over all, administrative corruption, institutional instability, social strife, and economic crisis characterized much of the continental scene at the beginning of the 1980s. While this is clearly only part of the complex reality facing Africa at the time, suffice to say, these critical issues prompted a response by international and national governments, agencies and organizations. The African regional response came primarily from the OAU and ECA, and the non-African response came primarily from the World Bank and the IMF. However, being that these organizations championed divergence politics, the policies they adopted generally reflected polar opposites as well.
b. Responses to the ‘African crisis’
The first regional response to the crisis was the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA), published in 1980 by the OAU. The LPA took a dependency approach to the issues facing Africa’s development. As such, this document “exonerated African leaders and blamed the historical injustices suffered by the continent and the continued dependence on external forces for the crisis.” By absolving African leaders of most responsibility, they sought a solution framed around collective self-reliance and cooperation amongst the African nation-states. Their vision was to establish an African Economic Community by year 2000. Owusu quotes:
“ ‘Indeed Africa was directly exploited during the colonial period and for the past two decades; this exploitation has been carried out through neo-colonialist external forces which seek to influence the economic policies and directions of African states…This phenomenon had made African economies highly susceptible to external developments and with detrimental effects on the interests of the continent.’”

The exoneration of African leaders for most responsibility meant that overall the African states remained uncritical of their own practices. This led to greater state involvement in economic and social development; the state looked to itself as the driving force for change on the continent.
The international diagnosis and response to Africa’s situation was found in the World Bank’s 1981 publication of the Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa, also known as the Berg Report. Here the World Bank pointed the accusing finger at African leaders and what the Bank believed to be failed domestic political and economic administration, namely, bad policy choices, corruption, and economic mismanagement. The World Bank and IMF, therefore, looked to relieve the economy of all state control, recommending a number of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) that would prioritize macroeconomic stability in the form of market-oriented policy reforms. In other words, the central goal was ‘getting the prices right’. Here we clearly see the divergence in diagnoses made by African leaders and the World Bank.
Whatever the cause, the overall situation on the continent was worsening. As the debt burden increased, so too did famine, starvation and mortality. However, because African states needed the financial support of the international community, they had few options but to take on SAPs. This, clearly, was at the cost of Lagos Plan of Action. The African states that were most reliant on external financial support had to come to terms with at least four central points. First, they could not expect to receive funds from the same agencies that they were blaming for Africa’s crisis. Second, international lending agencies were designed to deal with short-term economic circumstances and their objectives reflected such aims. They did not have as their central goal ‘self-reliance’ or redistribution as defined by the LPA. The World Bank and IMF were interested in managing the financial crisis, even if it meant short-term social costs, such as unemployment, inequality and poverty. Third, the African states needed to confront their own shortcomings if any long-term improvements were to be made. Suffice to say that problems of domestic corruption, institutional weakness, and administrative mismanagement were at least in part to blame for bringing much of Africa to its crisis. Finally, African governments were forced to acknowledge that, at least in the short-term, some reliance on the international community for funds was necessary in order to address a number of regional economic burdens.
By the mid-1980s, the OAU began to make concessions to the international lending agencies through the African Priority Program for Economic Recovery 1986-1990 (APPER). At the time there was no World Bank document that shifted any closer to accepting partial international responsibility for the continued economic problems plaguing many parts of the African continent. While the United Nations guaranteed their support, its pledge proved to be only rhetorical. It did not have the power to enforce any changes. The APPER identified a number of exogenous factors contributing to the debt crisis, most of which were also acknowledged by the United Nations (UN). The UN also understood, as did the APPER report, that faulty development policies by African states were also to blame for Africa’s predicament. However, just as the UN was unable to influence African leaders to change some of their practices in becoming more responsible and accountable agents of development, neither were they able to influence the policies of donors, investors, and lending institutions.
As a result of increased domestic economic pressures and external rigidity in policy reform, from 1980 to 1989, over 36 sub-Saharan African countries together adopted over 241 SAPs. At this point reform meant the African states’ insertion into an economic global order fashioned by global capitalism and its institutionalized structures. In other words, African development, at least in the short-term, meant African dependence on the international community.
It was clear by the end of the 1980s that SAPs were not improving the long-term development of the African continent. A staunch criticism was made by the ECA in a document called the African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation (AAF-SAP). The ECA’s re-examination of development challenges for Africa did not mean rejecting reform altogether. To the contrary, the AAF-SAP recognized the need for extensive reform, but through a more holistic approach. While the SAPs were directed at macroeconomic variables, the AAF-SAP extended reform to include long-term social and political transformation, not simply short-term economic adjustment. As summarized by Owusu:
“AAF-SAP was ambitious but more ‘human centered’ and ‘holistic’ than SAPs. It advocated the need to protect vulnerable groups, to retain state presence in areas with social responsibility to society, and to go beyond mere financial perspectives on the causes of the crisis.”

In 1989 the World Bank came out with a new report titled: Sub-Saharan Africa—From Crisis to Sustainable Growth: A Long-Term Perspective Study. This report responded to Africa’s continued economic crisis and to the criticisms made by the UN, OAU and ECA. However, while the World Bank acknowledged that the responsibility for the African crisis should be shared, and that a broader focus on both governance and economic policy was important to bring African countries out of political, economic and social crises, it still remained confident in the effectiveness of its development strategies through SAPs.
It was only upon approaching the new millennium that the World Bank and IMF began to take a closer look at their SAPs and propose alternatives that challenged the World Bank’s old paradigms and development approach, albeit within a neo-liberal framework. In 1998, the World Bank’s President, James Wolfensohn, addressed the Board of Governors with a strong critique of the World Bank’s past policy measures. Soon after he came up with the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) that would embrace many of the proposals and critiques laid out in the AAF-SAP. The framework had four broad principles: development should be a long term strategy; it should be ‘owned’ and ‘developed’ on a national level; it should involve a partnership between governments, donors, civil society, the private sector and other development stake-holders; and should show transparency in its development results. When compared to the SAPs, the CAF had three central differences, namely, the CDFs focused broadly on economic, social, political, cultural and environmental factors; they emphasized poverty alleviation, as illustrated in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) ; and they gave the recipient country greater participation in the decision-making process and implementation of the CDF programs.
