MASENO UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF DEVELOPMENT AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DIPLOMACY WITH IT

RACE AND AFRICAN DIASPORA IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

COUSE CODE DIR 411

GROUP MEMBERS

JOSEPHINE MUTHOKI DS/00094/2012

CORAZON MWABE DS/03086/2012

MUSEMBI KIMATU ISSAC DS/00019/2012

SISSO REUBEN DS/030082/2012

ALFRED MAKOTSI DS/00014/2012

DUNCAN KIMBANDA MWADANGA DS/03079/2012

Discuss the challenges and opportunities of the New Partnerships for Africa’s Development
INTRODUCTION

New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is an economic development programme

of the African Union. NEPAD was adopted the 37th framework for accelerating economic
cooperation and integration among African countries. NEPAD was a merger of two plans; for
economic regeneration of Africa thus the millennium partnership for the African recovery
programme which was led by president Thabo Mbeki of South Africa; Olesegun Obasanjo of
Nigeria and Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria and Omega plan for Africa developed by president
Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal at extra ordinary summit in Jirte, Libya. The African head of states
agreed to merge the Omega plan.

The United Nations economic commission for Africa developed a compact for Africa recovery
based on both plans and on resolution on Africa adopted by UN millennium summit in
September 2000 and submitted as a merged document in the conference of African ministers of
finance and ministers of development and national planning in Algiers in May 2001. Also, in
2001 the Africa head of states met in Lusaka, Zambia and adopted the document under the name
New Africa Initiative. The leaders of G8 countries endorsed the plan in July 2001 and other
development partners including the European Union, China and Japan indicating their support
for the plan. The head of states finalized the policy framework and renamed it New Partnership
for Africa’s Development on 23rd October, 2001 In summary The NEPAD strategic framework
document was prepared by the leaders of the five initiating states (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria,
Senegal, South Africa), in response to a mandate given to them by the Summit of the
Organization of African Unity (OAU). The 37th Summit of the OAU in July 2001 formally
adopted the strategic framework document.

NEPAD had four primary objectives; to eradicate poverty, to promote sustainable growth and
development, to integrate Africa into the world economy and to accelerate the empowerment of
women in development. NEPAD was based on underlying principles of commitment to good
governance, democracy, and respect for human rights, quick conflict resolutions and
maintenance of development standards. NEPAD was also concerned with creation of conducive
environment to promote long term investment for positive economic growth. In Durban in 2002,
the state participating in NEPAD declared their belief in just, honest, transparent, accountable
and participatory government. They promised to focus on the rule of law, equality among
citizens before the law, individually or collectively. They also focus on human freedoms and
rights; they emphasize on free and credible democratic elections and adherence to the principle
of separation of power including the protection of judiciary’s independence.

The main goal of New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) was to achieve
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa. NEPAD plans to promote development in
Africa was through improved resource mobilization for development and giving priority to the
following sectors; human resource development, health care provision, Agricultural
development, promoting improved market access by Africa exports and structural diversification.

NEPAD is designed to address the current challenges facing the African continent. Issues such as
the escalating poverty levels and underdevelopment of African countries and the continued
marginalization of Africa from the global economy needed a radical new intervention,
spearheaded by African leaders - that would bring forth a new Vision for Africa's Renewal.
 Objectives of NEPAD

 To eradicate poverty;
 To place African countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth
and development;
 To halt the marginalisation of Africa in the globalisation process;
 To accelerate the empowerment of women;
 To fully integrate Africa into the global economy.

 Principles of NEPAD

 African ownership and leadership, as well as broad and deep participation by all sectors of
society;
 Anchoring the redevelopment of the continent on the resources and resourcefulness of the
African people;
 Partnership between and amongst African peoples;
 Acceleration of regional and continental integration
 Building the competitiveness of African countries and the continent;
 Forging of a new partnership with the industrialised world by, amongst other things, ensuring
that it changes the unequal relationship between Africa and the developed world; and
 Commitment to ensuring that all Partnerships with NEPAD are linked to the Millennium
Development Goals and other agreed development goals and targets.

