By IPS Correspondents
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 7 2003 (IPS)

The war in Iraq is a wake up call for Africa to rid itself of aid dependent economies and to realise that the future of the continent lies in the hands of Africans and not foreigners, South African Trade Minister Alec Erwin said on Monday.

Addressing a three-day African Investment Forum (AIF) in Johannesburg, Erwin said important global changes are taking place as a result of the developments in Iraq – the most important being the realignment of political forces.

"The preoccupation of the major powers with the situation in the Middle East will result in a complex and different situation for Africa. This was a message we needed to hear that our future lies in our own hands and no saviour is going to come and save us," he said.

He said the present global situation and apparent lack of attention to Africa will, in fact, strengthen the position of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as a vision and strategic framework for Africa’s renewal.

NEPAD, he said, was designed to address the current challenges facing the African continent including escalating poverty levels, underdevelopment and the continued marginalisation of Africa.

"Africans have to take responsibility for their own development but in order for NEPAD to succeed we have to realise that it is a systematic package, a building process that has to be applied for many years in order to bring change in the continent. It is not a magic formula that will produce magic results," said Erwin.

The present world situation, said Erwin, was an exciting and important time for Africa as the continent is being forced to change in order to keep up.

"We have to realise that it is fundamentally and elementally our responsibility to build Africa. Dreams that foreign aid will come in and do it for us was the wrong economic strategy. We can only build Africa with governments that support economic stability, peace and security and with private sectors that have the vision and energy to invest in their own countries."

NEPAD arises from a mandate given to the Heads of State of Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa, by the former Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to develop and integrate socio-economic development framework for Africa.

It was formally adopted by the 37th OAU Summit in July 2001 and has since been adopted by African heads of state as the official economic programme of the African Union, as well as by the G-8 as the basis of their Africa Action Plan, and the United Nations as the official framework for development assistance to the continent. G-8 comprises Germany, the United States, Japan, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia.

One of the key elements of NEPAD is an African-led solution, with Africans to hold each other accountable to achieve more democratic governance, human rights, and conflict reduction. A peer review mechanism is proposed.

However the framework has come under major criticism from academics and civil society groups who say they were not consulted in the process. Critics also point to the fact that gender equity is almost completely ignored in the document.

They say that, while HIV-AIDS is recognised in the document as a key problem, a clearer statement of intent and a strategy to deal with the epidemic including clear programmes on revitalising the healthcare sector and access to essential medicines was needed.

Some civil society groupings have described NEPAD as ‘pure neo-liberalism’ and may others have rejected it outright. Organisations such as the Third World Network, and the Africa Social Forum have even gone as far as to warn that to engage is to give legitimacy to a fundamentally flawed framework which serves the interests of external actors and a small elite rather than Africa as a whole. Many African leaders are also wary, seeing it as a vehicle for specific interests, such as South African business interests.

More than 450 delegates from all over Africa as well as America, Asia and Europe are attending the forum, which is jointly hosted by the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC), the South African Government and the NEPAD secretariat. South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki is expected to officially open the forum on Tuesday. (ENDS/IPS/AF/SA/DV/NA/MN/03)

= 04071809 ORP014 NNNN

Excerpt: