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| Growing international attention toward Africa |
| NEPAD |
| Challenges of the NEPAD |
President Konare of Mali stated to Prime Minister J. Koizumi, during his stay in Tokyo to attend the TICAD Ministerial level meeting last December; 'At present, Africa has a golden chance, without precedent, to face the challenge of African Development with the most attention ever focused by the international community upon Africa'. All evidence confirms that Africa has never before received such paramount attention from the world - at least over recent decades - than what it enjoys nowadays.
First, the year 2002 highlights the holding of two very important UN conferences focusing on development: the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey last March and the WSSD here in August/September. In light of the fact that the "development problem" is actually almost identical with the "African Development problem", the holding of these two UN conferences will undoubtedly persuade the international community to more seriously address the African development problem. In particular, the WSSD will be the largest ever summit with 65 thousand attendants from every corner of the world. With this magnitude of global involvement, and the paramount importance of "Sustainable Development" as a subject, as well as the very fact of the holding of the conference on African soil in South Africa, the WSSD will have a decisive impact for the mobilisation of global concerns regarding Africa.
Secondly, Africa is becoming a centrepiece of G8 preoccupations. Japan took the first initiative to organise the dialogue between G8 leaders and "South" leaders on the eve of the OKINAWA Summit in July 2000 and invited three Presidents from Africa, i.e. South Africa, Nigeria and Algeria. This new tide of dialogue between African leaders and the G8 was continued by Italy, the following G8 president who hosted another round of the dialogue during the GENOA Summit last year. This summit meeting adopted the "GENOA Plan for Africa", besides the aforesaid dialogue. The forthcoming KANANASKIS Summit is expected to accord a high priority on the agenda to Africa, together with economic growth and terrorism. " The G8 personal representatives group for Africa", which was established at the GENOA Summit, has been working to prepare a draft "Action Program for Africa" which will be adopted at the KANANASKIS Summit.
Thirdly, major donor countries are each presenting, one-by-one, an individual plan for Africa. It was Canada who led the G8 in launching a special measure for Africa by announcing the "Canada Fund Africa". The UK is reportedly floating the idea of the "Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund". This wave was followed by the US who, immediately before the Monterrey Conference, officially announced the plan to increase her ODA by $ 5 billion by 2006. The EU also publicised, at that conference, its plan to increase its ODA by $ 7 billion by 2006.
As for Japan, Foreign Minister Kawaguchi laid special emphasis on Africa by devoting one whole separate chapter to Africa in her first diplomatic policy speech delivered this past March in Tokyo. In the speech, she proposed to designate the next one-year or so until the convening of TICAD III the "Year for Soaring Co-operation with Africa". Thus it is the firm political will of the Japanese Government to exert utmost efforts toward co-operation with Africa.
Why is Africa at stake now?
Why is global attention focused on Africa particularly now? Are there any particular reasons behind this? I detect that there are three relevant factors.
First, there exists a general tendency to again return to Africa after the departure therefrom during the post-cold war period. It is quite often quoted that Africa was 'sacrificed' twice, namely by "the cold war" itself and then by the "post- cold war". In fact, the international community has witnessed in the early 1990's a massive departure of major conventional role-players from the African continent.
According to a certain Russian research institute, the former USSR had, over the 30 years from 1960 to 1990, constructed 300-plus industrial facilities in Africa and extended financial assistance amounting to the equivalent of $20~25 billion to Africa, as well as received more than 10 thousand African fellowship students. This huge Russian presence has now all but disappeared in Africa. This was symbolised by the abolishment of a number of Russian missions in Africa after 1990, including 4 embassies and 20 cultural and language centres. The large-scale reduction of the embassy-network in Africa can be observed also in the case of the Republic of Korea which, after the demise of the Cold War, no longer requires a costly, extensive embassy network in competition with North Korea. Such a tendency of diminishing of interests in Africa has much in common with major conventional players such as the UK, France, and the USA - among many others.
Such a reduction of interests in Africa by the international community can be clearly observed in the field of development aid. The ODA amount received per capita in Sub-Sahara Africa has been reduced from $32 in 1990 to $19 in 1998. According to the EAC, the total ODA amount to Africa has fallen from $19 billion in 1990 to $ 12 billion, and likewise, the regional share of Africa in terms of total World ODA has fallen from 37% to 27% in the same period. In brief, ODA destined for Africa has been reduced to two thirds of its previous level over the last 10 years.
