United Press International - June 27, 2002
Kathy A. Gambrell

"The New Partnership for Africa's Development offers something different. It is, first and foremost, a pledge by African leaders to the people of Africa to consolidate democracy and sound economic management, and to promote peace, security and people-centered development," the leaders said in a G8 action plan released after midmorning talks.

"African leaders have personally directed its creation and implementation. They have formally undertaken to hold each other accountable for its achievement," the document said.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika attended the roundtable discussions.

The New Economic Partnership for African Development, a type of Marshall plan for developing nations, was created by the Nigerian president and leaders from Senegal and Algeria, among others seeking reform. NEPAD targets underdeveloped countries for development assistance provided they meet conditions of good government and political stability.

It is a turn away from the traditional mode of development assistance through loans, but rather provides technical assistance and grants linked with a number of factors that Western nations are insisting upon such as an end to political corruption and internal conflicts.

Obasanjo, who led the African delegation into the summit talks, was once a military leader who critics say had serious problems within his own country with corruption. Some Westerners wondered if African leaders will able to rein in or track human rights abuses as a condition of receiving financial help. Obasanjo says they will.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, host of the summit in Kananaskis, invited the leaders to participate for the first time in a full day of talks. Africa represents less than 1 percent of the world's trade, and some nations such as Nigeria have escalating foreign debt which they are too poor to repay.

For example, Nigeria alone owes development banks and foreign nations some $28.5 billion in loans.

Chretien, speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon, pledged to invest $6 billion over five years to help Africa find its way out of poverty.

"The point is not to give them a handout," Chretien said, stressing that distribution of the funding would be dependent on certain conditions.

"A country that becomes less poor becomes a consumer country," Chretien said. Global leaders attending the two-day summit assembled outside the Delta Lodge in Kananaskis for a brief photo opportunity and to hear Obasanjo pledge his commitment to the Africa plan that will target the emerging nations. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the initiative a turning point for Africa.

"This summit might come to be seen as a turning point in the history of the Africa and indeed of the world. That is a challenge for all of us to live up to it. One clear indication of whether we are living up to it or not will come in two months' time when meet again in Africa for another summit -- this time, the World Summit on Sustainable Development," said Annan.

Political analysts say what is interesting about NEPAD is that the Africans have developed their own set of governance criteria and peer review mechanisms. The G7 finance ministers agreed to replenish the International Development Association, part of the World Bank which provides loans to poor countries in return for a pledge to convert 18 percent to 21 percent of the money from loans to grants. The United States agreed to a replenishment that could make some $2 billion available, analysts said.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters that President George W. Bush wanted to see responsibility on the part of African leaders and not just development aid. "Development assistance without good governance is wasted money," Rice said. She said Bush expected the United States to commit some 50 percent to its development aid to Africa if it can live up to performance goals.

The leaders at the G8 summit said they were impressed that the African leadership have formally undertaken to hold one another accountable for its achievement, emphasizing good governance and human rights as conditions for recovery.

"As G8 partners, we will undertake mutually reinforcing actions to help Africa accelerate growth and make lasting gains against poverty," summit leaders said. They called the African peer-review process an "innovative" and "potentially decisive element" reaching the goals outlined in NEPAD.

Obasanjo told European leaders that NEPAD remains the collective vision of African leaders to eradicate poverty, promote sustainable development and put the continent on a path to good governance.

"We are under no illusion that we have embarked on an easy task. But we know one thing; we are resolute. We are determined to pursue success for this program," Obasanjo said.

The White House estimates that while the per-capita income in developing countries has nearly doubled, one-half of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. America buys and imports more than $450 billion in products from the developing world annually, more than eight times the amount developing nations receive in aid from all sources, officials said.

Bush came to the summit table after nearly a year of promoting his initiatives on development and newly shaped humanitarian assistance, many of which were well received earlier this year at the Monterrey, Mexico, conference on development assistance. Among them are the Millennium Challenge Account, similar to NEPAD, which provides grants to struggling countries that meet certain political conditions.

The United States launched last year the African Development and Enterprise Program, a $15 million trade initiative to assist African businesses sell their products on the global markets. It also created a $200 million overseas private investment corporation support facility that will give American firms access to loans, guarantees and political risk insurance for investment projects in sub-Sahara Africa.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act created regional trade hubs, the first of which opened in Botswana on June 19. Two weeks ago, Bush pledged $200 million to the African Education Initiative, bringing the administration's total commitment to $630 million over the next five years. Those funds would pay for 4.5 million new textbooks, training for more than 400,000 new teachers and 250,000 scholarships for African girls.

And most recently, Bush introduced his International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative that will focus on 12 countries in Africa and regions in the Caribbean with a high prevalence of infection. The funding would pay for anti-viral medication that can often prevent the passage of the HIV virus from mothers to their unborn children.

Over the next 16 months, $200 million drawn out of the supplemental appropriations request would become available for the program and the remaining $300 million would become available in 2003 and fund the program through 2004. Bush's initiative would train personnel in African and Caribbean hospitals in prevention, training and treatment programs, place volunteer medical staff with the countries and recruit African medical and graduate students to provide testing, treatment and care.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has killed more than 20 million people in Africa. Of the 25 most afflicted countries, 24 are in Africa. And in 2001, the number of HIV/AIDS infections grew by 3.4 million people.

But critics say Bush's financial commitment to the African continent has been paltry, at best, and that small sums of money being channeled to developing nations will not be able to adequately relieve the severe poverty, illiteracy or death from disease that ravages many of the people there.

Catholic Relief Services called the proposal a "vague inaction plan" for development.

"The G8 leaders should have come down from their mountain retreat to see what Africa really needs," said Ian Gary, CRS strategic issues adviser for Africa. Gary called the plan a disappointment that provides no new financial commitment.

He pointed to Annan's estimate that Africa would need $7 billion to $10 billion annually to fight HIV/AIDS. So far the United States and other nations have pledged $2 billion for the fund to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria around the world.

He said the money that has been pledged has come with too many strings attached. African leaders are returning home essentially empty-handed, Gary said.
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