Programs run by NEPAD

NEPAD manages a number of programmes and projects in six theme areas. These thematic areas
and programmes are: 

 Agriculture and Food Security

   -  Comprehensive Agriculture Africa Development Program CAADP
   - The TerrAfrica Program: Improving land quality to sustain the performance of African
economies Terr Africa 
   - Fertilizer Support Programme
   - Fisheries
   - African Biosciences Initiative
   - Rural Futures
 Climate Change and National Resource Management

  - Environment 
  - Energy 
  - Water
 Regional Integration and Infrastructure

   - Information Computer Technology

   - Transport
   - Energy
   - Water

 Human Development 

   - Education and Training

   - Science and Technology
   - NEPAD Biosafety (ABNE)
   - African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (ASTII)
   - ABI
   - Africa Medicines Regulatory Harmonization (AMRH)
   - Research for Health - Africa (R4HA)
   - Health

 Economic and Corporate Governance

   - African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)

 Cross-cutting Issues (Gender & Capacity Development)

   - Gender 
   - ICT
   - Capacity development  

Challenges and Issues

Ownership

Through NEPAD African leaders intend to set out a vision for an African-owned and African-led
development action program. According to the document this vision "is based on the agenda set
by African peoples through their own initiatives and of their own volition, to shape their own
destiny". Its concept of ownership is embedded in the mandate that African leaders derive from
their people to articulate this agenda and implement it "on behalf of their people". Moreover, the
authors of NEPAD recognize that "the New Partnership for Africa’s Development will be
successful only if it is owned by the African peoples. The political leaders of the continent
appeal to all the peoples of Africa, in all their diversity, to become aware of the seriousness of
the situation and the need to mobilize themselves in order to put an end to further
marginalization of the continent….We are therefore asking the African peoples to take up the
challenge of mobilizing support for the implementation of this initiative by setting up, at all
levels, structures for organization, mobilization and action".

While the political appeal of the NEPAD is rooted in development strategies and initiatives that
are "owned" by African peoples, in fact it is only relatively lately that the initiative has become
known in Africa by civil society organizations, the private sector and parliamentarians. The
absence of prior discussion and debate with African citizens may be problematic not only for
assuring future commitment to the vision expressed on their behalf, but may also have influenced
the content and priorities established already within the document. Civil society actors, for
example, are concerned with its prescriptions. They are asking what is "new" in the NEPAD. Do
these priorities and the "new partnerships" present real opportunities for advancing social,
political and economic justice for African people? The ACF has been following closely their
analysis and the implications of the NEPAD for their work.
 Structural Adjustment and Good Governance

African leaders situate the NEPAD within a sharply drawn understanding of an historical
exploitation of African peoples and resources and they propose to reverse the current
marginalization of Africa in the global economy. Fair and more equitable rules governing the
integration of Africa into this global economy will, in their view, tackle the structural barriers in
globalization that will lay the economic ground for addressing poverty and inequality in Africa.
Many ACF partners in Africa have placed participatory local, national and regional strategies
that are appropriate to the particular concerns of poor and marginalized Africans in their
communities and their countries at the center of African strategies for recovery. The NEPAD
does not start from an analysis of the various expressions of these concerns. Rather its point of
reference seems to be the pre-occupations of Northern donors and institutions (responsible
governance in Africa, open economies, and programs of social amelioration) in the hope and
expectation that these Northern actors will respond positively to an appeal by African leaders for
a "new partnership" with Africa.

