Leaders to meet on Africa's development strategy

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Published: 01 Nov 2002

Leaders to meet on Africa's development strategy

African leaders are to meet in the Nigerian capital to discuss putting into practice the continent's own plan to escape the poverty trap, AFP reports Nigeria said Wednesday.

Heads of state and government from 20 African countries have been invited to attend Sunday's meeting in Abuja to discuss the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

NEPAD, which was drawn up by African presidents, has been welcomed by the leaders of the rich world and adopted by the UN General Assembly as a blueprint for Africa's development. Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, who is chairman of NEPAD's implementation committee, will host the meeting.

His fellow NEPAD architects Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria and Mohammed Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, have also been invited. President Paul Biya of Cameroon is also invited. Some 15 more African leaders have also been invited either as committee members or observers, along with Amara Essy, the interim chairman of the Commission of the African Union.

Top of the agenda will be putting into practice a "peer review mechanism" under which African leaders can hold their colleagues to account under NEPAD's prescribed standards of good governance. Under this system any African leader who fails to live up to promises of open, accountable, democratic government could be sanctioned by his peers, the statement said. Earlier this month, 60 African economy ministers met in Johannesburg, South Africa, to fashion ways to implement NEPAD in their respective countries, it also said.