However, the differences were not altogether stark. Generally, while the renewed focus seemed to reduce the conditionalities that the Bank and the IMF have placed on countries receiving loans, it was less clear if this was in fact the case. It is also worth noting that although there were increasing differences between the World Bank and its sister organization the IMF, they continued to collaborate in pushing forward these reforms. The new millennium would come to see even greater coming together of the strategies and proposals put forth by African leaders and foreign capital institutions. However, in this case coming together generally came to mean the adoption by African leaders of the prevailing neo-liberal global political economy. This is seen most prominently in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. I argue in the following sections that there are few differences between the World Bank’s CDFs and NEPAD, as both of their policy ‘blueprints’ are framed around the following:
“Rolling back of the frontiers of the state; eliminating of market distortions; substantial reduction of the restrictions on free flow of trade and capital; integration of the national economies more fully into the global capitalist system; inclusion of a public sector wage freeze, reduced price subsidies and currency devaluation as stabilisation measures; inclusion of a broad export promotion, economic liberalization and the privatization of state or parastatal assets as adjustment policies; Promotion of democratization and good governance.”

The following sections will also evaluate the potential virtues and downfalls of this particular approach to development.
III. The Adoption of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development
The African Union (AU) adopted NEPAD in October 2001. NEPAD sees as its central aim:
“A pledge by African leaders, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development, and at the same time to participate actively in the world economy and body politic.”

NEPAD was founded on the merging of two previous documents, the Omega Plan by Senegal’s president Abdoulaye Wade, and the Millennium Partnership for Africa’s Development (MAP) inspired by the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki. The main architects of this initiative, therefore, have been South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, and Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade. While all three Presidents have been widely involved in the development of NEPAD’s mandate, its similarity to the South African political economy suggests that it draws much of its inspiration from the idea of Mbeki’s ‘Africa Renaissance’, a notion invoked by Nelson Mandela in 1994 in this speech to the OAU summit in Tunis. In referring to the rebuilding of Africa, Mandela declared:
“Thus do we give reason to the peoples of the world to say of Africa that she will never know stability and peace, that she will never experience development and growth, that her children will forever be condemned to poverty and dehumanisation and that we shall forever be knocking on somebody's door pleading for a slice of bread. We know it is a matter of fact that we have it in ourselves as Africans to change all this. We must, in action, assert our will to do so. We must, in action, say that there is no obstacle big enough to stop us from bringing about a new African renaissance.”
However, Mandela’s ‘Renaissance’ has significantly evolved from its beginnings. In this section I unravel the intentions and goals outlined in NEPAD, and in doing so I argue that NEPAD is largely a document advocating the international global order under the mask of a new Africa elite class claiming to be the ‘voice for the voiceless’, and that this has possible detrimental effects for the African majority.
a. NEPAD and Its Inspiration
After a close look at the two documents, one can see clear parallels between, one the one hand, Mbeki’s ‘African Renaissance’ and its manifestation in the adoption of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) initiative, and on the other hand, the promises set out in NEPAD’s October 2001 report. Mbeki’s African Renaissance is framed along two lines: economic development of capitalist forces, and political and institutional policies guided by stability, accountability, African development ownership and legitimacy of African leadership. Overall, for growth, employment and redistribution, the general view in GEAR is that, “Government consumption and expenditure should be cut back, private and public wage increases kept in check, tariff reform accelerated to compensate for the depreciation and domestic savings performance improved.” Additionally, Mbeki sees these outcomes hinging on Africa’s integration into the global economy through high levels of FDIs and private national investment, indicated in Appendix 12 of the report.
Few would dispute that Mbeki’s economic vision embraces neo-liberal reforms. However, some argue that although Africa has been marginalized through past neo-liberal initiatives, Mbeki’s vision takes into account the past negative impacts and looks to “change the rules of the game from within.” The growth of Africa’s national capitalist class is witness to this change, although one might then ask what difference this makes for the marginalized sectors of the African populations. I argue here that the ‘rules of the game’ have changed, but mostly for a new wave of African elites. Mbeki is not alone in promoting the immersion of Africa into the global economy. Although admittedly not all, many African leaders have now added themselves to the list of NEPAD supporters, being themselves an emerging ‘trans-national elite’ and supporters of neo-liberal reforms.
Here it is important to recognize NEPAD’s relationship with the African Union (AU), seeing as though these are two of the central, and arguably most important, African regional bodies to date. Yet, their relationship is not altogether clear. In October of 2001 the African Union adopted the plan as their ‘economic wing’, giving it their complete support. Nevertheless, there are those who have expressed doubt as to the convergent aims of the two organizations. Alex de Waal has made clear distinctions between the two organizations, even though NEPAD was formally a ‘mandated initiative’ of the AU and both bodies promote regional economic and political unity. De Waal points out that the AU has little control over NEPAD, much less any veto power. Furthermore, one of the main divergences he points to is that membership of the AU only depends on ‘existence upon African soil’, while participation in NEPAD requires adherence to various criteria and standards of government and institutional reform. I argue that this in turn has and will lead to politically charged debates in the Union.