In this regard, the NEPAD seems to underestimate the impact of the predominant role that
Northern donors and institutions have played in Africa to date, in particular with respect to
donor-imposed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). NEPAD merely draws attention to the
record of SAPs’ "inadequate attention to the provision of social services". Many Canadian and
African civil society actors have pointed to the degree to which these policies have in fact
undermined national economies, exacerbated poverty and inequalities, and eviscerated the
capacity of the African state to respond to urgent social needs. African participants at an Africa-
Canada Forum Workshop in October 2001s have stressed the continued high levels of SAP
conditionality that accompany donor assistance to Africa. Promises from the EU, the United
States and Canada at the recent he Monterrey Consensus document of March 2002 (UN
Financing for Development Conference) were accompanied by explicit qualifications that
promised increased aid will go only to countries that will "walk the hard road," in the American
President’s words, of economic, political and social reform designed by donors.

The Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN) recently

completed a three-year intensive and participatory review by civil society, national governments
and the World Bank of the experience of SAPs. This review included four country studies in
Africa, and concluded with the observation that “the effects [of adjustment policies], particularly
on the poor, are so profound and pervasive that no amount of targeted social investments can
begin to address the social crises that they have engendered. Only restructuring of the productive
sectors through more appropriate public policy can ensure economic opportunities, resources and
benefits to all segments of the population."

Structural adjustment is much debated. Earlier African initiated proposals for alternatives to
Bank/IMF designed adjustments, such as the Lagos Plan of Action, were rejected out of hand by
donors as "unrealistic." In contrast, the NEPAD, which places a new partnership with the North
within the World Bank’s comprehensive development framework, is seen by Northern donors as
"forward looking" and a "realistic" assessment of the importance of African initiated reforms for
the management of development resources. Will SAP conditionality’s continue to set the
underlying context for the new partnerships with Africa on the part of Northern donors? At the
March Financing for Development Conference, as noted above, conditionality was an even
stronger element of aid financing. The US attached to its pledge of pledges of $5 billion in
increased aid by the United States were accompanied by "eligibility criteria," including
acceptance of donor-defined "solutions" for reducing poverty, that is, trade liberalization,
privatization, cost recovery social services and foreign direct investment from the industrial
North. What implications do these policies have for realizing the goals of the NEPAD for
reducing poverty and creating sustainable livelihoods for the majority of Africans who live in
poverty?

Rights, Citizenship, Democracy and Gender Equality

Issues of governance are a central concern for the NEPAD. African leaders will take joint
responsibility for "promoting and protecting democracy and human rights" and "promoting the
role of women". However, the primary focus for the Democracy and Governance Initiative is "to
contribute to strengthening the political and administrative framework of participating
countries…” Appreciation of social rights (education, health) are seen at best as an issue of
greater access to services, rather than as rights inherent in citizenship. A number of
commentators have raised a concern that the NEPAD gives insufficient attention to a rights-
based approach to meeting African development needs. Support by African leaders for the
principles of civil and political rights, transparency and accountability remain at the level of
overarching purpose, but seem to find little concrete expression in the proposed activities for
realizing the Democracy and Governance Initiative.

Competent public administration, strengthened parliamentary oversight, judicial reform, and

anti-corruption measures have an important place in achieving good governance for any country.
But institutions of governance are not politically or socio-culturally neutral. Africa has a rich
associational and community life, which is central to the day-to-day livelihoods of African
people and to their empowered participation in civic life. Respect and inclusion of this richness,
including provisions that accommodate the inevitable tensions of political life, are essential to
democratic governance in Africa.

The goals of the NEPAD will not be achieved through technical and administrative fixes.
Reducing poverty is deeply rooted in a politics that engages people, particularly the poor and the
powerless, in negotiating with each other, with their governments, and with international actors
for policies and rights that advance all aspects of their livelihoods. Development is not simply a
question of the management of resources, but is about how these resources are put to use, and in
response to whose needs. This is a matter of conscious decision-making in which the power to
decide is a contested terrain.

