Johannesburg — THE secretariat of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) must demonstrate to African Union (AU) member states that it has the capacity to help their economies grow if the vision for Africa' s renewal is to succeed, according to Nepad's newly appointed CEO, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki.

Mayaki, a former prime minister of the Republic of Niger, is Nepad's third CEO. The post was held previously by Prof Wiseman Nkuhlu of SA from 2001-20 05 and by Firmino Mucavele of Mozambique from 2005-2008, with an acting appointment in the interim.

Mayaki says many countries understand the main objectives of Nepad, but want to see the secretariat "demonstrating its efficiency through the successful delivery of key regional infrastructure development projects on the ground" that will translate into the effective integration of the continent's five regional economic communities.

"The real challenge we face is to deliver more projects aimed at facilitating regional economic growth to boost our credibility and reputation as the AU's agent tasked to place African countries -- individually and collectively -- on a path of sustainable growth and development," he says.

This means Nepad has to strive to remove political and administrative barriers that have prevented Africa from building its market of 900-million inhabitants.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was openly critical of the African continent in general during her visit to SA last month for failing to remove colonial hangovers that thwart trade links between individual countries and within Africa's five economic regions.

Although Mayaki assumed his CEO duties at the Midrand-based Nepad secretariat on April 1, he officially presented his letters of credence to International Relations and Co-operation Deputy Minister Ebrahim Ebrahim last week. He is tasked with administering the interim AU office in Midrand while the AU Commission integrates his secretariat with its structures.

He will also act as the principal representative of the chairman of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, on issues in line with the h ost a greement entered into between SA and the commission in October last year. SA has offered to host the secretariat indefinitely.

Mayaki admits that the continent is in a race against time to claim its stake in the world market. At the moment, Africa represents only 5% of the world market despite hosting the world's greatest reserves of mineral resources.

He says the continent's colonial history has been instrumental in blocking trade among African countries, especially within regional economic communities. As a result there had been very little cross-border entrepreneurship activity "to stimulate economic growth and interdependence".

He says that for Nepad to fulfil its mandate of "halting the marginalisation of Africa in the globalisation process and enhancing its full and beneficial integration into the global economy", it first has the task of ensuring that regional economic communities increase trade within and among themselves.

"If we get every country to subscribe to this vision and progressively open and share trade links with neighbours, we will considerably reduce the number of poor countries that produce very little and therefore totally depend on international aid for survival," he says. This will involve convincing countries to accept the inherent benefits of relaxing some of their sovereign powers and to agree to align their trade laws through regional agreements and within the AU's economic framework.

"Although the regions don't have the luxury of time to endlessly debate these issues, we accept that the synchronisation of rules must be done with all due consideration for political sensitivities expressed by some member states," he says.

The Nepad strategic framework was formally adopted at the 37th summit of the Organis ation for African Unity (OAU) in July 2001. It has since become a programme of its successor body, the AU.

The document arose from a mandate given to the five initiating heads of state (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and SA) by the OAU to develop an integrated socioeconomic development framework for Africa. Mayaki says his predecessors have done the spadework of building consensus on the future of Nepad and its potential to help pull the continent out of poverty. He now wants the focus to change towards the creation of an enabling environment for business to thrive, which will arrest the flight of rare skills desperately needed by the continent to grow.

Mayaki tells Business Day that his secretariat's immediate task is to facilitate a better business environment in eight major sectors: agriculture and food security; infrastructure (water, sanitation, transport, energy and IT ); human resources development (education and health); science and technology; trade and market access ; environment and climate change; culture and tourism; governance, capacity development and gender development.