It is worth returning to the commonalities between NEPAD and the new political economy adopted by South Africa. According to Gelb, “the adoption of NEPAD ‘represents the clearest expression thus far of South Africa’s national interests on the continent.’” GEAR’s principles are based on ‘more deep rooted reforms’ and “transformation towards a competitive outward-oriented economy”. One of its primary aims is to meet the demands of the international economy, promoting growth through exports and stable investment opportunities. Overall, its measures include: a flexible labour market, strong fiscal policy, trade liberalization, tariff elimination, privatization and price stabilization. The overarching aims of the reforms are liberalization and outward looking market reforms. As a result, they are primarily concerned with external investors, contrary to their stated immediate and long-term concern of poverty alleviation and job creation. Its similarity to NEPAD is instructive in this regard.
While the international financial community applauded GEAR’s reforms, its goals of achieving a 6% GDP annual growth rate and creating 400,000 new jobs annually by year 2000 have fallen far short of their aims. By the end of the 1990s, South Africa’s GDP growth rate was at 1.7, the same as it was from 1975 to 1995. As stated by Tsheola,
“Apparently, government has misread the paradoxical operations of globalization as evidenced in the ruling party’s erroneous assumption that ‘since the peaceful elections of a democratic government in 1994, the whole world has had a very positive attitude towards South Africa…it is important for international politics that things work out in South Africa. We will get a lot of help from other governments and they will encourage investment here.’”

Additionally, one of the most outspoken critiques of GEAR has been the Congress for South African Trade Unions (COSATU), a federation that compromises over 19 trade unions and a membership of over 1.8 million. According to COSATU’s research institute,
“It is now widely acknowledged that The Growth, Employment, and Redistribution Strategy (GEAR) has, despite its name, failed in terms of economic growth, creation of quality jobs and redistribution towards the poor…[G]overnment is increasingly feeling the pressure to address the wider socio-economic failures of economic policy.”

According to COSATU, inequality and job loss have increased for the most marginalized. For these reasons they also indicate they it will continue to oppose GEAR’s privatization campaigns by taking industrial action. This in turn has placed strains on the alliance between the ANC and the labour unions.
Because similar reforms have been adopted in NEPAD, they may give some hints as to NEPAD’s future. The connection becomes even more explicit when looking at the Millennium Africa Renaissance Programme (MAP). As stated by Nkuhlu, South Africa’s economic advisor and ‘de facto’ CEO of NEPAD, MAP serves as a ‘blueprint’ for NEPAD, as “ ‘everything else remained as it was’ in the original plan.” Mbeki has been seen as MAP’s greatest advocate and promoter. The fact that not all African governments are as receptive to the global liberalization agenda has created tension in the AU and will continue to be an area of contention.
b. NEPAD’s Plan of Action as of October 2001
By the same token, there also seems to be a rhetorical commitment on the part of African leaders to end poverty and promote greater social, political and economic equality. Their long-term objectives are to: eradicate poverty, achieve sustainable development, halt Africa’s marginalization in the global process and promote the role of women. As well, the report clearly lays out some of the gravest problems facing Africa today, each country having to face these issues to varying degrees:
“In Africa, 340 million people, or half the population, live on less than US $1 per day. The mortality rate of children under 5 years of age is 140 per 1000, and life expectancy at birth is only 54 years. Only 58 per cent of the population have access to safe water. The rate of illiteracy for people over 15 is 41 per cent. There are only 18 mainline telephones per 1000 people in Africa, compared with 146 for the world as a whole and 567 for high-income countries.”

Additionally, Cheru points to the fact that economic growth needs to reach 5% to support various initiatives for poverty alleviation. Paradoxically, aid has fallen to $10.8 billion at the end of the 1999, compared to $17.9 billion at the end of 1992. Furthermore, today 50% of the African population does not have adequate access to health facilities, a figure made worse when accounting for the fact that Africa houses more than 50% of all HIV/AIDS infected people.
In order to address these problems, NEPAD came up with a comprehensive analysis, addressing issues of political, economic and social inequality and providing a general plan of action. NEPAD did so by acknowledging the new will of African leaders to guide Africa’s economic development and appealed to the will of civil society and the international community to join in this process. An African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), one of the most controversial and arguably the most innovative aspect of NEPAD, will eventually monitor the plans. APRM is based on the idea that development in Africa can only be achieved through new governance regimes dedicated to similar objectives, namely, high growth rates through economic market reforms and stronger political institutions dedicated to these reforms. However, as I will allude to further on, APRM does show a degree of political astuteness on the part of the African government.
By most standards, the action plans are highly ambitious, hoping to achieve above 7% annual GDP growth and securing that the continent’s International Development Goals (IDGs) by 2015. Specific IDGs include: reducing extreme poverty in half by 2015; enrolling all children of school age into primary school by 2015; eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary schools by 2005; reducing child mortality rations by two-thirds from 1990 to 2015; reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters from 1990 to 2015; expanding reproductive health services to all by 2015; and implementing sustainable development strategies nationally by 2005. NEPAD’s action plans for achieving these goals include: fostering the conditions for sustainable development, such as peace, security and political governance initiatives; promoting economic and corporate governance initiatives; and co-ordinating sub-regional and regional approaches to development. NEPAD also includes sectoral priorities, such as: building infrastructure, developing human resources, promoting agricultural growth, etc. Finally, under sustainable development it includes the mobilizing of resources, such as: increased capital flows and market access.
As with Mbeki’s ‘African Renaissance’, NEPAD echoes the objectives of CDF and separates itself from past African initiatives on various accounts. First, it does not confront the international community, but instead looks to them as close partners in Africa’s development prospects. This is of categorical importance if NEPAD expects to receive much of its financing from the international community. Nevertheless, it also means that African countries are moving even more into a relationship of economic dependence with their donor organizations. Second, the blame for Africa’s crisis is almost entirely attributed to African leaders, as opposed to the ‘joint’ responsibility inferred in previous reports. Indeed, the document itself emphasises its difference to all past initiatives, stating: “The New Partnership for Africa’s Development differs in its approach and strategy from all previous plans and initiatives in support of Africa’s development, although the problems to be addressed remain largely the same.”
