"Since Africa’s history of unequal relations with the developed world in the last three centuries or so is such that it has largely become a non-autonomous actor without the capacity to decide its own fate and future, NEPAD - by being essentially a-historical does not constitute an adequate response to the continent’s underdevelopment. It needs to be replaced by a more African-centred economic action plan that takes the continents history into account." This the central argument of this article from Africa Studies Quarterly, reproduced on the website of University of Natal's Centre for Civil Society.