It was against such a general atmosphere of major countries distancing themselves from Africa that Japan took, with critical concern for the situation, the initiative to organise the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in 1993. Japanese ODA towards Africa has, since its inception, not been motivated by cold war strategy, but instead principally by the consideration of the interdependence of the world and by humanitarian causes. Accordingly, Japan has constantly strengthened ODA efforts to Africa regardless of the continuation or demise of the cold war, and one-day Japan happened to find herself as one of the top donors in Africa. This obligated Japan to more or less take an international initiative for reminding the international community once again of the seriousness of Africa's development problems.
In the mid-1990's, a 'reversal trend' had already started for Africa. The US, for instance, started to re-evaluate its relations with Africa, and this has resulted in the legislation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) under the Clinton administration. It is well known that the British Blair government is advancing a pro-active policy towards Africa. This reverse trend, however, could be recognised already in the former Major government policy in the mid-1990's. Likewise, Russia has re-evaluated her African policy to re-activate relations with African countries.
There is, behind this change in trends, the very fact that none of the international community can neglect, even without any cold-war type strategic consideration, the importance of Africa; politically the largest regional group embracing a quarter of the world countries and economically the region blessed with such rich natural resources. For instance, it is not always brought to attention that the US depends for 15% of its oil imports upon West Africa. The international community may have needed 10 years after the end of the cold war to complete its re-evaluation of Africa to reset its returning full-scale to the African continent.
The second reason for the growing attention of the world to Africa dwells in the fact that the more profoundly the human race prays at the very beginning of the new century for the stability and prosperity in the world in the 21st century, the more seriously it should be concerned with the difficulties Africa faces. This is exactly the reason why Japanese Prime Minister Y. Mori delivered this message to the world, in his policy speech made in South Africa January 2001; " There will be no stability and prosperity in the world in the 21st Century, unless the problems of Africa are resolved."
As for the prosperity of the world, it is considered to be a crucial factor whether Africa can be successfully integrated into the globalisation process for the restructuring the world economic system in the 21st Century. The key to the success of the multilateral trade negotiations of the WTO now under way is held by the "South", which consists of an absolute majority of the international society, and in particular by an Africa that is suffering so from poverty.
Also, world stability can not be attained without resolving regional conflicts and political instability in Africa. Immediately after the 9.11 incident, African leaders have been seemingly concerned with the possibility that Africa would be overshadowed by the Afghanistan situation attracting world attention. In fact, the effect of the 9.11 incident was to renew recognition that hotbeds for terrorism can not be eliminated, unless poverty and political instability are correctly addressed. Thus this resulted in under-lining the importance of addressing the problems of Africa. It is believed that the US decision to increase its ODA by $ 5 billion was taken with this basic thought in mind.
Sub-Saharan Africa constitutes 10% of the population, 20% of the land surface and a quarter of the countries of the world. No community can function well, if one quarter of its members remain dissatisfied and without opportunity to enjoy enough benefits from the community. This is why the human race should recognise the importance of Africa commensurately with its aspiration for the stability and prosperity of the world.
One thing I have to stress here is that Africa is not only a source of anxiety, it is also a source of hope for humankind, by way of the expectation for Africa's great potential. We hardly expect dramatic dynamic economic growth from established affluent societies. Some sort of "hungriness" is the locomotive for robust economic growth. Asia has played the role of the world growth centre over the last four decades. It is evident, however, that Asian economic dynamism should wane one day, just as Japan has difficulties in economic management now, after having enjoyed two- digit high economic growth over decades. It is strongly expected that even in the case of a slowing down of the Asian economy in the future, Africa could replace Asia as a locomotive of the world economy with its rich natural resources and dynamism deriving from its economic 'hungriness'.
The third factor behind the "Return to Africa" is the presentation of NEPAD. Africa is currently advancing two new innovative initiatives: NEPAD and the AU. Both of them feature positioning "Governance" as a central concept of the strategy. While the total picture of the African Union (AU) has not yet clearly been presented to the outer world, NEPAD is so appropriately defined that its clear message has imposed a much stronger impact than Africa could originally have expected. And the presentation of the NEPAD served as a consolidated basis for a "Return to Africa" by international society. Thus NEPAD is the main subject of my speech today.
