Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - As the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) marks 10 years of its existence as a continental programme aimed at fast tracking the development agenda of the continent, opinions are divided about how far it has succeeded in achieving its objective.

Worried by the failure of past efforts to have a significant impact on the continent's development, African leaders - at their summit in Lusaka, Zambia, in July 2001 - came up with the idea of a home-grown development agenda, and adopted NEPAD as the strategy for turning around the fortunes of the close to one billion people on the continent.

According to an  official NEPAD document, the programme is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and place their countries both individually and collectively on the path of sustainable growth and development.

NEPAD as a concept is a merger of two separate development initiatives conceived at the outset of the 21st century as the long term development vision for Africa - the Millennium Partnership for African Recovery Programme, put forward by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, ex-South African President Thabo Mbeki, Abdulaziz Boutifika of Algeria and former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak.

The second initiative was the “OMEGA PLAN”, proposed by President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal.

Therefore, NEPAD has at its priorities peace, security, democracy and good governance, economic and corporate governance, regional cooperation and integration, human capital development, agriculture and environment, development of Information Communication and Technology, energy, science, transport and water across Africa.

Since its inception, NEPAD has since undergone some metamorphosis. In February 2010, the 14th Assembly of AU decided to establish the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency), as the technical organ of the AU, to replace the NEPAD Secretariat.

The NEPAD Agency works closely with the African Union Commission (AUC), regional economic communities, national governments, civil society and the private sector to push for programmes and projects that focus on improving the lives of the African people.

So how far has NEPAD impacted positively on Africa's development?

“I think NEPAD has been successful as far as I am concerned,'' former Nigerian Ambassador to Angola Layiwola Laseinde told PANA. ''The reason for its success is that it tries to say that African themselves can take control of positive things and move African continent forward, in terms of investments, in terms of the (African) Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), and in terms of many other areas.''

He said, in particular, that the APRM had been a success, especially as it ensures that African leaders would no longer automatically support a bad leader.

''If a leader is supposed to leave office after his term has expired and he doesn’t leave, NEPAD - through the African Union - will set up a mechanism to remind him in a diplomatic manner on the need to keep to the constitution and go. To me it was not possible in the past, every country was left to its own devices,” Ambassador Laseinde added.

APRM is a mutually-agreed self-monitoring programme to promote and reinforce high standards of governance. Its mandate is to ensure that the policies and practices of participating countries conform to the agreed values in the four focus areas - Democracy and Political governance, economic governance, corporate governance and socio-economic development.

At its inception, only 10 countries signed on to it, but 10 years later, the number has tripled to 30.

As part of the APRM, there are periodic reviews of the participating countries to assess progress being made towards achieving the mutually-agreed goals. Between 2006 and January 2011, 14 member countries have been peer reviewed.

Apart from the APRM, NEPAD can also boast of other achievements. Under the NEPAD initiative, Africa is now engaged with the Group of Eight (G8) most industrialised nations in attracting development assistance to the continent. NEPAD has also developed an appropriate constructive partnership between Africa and the International Community, including the G-8 industrialized nations.

Also, in 2003, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) was set up as part of NEPAD, with the main goal of revitalising African agriculture for economic growth. Through CAADP, some African countries have raised their agricultural productivity by 6% per year.

Similarly, the level of per capital food production in Africa has increased steadily. Average poverty levels in Africa, which rose annually in 80s and 90s, have actually dropped by about six percentage points over the last ten years.

Another remarkable feat achieved by NEPAD is the recent publication of the 2010 African Innovation Outlook. For the first time in the continent’s history, the document was formally launched in May 2011 at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The document provides useful insights into science, technology and innovation activities in African countries. Twenty three countries participated in the Research

08 august 2011 10:45:15

Source: Panapress