African civic organizations play development roles in their countries well beyond that of
program implementers, as contemplated in the NEPAD, a blueprint in which they have had little
influence to date. These concerns regarding the vital role of politics and participation in
development are compounded by NEPAD’s silence on civic engagement, as leaders alone are
assigned the role to "periodically monitor and assess the progress made by African countries in
meeting their commitment towards achieving good governance and social reform". Democracy is
never ensured through horizontal accountability. Vertical accountability of elected leaders to
citizens is crucial. It is critical for the long-term promotion of democracy that civil society actors
along with individual citizens be able to monitor their own governments and demand
accountability for fostering democratic political processes and for meeting the development
goals that address their needs and aspirations.

Core labor standards (i.e. freedom of association and collective bargaining; elimination of
forced labor; abolition of child labor; and elimination of employment discrimination) must figure
in any meaningful discussion of development and the impact of globalization in Africa. These
internationally recognized worker rights relate strongly to the principles set out in NEPAD, yet
the document’s economic model and the initiatives it proposes do not address adequately the
marginalization of workers and their rights in Africa. Job creation, in sustainable conditions that
respect internationally recognized core labor rights and the environment, should be made a
priority in a plan for poverty eradication in Africa. To date, however, most processes around
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers – the recent framework for World Bank and IMF lending and
debt relief programs, a framework endorsed by NEPAD – have not included the participation of
trade unions.

The NEPAD is also largely silent on the rights of African women in the expression of the various
Initiatives for African development. Their role is mentioned "in the domains of education and
training", in "the development of revenue-generating activities", and in "their participation in the
political and economic life of African countries". The feminization of African poverty is well
known. Fifty-two percent of women in Sub-Saharan Africa are functionally illiterate (ECA,
1999, Sixth Regional Conference on Women: Evaluation Report on Women and Poverty). NGOs
and independent researchers have documented the disproportionate negative impact of structural
adjustment policies on women.

While interactions between the various dimensions of gender inequality and poverty are
complex, an analysis of gender relations is fundamental to achieving the goals of the various
Initiatives in the NEPAD to affect change and address poverty. Gender relations in many
societies are also highly contested. Women’s organizations and movements are active throughout
Africa and one increasingly finds women’s advocates within African government ministries. In
many of these same countries, women’s organizations will be at the forefront of social, economic
and political activities to hold their governments accountable to commitments made in the
NEPAD. Africa-Canada Forum members and partners have brought to our attention both these
dimensions – consideration of the feminization of poverty and the promotion of women’s rights
in development by diverse popular organizations in Africa – as essential elements for assuring
that poverty-focused development in Africa truly expresses values of equality, social justice and
African ownership.

Failed States and the Peace and Security Initiative

African leaders say that they have learned "from their own experiences" that "peace, security,
democracy, good governance, human rights and sound economic management are conditions for
sustainable development". In order to ensure peace and security on the continent, they propose a
three-part intervention: promote such long-term conditions; build the capacity of African
institutions for conflict prevention and resolution; and institutionalize the commitment of African
leaders towards the core values of the NEPAD. At the very least, it can be said that these
engagements are very weak considering the experience of millions of Africans, victims of past
(the genocide in Rwanda; Liberia; Ethiopia and Eritrea...) and current conflicts (Algeria, Angola,
Burundi, DRC, Sierra Leone, Sudan...). Further, the nature and diverse causes of these wars are
ignored.

According to the NEPAD, peace and security require political measures to reduce the social and
political vulnerabilities from which conflicts emerge. Yet, none of the proposed measures in the
NEPAD includes the commitment to respect international laws that protect territorial integrity,
national sovereignty, the right to a nationality, the respect of minorities, etc. Even though the
lack of respect of these rights is at the core of several conflicts.

It is necessary but clearly insufficient to propose that African conflict-prevention institutions,

such as the 1993 OAU Mechanism for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts,
or other regional organizations, be reinforced. The nature and scope of some conflicts require the
intervention of the international community as elsewhere in the world. Two reports
commissioned by the UN, the 1999 Carlsson Report on UN actions during the genocide in
Rwanda and the 2000 Brahimi Report by the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations,
denounced the double standard with regards to conflicts depending on whether they take place in
Africa or on another continent. These two reports recommended a complete reorganization of
peacekeeping operations in order to make them truly effective.