However, de Waal points out that NEPAD, rather than offering ‘grand new paradigms’, instead differs in the commitment and ‘political will’ of the African governments to carry out ‘best practices’ as demonstrated in NEPAD plan of action. The report states that earlier initiatives have seen Africans as mere passive actors, whereas now the document suggests that African civil society and leadership are active participants in Africa’s development. The report states: “Africans declare that we will no longer allow ourselves to be conditioned by circumstances. We will determine our own destiny and call on the rest of the world to complement our efforts.” Paradoxically, while NEPAD claims to grant more agency to African leadership, it also advocates for more economic dependence on the international community than any previous African regional document.
NEPAD goes on to describe the various ways it hopes to immerse Africa into the global political economy, while also recognizing that the global economy posses natural disadvantages and challenges for Africa, and warning leadership to be politically astute if they are to confront these serious threats. They state that instability on the continent also threatens the international political economy, clearly illustrating that the document is not only written for the African community, but also the international agencies. For this reason, they call on a global partnership, between governments, the private sector, and civil society.
Another central feature of the report is that it avoids any reference to particular regions or countries. It treats Africa as a “vast and, as yet under-exploited market place.” Because of the generality of the document, it is unclear how different priorities will be implemented or developed. Similarly, there is no section that specifies how the implementation of priority areas can be evaluated. While this will arguably come with time and stronger implementation of the Peer Review Mechanism, it still resonates with old and unhelpful doctrine that looked to solve a diverse set of regional, national and local issues through singular and general regional goals.
On a positive note, this regional approach gives African governments, in theory, the upper hand in decision-making. As argued by Ajulu, Mbeki is taking a pragmatic approach to the ‘inevitable’ pressures of globalization. But rather than the high income countries being the sole beneficiaries of neo-liberal free market policies, Mbeki sees a strong role for regional, national and local African governments in a joint process of regulation while promoting market reforms in their own national and regional interests. As stated by Cheru, “this involves embracing a third option, namely, ‘a guided embrace of globalization with a commitment to resist.’” Yet, the generality of NEPAD leaves many points open to interpretation. For example, the role of the ‘strong state’ could also be used to promote those sectors of the economy capable of achieving comparative advantage in world markets. While this means strategic choices for the states, it does not guarantee that those choices will be made to the benefit of the majority of the region’s population. In a later section I will discuss some of the contradictions in this approach and its possible consequences on the continent.
b. NEPAD and the International Community
To no surprise, then, NEPAD has generated a great deal of support from the international community. For the first time, African leaders were invited to address the G8 Summit in 2002, a space traditionally limited to member states. While both Mbeki and Obasanjo left the meeting with less financial commitment on the part of the member countries than they expected, we might anticipate more support by the G8 community now with the release of the report by the Economic Commission for Africa. Statements of financial support have come from Canada, France, Great Britain, Italy and Germany. Additionally, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the Managing Director of the IMF Horst Kohler, Director General of the WTO Mike Moore, and the World Bank’s President James Wolfensohn, have all declared their financial and ideological support. Peter Woicke, Executive Vice-President of the International Finance Corporation, the Bank’s private sector ‘arm’ and the biggest investor in Africa, has also backed the initiative, as has the Corporate Council, which holds over 80% of US private investment in Africa.
As a result of the support received by NEPAD from the international community, at least rhetorically, the leaders of the initiative have been given the opportunity to discuss their agenda in a number of international forums. The embrace of the international political economy under the umbrella of African leadership can be seen at minimum as a way to win aid and debt relief from the international lending agencies. The acceptance of free-market reforms through global imperatives and the commitment of African leaders to control any political constraints to neo-liberal reforms seems to be little short of a World Bank and IMF ‘dream come true’, allowing them to achieve their international economic goals without being blamed for any of its consequences. The IMF Working Paper on “The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD): Opportunities and Challenges,” takes clear account of this fact, stating, “in contrast to the Marshall Plan, the NEPAD is not a foreign-led but an African-owned initiative.” As said by Owusu and supported in this paper, “it provides an opportunity for the developed countries to participate in Africa’s development efforts without admitting their role in creating the crisis.”
The IMF Working Paper might give us an indication of what matters most to the international donor and investment community when assessing the successful implementation of NEPAD. The focus of the Working Paper was on evaluating the overall plan set out by the African governments, paying most of their attention on what they titled, ‘Major Initiatives for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development’. The four sub-categories of the Working Paper included: consolidating macroeconomic stability, promoting trade and regional economic integration, attracting capital flows, and lastly, fostering good governance and institutional reforms. It is worth mentioning that within each of the categories they included general recommendations, such as reallocation of and improvements in public expenditure, trade liberalization, elimination of tariffs, efficient financial markets and use of foreign capital to support the development process. It is also worth noting that their ‘key questions’ regarding good governance do not include accountability to a governments domestic civil society. While they say that governments must be accountable, they do not say to whom.
“Governance refers to the manner in which authorities deal with their responsibilities (Wolf and Gurgen, 2000). The questions are: Is the government effective? Are the authorities’ decisions and policies transparent? Do the authorities follow internationally accepted standards and codes? Is the government accountable for its decisions?”

The report makes clear that the IMF’s support for NEPAD largely depends on its ability to achieve what they list under their four subcategories, namely, strengthening those institutions that promote macroeconomic trade liberalization and investment. Arguably, this brings doubt to claim that African leaders, through NEPAD, will be able to control their own economies.
