8 February 2010
editorial
One of the key decisions taken at the end of the 14th summit of the African Union last week was to establish a new body to take over the functions of the secretariat of the New Partnership for Africa Development (Nepad).
Established in 2001 with high hopes, Nepad's achievement have been modest, at best. A major problem was that it took too long for the secretariat to evolve into a strong, well-funded institution.
The management of Nepad has been in the hands of multiple committees, most chaired by Heads of State with little time for the programme.
Indeed, the difficulties experienced by Nepad are a perfect illustration of what obtains when a large continent-wide organisation is left in the hands of weak and unwieldy committees that meet infrequently.
Turnover in the membership of these committees has been very low, and chairmen and committee members have been allowed enjoy long uninterrupted tenures, resulting in stagnation of ideas.
It is time the Nepad secretariat underwent re-engineering and its mandate broadened. Right now, Africa badly needs a body to co-ordinate the operations of the several regional economic groupings.
Trading arrangements and economic groupings have mushroomed to the extent that there are cases where countries find themselves belonging to more than one grouping.
For instance, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, the DRC, The seychelles and Zimbabwe are members both of Comesa and the SADC, while Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi belong to both the East African Community and Comesa.
The continent needs a body to take up the responsibility rationalising membership to existing regional economic groupings.
The mandate of the re-engineered Nepad should be expanded to include refereeing differences among the various economic groupings on the continent.
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