To get it started, African leaders must put aside presidential prestige and begin the sensitive task of appraising each other’s performance.
In return, rich nations must invest in those countries that score well, analysts say.
So far, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and the expensive regional water, power, gas and road projects that it promised, remain mostly on the drawing board.
“I am very sceptical about NEPAD,” said Jasper Okelo, a professor of economics at the University of Nairobi.
“How can it be working if they are just talking and talking? By now we should have seen those roads happening,” he said.
African leaders launched NEPAD in 2001 to improve political and economic management in return for more foreign aid and trade. But African experts and the public say the initiative is taking too long to get off the ground.
Doubts are gathering about the planned implementation of a so-called “peer review mechanism”, in which African leaders will appraise each other’s performance on fighting corruption and establishing the rule of law, a key plank of NEPAD.
Impatience is also creeping in among some African leaders.
At a meeting in December, Mali President Amadou Toumani Toure said: “I used to dream about NEPAD all the time. But now I am getting impatient because we talk and talk and talk.”
Head of state meeting
On Friday 20 heads of state chaired by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo will meet in Rwanda to track NEPAD’s progress and will hear that the plan is advancing, albeit slowly.
Supporters say it has increased the global attention of industrialised countries on Africa and spurred a measure of unity among African leaders to deal with conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Burundi.
NEPAD chief Wiseman Nkuhlu says an array of development banks are considering more than $2 billion in funding for energy and transport projects following NEPAD’s intervention.
The World Bank has separately committed $313 million this year and $352 million in 2005 for infrastructure, he said.
The projects include a southern Africa regional gas project, a southern Africa power project, a submarine fibre-optic cable for east Africa and west African gas pipeline.
But Nkuhlu said raising funds has not proved easy.
“The mobilisation of funding for NEPAD is a problem, but can be achieved with the requisite amounts of hard work and political will,” he says in a report written for the Rwanda summit.
He urges African presidents to make NEPAD popular among their populations.
Analysts say a key shortcoming of NEPAD is a lack of clear priorities on how to deal with chronic ills such as war, graft and poor delivery of electricity, water and other services.
“Unfortunately, NEPAD has done a far better job identifying problems than building either the compass or capacity to solve them,” said Ross Herbert, Africa Researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs.
Peer review
NEPAD’s credibility hinges on starting a governance rating plan called “peer review”.
It must deliver robust reports about governments’ economic and governance policies this year or risk losing the enthusiasm of donors keen to fund it, Herbert said.
Peer review was to start last October but analysts said many governments were dragging their feet, eager to avoid what they see as interference in their internal affairs.
So far only 16 governments have agreed to be rated on macro-economic policies, corruption, human rights, democracy and governance, and the domestic business environment.
Analysts say lack of cash and expertise could further delay the review process, and sceptics say the voluntary nature of the scheme means that countries in which democracy is most under threat are unlikely to be scrutinised.
Much of the review process is confidential and designed to encourage, not chastise.
But Nigerian analyst Obi Iwuagwu urged sceptics to give NEPAD time before they write it off.
“If we judge NEPAD strictly by international standards, we may write it off.
“But that will not be fair because we know where we are coming from,” said Iwuagwu of Cectrep Consultants Ltd in Lagos.
“If in the next two to five years we do not see positive results, then definitely something is wrong with the continent.”
(Additional reporting by Tume Ahemba in Lagos and Manoah Esipisu in Johannesburg). (Reuters)