The discourse on governance in NEPAD, including: democracy, state legitimacy, government accountability, human rights and popular participation as ‘central elements’ of the initiative, all favourably ring in the ears of the international community, dominated primarily by Western discourse. While these are on the surface legitimate goals, NEPAD’s clear adoption of World Bank and IMF language begs the question of whether these values are only supported to appease the international community. It is not new for the international donor community to support those countries that aspire to Western democratic ideals within a neo-liberal framework, rather than to those countries that might be more in need of aid. A question to ask is what mechanism will be set in place to ensure the security of those citizens most susceptible to market shocks.
While the purpose of this evaluation is not to give a progress report on NEPAD, some changes are worth mentioning. In February of this year NEPAD signed an agreement with the African Virtual University to improve the skills of teachers who will be accessing modern technologies. As well, the African Development Bank has indicated that US $150 million is being invested to improve agricultural water management and food security in the Southern African Development Community. This programme is titled The Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme [CAADP]. These are developments that cannot be ignored, as they are but some of the successes of NEPAD in fulfilling their basic socio-economic goals. Nevertheless, these successes are few and say little about NEPAD’s ability to resist future internal and external pressures.
IV. Critical Approach to the Political Economy of NEPAD
This final section takes a critical approach to the political economy of NEPAD from three central perspectives. First, it looks at the likelihood of NEPAD following through on its own objectives, in other words, assessing its ability to succeed in implementing its own plan of action and overall aims. While NEPAD is only in its initial stages, I argue that it faces many challenges in achieving its goals, although arguably ones that can be overcome. The second part looks at the areas that NEPAD has either not addressed or only addressed briefly, arguing that NEPAD’s ability to reform important areas that affect Africa’s development is limited. The third sub-section looks at the contradictory nature of the goals set out by NEPAD. It takes the perspective that the relatively uncritical adoption by NEPAD of liberalizing reforms will likely have devastating effects on its social aims of poverty reduction and social welfare.
a. Possibilities for NEPAD in fulfilling its outlined objectives
In this section I outline some of the strengths and challenges of NEPAD’s objects, and then briefly mention some possible ways that these objectives can be achieved. Here I identify one of the main strengths of NEPAD as being its focus on good governance. As stated by Kempe Hope: “Good governance in all of its facets, has been demonstrated to be positively correlated with the achievement of better growth rates, and particularly through the building of institutions in support of markets.” He rightly argues that good governance is one of the central components in effective utilization of scarce resources, adherence to the rule of law, greater participation, responsibility and accountability to the populous, and removing the majority out of poverty. NEPAD’s emphasis on good governance is also a major factor in providing ‘political stability’, which in turn is a necessary prerequisite for investment in the region. For this reason, NEPAD is as a step forward in recognizing the importance of this precondition for development. In turn, the success of NEPAD in this area depends on the state capacity to promote transparency, international standards of public accountability, debt management, stable monetary policies, banking regulations, and institutionalized fraud prevention measures. I argue that the promotion of these reforms in NEPAD is a positive sign of the African governments’ commitment to achieving these ends.
A second positive element of NEPAD is its focus on the ‘entrenchment of democracy, peace and security’. While one can argue as to the degree that democracy is emphasised in the report, some regard the promotion of democracy as one of the core principles of NEPAD, seeing it as another form of rejecting ‘the ways of the past’, and as a commitment to the rule of law, both part and parcel of good governance. The commitment to entrench peace and security is demonstrated in its targeted initiatives, demanding the governments’ will to adhere to the international standards central to democracy. Additionally, as indicated by Herbst and Mills, positive signs of self-governing might be seen in the peace agreements signed between Kigali and Kinshasa, Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, and Congo and Rwanda. Arguably, long-term success is dependent on stability, security and economic prosperity, all starting with the willingness of the different actors to engage in dialogue and make compromises, as demonstrated in these accords, keeping in mind that this remains a continuous process of negotiation and agreement.
The third positive aspect of NEPAD is its focus on ‘productive partnerships’. NEPAD’s ability to achieve its poverty elimination objectives depends on how well it is able to achieve its goals of good governance, and in turn, its ability to reduce the transaction costs with donors, stabilize aid flows, and strengthen the regional, national and local capacity to execute projects. What follows is NEPAD’s emphasis on ‘sound economic policy-making and execution’. In this respect, the commitment to economic liberalization is a core component of the report and is seen by some as a ‘critical ingredient’ for achieving growth, reducing unemployment, and eliminating poverty. However, while these are positive aims, economic liberalization may not contribute to NEPAD’s desired ends.
A fourth point worth noting is NEPAD’s appeal to ‘domestic ownership and leadership’. I argue, along with Herbst and Mills, that it is important to maintain African ownership in the decision-making processes as a precondition to fulfilling NEPAD’s objectives. This is perhaps the most innovative aspect of NEPAD, namely, the African Peer Review. This is an institutionalized mechanism that hopes to ensure that decision-making remains primarily in the hands of the African community, albeit within an elitist framework. This is an astute way of implementing African ownership on the continent because it provides a relatively equal playing field amongst mutually dependant stakeholders in the decision-making process of Africa’s development.
Nevertheless, as long as the continent relies for its funding on the international donor community, it will continue to be dependence on the international community’s demands. Additionally, while the voluntary nature of the Peer Review Mechanism limits the possibilities of peer enforcement, it also allows governments to exercise national sovereignty over their economic affairs. These can be positive or negative depending on the particular circumstances. By the same token, governments that decide not to participate in the review process will arguably be marginalized from foreign investment opportunities, in this case reducing their national sovereignty. This is not to say that there is no possibility for African ownership of the development process, but that it will be limited at best unless the terms of trade start to work in favour of the African economies. As of mid-2004, fourteen African states have signed on to the APRM.
