[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Africa: Accra Declaration on Development

[Al Kagan]

FYI, An important declaration critiquing the New Partnership for 
African Development (NEPAD), and proposing an alternative model. 
NEPAD is Mbeki's plan that has gotten lots of press this year.

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>Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 11:52:46 -0500
>Subject: Africa: Accra Declaration on Development
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>Africa: Accra Declaration on Development
>Date distributed (ymd): 020502
>Document reposted by Africa Action
>
>Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
>service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
>Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
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>Africa at http://www.africaaction.org
>
>+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
>
>Region: Continent-Wide
>Issue Areas: +economy/development+ +political/rights+
>
>SUMMARY CONTENTS:
>
>This posting contains the Declaration on Africa's Development
>Challenges adopted by participants in the conference held in Accra
>on April 23-26 by the Council for Development of Social Science
>Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and Third World Network (TWN) -
>Africa. The statement provides a concise and clear statement of
>position, including critical comments on the New Economic
>Partnership for Africa (NEPAD) being promoted by African leaders,
>but also an outline of an alternative framework.
>
>Note: the e-mail version of this posting contains the English text
>and the list of participants only. The archived version on the
>Africa Action web site
>(at http://www.africaaction.org/docs02/accr0204.htm) will contain
>the French text as well.
>
>For more information:
>
>CODESRIA, Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop x Canal IV, BP 3304, Dakar,
>Senegal; Telephone: +221 852 98 22/23; Fax:    +221 824 12 89;
>E-mail: codesria at sentoo.sn; Web: http://www.codesria.org.
>
>Third World Network - Africa, 9 Ollenu Street, East Legon, P.O. Box
>AN19452, Accra-North, Ghana;  tel: 233 21 503669/500419/511189;
>fax: 233 21 511188; E-mail: twnafrica at ghana.com. Web:
>http://www.twnafrica.org (under construction at this time).
>
>For other recent postings particularly relevant to these issues,
>see http://www.africaaction.org/docs02/adf0202.htm
>http://www.africaaction.org/docs02/ox0203.htm
>http://www.africaaction.org/docs02/wat0203.htm
>and
>http://www.africaaction.org/docs01/eca0112.htm
>
>The official NEPAD document adopted by African leaders is available
>on several web sites, but most conveniently, along with other
>relevant documents, at http://www.uneca.org/nepad (The official
>NEPAD web site at http://www.nepad.org is highly user-unfriendly).
>Analyses and reactions from non-governmental African sources,
>although they vary in tone, are overwhelmingly critical.  For a
>broad collection of links to critiques and other statements on
>NEPAD, see
>http://www.web.net/~iccaf/debtsap/nepad.htm
>
>The original African Alternative Framework to Structural
>Adjustment Programs, from 1989, is available on the Africa Action
>web site at:
>http://www.africaaction.org/african-initiatives/aafall.htm
>
>+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>DECLARATION ON AFRICA'S DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES
>(Adopted at end of Joint CODESRIA-TWN-AFRICA Conference on
>Africa's Development Challenges in the Millennium, Accra 23-26
>April, 2002)
>
>1. From the 23 to 26 April, 2002, we, African scholars and activist
>intellectuals working in academic institutions, civil society
>organisations and policy institutions from 20 countries in Africa,
>as well as colleagues and friends from Asia, Europe, North America
>and South America met at a conference jointly organised by the
>Council for Development and Social Science Research in Africa
>(CODESRIA) and the Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Africa) to
>deliberate on Africa's developmental challenges in the new
>millennium.
>
>2. Our deliberations covered such issues as Africa's initiatives
>for addressing development; Africa and the world trading system;
>mobilising financing for development in Africa; citizenship,
>democracy and development; education, health social services and
>development, and gender equity and equality in development.
