By IPS Correspondents
JOHANNESBURG, May 30 2003 (IPS)

Governments and civil society from Africa have the gamut of issues from A to Z on their platter for the G-8 meeting in Evian, France next week.

Agriculture and Zimbabwe are likely to dominate the African agenda though leaders like Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki, who will attend, want to punt progress in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), their blue-print for economic growth and development.

While news out of Evian was that transatlantic splits between France and the United States are likely to dominate, South African foreign affairs officials were reportedly confident the continent would not be side-lined.

"There is a greater willingness on the part of the G-8 to help Africa as it is seen to be making its own efforts, no matter how weak and faltering…in a collective manner. At the summit, for the first time, African leaders will be able to say: ‘this is what we have achieved in Angola…and in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), now we have the following reconstruction and development programmes which you can help us with’," Abdul Minty, the director general of Foreign Affairs told journalists this week.

Ahead of the G-8 meeting, African leaders also made haste this week to firm up the African peer review mechanism, a project of NEPAD, is an attempt by African governments to keep each other on their democratic toes. Aid flows into NEPAD – estimated at 60 billion U.S. dollars – will only go to countries deemed by their peers to adhere to the programme’s economic and political governance bench-marks.

This week, six peer reviewers were announced ahead of the G-8 meeting. They comprise former South African Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals; activist, academic and politician Graca Machel; Nigerian economist Adebayo Adedeji; former Kenyan diplomat Bethwell Kipligaat; Senegal’s former U.N. official Marie Angelique-Savan and Cameroon’s Dorothy Njeuma.

The first challenge tackling this group is the unraveling economy and continued repression in Zimbabwe, where the opposition is about to kick-off a mass action campaign next week.

Nigeria’s ambassador to NEPAD, Oluko-Olukun, told Associated Press (AP) that Zimbabwe was a "classic example" of how peer review would work – a system of quiet pressure on errant governments.

That peer review is working in Zimbabwe is a moot point among critical civil society generally and specifically by the country’s main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Briefing ambassadors of the G-8 countries in Harare last week, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai welcomed an effort launched in May by Mbeki, Obasanjo and Malawian president Bakili Muluzi to break the log-jam, but warned that it needed to be buttressed by an international effort too.

"The current African initiative is welcome but it needs to be complemented by a broader international effort. We certainly hope that this initiative is not yet again one of those short-lived diplomatic efforts, such as happened in 2002 ahead of the G-8 meeting and the marketing of NEPAD and (which) will soon lose momentum afterwards.

"It would be a tragedy if efforts to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis were routinely linked to the calendar of multilateral summits and are then allowed to wither after every such summit," warned Tsvangirai.

The MDC is using the G-8 platform to push its demands for political reconciliation in Zimbabwe – that President Robert Mugabe leave office; that a transitional authority be set up pending political negotiations and fresh elections. Mugabe will only negotiate if the MDC drops its law-suit and recognises his legitimacy.

This log-jam is likely to be exported to Evian next week, forcing NEPAD’s architects to add it to their agenda. Initially, Mbeki and other African leaders wanted to focus on support for security initiatives and for NEPAD’s pre-defined infrastructure and other projects.

So, African leaders may have to re-order the alphabet of their agenda in Evian – "Z" as in Zimbabwe will come first and "A" for agriculture last. The opening up of Northern agricultural markets for exports from Africa is widely regarded as a key measure for overcoming poverty because agriculture is responsible for one quarter of total output in the region.

World Bank research says that unrestricted access by developing countries to developed country’s agricultural markets would also yield nine billion U.S. dollars a year. French president Jacques Chirac is expected to call for such access, but the jury’s out on whether he will enjoy support from his brothers in the G-8.

G-8 comprises Japan, Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Canada, Italy and Russia.

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