Yearender: Africa Strides Ahead with Dream of Rejuvenation

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 24, 2002

Yearender: Africa Strides Ahead with Dream of Rejuvenation

Africa, the world's most poverty-stricken continent, is concluding the year 2002 by making great stride in realizing its long cherished dream of rejuvenation.

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Africa, the world's most poverty-stricken continent, is concluding the year 2002 by making great stride in realizing its long cherished dream of rejuvenation.

The year has witnessed the launch of the African Union (AU) in July and remarkable progress in the peace process in such conflict-ravaged countries as Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, two major events that will have far-reaching influence on the lives of the more than 800 million Africans.

The year has also seen advancement in the economic fields on the world's second largest continent as its ambitious socio-economic program, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), enters the implementation phase from the conception stage.

The NEPAD plan, based largely on ideas drawn up separately by South African President Thabo Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and other African leaders, is aimed at winning yearly investments of 64 billion US dollars for Africa, so as to enable an annual economic growth of 7 percent over the next 15 years and halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015.

"The task ahead of us is to work to ensure the success of thesenew initiatives," said Mbeki, who is also the AU's chairman.

GIANT STEP

The birth of the AU with 52 member states, which took place of the Organization of African Unity, a 39-year-old body to fight colonialism in Africa, is widely regarded as the biggest event on the continent in 2002.

Born at a time when Africans are entering into a new partnership with the rest of the world, on their own terms, to determine the best route for the continent's revival, it marks thebeginning of an era of development for Africa.

Analysts hold it represents a giant step toward realizing Africa's rejuvenation and has laid a firm foundation for the building of an Africa that is united in a common program of social,economic and political development.

African leaders at the same time adopted NEPAD to initiate a host of projects that will spearhead the social and economic regeneration of the continent.

The primary objectives of NEPAD include an acceleration in eradicating poverty and inequality and the reversing of Africa's marginalization in globalization, which AU sources say are to be realized through people-centered development, the achievement of peace and stability, and worldwide support from both governments and private sectors.

As part of the efforts to carry out the NEPAD plan, the NEPAD secretariat has tabled five billion dollars worth of continental projects and private sectors have been mobilized to take part in the program.

Among the priority projects is one that will bring power from ahydroelectric station at the Inga falls in the DRC to South Africavia Angola and Namibia. Construction of the project, scheduled to begin in 2004, will take three years.

Another project is a fiber optic cable providing enhanced telecommunications links between African countries, as well as between the continent and the rest of the world.

NEPAD Secretariat Chairman Wiseman Nkuhlu said last month the secretariat had yet to come up with a more comprehensive project list.

GLOBAL APPLAUSE

Kathryn Sturman, a senior researcher from the South African Institute for Security Studies, told Xinhua the major achievement for Africa would be the nice makeup and successful promotion of NEPAD by African leaders, which has helped win worldwide recognition of the program and support from other continents.

Addressing the World Summit on Sustainable Development here in September, both French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a positive response to NEPAD by proposinga package of measures such as project design and technical assistance for environmentally-friendly infrastructure and utilities projects, public and private partnerships as well as mobilization of international and domestic funding.

"NEPAD is a welcome pledge by African leaders to the people of Africa to promote peace, to promote security, and to promote people-oriented development," US Secretary of State Colin Powell echoed.

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji also expressed support to the program, saying "With the establishment of the African Union and the implementation of NEPAD, the African continent will take on a new look with historic changes and fresh contributions to world peace and development."

The Group of Eight industrialized nations has made a commitmentof six billion US dollars development aid to Africa annually, and recently, the European Union (EU) ministers and top officials fromthe Southern African Development Community held a two-day meeting in Maputo with a pledge of 101 million euro in the EU aid to the region.

PROGRESS IN PEACE

Thanks to tremendous efforts by African leaders with the support of the international community, a number of long-protracted conflicts, one of the major obstacles impeding the development of Africa, are coming to an end, providing a favorableenvironment for the continent's rejuvenation program.

An end to the four-year clashes in the DRC appears to be in sight as all parties involved signed a pact in Pretoria, South Africa, on Dec. 17.

Mbeki hailed the conclusion of the peace deal, saying it would be conducive to Africa's reconstruction. "Africa stands to benefitfrom a massive supply of electricity once there is peace in the DRC," he said.

Fresh hopes for a halt to Burundi's nine-year war have also been raised by the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the Tutsi-led government and the main Hutu rebel group in Arusha in neighboring Tanzania on Dec. 3.

After peace talks in neighboring Kenya on Oct. 31, Somali warlords and regional leaders also endorsed a peace deal that called for a ceasefire and a new system of government, putting forward possibly the best chance yet to end decades of death and chaos in Somalia.

BOOST IN PEER REVIEW MECHANISM

Africa's rejuvenation program has recently received a boost with a request by 12 countries including Algeria, Angola and Ethiopia to have their economic governance rated in February next year.

The controversial governance-monitoring plan, known as peer review and endorsed by the Group of Eight, asks African leaders torate nations on tough new standards to attract foreign investment and aid to the continent.

Peer review is seen as crucial to the success of NEPAD, which preaches improved economic and political governance by Africans inexchange for more investment and aid.

Mbeki made it clear that peer review mechanism is confined to economic matters and that political and human rights issues would be handled by other AU structures.

Although they have taken great steps toward peace and development across the continent, African leaders are aware that serious problems, such as new violent conflicts in Cote d'Ivoire and along the border of the Sudan and Eritrea, still exist.

Nigerian President Obasanjo has recently emphasized the imperative of peace and security as the bedrock of sustainable development in Africa and called for a speedy end to all conflictson the continent.

"We stand in front of the peoples of the world to pledge that we'll honor the commitment we have made -- that we'll act firmly to extricate Africa out of her long night of misery," South African President Mbeki said.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

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