>
>Challenges to the space of Africa's own thinking on development
>
>3. In our deliberations, we recalled the series of initiatives by
>Africans themselves aimed at addressing the developmental
>challenges of Africa, in particular the Lagos Plan of Action and
>the companion African Alternative Framework for Structural
>Adjustment. Each time, these initiatives were counteracted and
>ultimately undermined by policy frameworks developed from outside
>the continent and imposed on African countries. Over the past
>decades, a false consensus has been generated around the
>neo-liberal paradigm promoted through the Bretton Woods
>Institutions and the World Trade Organisation. This stands to
>crowd out the rich tradition of Africa's own alternative thinking
>on development. It is in this context that the proclaimed African
>initiative, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD),
>which was developed in the same period as the United Nations
>Economic Commission for Africa's Compact for African Recovery, as
>well as the World Bank's Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?, were
>discussed.
>
>4. The meeting noted the uneven progress of democratisation and in
>particular of the expansion of space for citizen expression and
>participation. It also acknowledged the contribution of citizen's
>struggles and activism to this expansion of the political space,
>and for putting critical issues of development on the public
>agenda External and internal obstacles to Africa's economic
>development
>
>5. The meeting noted that the challenges confronting Africa's
>development come from two inter-related sources: (a) constraints
>imposed by the hostile international economic and political order
>within which our economies operate; and (b) domestic weaknesses
>deriving from socio-economic and political structures and
>neo-liberal structural adjustment policies.
>
>6. The main elements of the hostile global order include, first,
>the fact that African economies are integrated into the global
>economy as exporters of primary commodities and importers of
>manufactured products, leading to terms of trade losses.
>Reinforcing this, secondly, have been the policies of
>liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation as well as an
>unsound package of macro-economic policies imposed through
>structural adjustment conditionality by the World Bank and the
>IMF. These have now been institutionalised within the WTO through
>rules, agreements and procedures, which are biased against our
>countries. Finally, the just mentioned external and internal
>policies and structures have combined to generate unsustainable
>and unjustifiable debt burden which has crippled Africa's
>economies and undermined the capacity of Africa's ownership of
>strategies for development .
>
>7. The external difficulties have exacerbated the internal
>structural imbalances of our economies, and, together with
>neo-liberal structural adjustment policies, inequitable
>socio-economic and political structures, have led to the
>disintegration of our economies and increased social and gender
>inequity. In particular, our manufacturing industries have been
>destroyed; agricultural production (for food and other domestic
>needs is in crisis; public services have been severely weakened;
>and the capacity of states and governments in Africa to make and
>implement policies in support of balanced and equitable national
>development emasculated. The costs associated with these have
>fallen disproportionately on marginalized and subordinated groups
>of our societies, including workers, peasants, small producers.
>The impact has been excessively severe on women and children.
>
>8. Indeed, the developments noted above have reversed policies and
>programmes and have dismantled institutions in place since
>independence to create and expand integrated production across and
>between our economies in agriculture, industry, commerce, finance,
>and social services. These were programmes and institutions which
>have, in spite of their limitations, sought to address the
>problems of weak internal markets and fragmented production
>structures as well as economic imbalances and social inequities
>within and between nations inherited from colonialism, and to
>redress the inappropriate integration of our economies in the
>global order. The associated social and economic gains, generated
>over this period have been destroyed.
>
>9. The above informed our reflections on the NEPAD. We concluded
>that, while many of its stated goals may be well-intentioned, the
>development vision and economic measures that it canvases for the
>realisation of these goals are flawed. As a result, NEPAD will
>not contribute to addressing the developmental problems mentioned
>above. On the contrary, it will reinforce the hostile external
>environment and the internal weaknesses that constitute the major
>obstacles to Africa's development. Indeed, in certain areas like
>debt, NEPAD steps back from international goals that have been won
>through global mobilisation and struggle.