Ownership
The essence of NEPAD is that Africa has for the first time presented to the world "Ownership" and "Governance" as the basic principles of African Development. NEPAD is an amalgam of the MAP prepared by South Africa and Senegal's OMEGA together with inputs by Nigeria proposing the expansion of debt relief measures, as well as by other African countries also seeking an increase in actual aid transfers. Though this amalgamation made the NEPAD document complex in its content and the NEPAD message a little ambiguous, the G8 attaches great importance to those basic concepts contained therein, "Ownership" and "Governance", that are still very well preserved and even developed from the original MAP document. While we duly appreciate the value of varied sectoral analysis of the document, these are areas which the international community has over many decades already conducted so many research studies. Accordingly the G8 is more interested in the basic philosophy of NEPAD which would serve as the basis for the "New Paradigm Shift of Africa", as President Mbeki has described it on various occasions.
Why are the G8 interested, then, in the concept of "Ownership"? In brief, this is because NEPAD is the first African Development Strategy which Africa has by itself prepared and presented to the international community through fully exercising its ownership. While the concept of ownership is a little equivocal, "ownership" may be considered as "Subjectivity" or "Self-responsibility" in a sense. With regard to the ways to apply "self-responsibility" for one's development, we have to distinguish various stages for this. Now it is taken for granted that each country has self-responsibility for the realisation of individual development projects. Then, what about self-responsibility for the formulation and realisation of an overall development strategy? The answer may have been rather negative in the past. The reality was that African recipient countries had accommodated or even pretended to accommodate various development strategies, turn by turn presented with attractive naming by various donors, as far as this was useful to ensure receiving aid financing capital.
A good example of this was the structural adjustment loan programme of the IMF/World Bank during the 1980's. Recipient governments did not have access to the loan, unless they accepted or pretended to accept conditionalities for structural adjustment imposed by the IMF / World Bank, even when they were not convinced of the basic strategy contained therein. This has been the case even for the development strategy of individual countries. As for a development strategy for the entirety of Africa, which has been prepared and presented by Africa itself, there has been none before NEPAD.
In my speech delivered at the UNESCO seminar on African Development held in Paris last year, I presented three findings as experiences of Japan in conducting development aid, namely:
- While many donors present various development strategies to the recipient side, every development strategy or theory should be nothing but a hypothesis.
- Donor governments can not replace recipient ones, although donor governments always have a temptation to replace the administration machinery of recipient governments for enhancement of aid effectiveness.
- The development aid policy of a donor is more or less a product of the projection of historical experiences in their own development.
Thus, I stressed that the essential for development is that recipients themselves should exert - to the maximum extent - their ownership by wisely choosing, by themselves, the most appropriate development approach from among many options, and then formulate their own development plan.
The basic attitude of Japan to fully respect the ownership of the recipient government in conducting development aid is derived from her own historical experiences in the modernisation process. The modernisation process of Japan since the Meiji Era was a history to harmonise through exercising full ownership the introduction of modernisation and the preservation of traditional culture. In the second half of the 19th Century, Japan annually invited hundreds of foreign experts from the Western World in order to absorb western technology and systems. Though these foreign experts were rewarded with a very high standard salary, even sometimes exceeding that of the Japanese Prime Minister, the Japanese government never allowed them to get involved in its decision making process so that it could protect its ownership. Japan has advocated consistently since the first TICAD meeting in 1993 that the most essential principle for African Development is: First, Africa would exert its ownership, and then, the international community would extend co-operation through partnership.
We are so encouraged by the fact that this basic thought is now rooted in NEPAD as the basic principle for the African Development.
Governance
Ownership should be sustained by good governance. It caused sort of a cultural shock for the international community that Africa itself claimed "Governance" as the basic principle of African Development and officially declared it to the world through NEPAD. The use of "Governance" in the development context commenced for political reasons under the World Bank in the early 1990's, in a sense to combat the corruption in Africa. Accordingly, African states were rather nervous with "Governance" and attempted quite often to replace this by such words as "democratic regime" in the drafting work of UN documents.
Having this in mind as a fresh memory, the international community was happily surprised by the presentation of NEPAD declaring "Governance" as a basic principle, and became convinced of the seriousness of the message contained therein which has obligated it to also seriously respond to Africa.