In this regard, there are a number of risks and challenges that NEPAD does not address. One of the risks is the need to avoid bureaucracy and institutional infighting. In other words, the reforms need to ‘pay off for the people’, not the institutions and politicians. As such, the success of NEPAD’s implementation also depends on monitoring and exposing actions that may violate the goals of good governance outlined in NEPAD. As previously suggested, part of the monitoring also should come from civil society, ensuring that NEPAD, along with other organizations, continue to work in function of popular needs and consensus. While civil society is presently involved in the implementation process, it is to a very limited degree, restricted to few key experts hand picked by prominent NGOs.
A second challenge and warning is recognizing the various demands from the participating states, and the need for efficiency and non-duplication of the various project initiatives. This would also mean reconciling the extreme differences in the political economies of African states. On the other side of this challenge is the need for capacity building. This is one of the special partnership features of NEPAD. The ability for Africa to strength African institutions is linked to human resource capacity. The linking of the two also means strong relations with donor agencies and multilateral partnerships with the international community, perhaps overlapping with other project initiatives. This would include strong relationships with the World Bank, IMF, the African Development Bank, UN agencies, and national governments.
This leads us to the a fourth and fifth challenge. The fourth being the question of whether African politics has actually changed so that leaders are willing to engage in an open discourse of what has in part prevented development on the African continent, namely, the building of strong democratic regional institutions. The fifth question is whether there are new circumstances that will allow for a change in governance and power structures. Chabal takes a critical approach to both these questions, suggesting that little has actually changed regarding political will; hence, there is a “risk that NEPAD will not live up to expectations”. While I argue here that it is too early to predict the success or failure of NEPAD, one can say that the main change of circumstance seems to be at minimum a new ‘political rhetoric’ by African leaders to embrace a ‘reformed’ neo-liberal ideology.
In a similar vein, here I allude to a sixth implementation challenge. Generally, this is the critique coming from African leaders who are not part of NEPAD and that fear both African and IMF imposed conditionalities. Those leaders are likely to see NEPAD as “‘yet another Structural Adjustment Programme’, a kiss of policy death in an African context.” Mills and White suggest that resistance from other African governments may be a sign of continued widespread patronage relationships on the continent and the reluctance of governments to relinquish their power. Faced with these challenges it may be difficult for NEPAD to gain credibility from African governments outside of NEPAD.
The difficulties of region building are illustrated in the mere 6% of inter-regional trade in 1990 and its increase by only 4% at the end of the 1990s. On the other hand, rapid regional expansion and integration might lead to further conflicts and instability. Notably, one of the central aims of NEPAD is ‘integrated regional development’ through sub-regional projects and programmes. Arguably, success will derive from a careful balance between achieving NEPAD’s broad long-term goals while first focusing on their specific aims.
A last challenge is building partnerships with the business community. Arguably, success in this area stems from the ability of multinational corporations to set standards for governments and local businesses. This would mean corporations paying attention to the goals set out by NEPAD in order to ensure long-lasting investment opportunities such as mining that require long-term and high cost investment. What they do not state is that mining has generally been a highly exploitative practice and has not, in the case of South Africa, generated the results anticipated in GEAR.
The IMF has also outlined a number of opportunities and risks. As argued earlier in this section, NEPAD allows African governments the opportunity to demonstrate leadership and ownership of development on the African continent, while at the same time partnering with the international community for institutional and financial support. Additionally, NEPAD also provides a framework to development intra-regional economic and political cooperation and partnership with the international community. The risks mentioned in the Working Papers were similar to those outlined in this paper, generally being, the diversity of interests on the continent competing with its ‘broad-based nature’ and competition with other already existing institutions and development initiatives.
While I have pointed to a list of successes and challenges, the IMF Working Paper has also taken steps to identify six possible ways to best overcome NEPAD’s challenges and achieve the goals it laid out in its October 2001 report. The IMF based its suggestions on the lessons it learnt from the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). The six lessons are the following:
“Be as specific as possible in setting targets, thus facilitating their monitoring and increasing transparency; develop and promote action plans on the basis of alternative policy choices, and social impact analyses of these choices; improve public expenditure management; elaborate on the risks to policy implementation, including those related to external shocks and shortfalls in financing; include contingency planning into the macroeconomic framework; and encourage and broaden further the systematic participation of stakeholders in the discussion, design and implementation of the various initiatives.”

They see success hinging on NEPAD’s ability to follow through on its neo-liberal agenda. I suggest here that its ability to carry out its objectives is limited and questionable at best.
b. What is missing from NEPAD?
This sub-section will mostly focus on three main areas: the lack of involvement by civil society in building NEPAD’s agenda, its ignoring of the various concerns of other African states, and its missing issues in the discourse on human rights. Many of these are paradoxical, seeing as NEPAD claims to be a body promoting democracy, participation, regional integration and human rights. However, this paper is critical of NEPAD for what it sees as a weak commitment by NEPAD in promoting these objectives.
While for John Loxley NEPAD has been very good at promoting democracy and responsible governance, the actual process of developing the programme itself has largely been undemocratic. NEPAD is primarily a construction of a few democratically elected African elites headed by South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki. Church groups, trade unions, and other individual members of civil society have voiced similar concerns, some noting that many members of society are not aware of this programme — a programme that claims to be ‘a voice for the voiceless’. As stated in the African Trade Union Conference in 2002: “NEPAD being African owned is difficult to accept ‘since the socio-economic partners for its realisation have been ignored in its preparation’.” Neither parliamentarians nor civil society groups were consulted in the formation of NEPAD’s objectives.
Another missing element in the report is the different perspectives by the African governments. NEPAD ignores the fact that many African countries do not have strong enough markets or state capacity to successfully carry out neo-liberal reforms. Tsheola has stated that, “It is paradoxical for that country [South Africa] to flag the concept of African renaissance while ignoring such germane concerns by African states.” He then suggests that South Africa’s spearheading of NEPAD has largely to do with it wanting Africa to look good to donors so to attract investment for its domestic market. In other words, NEPAD fails to state that those countries able to offer profitable returns to investors will benefit more than others in the short and medium term.