>
>10. The most fundamental flaws of NEPAD, which reproduce the
>central elements of the World Bank's Can Africa Claim the 21st
>Century and the ECA's Compact for African Recovery, include:
>
>a) the neo-liberal economic policy framework at the heart of the
>plan, and which repeats the structural adjustment policy packages
>of the preceding two decades and over-looks the disastrous effects
>of those policies;
>
>(b) the fact that in spite of its proclaimed recognition of the
>central role of the African people to the plan, the African people
>have not played any part in the conception, design and formulation
>of the NEPAD;
>
>(c) notwithstanding its stated concerns for social and gender
>equity, it adopts the social and economic measures that have
>contributed to the marginalisation of women
>
>(d) that in spite of claims of African origins, its main targets
>are foreign donors, particularly in the G8
>
>(e) its vision of democracy is defined by the needs of creating a
>functional market;
>
>(f) it under-emphasises the external conditions fundamental to
>Africa's developmental crisis, and thereby does not promote any
>meaningful measure to manage and restrict the effects of this
>environment on Africa development efforts. On the contrary, the
>engagement that is seeks with institutions and processes like the
>World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, the United States Africa Growth and
>Opportunity Act, the Cotonou Agreement, will further lock Africa's
>economies disadvantageously into this environment;
>
>(g) the means for mobilisation of resources will further the
>disintegration of African economies that we have witnessed at the
>hands of structural adjustment and WTO rules; Call for Action
>
>11. To address the developmental problems and challenges
>identified above, we call for action at the national, continental
>and international levels to implement the measures described
>below.
>
>12. In relation to the external environment, action must be taken
>towards stabilisation of commodity prices; reform of the
>international financial system (to prevent debt, exchange rate
>instability and capital flow volatility) as well as of the World
>Bank and the IMF; an end to IMF/World Bank structural adjustment
>programmes; and fundamental changes to the existing agreements of
>the WTO regime, as well as stop the attempts to expand the scope
>to this regime to new areas including investment, competition and
>government procurement. Most pressing of all, Africa's debt must
>be cancelled.
>
>13. At the local, national and regional levels, development policy
>must promote agriculture, industry, services including health and
>public education, and must be protected and supported through
>appropriate trade, investment and macro- economic policy measures.
>A strategy for financing must seek to mobilise and build on
>internal and intra-African resources through imaginative savings
>measures; reallocation of expenditure away from wasteful items
>including excessive military expenditure, corruption and
>mismanagement; creative use of remittances of Africans living
>abroad; corporate taxation; retention and re- investment of
>foreign profits; and the prevention of capital flight, and the
>leakage of resources through practices of tax evasion practised by
>foreign investors and local elites. Foreign investment while
>necessary, must be carefully balanced and selected to suit
>national objectives.
>
>14. Above all, these measures require the reconstitution of the
>developmental state: a state for which social equity, social
>inclusion, national unity and respect for human rights form the
>basis of economic policy; a state which actively promotes, and
>nurtures the productive sectors of the economy; actively engages
>appropriately in the equitable and balanced allocation and
>distribution of resources among sectors and people; and most
>importantly a state that is democratic and which integrates
>people's control over decision making at all levels in the
>management, equitable use and distribution of social resources.
>The Challenge for African scholars and activist intellectuals
>
>15. Recognising that, by raising anew the question of Africa's
>development as an Africa-wide concern, NEPAD has brought to the
>fore the question of Africa's autonomous initiatives for
>development, we will engage with the issues raised in NEPAD as
>part of our efforts to contribute to the debate and discussions on
>African development.
>
>16. In support of our broader commitment to contribute to
>addressing Africa's development challenges, we undertake to work
>both collectively and individually, in line with our capacities,
>skills and institutional location, to promote a renewed
>continent-wide engagement on Africa's own development initiatives.
>To this end, we shall deploy our research, training and advocacy
>skills and capacities to contribute to the generation and
>dissemination of knowledge of the issues at stake; engage with and
>participate in the mobilisation of social groups around their
>interests and appropriate strategies of development; and engage
>with governments and policy institutions at local, national,
>regional and continental levels. We shall continue our
>collaboration with our colleagues in the global movement.
>
>17. Furthermore, we call,
>
>(a) for the reassertion of the primacy of the question and paradigm
>of national and regional development on the agenda of social
>discourse and intellectual engagement and advocacy;
>
>(b) on Africa's scholars and activist intellectuals within African
>and in the Diaspora, to join forces with social groups whose
>interests and needs are central to the development of Africa;
>
>(c) African scholars and activist intellectuals and organisations
>to direct their research and advocacy to some of the pressing
>questions that confront African policy and decision making at
>international levels (in particular negotiations in the WTO and
>under the Cotonou agreement), and domestically and regionally;
>
>(d) upon our colleagues in the global movement, to strengthen our
>common struggles, in solidarity. We ask our colleagues in the North
>to intervene with their governments on behalf of our struggles,
>and our colleagues in the South to strengthen South-South
>co-operation.
