Globalisation, NEPAD and the Governance Question in Africa

Abstract

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is yet another initiative by Africa’s Heads of State and Governments intended to reverse, for good, the beggarly and highly embarrassing image of the continent through a ‘sustained engagement’ with the developed world. Among its many objectives, NEPAD seeks to halt the growing and deepening poverty of Africans by working towards altering the basis of the relationship between the rich North and the poor South. The initiative seeks a new global partnership based on shared responsibility and mutual interest through the instrumentality of political democracy and economic development on the continent. It is also concerned to institute people-centered development via market-oriented economies capable of holding their own ground in the global village. Furthermore, NEPAD is in search of building blocks to lay the foundation for a new politico-economic order, one able to permanently reverse the old clich that ‘Africa is rich but Africans are poor’. The politico-economic blueprint of action is also meant to strengthen the capacity of the state with a view to making it an effective engineer, formulator and implementer of people-friendly programs and policies. Finally, where various Lome EU-ACP agreements have virtually condemned Africa to the unenviable role of producing no more than primary commodities for Western industrial consumption, NEPAD proposes a frontal attack on the negative fall-outs of the continent’s integration into the global system as an extremely weak partner and a peripheral player.