In his presentation to the seminar "States (Political Entities) AND Governance in Africa" held in Tokyo last March, Professor Owada, the President of the Japan Institute of International Affairs, stated as follows;
"In the NEPAD, Africa for the first time in its history commits itself to good governance and democracy as the foundation of economic and social development. NEPAD seeks to create a new, positive developmental paradigm for Africa, attempting to change fundamentally the context in which African states find and view themselves."
More convincing news about a serious attitude toward Africa is the fact that the Second NEPAD Summit held in Abuja this last March adopted in principle the introduction of peer review regarding governance performance among African states and also decided to officially adopt the "African Peer Review Mechanism" at the next NEPAD Summit. The G8 welcomes such a positive development by way of Africa's own initiative.
Then the question arises of what the background for this paradigm shift of Africa is? It may be safe to say that the major factor is the historic turnabout since the "demise of the cold war". Under the cold war structure, any government loyal to either camp could be considered as "a good government" by that camp, regardless whether its governance was good or bad. Development aid was mostly extended under this criterion.
What happened after the end of the cold war? Donor governments became unable to get domestic support for ODA, unless justified as supporting the democratisation process of African countries. Likewise, it was proved that African countries also could not obtain international support for development or private capital flow without flagging for "good governance". Under such general circumstances, the democratisation process in Africa was considerably advanced, thus realising the abolishment of military rule virtually everywhere and introducing political pluralism to almost every African country.
Two symbolic historic incidents with direct impact on the new paradigm shift were, in my view, political changes within two regional superpowers of Africa; Nigeria and South Africa. As for South Africa, the Apartheid regime was collapsed in 1991 and President Mandela's new government started in 1994. Then after the democratic process, Mbeki's Government succeeded Mandela's one after only one presidency term up to 1999. In Nigeria, Mr. Obasanjo was democratically elected as president in 1992 after 16 years rule by a military government. If Africa had claimed "governance" under a continuation of the Apartheid regime and Nigerian military government, it would be nothing but a joke. President Wade of Senegal is also a symbol of African governance in a sense that he is the first president born after the democratic transition from a ruling party to opposition party. When these three presidents, as symbols of African Democracy, attend the dialogue with G8 leaders to advocate "Governance" by way of NEPAD, the message for a new paradigm shift in Africa is convincingly received by the international community.
Though the G8 are expressing their high appreciation and expectation for NEPAD, as I mentioned earlier, NEPAD faces a number of challenges to overcome. I wish to summarise some of these challenges as follows.
Will NEPAD be used merely as another instrument for ODA fund raising?
There exists some scepticism on the part of the donor community that NEPAD would be after all used as another instrument for mobilising more ODA for Africa, while claiming "Ownership". Since NEPAD is an amalgam assembling various aspirations and desires of so many African states, it is feared that a majority of African states would be inclined to simplify, through a preparatory process, the raison d'?tre of NEPAD as a vehicle for mobilisation of aid finance, though the original philosophy of its authors are genuine in attempting to establish ownership. We can recognise the existence of such scepticism in the donor community, for instance, in its reaction to the frequent change of names from MAP (Millennium African Development Plan) to NAI (New African Initiative), then from NAI to NEPAD. In particular, change from "African Initiative" of the NAI to "Partnership" of the NEPAD made donors sceptical about the real intention of Africa, which may expect more for the role of partners along the 'traditional style', rather than seek Africa's own ownership.
Looking from the other side of the coin, Africa argues that it is determined now for itself to undertake various innovative initiatives to tackle difficult issues such as governance and peace, and that to effectively pursue these challenges, Africa legitimately needs increased assistance from the international community for this venture. This argument by itself seems convincing.
Since its first meeting held in London last October, a number of joint meetings between G8 leaders' personal representatives for African problems and NEPAD representatives were held. All through these processes, the G8 side often tries to caution the NEPAD side not to unreasonably increase its expectation for additional finance, while the NEPAD side tries to convince the G8 vice- versa. Thus there exists a certain kind of tension between two arguments.
I believe, however, that the truth exists somewhere between the two. Africa and the international community are destined after all to work closely through mutual trust; thus both ownership and partnership are needed. It should be welcomed that mutually reliable relations have been forged between the G8 and NEPAD through a series of joint works to date. The NEPAD Financing Meeting held in Dakar this last April was also recognised positively by the G8 side for its serious and constructive approach in seeking closer collaboration with private sectors instead of characterising it as a sort of fund-raising meeting in a hasty manner. The G8 side is also attempting to respond positively to the serious approach shown by the NEPAD side, resulting for example in the announcements to increase ODA by Canada, the US and the EU.
