The New partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD): emerging conditions impacting on the implementation process

Abstract

At the turn of the new century, ideas were circularly floated, arising from axiomatic concerns for development particularly in the developing nations. The idea that resonated across the continent was that the 21st century would be an African century, in which a homespun development initiative would be utilised as a central development framework. Nepad was derived from the commonality and convergence of these contentions. It advent has been embraced with mixed feelings across the divides – thereby generating discourses on its viability and uncertainty, given the development imperatives that have pervaded the continent over the years. The allusion may well be that another of its kind will be superseded that will be better organised and equipped. These debates seemingly enjoy currency without necessarily engaging the relevant theoretical models of policy implementation and the implementation analysis principles for NEPAD. This has created a missing link in the analysis of the implementation process. This standpoint has evidently provided stimulus for a critical examination of the implementation process, as the policy goals are inconsistent with the measures to achieve them. There are certain conditions that indicate the scale and magnitude of the challenges facing the implementation process of Nepad. It appears suspect, nebulous and deeply misleading given over-emphasis on ‘substance’ instead of ‘process’. To direct focus on ‘process’ offers the opportunity for holistic framework analysis of the process to probe possible externalities. This study therefore seeks to present a paradigm shift and argues that Nepad should move beyond rhetoric and rather focus more on the implementation process. The aim is to premise that ‘externalities’ that suffuse the process would in the long term gravely threaten the process and cause fragility of Nepad, but if carefully articulated would strengthen the process over the long term and cause modest, but positive dividends. The externalities provide input functions to create greater momentum in bringing the implementation closer to the policy goals of Nepad. In short, an implementation that prepares for the worst to attain the best possible.