Source: Carnegie
ISSUE BRIEF
Global Policy
Program
June 26, 2002
The G-8 and Africa: A Kernel of Hope
By Marina Ottaway
One of the major items on the agenda of the G-8 during their meeeting in Kananaskis, Canada, is an African proposal for a New Partnership for African Development, or NEPAD. Several years in the making and actively promoted by the presidents of South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Algeria and Egypt, NEPAD is an ambitious plan for putting Africa on the road to rapid economic growth.
NEPAD is too grandiose a plan to inspire much confidence. It envisages a growth
rate of at least 7 percent a year for the next fifteen years, achieved through
the investment of $ 64 billion a year financed largely by increased aid and
foreign investment. Such figures bear no relation to the situation on the continent.
The average growth rate in Sub-Saharan Africa in the last decade was 2.5 percent
a year, with only three countries, Mozambique, Uganda and Sudan achieving a
growth rate approaching 7 percent, Sudan entirely because of oil production.
Furthermore, most African countries simply do not have the capacity to absorb
a large increase in foreign assistance. And a significantly larger inflow of
foreign investment is also out of the question in the short run, except in a
few mineral rich countries such as Angola, and even there only if peace prevails.
Despite the obvious flaws, it would be a mistake for the G-8 to dismiss NEPAD
completely. The plan is the only game in Africa now and despite its obvious
flaws it contains positive elements to which a constructive response by the
G-8 could be anchored. First, NEPAD explicitly embraces the idea that development
requires good governance and democracy, open markets and sound macro-economic
policies, large investments in health and education, and a focus on agriculture
and agro-based industries as the starting point for growth. These are the same
ideas donors are promoting and seek to enforce through the conditionalities
they impose on recipients.
Second, the plan sets forth the concept of a peer review process through which African countries would monitor each other's performance and take responsibility for the implementation of the plan. The details of the peer review process are still unclear and will only be officially known in July. There are reasons to be skeptical about the honesty of the envisaged peer review process, because African leaders have always been extremely reluctant to criticize each other, as seen most recently by their muted reaction to the fraudulent presidential elections of March 2002 in Zimbabwe. Yet peer review provides an unprecedented opportunity to hold African leaders accountable.
How then should the G-8 respond to NEPAD? Certainly not by pouring into Africa $ 64 billion a year, or by abandoning current aid programs tied to conditionality. The present system should stay in place. But the donors should also agree to a modest increase in assistance for a selected group of African countries. This additional aid should be provided without conditionalities other than respect for the NEPAD principles and an effective peer review process. African governments should be allowed to decide how to spend the additional aid, but should be judged on whether they adhere to the principles they have embraced.
The program should be considered experimental and watched closely. Only a small
group of the most promising countries should be included in the initial phase.
The program should not be renewed unless at the end of an agreed upon period
the countries involved submit themselves to an honest peer review that does
not degenerate into mutual white-washing. But if the peer review is undertaken
conscientiously and shows that the countries have largely adhered to the principles
they have proclaimed and are serious about addressing shortcomings, the program
should be expanded, increasing assistance further, freeing larger
amounts from conditionalities and slowly bringing in other countries.
This approach has its problems. Some aid will probably be misused, but this happens even when aid is laden with conditionalities. Modest increases targeting a limited number of countries will not satisfy those who want a massive infusion of money across the entire continent. But there is no better option. Africa cannot overcome the present crisis without increased assistance. Assistance only works when the recipients respect the principles NEPAD spells out, but it is difficult to obtain the wholehearted commitment of African leaders to any principles when donors try to micromanage their countries by imposing an increasing number of conditionalities. NEPAD, judiciously trimmed of its grandiosity, provides a means to phase in an assistance regime that meets these requirements.
Marina Ottaway is a senior associate and co-director of the Democracy Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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