One reality is stronger than a hundred theories.
It should be noted that one incident may nullify the efforts of the NEPAD promoting countries, even though they are so sincere in their intention. If a coup d'etat happens in one of the NEPAD core countries, it would easily make the NEPAD's claims of democracy or governance hollow. It is truly said that one reality is stronger than a hundred theories. It would not be surprising for us to see in the future many more incidents such as regional conflicts, coups, and political turmoil or corruption cases in this vast continent of Africa. We have to be realistic in this respect. The essential is, however, how NEPAD core countries representing an African conscience will react to each of these incidents. The international community is very mindful on this.
In this sense, it may be an important test for the NEPAD how core member governments react to the Zimbabwean situation. The G8 may have very much a mixed feeling in this respect. While highly appreciating the mediation efforts exerted by such countries as South Africa and Nigeria to reconcile ZANU-PF and MDC through political dialogue, the G8 feels very uncomfortable with the conclusion of the South African election observation team Report which is so remote from the international majority view. We appreciate and expect much from the introduction of peer review among African countries about the governance of each respective government. How NEPAD core members react through peer review to each incident will certainly constitute a severe test for the NEPAD for the real world.
Validity of so called African way of governance
We hear some arguments by Africans in the NEPAD process that a Western style of governance can not be applied in its entirety to the reality of Africa. These arguments are, for instance, that it is not workable to bring a Western concept of governance into Africa without respecting traditional rules of African rural communities. Peoples' participation in the national politics through elections is not the only way, while the involvement of traditional communities through traditional methods is indispensable. The definition of human rights should also be different from the Western world in Africa. It is unrealistic to expect post-conflict governments to perform governance at the same standard as others. And so forth.
I think that these African arguments have to some extent justifiable grounds. Japan may be in a position to better understand them, since the Japanese development process is a history of harmonising a Western value system and Japan's own traditional one. How is it possible to harmonise the Japanese traditional Emperor system and democracy, social stability and individual rights, or a top-down approach or a consensus one in the decision-making process? All these are only a part of our long trials. Thus Japan has developed her own identity through her modernisation process. This is why Professor Huntington in his work "The Clash of Civilizations" categorised Japanese civilization as being the only one case of one country in one civilization.
Even admitting the value of endeavours to develop the African way of governance as a premise of the African Peer Review Mechanism, it is not easy to establish such a concept with criteria satisfying impartiality, fairness, objectivity and transparency. As far as as a criterion for African governance is to be used for African development, it should be convincing enough for the observers of the international community. Otherwise Africa would not be successful in attracting external development assistance as well as private investment. Should "African governance" be judged by the international community as a mere instrument to defend one-another among African countries, NEPAD would lose its magnetic power. Thus due attention should be given to the need to convince the international society for its validity, while elaborating the concept of "African Governance".
The selectivity of good performers and bad performers
When the NEPAD adopts "Governance" as its basic principle for development and for seeking external development assistance, it leads as a logical consequence to the requirement that good performers of governance would be rewarded favourably by external assistance, while bad performers would not be. This approach may be basically right in a sense that rewarding good performers would be good incentive for others to follow the same way. And this is exactly what the donor community has been advocating. This is the NEPAD's so called elitism or selectivity.
Here a question arises, however, whether we can disregard bad performers so easily. Post-conflict countries or least developed ones which are not blessed with enough capacity of governance may be more needy for external assistance. This remains as a basic question, which we can not remove from our mind.
The ideal may be to reward good performers with additional aid, while the current level of aid to bad performers would be more or less maintained. It is not an easy task to judge precisely what is the additionality of aid, because ODA volume designated to Africa has been reduced already by one third over the last 10 years during the 1990's. Moreover each of the donors can not necessarily be in a position to increase their ODA level. It may be contentious whether to shift ODA resources from bad to good performers, given that the total pie is not sufficiently increased or even remaining more or less at the same level. It is also necessary to scrutinise whether or not to distinguish really bad performers and those requiring special consideration such as post-conflict countries.
These may be questions, which the G8 should address in formulating their policy for responding to the NEPAD as much as African countries should do. I suppose that the G8 should explore some reasonable way to prepare certain safety nets even for bad performers, whilst supporting positively good performers.