CSO and NEPAD Implementation

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CSO and NEPAD Implementation

• Brian Kagoro

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Opportunities of the Moment

• The indisputable appetite for regional political,
  social and economic integration amongst African
  civil societies, private sector, academics and
  governments.
• The NEPAD-CAADP which calls for quantifiable
  government commitments to financing agriculture
  and some peer review mechanisms to monitor
  compliance
• The new models for promoting popular
  participation in policy development through
  regional multi-stakeholder policy networks
• The Paris Declaration for harmonizing development
  assistance offers an opportunity for organized
  and transparent donor support towards African
  development
• The call for capacity building initiatives that
  will strengthen African governments capacities
  to develop evidence-based policies and
• Strengthening civil societys capacity to demand
  effective policies and monitor the
  implementation.

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NEPAD and Regional Integration

• NEPAD is a visionary plan to eradicate poverty,
  place Africa on a path of sustainable growth and
  development whilst actively participating in the
  global economy.
• The pillars of the AU and lead implementers of
  the NEPAD/CAADP program-for instance- are the
  Regional Economic Communities (RECs). In reality,
  the RECs face many challenges such as
• Insufficient technical capacity and limited
  financial as well as human resources
• lack of a systematic way of incorporating
  regional programs into the national development
  frameworks

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NEPAD and Regional Integration.2

• Inherent contradictions in trying to establish
  the dichotomy between the national and regional
  interests
• Inadequate linkages between the RECs
  secretariats, sub- regional organizations and
  regional networks this is notwithstanding the
  fact that RECs could benefit from these linkages
  in terms of technical support, links to civil
  society organizations and help with the
  coordination of multi country programmes.
• Institutional chauvinism, it seems at times as
  though different RECs, sub-regional and regional
  institutions are pursuing different, if not
  parallel, agendas within the same areas of work.

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African Poverty and Under-development

• Structural causes
• Ethical causes
• Management Failure causes
• Incapacity related causes

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Framing this Dialogue

• This Dialogue is about the following
• PEOPLE-their rights , interests, ideas,
  institutions
• POWER-to be ,to become and to belong
• PURPOSE-of development and NEPAD programmes
• PROCESS-of mobilizing peoples,communities,donors,
  academics,corporates for a sustainable
  development
• POTENTIAL-to grow from rhetoric to action, from
  present success to significant change

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The Political Question

• At a broader political level this dialogue is
  really about the
• Production-(who are the knower's?)
• Legitimation-(who determines that what is known
  is credible knowledge?)
• Distribution-(who can access such knowledge?)
• Ownership(intellectual property rights),
• Application (how is knowledge adapted to the
  environment)
• Of Knowledge regarding African development .

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Challenges to NEPAD Implementation.1.

• Exclusive ,largely donor or northern research
  driven policies
• Poor political will and corruption by both
  politicians and NGOs
• Limited institutional capacity and
  over-projectization of development initiatives
• Poor utilization of local expertise and knowledge
• Weak investment in policy research , analysis
  ,implementation as well as monitoring and
  evaluation
• Institutional chauvinism, competition and lack of
  cohesion amongst RECs
• The missing PLANKS.PeopleCommunities ..
  Social Movements
• Inadequate technical capacity ,human and
  financial resources

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Challenges to NEPAD Implementation.2

• The absence of an effective CSO mechanism for
  engagement with NEPAD(One desk dealing with CSOs
  gender is inadequate)
• The delineation of roles , responsibilities,
  conflict resolution, feedback, monitoring and
  evaluation is weak
• Inadequate resourcing of the people engagement
  components of the NEPAD programme
• Much of the engagement has depended on the
  dynamism of individuals as opposed to systemic
  coherence and cohesion
• Harmonization , complementarities and coherence

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The African CSO Dilemma

• State control and lack of access to public
  information at national level
• Dysfunctional or inadequate mechanism for easy
  access at the regional level
• Over-bearing donor guidance and control of CSOs
  agenda
• Authoring Change in an ideological and Ethical
  vacuum
• African development as an industry of competing
  interests(no platform for rationalization)
• Weak capacity and poor governance as a result of
  brain drain and resource constraints
• Model Missionaries Model Mercenaries(inorganical
  ly fixed models and ideas borrowed from
  elsewhere)

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What might change Look Like?

• Increased work with social movements
  ,CBOs,FBOs,etc
• Building capacity , knowledge proposing
  development alternatives that will achieve
  equitable growth
• South-North-South Partnership of Ideas (expanding
  the partnership of citizens to mirror the HOS
  partnership fora)
• Contesting unjust private/public power-
  broadening the governance debate beyond corporate
  social responsibility to corporate accountability
• Building resilient responsive
  organizations/institutions at the local and
  national level to implement the NEPAD agenda
• Projecting African Ideas and consciousness to
  Influence development discourses and processes

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Why the need to change?

• A Private sector or exclusively state driven
  approach to African development will not address
  the structural causes of poverty and
  under-development in Africa
• Africa has formulated enough strategic plans,
  procols,resolutions and conventions, what is
  needed now is action and smart goals.
• The continental development plans have been
  over-bureaucratized and/or projectized thereby
  limiting ability to factor in very complex social
  phenomenon
• The set of assumptions we are working within the
  context of the global economic recession have
  begun to yield diminishing returns
• There is too much duplication within the AU
  structures(NEPAD,RECS,AUC,etc)
• Somebody needs to rock the boat!

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Roles of Civil Society

• Strengthening the capacity of citizens to demand
  accountability from those that wield state and/or
  economic power in society
• Confronting and transforming unjust forms of
  power at all levels( local, national ,state
  ,religious ,socio-cultural , etc)
• Establishing new social relations based on a
  consensually agreed social contract or value base
• Contributing to awareness raising, capacity
  development, policy design, implementation and
  ME.
• Proposing policy alternatives and engaging RECs
• Supporting the Participation of citizens in
  national and regional development processes

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Thematic Areas of Collaboration

• Agriculture and Food crisis response
• Environment and climate change
• Capital flows initiative( ODA, Debt , Tax ,FDI
  ,Domestic resource mobilization)
• Health Sector
• Extractive Industry(mining , forestry's ,
  fisheries)
• Human development and poverty eradication
• Infrastructure development