SA's task is to see Nepad is not an anticlimax

Source:Business Day

http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1129265-6078-0,00.html

To break with the past Africa must show that it is serious about good governance

AS THE inaugural session of the African Union (AU) drew to a close in Durban last week real threats were emerging to the new start for the continent, as well as the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).

The new body will have to make at least symbolic gestures if it is serious about giving substance to the principles of improved governance and democracy, and to make a break with the past.

"If at this stage we do not do things on principle, we are going to fail before we start," said Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Despite the noble sentiment, it is in fact Nigeria that is behind much of threat that Nepad will be watered down.

SA could have tremendous difficulty dealing with this in coming months. The Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised nations took a waitand-see attitude at their summit last month in Canada, and could delay initiatives if no progress is seen.

But the search for consensus will, for some time yet, override the upholding of Nepad principles. And this could erode Nepad as well as Africa's new relationship with the industrial countries.

There was little sign of upholding Nepad principles in Durban last week. The exclusion of Madagascar on the grounds that its elections were disputed did not really hold water as the country's high constitutional court has now approved the results. Moreover, it simply served to highlight attention on the presence of Zimbabwe. And there was certainly no naming and shaming of leaders who might take a share of the blame for the growing famine in the region.

One of the problems is that Nepad exists in an ambiguous zone. It is a programme of the AU, in that it was adopted by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Peer review lies at the heart of Nepad's push for better governance and accountability. The Nepad secretariat, which is now located at the Development Bank, has been given a year to exist on its own while the AU's commission its public service is being established. Ultimately, it will become part of the AU commission.

The peer-review mechanism, which is based on the standards stated in a Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic, and Corporate Governance, lies at the core of the attempt to change the continent's direction. If leaders fall out of line with the standards outlined in the declaration, they could be named and shamed by their fellow leaders. In some ways the mechanism is more demanding than that used by the European Union.

Agreement to the Nepad peerreview mechanism is purely voluntarily, but there are risks the mechanism will be diluted.

The first threat comes from the pending expansion of the Nepad implementation committee, with Libya's membership highly likely. Under this arrangement, the representation of the committee is being expanded from 15 to 20 members, with an additional country from each of the continent's five regions. Another member likely to be on the committee is Kenya, whose conduct is widely divergent with the principles of Nepad.

Nepad's implementation committee is in effect the "Nepad club", a wider grouping than the fivemember steering committee that oversees the more strategic aspects of the initiative. One of implementation committee's responsibilities will be the appointment of a panel of eminent Africans who will oversee the peer-review mechanism.

SA delegates took the view that now is not the time for battles. It was, they said, far better to have Libya on the panel and satisfy its leader Muammar Gaddafi's demand for a high-profile role, than have him on the outside playing a disruptive role. They also say the real power on the committee can be maintained by those who do the detailed technical work.

There is little doubt that Libya exercises an influential role as it is likely to pay the membership dues of about a third of AU members, as it did in the OAU.

Countries like Ethiopia and Rwanda are upset about the expansion of the committee. Rwandan President Paul Kagame said that Nepad "should not be allowed to slip out of our hands because of a small management problem".

The second potential threat to the Nepad peer-review mechanism comes from the political problems in choosing a credible, independent, and professional body to write the peer-review documents.

Nepad's secretariat headed by President Thabo Mbeki's economic advisor, Wiseman Nkuhlu will have an initial role in co-ordinating the writing of these reports. It will rely initially on the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the United Nations (UN) research and advisory body. But later it is likely that the AU commission will carry out the job.

That could cause problems as the commission will be largely based on the old OAU public service, which has a reputation for its lack of political independence.

Nigeria and a number of other countries are not too keen on ECA involvement. Although the ECA is well respected for its increasingly forthright reports, its mistake might have been in coming up with a report that was all too candid on Zimbabwe and Nigeria.

This could have spurred Obasanjo to say at one of the Durban sessions that the ECA is not an African institution, despite most of its staff being from Africa and the fact that it is based in Addis Ababa.

The AU will have its own mechanism of peer review, separate from Nepad's, and there is a real possibility that the two will be merged into one body. A merger is likely to take place, although the Conference on Security, Stability, Development, and Co-operation in Africa is more of a monitoring mechanism. It was copied from the Organisation Security and Co-operation in Europe, which was created during the cold war as a means of reducing tension.

The problem facing SA is what it can do and will do to prevent the pending slippage of Nepad becoming an anticlimax.