Further, the NEPAD fails to address the increasingly common and lethal conflicts where the
parties – neighboring states, private enterprises or warlords – aim to secure access to natural
resources (diamonds, coltan, petroleum, wood, etc.). Such illicit trading which feeds war will not
end without resolute engagement and concerted action on the part of African heads of states and
of the wealthy countries where these products are sold.

Trade, Investment, Sustainable Growth and Development

The NEPAD affirms the historical context for African impoverishment in its integration "into
the world economy mainly as a supplier of cheap labour and raw materials". Opportunities "to
use the mineral and raw materials to develop manufacturing industries and a highly skilled
labour force to sustain growth and development was lost". Despite the costs to date of
globalization for Africa, African leaders are convinced that "the advantages of an effectively
managed integration [into the global economy] present the best prospects for future economic
prosperity and poverty reduction".

The preponderance of those Initiatives outlined in NEPAD, which also have very specific action
plans attached, focus on economic and corporate governance, on sectoral priorities (for
information and communications technologies, energy, transport, manufacturing, diversified
production, mining), on promotion of exports and market access, and on promoting private
capital flows and the private sector in general. Action plans for social investment priorities are
vaguer and are seen as important underpinnings for political stability and a skilled and healthy
workforce. These latter priorities seem to be directed mainly to assuring "the continent’s
international competitiveness and to enable her to participate in the globalization process".

The economic circumstances of African countries are very diverse. Many African civil society
organizations stress the importance of shaping economic policies to improve the livelihoods of
the majority who live in poverty. Many Africans have experienced impoverishment as a result of
current forms of global integration of African economies and clearly this experience suggests
that perhaps only a minority of Africans will fully benefit from greater integration into the global
economy.

As an example, the initiative for mining stresses "[improving] the quality of mineral resource
information" and "[creating] a regulatory framework conducive to the development of the mining
sector". The Africa-Canada Forum in collaboration with African and Canadian partners has
noted the strong role of Canadian mining companies, among others, in exploring and extracting
Africa’s mineral wealth. Pressures from the World Bank and IMF to maximize foreign currency
earnings from exports leave African governments highly vulnerable to the unequal power of
large resource transnational companies who maximize their own advantage. With support from
the World Bank and donors, including and Canadian technical assistance aid, more than 30
governments have already revised and liberalized their mining codes to attract foreign
investment. All the new codes share similar characteristics: equal status for national and foreign
companies; substantial reductions in taxation on the sale of mining products; fixed and long-term
commitments on royalty rates; elimination of taxes on companies' imports; and transferable and
mortgage able rights of exploitation for mining sites. These initiatives and those proposed by the
NEPAD take little account of the social and environmental impacts that mining and energy
development projects have on local communities and on local economies that sustain livelihoods
for thousands of nearby inhabitants.

Pro-poor strategies for African sustainable development require the mobilization of African and
international financial resources. The NEPAD makes important proposals for actions to mobilize
these resources. African leaders commit to assessing country plans prepared for initiatives
arising from the NEPAD in terms of their poverty and gender impacts, both before and after
implementation. But to what degree have such assessments informed the specific sectoral action
plans being proposed? Both NEPAD’s overall orientation towards attracting foreign investment
and large-scale market intensive solutions to development challenges facing Africa [for example
agriculture] suggest that poverty and gender impacts have yet to be taken into account.

African economies are handicapped by unfavorable terms of trade, generally attributable to the
fluctuations and overall decline of the prices of the small range of primary commodities upon
which their export sectors tend to depend. Between 1970 and 1997, the cumulative loss in terms
of trade amounted to 119% of GDP, because Africa pays high increasingly higher prices for
imports while exporting its products at ever lower prices. This means that there is a net transfer
of resources from Africa to the rest of the world. NEPAD does not significantly address this
economic injustice, instead calling, for instance, for improved infrastructure to allow the
international community "to obtain African goods and services more cheaply".