>
>18. We pledge ourselves to carry forward the positions and
>conclusions of this conference. And we encourage CODESRIA and
>TWN-Africa to explore, together with other interested parties,
>mechanisms and processes for follow-up to the deliberations and
>conclusions of this conference.
>
>Accra, April 26, 2002.
>
>********************************************************
>
>AFRICA AND THE DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES OF THE 21st CENTURY
>
>Participants list
>
>Name, Country
>
>Jimi O. Adesina, South Africa
>Babatunde A. Ahonsi, Nigeria
>Amb. James Aggrey-Orleans, Ghana
>Alphonse Agnero, Ghana
>Akou,te Akakpo-Vida, Canada
>Emmanuel Akwetey, Ghana
>Rudolf Amenga-Etego, Ghana
>Alfred Anangwe, Kenya
>Afua Ansre, Ghana
>Vladimir Antwi-Danso, Ghana
>Issa Aremu, Nigeria
>Linus Atarah, Ghana
>S. B. Authur, Ghana
>Jean-Christophe Boungou Bazika, Congo
>Sheila Bunwaree, Senegal
>Nana K. A. Busia, UK
>Bonnie Campbell, Canada
>Jennifer Campbell, Ghana
>Tayeb Chenntouf, Algeria
>Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie, UK
>Mawuli Dake, Ghana
>Abdulai Darimani, Ghana
>Asayehgn Desta, USA
>Romanus Dinye, Ghana
>Pauline Dsani, Ghana
>Justin Forsyth, UK
>Joachim Emmanuel Goma-Thethet, Congo
>Claudie Gosselin, Canada
>Yao Graham, Ghana
>Awudu Ahmed Gumah, Ghana
>Kiaouga Haoua, Niger
>Tetteh Hormeku-Ajei, Ghana
>Adul-Nashiru Issahaku, Ghana
>Nancy Kachingwe, Zimbabwe
>Richard Kamidza, Zimbabwe
>Kingsley Karimu, Ghana
>Dot Keet, South Africa
>Martin Khor, Malaysia
>Tetteh A. Kofi, USA
>Kwame Kuffour, Ghana
>Eyako Y. G. Kumodzie, Ghana
>Eddy Maloka, South Africa
>Armstrong Matiu Adejo, Nigeria
>Marjorie Mbilinyi, Tanzania
>Roger W. Mededji, Ghana
>John Mihevc, Canada
>Sam Moyo, Zimbabwe
>Sethunya Tsepho Mphinyane, Botswana
>Muthoni Muriu, UK
>Jane Nalunga, Uganda
>Asene Honore G'Nkama, Cameroun
>Lamine Ndiaye, Senegal
>Marinna Nyamekye, Ghana
>Warren Nyamugasira, Uganda
>John Nyoagbe, Ghana
>Kingsley Ofei-Nkansah, Ghana
>Adebayo Olukoshi, Senegal
>Samuel Oppong-Boadi, Ghana
>Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, Ghana
>Elisabeth Paul, Belgium
>Abdul Rashid Pelpuo, Ghana
>Greg Ramm, Ghana
>Zo Randriamaro, Ghana
>Carole Samdup, Canada
>Sekou Sangar, France
>Akilagpa Sawyerr, Ghana
>Bruno Sonko, Senegal
>J. Habib Sy, Senegal
>Ferdinand Tay, Ghana
>Ian Taylor, Botswana
>Marema Toure, Senegal
>Tsihikala B. Tshikaba, Ghana
>Dzodzi Tsikata, Ghana
>Chibuike Uche, Nigeria
>Laurant Umas, Ghana
>Pauline Vande-Pallen, Ghana
>Yanusa Z. Ya'u, Nigeria
>
>***********************************************************
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu