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Sout
h African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel was upbeat yesterday
on the progress achieved in making Nepad a reality, saying its
fledgling peer review was a world first.
"We must recognise the African peer review mechanism as a major
breakthrough from anything that has happened anywhere previously,"
he told delegates at the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Africa summit
in Durban.
More than 600 political, business and civil society delegates are
meeting in the East Coast city to discuss how to move the New
Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) from words to
actions.
The peer review mechanism aims to monitor whether countries are
adhering to Nepad principles.
Manuel said one of the major challenges facing Africa was to ensure
mutual accountability, and this was what Nepad, which he described
as the first major initiative since the cold war, was all
about.
In this regard progress in setting up the peer review mechanism was
exceedingly important.
In the past year six prominent Africans had been appointed to the
unit, and 15 countries had signed up for peer review.
Unless Nepad was seen as trustworthy and mistakes were corrected,
people might lose faith and courage to take it forward.
Africa, therefore, needed to build stronger supra-national
organisations and Africans must develop an "intolerance of
mediocrity".
"There is no other part of the world that has taken issues that far
because that's laying your soul bare, and I think that's an
important element," he said.
But, Manuel stressed the developed world was not doing enough to
help resolve the massive debt problems plaguing Africa, and
stripping it of money.
"There is still too much money that flows off the African continent
as part of debt service, a lot of it quite unjustifiable," he
said.
Ghanian private sector development minister Kwamena Bartels,
however, was less optimistic on peer review.
Addressing a separate session, he said a lot needed to be done by
both African countries and international partners to make Nepad
work.
Developed countries had been slow in lowering the barriers to trade
for African nations, and had fared poorly in, among other things,
fulfilling its promises on development aid and cutting debt.
He also said some African leaders had not delivered on Nepad and in
particular on the peer review mechanism, but that the recovery plan
must not be allowed to be held back by the poor performance of
those countries.
A number of African governments appeared to have problems with
delivering on the commitments towards transparency and
accountability, therefore, they would struggle to live up to
standards required by Nepad.
But, if other countries delivered on the commitments, these would
be "dragged along".
"I believe it is important to let these drivers take Nepad
forward... in the hope that others that are not as committed will
see themselves left behind and will be under pressure from their
people to move forward," Bartels said.
Only 15 of the 53 member countries in the African Union had so far
signed up for Nepad's peer review mechanism, he pointed out.
Meanwhile, Merril Lynch vice-chairman for Europe, Middle East and
Africa, Brian Henderson, said there was a great opportunity now for
Africa to "get on with it" and not be distracted by competition for
investment from outside the region.
Europe was currently going through a tremendous amount of economic
dislocation and the US was facing a huge challenge in getting its
economy back on track.
"The opportunities are there, it's a question of getting on with
the programme," he said. – Sapa.
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