NEPAD and Northern donors forcefully promote foreign direct investment (FDI) as a pillar for
the development of the continent. Yet analysis shows that such investment tends to go to
economies that have already experienced a certain level of growth. It follows that as a
continental initiative, such a strategy is likely to be beneficial not to the poorest countries but
rather to the middle or higher-income ones. Further, sectors that are profitable for foreign direct
investment do not necessarily correspond to priority areas of investment for people-centred
development. In other sectors, opening the economy prematurely to competition from foreign
firms threatens national industries that require protection to assure livelihoods and time for them
to eventually become competitive. In several documented cases, reliance on market forces and
privatization has destroyed institutions that could play a role in integrating African economies,
such as marketing boards and rural banking. Finally, it is well documented that the vast majority
of the profits earned by foreign corporations active in Africa are not reinvested in local
economies. NEPAD proposes nothing to counter this situation: on the contrary, the emphasis on
attracting FDI might lead to an unhealthy competition between African countries for this capital,
in which they are likely to negotiate downwards conditions to protect the environment, royalties,
and direct economic benefits for citizens.

Social Development

As noted earlier, ACF members and partners in Canada and Africa believe strongly that
development and access to social services must be affirmed as the fundamental rights of African
peoples, and their provision a responsibility of African governments. Rights to education and
health, for instance, are not stressed in NEPAD – rather, the document states that the objective of
investments in social sectors is to enable Africa "to participate in the globalization process". For
instance in NEPAD the value of health is not stressed set out as an objective in and of itself, but
instead health is to be promoted because it "contributes to increase in productivity and
consequently to economic growth". The ACF and its members and partners believe that the
equation should be reversed: economic growth is to be valued not in and of as an end in itself;
rather, its value must be measured against its contribution, but only when and where it
contributes to an improvement in the lives of the poor, fulfilling their social, economic and
political rights.

In Africa, the impact of HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases on the labour force,
investment, education systems, communities and families is both a consequence and a cause of
the growing crisis of poverty. Therefore, any African recovery plan that aims to eradicate
poverty must include a strong public health policy and framework. Twenty years of cuts to
public health programs under structural adjustment have left health infrastructures
underdeveloped and impoverished. This inadequacy must be seen as an urgent target for
international action, rather than as an insurmountable obstacle or an excuse for denying equitable
access to health care and medicines. While the improvement of health infrastructures is
recognized as a sectoral priority in the Human Resource Development Initiative within the
Program of Action section of NEPAD, public health infrastructure development is not mentioned
as a priority for immediate implementation. There is also no discussion of the problematic
restrictions of WTO intellectual property rules on access to medicine.

The ACF and its partners are extremely concerned that NEPAD encourages the privatization of
social infrastructure such as the provision of water. For instance, in the section "Bridging the
Infrastructure Gap," private foreign finance is said to be essential and public- private
partnerships are encouraged [103, 105, 106]. Privatization of social services has been a key
feature of structural adjustment programs, and its deleterious impact on the poor and especially
on women has been unequivocally documented by independent researchers as well as by our
member organizations.

Agriculture and Environment

NEPAD rightly points to the lack of attention paid to the agricultural sector and rural
development in recent years in Africa, despite the fact that the majority of the continent’s people
– and over 70% of Africa’s poor – live in rural areas. The ACF and its partners, however, have
expressed concerns about the industrialization model of agricultural and rural development that
is proposed in NEPAD. Elsewhere, notably in parts of Latin America, such strategies, while they
may have had some success in increasing national productivity, have too often transformed
farmers into landless, underpaid agricultural workers in cash crop production, leading to their
further impoverishment.

A pro-poor strategy for the development of agriculture needs to be designed with the active
participation of the women and men who farm the land in Africa at all levels of decision-making,
in order to ensure that changes take into account the knowledge of farmers, and that increased
production benefits them. Changes must be sustainable in the long term, protecting both the
environment and rural livelihoods. National legislative and economic frameworks need to be put
in place which place that ensure food security for citizens through actively supporting
agricultural production and facilitating local transformation and marketing of produce.

