NEPAD: Continent’s Promise to Improved Governance

Ephrem Berhanu (The Reporter)—It was recognized that the strengths and opportunities of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is a framework that youth and youth organizations can use for Africa’s development.

NEPAD has committed itself to “African ownership and leadership, as well as broad and deep participation by all sectors of society.” The New partnership for Africa’s Development has been termed as a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development and, at the same time, to participate actively in the world economy and body politic.

This concept and process need to embody youth as a principal target and beneficiary.

It is believed, if NEPAD is to succeed in halting Africa’s marginalization in the globalization process and enhancing its full and beneficial integration into the global economy then youth must be at the vanguard of this process. The impacts of living in a complex and rapidly globalising world are paradoxical, affecting us all. In this rapidly globalising world, youth are highly affected and rarely considered. Youth are at the sharp end of globalization. They can be the most affected but they are also potentially the most adaptable to change. African youth have a great stake in finding means to contribute effectively to the development of their global and local community, and to build the tools, actions and understandings to reshape globalization and its impacts and make globalization work for Africa.

NEPAD does not in itself constitute a conclusive strategy for the sustainable growth of the African continent but represents a window to take the quest for development to another stage. The fruits of renaissance take time before they mature and, for that reason, it is crucial to ensure the ongoing participation and interest of young Africans in NEPAD in order to avoid gaps of vision.

With regard to this, the NEPAD program has to come up with a systematic and holistic strategy to facilitate the effective participation of youth in the whole NEPAD process. This strategy has to take into consideration that before youth can hold any meaningful discourse on NEPAD they must first be informed of what NEPAD entails and only then can have an informed debate. This has to be the genesis of NEPAD Programme.

It should have to devise a mechanism to engage youth in the process of NEPAD framework. Raising awareness on the NEPAD process amongst the youth in order to enabling them in engaging in informed discourse and participation in the process can be the one. On the other hand, by fostering integration and harmonization of the activities of NEPAD Action Partners, youth and youth organizations are working in development with the NEPAD developmental framework.

It has to find a means to lay the ground for the development and implementation of a clear and practical NEPAD Youth Programme of Action. This will define the interaction between youth and NEPAD. The NEPAD program has a meaningful impact on the lives of the majority of Africans, which are the youth, Africa’s promise to better Africa.

Identification of particular areas of sectoral priorities that are high priority for youth and develop strategies for youth participation in the implementation of these priorities can be the other option. The youth on their part should have to focus on identifying clear and easily accessible channels through which they can engage in the NEPAD process at the National level.

One of the milestones of NEPAD is building good governance in Africa. This is done by a means of making African governments accountable to their citizens by looking deeply into its governance structure and implementation. In order to do this NEPAD has come up with a strategy, that is the African Peer Review Mechanism /APRM/, a key pillar of NEPAD. APRM is a mutually agreed instrument voluntarily acceded to by the member states of the African Union as an African self-monitoring mechanism. The primary focus of APRM is to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcement of successful and best practices, including identifying deficiencies, and assessing the needs for capacity building of participating countries.

The primary purpose of the APRM is to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcement of successful and best practice, including identifying deficiencies and assessing the needs for capacity building.”

“The African Governance Report 2005”, UN Economic Commission for Africa, March 2006. The report surveyed experts and households in 27 African countries to gauge citizens’ perception of the state of governance in each country. There have been significant improvements in political governance indicators. However, people’s rights continue to be violated, opposition parties lack access to resources and security, and electoral commissions are not well resourced and lack full independence.

On economic management and corporate governance, progress has been registered in public financial management and accountability. However, tax evasion, corruption and lack of transparency pose serious challenges. A key improvement in accountability is the number of privately owned media. Challenges remain, such as strengthening judicial systems, boosting the effectiveness of the civil service and better integration of traditional institutions into the governance system.

In order to thoroughly assess the capacity of each African country and forward possible means to cope up with the gaps of good governance is the main objective of the APRM.

Twenty-three countries had formally acceded to the African Peer Review Mechanism before the January 23-24, 2006 African Union summit in Khartoum. And until recently only five African countries - Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, Mauritius and South Africa - embarked on the review process.

For a country to go thorough the process it is expected to pass the five stages of APRM. These are:

· Countries undergo a comprehensive national self-assessment exercise involving all relevant constituencies. The assessment report and draft programme of action are then sent to the APRM.

· The APRM Secretariat makes a country review visit.

· The country review team prepares a draft report.

· The APRM chairperson communicates the recommendations to the head of state and government of the country under review.

The country report and action programme are publicized. The national self-assessment and all the process is financed by the country itself. One of the greatest importance of this process is the inclusion of civil society organizations, youths, women’s, private sector as a sole organ in all the process right from the assessment stage to the final report preparation. This helps the country report to be realistic and not biased by politicians.

Ghana is the first African country to successfully complete the different stages of the African Peer Review Mechanism. When a country acceded to APRM, it is expected that they will start the process soon. As per the code of practice of APRM a country acceding to the APRM should have to start the process no later than 18 month to the date of accession.

Ethiopia is among the 23 African countries that has acceded APRM, and it will start the process of implementing the APRM at the country level. In doing this the country will facilitate the development and implementation of a national programme of action to improve the performance of the country in the area of governance and socio-economic development as stipulated in the APRM base document.

One of the major areas of the country review, among others, is democracy and good political governance as a vehicle for sustainable development and the eradication of poverty. In ensuring this, 9 objectives are identified. Objective 8 of the APRM organization and process outlines youth as a criterion for evaluation of government practices. Based on the standards of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the objective sets standards for the constitutional guarantee of the rights of children and young people, establishment of institutions to safeguard these rights, and it sets standards for the promotion and protection of the rights of youth in participation in public life.

The youth has to actively participation in the APRM process in Ethiopia as lessons from APRM are not incremental to the long-term benchmarking of a country if its fails to involve youth. The value of the NEPAD APRM process is that the lessons gained from the audit shall occasion inward reflection and development of structures necessary to meet commitments more successfully. Commitment to developing alternative ways of doing politics, business and relating in the social realm cannot be sustainable unless they are youth targeted.

Youths and children have to be mainstreamed into the unfolding NEPAD/APRM Process with the view to provide information and invite their perspectives on the four areas of APRM Review namely Political Governance, Commitment to Democracy, Economic Governance and Corporate Governance.

Youth and youth serving organizations and the government have to build on the successful integration of youth in the APRM process in Ethiopia. As NEPAD places strong emphasis on gender parity and is concerned about the gender perspectives, it concerns young women. To this end it has forged a close working relationship with other initiatives fighting for the inclusion into NEPAD of women and young women.

Thus to have come up with a sound and useful outcome from the process, African governments have to allocate adequate resources and must play their part in ensuring that the initiative is adequately funded and, at the same time, that it remains an African-led initiative.

The civil society organizations, on their part, have to strengthen cooperation with governments and the private sector in order to identify problems as well as solutions respecting national, regional and pan-African interests.

Building a better image of Africa needs collaboration and integration with and between the African governments, civil society organizations, the private sector, and the international community at large.

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