NEPAD Secretariat,
P.O. Box 1234
Midrand, Halfway House
South Africa, 1685

Tel +27 (0) 11 313 3672
Fax +27 (0) 11 313 3684

Attention: Prof Wiseman Nkuhlu wisemann@adbsa.org

We, members from the civil society in Malawi call on the NEPAD secretariat to halt the implementation of the NEPAD initiative until there is wider public endorsement and a sharper focus on fighting poverty in poorer African countries. We have met several times both at national and international levels to discuss the initiative and have found that NEPAD offers little prospects of benefit for the poorest in Africa.

We fully welcome the idea of having an African Regional Initiative, as this would bring new vision for Africa. Among others, the initiative would allow some expensive projects in the region to be pursued jointly and so be cost effective. It would also promote trade investment and assist exchange rate stability.

However on the NEPAD specifically, we have serious reservations and we would like to register the same to the secretariat. Our concerns are:

Content

Having thoroughly gone through the document, we note that:

• NEPAD proposes to continue using the old neo-liberal models of development that have failed Africa for long and as such this initiative does not offer any hope for turn around of poverty in Africa, let alone Malawi.
  
  
• The document is very general and takes all African countries at the same level.
  
  
• NEPAD is gender neutral and mentions women and children in passing implying that it has limited plans for women and children.
  
  
• Sectoral specific is the concern that the initiative does not recognise and put clear plans for HIV/AIDS that has greatly affected (and continues to affect) Africa.
  
  
• The document was also drawn without assessment of failures / successes of the older regional blocks such as SADC, COMESAS, ECOWAS.
  
  
• The antithesis of the document is that developing economies like Malawi and most African countries need a different approach than those already chartered by the western world, a fact not recognized by NEPAD.
  
  
• ? Almost all conditions given in the NEPAD are governance-related. Much as we agree, the following conditions, (which are not in the document) ought to be recognized for any sustainable initiative if it is to deliver: Political will; Economic stability; Protected environment and Enabling international environment
  
  
• There is a lot of duplication in the document. The strategies highlighted there in are already taken by sub-regional organisations such as SADC, COMESA AND ECOWAS.
  
  
• Given the crop of corrupt leaders we have in Africa, the document does not espouse on how Africa would ensure that there is transparency and accountability in the mobilization of resources.
  
  
• Membership of the implementation committee is not representative of the poor African countries

The process.

Reflecting on the process followed in the formulation of NEPAD, we as stakeholders are not convinced that the initiators have done all they could to harness real African input in the process. Unlike the participation precedent that was set in the national processes such as PRSP formulation, we feel that the NEPAD initiative was rushed and not participatory.

Although the international financing institutions praise NEPAD, most citizens in Africa are yet to be given more information on the initiative that they are said to own. It feels as if the drivers of the NEPAD seem interested in getting the support of the G8 and the International Financing Institutions (IFIs) than getting the African ownership of the initiative. We want to believe that the member governments do not encourage this approach - an initiative of such importance as NEPAD ought to be drawn through a transparent, wider and participatory process.

Our request to the NEPAD Secretariat

We therefore call on the Committee to halt the implementation of NEPAD before involving the civil society in critically analyzing the initiative so that priorities of NEPAD augur well with needs and priorities of member nations. As of now the priorities in the NEPAD are not in line with most of them.

Our main area of concern is that NEPAD shall likely create a situation in which poor countries like Malawi shall continue to suffer the economic exploitation of the larger economies, in the name of regional development.

We all know that even in Africa, there are exploitative and relatively capitalistic nations.

We also call on the officials to involve all stakeholders including civil society in the formulation debate before generalizing Africa's commitments and needs.

Yours sincerely,

COLLINS MAGALASI
National Coordinator,
Malawi Economic Justice Network

For: The following Civil Society Organisations in Malawi

----- Original Message -----

ZI 31/05/02 Civic groups meet on Nepad

Vincent Kahiya

CIVIL society in Zimbabwe, under the umbrella of Crisis in Zimbabwe, a civic umbrella group, will next month convene a meeting to formulate a response to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) plan.

Crisis in Zimbabwe co-ordinator Brian Kagoro this week confirmed the hosting of the meeting in Harare which also aims to explain the Nepad document to the public with a view to providing a civic response.

Nepad seeks to target yearly investments of US$64 billion from developed countries to revive ailing African economies. In return the African countries are promising more transparent systems of governance and greater

respect for democratic institutions. African countries will sell the initiative to the West at the G8 meeting in Canada next month.

Nepad is an amalgam of South Africa's president Thabo Mbeki's Millennium Partnership for African Recovery Programme (Map) and Senegal head of state Abdoulaye Wade's Omega Plan. Out of the merger, the New African Initiative was formed. It was later approved by the OAU in July last year in Lusaka and endorsed by the G8 in Genoa, Italy.

Kagoro said the meeting would discuss the broad aspects of whether or not Zimbabwe should accept or reject the Nepad document."We want to discuss how we can situate Zimbabwe in the Nepad debate in the global and regional sense," said Kagoro.

"We also want to ask to what extent does it deal with pertinent socio-economic issues in Zimbabwe and to what extent is it a departure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund-inspired reforms," he said.

Zimbabwe is not among the core group of 16 African countries driving the initiative and appears to have been excluded from its scope by the sponsors.

The opposition MDC has endorsed Nepad saying it presented an opportunity for Africa's development by Africans.

"The MDC welcomes the emergence of Nepad as an African-driven initiative and will throw its weight behind the linkage between economic assistance and investment and the issues of democracy, human rights, freedom of speech and good governance," party President Morgan Tsvangirai said in his Africa Day message last month.

There is however another school of thought in the party, which is pressing for Zimbabweans to reject Nepad.

"I am advocating that as Zimbabweans we reject Nepad," said Grace Kwinjeh the party's representative to the EU.

"We should refuse to accept that the crisis we are in be discussed in the context of a document that is illegitimate and offers no solutions for our political and economic development," she said.