In the introductory section of NEPAD, it is stated that "Africa has a very important role to play
with regard to the critical issue of the protection of the environment." The "minimal presence of
emissions and effluents that are harmful to the environment," as well as the "ecological lung"
provided by the continent’s rain forests are portrayed as a "global public good that benefits all
humankind". We welcome a statement encouraging the development of solar energy resources,
but note that despite a pledge by NEPAD authors to ensure that resources are preserved, the
document fails to give the development of renewable sources of energy the priority it deserves.
Also, even though NEPAD itself recognizes that the expansion of industrial production
contributes to environmental degradation, its economic action plans, heavily oriented towards the
development of private industry, do not offer concrete measures to ensure that such
industrialization will not harm the environment and therefore prove unsustainable. Further, while
"the communities in the vicinity of the tropical forests" are depicted as causing the destruction of
the forests in their consumption of trees for fuel, the well-documented role that transnational
corporations and large donor-funded energy and resource extraction projects have often played in
such destruction is not acknowledged in the document.

As an example of the weakness of the environmental analysis in NEPAD, "global warming,"

one of the eight sub-themes targeted for priority intervention within the Environment Initiative,
calls for "monitoring and regulating the impact of climate change" and for fire management. This
is a far cry from the call by many Southern civil society actors for Northern countries to
acknowledge their ecological debt to the South. Those calling for "climate justice" point out that
over 80% of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere – the primary gas contributing to climate
change -- has come from the extensive use of fossil fuels by Northern countries for nearly two
centuries. Thus, not only have industrialized countries disproportionately benefited from the
unsustainable use of the earth’s non-renewable energy resources (a global public good), they are
primarily responsible for climate change. Yet the impacts of climate change will be more
severely felt by the vulnerable countries of the South, including Africa, where experts predict
increasing floods and droughts.

Transport and communication

NEPAD emphasizes on the development of transport and communication which results to

economic growth in Africa From a transportation perspective, they are gunning for ways of
opening up the continent’s roads, railways, and air and sea ports. With regard to infrastructure,
the experts and representatives of the African Union (AU), African Development Bank (ADB),
private sector and other continental institutions are looking for ways to mitigate recurrent energy
and water crises across Africa as well as ways of bridging the present digital divide between
Africa and the North. The challenges of regional integration are complex hence, the development
of infrastructure such as roads, energy and other regional projects are necessary to ease the
process

NEPAD can succeed if it stresses on the development of transport through reduced cost of
transportation and high quality services across the continent as well as reduction of formal and
informal barriers. Once we have clarity of policy in the transport sector, our continent will grow.
In this respect NEPAD continues to partner with other states outside Africa and multilateral
institutions such as the World Bank and the international monetary fund to help improve the
status of infrastructure in Africa. Recently we have seen countries investing modern railway
transport as in the case of Standard Guage Railway and upgrading of airports to suit the needs of
the African continent.

References

1.  For a discussion of NEPAD's challenges and achievements, see NEPAD: a look at seven years of
achievement – and the challenges on the way forward, an address by Prof. Wiseman Nkuhlu, a
former Chief Executive of NEPAD, delivered at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, published in
NEPAD Dialogue (NEPAD Secretariat), 25 January 2008.
2. African Civil Society Declaration on NEPAD African Civil Society Declaration on NEPAD.
3.  Accra Declaration Declaration on Africa's Development Challenges. Adopted at end of
Joint CODESRIA-TWN-AFRICA Conference on Africa's Development Challenges in the Millennium,
Accra 23–26 April 2002.
4.  Conclusions and Recommendations of the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation
Committee (HSGIC) Meeting and Brainstorming on NEPAD, Algiers, Algeria, NEPAD Secretariat, 21
March 2007.