The last, and perhaps most important missing element in NEPAD, are the central issues in the discourse on human rights. A central element of rights-based development is an integration of the “principles and standards of [the] international human rights system into development policies and projects, defining the objectives of development in terms of legally enforceable entitlements.” What is important here is that the most vulnerable or marginalized in society should benefit from the development process. This requires explicit ‘safe-guards’ to protect these groups from any violation of their rights. However, NEPAD is more focused on promoting access to different services, such as health care, education, and employment, than providing legal entitlements to those services. This brings us to the core of a rights-based approach to development, namely, the argument that poverty is a lack of political control by ordinary people over their own lives through enforceable rights. Included in this is the problem of systemic violence, something that is not adequately addressed by NEPAD. While pointing to the ‘plight’ of various groups, it does not identify ‘effective remedies’ or ‘concrete programs’ in securing social participation.
Another missing issue in the area of human rights is a remedy for impunity. While the document fully recognizes that war and civil strife are serious barriers to development, the leaders of NEPAD have not shown any initiative in implementing the 1996 OAU Council of Ministers endorsement of a ‘Plan of Action Against Impunity in Africa’. The argument might be that this is not up to NEPAD, but that impunity falls under the mandate of the now AU. The question to ask is what would happen if the objectives of these two organizations collide? Unlike the declaration adopted at the ‘Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa’ that condemned “genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Continent and undertake(s) to cooperate with relevant institutions set up to prosecute the perpetrators.” , NEPAD made no such commitments. The key factor here is accountability for all abuses to a legal body able to remedy impunity.
Another central element missing in NEPAD is that of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Notably, over 15 million people are estimated to have died of AIDS, and over 25 million are said to be living with the disease. While recognizing their importance in its NEPAD Priority Projects and Programmes, NEPAD only makes passing reference to these communicable diseases that have severely affected all aspect of life on the African continent. In other words, NEPAD sees HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis as some of many public health problems, without looking at their critical impact on the possibilities for Africa’s development.
Finally, the last issue of human rights that seems to be missing from the NEPAD agenda is migration, nationality and citizenship. In 2002, of the 25 million internally displaced people in the world, 13.5 million were in Africa. This is a serious concern considering that by 2004 Africa hosted 30% of the world’s refugees, amounting to over 2.8 million people. Although Africa is considered to have a more open legal system for accepting refugees than other regions of the world, the conditions refugees face are devastating by most standards. Needless to say, there is almost no mention of migration in NEPAD, except for reference to the ‘brain drain’ from Africa to high-income countries. Overall, NEPAD does not set out a human rights agenda, and this can pose high risks in achieving its goals and will have severe consequences to the already marginalized populations on the African continent.
c. The Paradox of Development: NEPAD’s Neo-Liberal Approach
While this entire study has focused on the neo-liberal agenda coming from African elites and the international donor community, in this section I look direct at the paradoxes in the processes leading up to NEPAD’s implementation and that exist within the development model advocated in the report. The general nature of these critiques have to do with its spearheading of the neo-liberal model and its claims that this model will eradicate poverty and inequality on the continent through political and economic stability and liberalization. I argue here that neo-liberal policies run counter to the alleviation of poverty and inequality.
As mentioned in the previous subsection, while advocating democracy and public participation, the formative processes of NEPAD were both undemocratic and non-consultative. Only heads of state and their hand picked experts were involved in the process of decision making, so much so that some argue that most people did not know of its existence until Mbeki presented it at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Civil Society Indaba, a civil society grouping and participants in the World Summit on Sustainable Development commented: “Africa and her people have not been involved in devising this path of development”. The question then is: what qualifies as ‘African ownership’? In this regard NEPAD has been criticized for its lack of popular participation and ownership. This is in clear contradiction with the aim of democracy as outlined in report. A more democratic process would have included the goals and concerns of all the major stake holders, including union federations, national NGOs, entrepreneurial groups, parliamentarians, etc. If NEPAD is to argue for citizen centred development, which it does, it is paradoxical to not use the same in this internal decision-making processes. Arguably, democracy is not only fulfilled by political outcomes, but also through political processes – a process that NEPAD ignored.
My second critique focuses on NEPAD’s undermining of previous development initiatives, such as the Lagos Plan of Action, Africa’s Priority Programme for Economic Recovery, Africa’s Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation, and Africa’s Charter for Popular Participation for Development. The international community’s rejection of all of these initiatives can be regarded as partially to blame for their lack of success. This is another reason to believe that the leaders of NEPAD have built their language around the demands of the international community rather than on the needs of the African community. Here I take into account the argument that some African needs can only be financed through international involvement. As has been argued in this paper, the enthusiasm for NEPAD and not the other initiatives is largely because it fully embraces the neo-liberal political economy of the international donor community, most notably in its adoption of ESAPs – that have generally not brought about positive socio-economic changes – as opposed to the alternative approaches taken in past documents. This undermining of past documents is a clear sign that many African leaders are willing to adopt an international political economy where before they were not, undermining alternative perspectives on the continent.
The emphasis on moving away from the past has also led to contradictory claims regarding aid and dependency. NEPAD seeks $64 billion a year in aid, a contribution expected mostly to come from the international community. Furthermore, foreign direct investment is expected and hoped to increase significantly. Therefore, while NEPAD authors claim that they are looking to increase African economic independence, I question how increased aid, international investment, and debt would not increase Africa’s financial dependence and vulnerability to the international donor agencies and global market forces.
