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NEPAD is an Ambiguous Plan
African Charter Article 22. "All peoples have the right to their economic, social and cultural development. States have the duty to ensure these rights". A pungent critique of NEPAD, some of its provisions, especially globalization, and the lack of time for local people to discuss it before it is enacted in June at the G8 meeting in Alberta Canada. "NEPAD correctly states that current 'globalisation' policies fail to lift Africa out of socio-economic decline but then goes on to say that Africa therefore needs more of the same policies", said Mongezi Guma, director of the South African Council of Churches' (SACC) Ecumenical Service for Socio-Economic Transformation, pointing to paragraph 64 of NEPAD as an example." Churches will continue to study the document... NEPAD Is an Ambiguous Plan, Says Church ForumPress Release March 1, 2002 Conference on New Partnership for African development (NEPAD) Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference - Justice & Peace Department The analysis of the nature and causes of Africa's socio-economic and political development problems contained in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) document is on the mark but the solutions it proposes are dubious, a meeting of national church representatives concluded at the end of a one-day consultation in Pretoria yesterday. NEPAD is the proposed plan by heads of African governments and states to put the continent onto a path of sustainable development through democratic governance, peace-building, economic growth, and a new contractual framework with industrialised countries. "The process that gave rise to the current NEPAD document is seriously lacking because there has been no consultation with Africa's citizenry, without whose active participation there can be no real partnership and no real development", said Neville Gabriel, director of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) Justice & Peace Department which hosted the consultation. "While we fully encourage the need for Africa's leadership and peoples to build consensus and stand together for African reconstruction and development through visionary new initiatives like NEPAD, we believe that the process and content of such an initiative must necessarily be informed by popular participation at all stages if it is to succeed", he said. The meeting pointed to sections of the NEPAD document that highlighted the contradictions between NEPAD's problem analysis and the solutions it proposes, especially relating to current debates about economic globalisation. "NEPAD correctly states that current 'globalisation' policies fail to lift Africa out of socio-economic decline but then goes on to say that Africa therefore needs more of the same policies", said Mongezi Guma, director of the South African Council of Churches' (SACC) Ecumenical Service for Socio-Economic Transformation, pointing to paragraph 64 of NEPAD as an example. "While growth rates are important, they are not by themselves sufficient to enable African countries to achieve the goal of poverty reduction. The challenge for Africa, therefore, is to develop the capacity to sustain growth at levels required to achieve poverty reduction and sustainable development." (NEPAD, paragraph 64) The meeting resolved to further assess NEPAD's content and process through ongoing discussion forums. Participants expressed the churches' willingness to contribute to the NEPAD process through continued engagement, information generation, analysis, and community consultation. The meeting was addressed by Smunda Mokoena, South Africa's representative on the NEPAD Steering Committee based in the NEPAD Secretariat, and economics professor Michael Samson, from the Economic Policy Research Institute."
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