PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL ADVISER ON AFRICA

PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL ADVISER ON AFRICA

International support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) -- the continent’s development way forward -- would be boosted by an international panel of eminent economists, development practitioners and academics just appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, his Special Adviser on Africa, Ibrahim Gambari, told a Headquarters press briefing today.

Known as the Secretary-General’s Advisory Panel on International Support for the New Partnership on Africa, the Panel would be headed by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the formerCommonwealthSecretary-General and former Nigerian Foreign Minister, and current President of the World Wildlife Foundation.

The 13-member Panel had been created to advise the Secretary-General on enhancing global support for NEPAD.  In addition to Mr. Anyaoku, its notable personalities are:  Jagdish Bhagwati (India); Michel Camdessus (France); Anne Kristin-Snydes (Norway); Richard Jolly (United Kingdom); Kwesi Botchwey (Ghana); Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa); Fantu Cheru (Ethiopia); Ricardo Hausmann (Venezuela); Carol Lancaster (United States); Masaki Miyaji (Japan); Julienne Ngo Som (Cameroon); and Ismail Serageldin (Egypt).

Mr. Gambari said the Panel would monitor the scope and progress of international support for NEPAD and advise Mr. Annan on ways to expand and strengthen global partnerships for Africa’s development goals.  It would meet once a year, during which it would review and assess the scope and adequacy of international support for NEPAD, conduct a dialogue with Africa’s development partners, including the United Nations system, with a view to promoting support for NEPAD and making recommendations to the Secretary-General on actions to be taken by the international community to enhance support for the implementation of NEPAD and the development of Africa in general.

Nigeria’s President Obasanjo, who was the new chair of the African Union, retained his chair of the Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee of NEPAD, so as to bring synergy between NEPAD and the Union, Mr. Gambari explained.  His Office had released three reports today detailing progress in three important aspects of NEPAD.  The first report examined the experience of Algeria, Nigeria and South Africa, the “prime movers” and originators of the idea of an African renaissance, driven by development and ownership of the definition of the continent’s problems and priorities, as well as partnership with the international community.

He said that the report started from the premise, that in order to succeed, regional development initiatives like NEPAD had to be embedded in the national development process.  It held that there was no single right approach to integrating NEPAD’s priorities into national development frameworks.  The report, however, identified four main issues central to that integration process into national development processes.  The first was that there had to be NEPAD focal points in each country.  Second, there had to be a mechanism for decision-making and implementing NEPAD nationally.  Third, financial and budgetary allocation to for NEPAD’s priorities had to be established, otherwise, he pointed out, “it’s no use for the African countries to say: ‘these are our priorities’.  And then you find out when you come to national budget those priorities are not reflected in the national budget”. 

Finally, he said, there should be a consultative process initiated within and between governments and the private sector, civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), so as to address the criticism of some that NEPAD was a top-down programme.  In order to really make it bottom-up, there had to be greater consultation within government, and between government and the private sector and civil society.  The report concluded that, to sustain progress in those areas, NEPAD’s implementation required strong national leadership, which was engaged and involved.  As a complement, enhanced commitment, as well as support by the continent’s development partners, was also crucial, he said.

The second report was on capital flows and contained specific recommendations for African governments and their development partners in six key areas.  The third report, which was on South-South cooperation, highlighted links between African countries and their Latin American and Caribbean counterparts in the areas of agriculture, health and education, energy, telecommunications, peace and security, the environment and trade.

Asked to identify the new Panel’s immediate task, Mr. Gambari said its first priority was to assess the scope and adequacy of international support.  The General Assembly had adopted a resolution endorsing NEPAD as a framework for international support for Africa’s development, in general, so, one of the Panel’s key functions would be to see how far that had been translated into reality.

To another question, he said he was happy to inform correspondents that, at the last African Union summit, five additional countries had signed up for the self-evaluation mechanism created by the African leaders at their previous summit, bringing to 23 the number of countries that had joined.  “Not bad.  That’s 23 out of 53 -- almost 50 per cent”, he said, for a voluntary mechanism that was only essentially a year old.  More and more Africans were recognizing that it was in their best interest to subscribe to that African peer review mechanism, because it was their own.  Its intention was not to punish, but to identify good practices that others might emulate, and bad practices that others might avoid. 

“So, I think more and more countries are seeing benefits”, he said, adding that Ghana, for instance, had volunteered to be the first country to be peer reviewed in a process that began last month.  He noted that, even Rwanda, coming out of the tragic events of the genocide, had signed up, just as Sierra Leone, which was another country emerging from conflict.  The latter had not wanted to wait until the United Nations left before it began putting in place the beginning of a process of “good behaviour”, not just in terms of political and economic governance, but also in terms of corporate governance, he said.

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