On a similar note, a third criticism is NEPAD’s globalization framework, looking to give African countries more independence, while immersing them completely into the global market. As stated by Harrison Kinyanjui, a writer for a Kenyan Newspaper, “such a move is an annihilation of these African nation’s sovereignty and political independence.” While the African governments volunteer their national economies to join on to NEPAD, they are arguably securing their dependence to the international community and compromising any future strides towards greater national or regional sovereignty. As well, this limits other economies that may initially not want to sign on, but are forced to do so in order to avoid economic isolation. Taylor and Nel also have reservations about the effectiveness of globalization. They identify three central parts to the globalization process: trans-national capital, the hegemony of neo-liberalism, and the emergence of a global historic bloc. While the elite classes are not united in their methods, they have come to recognize their shared values and interests. This in turn has the risk of further marginalizing those populations already at the margins of economic development.
This leads us to the fourth and what I argue is the most important critique of NEPAD, that being the substance of its economic approach: the embracing of a neo-liberal and capitalist social theory, where the role of the state is minimized and is only important if and when it promotes private sector investment and market liberalization. In this case, the private sector and the market are looked at as the engines for development. I argue here that this is based on the view that the North will be willing to accept a compromise in its powerful hold on market control. Loxley argues: “This limited reading of the current world order belies any real potential for the necessary changes required for a more equitable world.” Taylor and Nel, as well as John Loxley, show great concern about the seemingly uncritical adoption by NEPAD of a neo-liberal political economy, namely, wanting full integration into financial markets and uncritical seeking of private capital inflows.
Many African civil society groups, such as the WSSD, have rejected the document based on its non-sustainable neo-liberal development framework. Lesufi asks: “given the appalling record of neo-liberal policies in the form of the ESAPs and their reincarnation in the neo-liberal principles underpinning NEPAD, why does the South African government persist with its implementation?” Along with Lesufi, I would argue that an important reason for the adoption of NEPAD’s political economy is because of the influences of large South African companies and leading sectors of the local capitalist class in the development of NEPAD’s goals. Evidence for this is the type of policy measures advocated in the report, corporations clearly benefiting from this action plans. The fact that many South African corporations are already active in many African countries is another sign that the process of liberalization by the African elites was a process well underway before the formal implementation of NEPAD. Therefore, NEPAD may only be an institutionalized body able to secure long-term South African capital investment on the continent.
Similarly, Taylor and Nel also conclude that some of the most prominent capitalist elites in Africa are found in South Africa. Needless to say, their interests are not always the interests of the majority of their populations. In the same vein, NEPAD is also as a way to put an African face onto the interests of an elite regional capitalist class and neo-colonial international institutions. Kinyanjui points to the Peer Review process as a way of institutionalizing neo-patrimonialism on the African continent, creating a clique of elite bodies that control international investment opportunities in the region. This supports the claim that rather than representing the needs and commitments of Africa’s majority, NEPAD represents the interests and the will of an indigenous bourgeoisie connected to an international capitalist class looking to further their economic interests. However, as mentioned previously, it is important here to acknowledge that there is now civil society involvement in NEPAD, particularly in the area of Peer Review. Still it is questionable whether those involved do in fact represent the majority of the African population. Generally, the critiques I have alluded to in this paper can be summarized as follows:
“NEPAD was endorsed by the G8 because of its sponsorship by prominent African leaders and because of a growing recognition that Africa’s pressing problems do need to be addressed. That NEPAD does not challenge conventional wisdom on structural adjustment and debt management in any significant way, while at the same time committing Africa to police itself on implementing neo-liberal economic policies, further endears it to the IFIs and to leaders of the industrial powers.”

IV. By way of Conclusion
Throughout this paper I have attempted to give a general overview of the political economy of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. I have outlined the road leading up to its adoption by the African Union in 2001, highlighted the central goals and action plans that compromise the initiative, and given a critical assessment of its various elements. Through this trajectory I hoped to come closer to answering the questions posed at the outset, namely, whether African governments were uncritically adopting a Western neo-liberal political economy, or if NEPAD shows positive signs of a new approach to development on the African continent? After careful study of what are, admittedly, the initial stages of NEPAD’s continuous implementation phase, the answer seems to focus on the former. While it is difficult to argue that NEPAD has not embraced neo-liberal policies, there are a number of innovative elements that NEPAD has undertaken that show signs of astute political and economic practices by Africa’s Heads of State, one example mentioned in the paper being the Peer Review Mechanism.
However, there still remains a long road ahead, one filled with questions and doubt, but also with hope and promise for the future of Africa and her people. Owusu points to some of these very important questions:
“Will a compromise necessarily lead to Africa’s development? (…) Will African leaders deliver on their promise of good governance? Will the international community provide the necessary funds to support NEPAD’s initiative? Can African leaders and the international community balance the continent’s short-term needs with the long-term objectives of NEPAD? Can Mbeki and other proponents convince the developed countries to help create a global political economy that is favourable to poor countries?”

Some of these questions have already received tentative answers. The case of the Zimbabwe elections may demonstrate the inability or unwillingness of the members of NEPAD to initiate a change of ways regarding good governance and democracy. However, perhaps the case of Zimbabwe occurred too early in the development phase of NEPAD to provide an accurate yardstick, although still nothing has been done by NEPAD three years after the crisis there began. The question of whether NEPAD will succeed in bringing economic, political and social development is one that still cannot be fully answered. And even if it does: who within the continent will benefit most from this partnership? The architects of NEPAD will have to see if their appropriation of the global political economy pays off, not for them, but for all African people. The view taken in this paper is that NEPAD is an African elite driven initiative that advocates the view that any rational approach to development must champion neo-liberal paradigms. I have argued that this may serve as detrimental to development on the African continent by running counter to a citizen centred development approach. While these arguments serve as reasons to doubt the future success of NEPAD, they also allow for a renewed sense of hope in the African majority’s ability to resist their colonizers – albeit this time under the guise of Black Skin, White Masks.





































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