New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)

A bold initiative for Africa’s revival

What is NEPAD?

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and firm and shared conviction that they have a pressing duty to the African people 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 new African initiative was conceived and adopted, as the continent’s main development framework, by Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity (now African Union) at their Summit in Lusaka (Zambia) in July 2001. It is founded on a hard-headed assessment of the political and socio-economic realities in Africa today, and on the conviction that the development of the continent is ultimately the responsibility of Africans themselves.

NEPAD is also a response to the call of the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi A. Annan, to the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000, stressing that “the digital divide can — and will — be bridged”. The majority of the world’s population has yet to benefit from new technology — notably information and communication technologies. “That is why the Millennium Summit recognized the key role of partnerships involving governments, bilateral and multilateral development agencies, the private sector and other stakeholders in putting ICTs in the service of development. That is why, a year before, at the opening ceremony of the TELECOM 99 global event, I launched an appeal to governments and to the private sector to support the ITU initiative to convene a World Summit on the Information Society,” Mr Annan declared.

NEPAD recognizes the significant and cross-cutting impact of ICTs on all aspects of human life. African leaders identified the development of the ICT sector as one of the priority programmes of NEPAD, aimed at defining the continent’s new and aggressive efforts to accelerate its economic development and growth. But for this growth to occur, they also recognize that three conditions must prevail:

• peace, security, democracy and good political governance;
• improved economic and corporate governance;
• regional cooperation and integration.

NEPAD further points to several other priority sectors requiring special attention and action. These include physical infrastructure, such as roads, railways linking neighbouring countries, as well as power systems; human development focusing on health and education, including the development of skills; agriculture; and promoting the diversification of production and exports, with a focus on market access for African exports to industrialized countries.

Dialogue around these NEPAD priorities is well under way with the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized countries and other donors, and discussions have been gathering momentum across Africa and around the world about this new vision for the future of the continent.

At the second Preparatory Committee meeting (Geneva, 17–28 February 2003) for the World Summit on the Information Society, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, who is the Honorary Chairman of the e-Africa Commission said: “We need digital solidarity, perhaps founded on a digital charter, by which economies higher up on the ICT development scale would be bound to help those at the lower end. This would be based on a digital snake, with a gradually narrowing gap between the extremes.” On the ICT front, NEPAD’s objectives aim to double the teledensity by 2005, with an adequate level of access for households; lower the cost and improve reliability of service; achieve e-readiness for all countries in Africa; develop and produce a pool of ICT-proficient young students from which Africa can draw trainee ICT engineers, programmers and software developers; and develop local content software, based especially on Africa’s cultural legacy.

The e-Africa Commission

The e-Africa Commission is the NEPAD special Task Force on ICT matters. Announcing the creation of the Commission at ITU TELECOM AFRICA 2001, South Africa’s Minister for Communications, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, said: “In order to ensure that NEPAD’s priority programmes are implemented speedily, and that they have a visible and positive effect on the lives of ordinary Africans, the continent’s leadership established special Task Forces… It is with a great sense of privilege, therefore, that I announce the creation of the first NEPAD initiative, the e-Africa Commission.” Almost one year later, in September 2002, the NEPAD Steering Committee confirmed the e-Africa Commission.

The e-Africa Commission functions through two committees. One is the Executive Committee, chaired by former President Alpha Oumar Konaré of Mali, who is also Chairman of the e-Africa Commission. The other is the Programme Coordinating Committee comprising ten commissioners selected for their international knowledge and expertise to lead the work in the Focus Areas of the Commission.

Priority Focus Areas

At the first meeting of the Executive Committee and the Programme Coordinating Committee, held in Kwa Maritane (South Africa) from 16 to 18 January 2003, several domains were identified as initial top priority Focus Areas for the e-Africa Commission. These include:

• Human development: The e-schools project.
• Infrastructure development: low-cost satellite access for schools, submarine cable for East Africa.
• e-policies and strategies.
• Special programmes (Youth project).
• Public e-awareness.
• Local content.

The NEPAD e-schools project

Education and health are among the uppermost priorities of NEPAD. Accordingly, for the e-Africa Commission, the application of ICTs to education will be the highest of its priority areas to join education and health objectives of NEPAD and the UN Millennium Development Goals. And so, the NEPAD e-schools project is high on the Commission’s agenda. But what is an e-school? It is a school with a minimum set of ICT tools necessary to improve and accelerate the provision of education in Africa. The e-Africa Commission is busy laying the foundation to attain the target set by African leaders that the continent’s high school students should be information technology (IT) literate in the next five years, starting from the beginning of 2004. Another objective is that at the end of ten years, any child graduating from an African primary school should be IT literate. A number of satellites in orbit today, owned by different operators, have footprints on the African continent and have transponder capacity that is not currently in use. The Commission has approached some satellite operators to discuss the provision of low-cost satellite capacity in support of the NEPAD e-schools project and other requirements. It is also talking to other possible partners for innovative solutions for the associated ground infrastructure (e.g., satellite terminals, computers and local power systems) at the schools.

ITU contribution

ITU Resolution 124 from Marrakesh gives full support to NEPAD in five broad areas: policy and regulatory issues, financing and investment, infrastructure development, universal access and ICT development, and human resources development and management. It instructs the Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau to pay particular attention to the implementation of the provisions of the ITU–D Istanbul Action Plan relating to support for NEPAD, earmarking resources so that this can be permanently monitored. It also requests the SecretaryGeneral to release appropriate financial resources for activities to support NEPAD, in particular the surplus from ITU TELECOM WORLD exhibitions and forums.

Prior to taking this decision, the plenipotentiaries noted Resolution 56/218 of the United Nations General Assembly, which in part reaffirms that plans and modalities of the United Nations future engagement with NEPAD should be considered during 2002. It also calls on the United Nations system and the international community to support the New African Initiative and to ensure effective representation.

Partnerships for progress
The United Nations ICT Task Force

The e-Africa Commission is NEPAD’s instrument for collaboration in ICT matters with other bodies in Africa and abroad.

Already, the Commission has started a fruitful collaboration with UN ICT Task Force, initially to focus on projects in the areas of human development, infrastructure, and e-policies and strategies. As the bulk of the NEPAD ICT programme will be implemented in the form of projects, the UN ICT Task Force could play an important role in helping to build the Commission’s capacity in the areas of project formulation, planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation.

The G-8

Leaders of the G-8, at their Summit in Kananaskis (Canada) in June 2002, met with the presidents of Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa, and with the Secretary-General of the United Nations to discuss the challenges facing Africa, as well as the G-8’s response to NEPAD. This summit adopted the G-8 Africa Action Plan as a framework for action in support of NEPAD, giving a strong stamp of approval to the latter’s programme. Each G-8 country pledged to establish enhanced partnerships with African countries whose performance reflects the NEPAD commitments. The G-8 Summit in Evian (France) in June 2003 will review progress on the implementation of the Africa Action Plan, based on a final report from the G-8 Personal Representatives for Africa.

Conclusion

In the past, many interesting and promising initiatives have been developed in key areas (development, human rights, conflict prevention…), but have failed for different reasons. NEPAD has not been constructed to be just another initiative. It is a holistic, integrated sustainable development initiative for the economic and social revival of Africa. The wide support received from the G-8 Summit, the European Union, the United Nations with its specialized institutions, the Bretton Woods Institutions, the Nordic countries, the World Economic Forum and others, is a demonstration of the seriousness and credibility of this initiative. The e-Africa Commission, as the NEPAD ICT Task Force, is determined to take the appropriate actions to help Africa bridge the digital divide, and plans to be very active in the two phases of the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 and in 2005.