Governance and Relations between the European Union and Africa: the case of NEPAD

Abstract

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) was launched in 2001 as the pre-eminent vehicle to promote Africa's recovery. Initially it was enthusiastically promoted by a select number of countries in Africa, as well as by key members within the G-8. The European Union was active in its support, particularly vis-à-vis governance issues, stating that the EU ‘finds that Africa's development efforts are best served by a greatly sharpened focus on NEPAD as the basis for partnership between Africa and the international community’. However, there have been significant problems facing NEPAD. These revolve around the actual extant political economy and dominant political cultures across Africa, which the technocratic neoliberal agenda of ‘good governance’ cannot deal with. Furthermore, the rise of Chinese engagement with Africa adds a major difficulty to Brussels' claim to be a key engine in supporting NEPAD's goals regarding governance and development. Indeed, the emergence of Chinese actors in Africa threatens to make much of the EU's policies on governance largely irrelevant, although it is acknowledged that, in the long term, Beijing's policy interests are not served by chaotically ruled states.

Notes

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2 See I Taylor, ‘The “Mbeki Initiative”: towards a post-orthodox New International Order?’, in P Nel, I Taylor & J van der Westhuizen (eds), South Africa's Multilateral Diplomacy and Global Change: The Limits of Reform, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

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4 European Union, ‘The European Consensus on Development’, Joint Statement by the Council and the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States Meeting within the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission, Official Journal of the European Union, 24 February 2006, C46/01, Annex I.

5 Statement by Minister Plenipotentiary Ole E Moesby, Deputy Permanent Representative of Denmark to the UN, on behalf of the European Union at the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole of the General Assembly for the Final Review and Appraisal of the Implementation of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s: Agenda Item 41 (New York), 25 September 2002.

6 European Union, ‘NEPAD and the African Union’, Newsletter of the European Union Delegation to the African Union, Addis Ababa, September 2002.

7 F Grannell, ‘The European Union and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)’, The Courier ACP–EU, 194, September–October 2002, p 28.

8 See P Nel & I Taylor, ‘“New Africa”, globalisation and the confines of elite reformism: “getting the rhetoric right”, getting the strategy wrong’, Third World Quarterly, 23(1), 2002, pp 163–180.

9 At http://www.nepad.org/AboutNepad/sector_id/7/lang/en, accessed 4 September 2009.

10 European Union, ‘NEPAD and the African Union’.

11 KY Amoako, ‘NEPAD: making individual bests a continental norm’, UN Chronicle, 40(1), 2003.

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13 East African (Nairobi), 2–8 July 2007.

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15 East African, 2–8 July 2007.

16 P Chabal, ‘The quest for good governance and development in Africa: is NEPAD the answer?’, International Affairs, 78(3), 2002, p 462.

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18 M Bratton & N van de Walle, ‘Neopatrimonial regimes and political transitions in Africa’, World Politics, 46(4), 1994, pp 453–489.

19 R Fatton, ‘Bringing the ruling class back in: class, state, and hegemony in Africa’, Comparative Politics, 20(3), 1988, p 36.

20 This has always been a source of personal wonder and amusement when interviewing EU officials across Africa.

21 International Monetary Fund, The Role of the IMF Governance Issues: Guidance Note, 25 July 25 1997, p 2.

22 Commission of the European Communities, Governance and Development, Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee, COM(2003) 615 final, 20 October 2003, para 4.

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24 C Weaver, Hypocrisy Trap: The World Bank and the Poverty of Reform, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008, p 115.

25 Ibid, p 102.

26 R Fatton, ‘Civil society revisited: Africa in the new millennium’, West Africa Review, 1(1), p 4.

27 Ake, ‘How politics underdevelops Africa’, p 319.

28 Grannell, ‘The European Union and the New Partnership for Africa's Development’, p 29.

29 Ibid.

30 This Day (Lagos), 23 July 2001.

31 Daily News (Gaborone), 28 June 2001.

32 Department of Foreign Affairs, NEPAD: Historical Overview, Pretoria: DFA, 2003.

33 Quoted in O Quist-Arcton, ‘A “continental strategy” for building Africa infrastructure needed’ (Interview with Abdoulaye Wade), allAfrica.com, 8 February 2001, at http://www.allafrica.com, accessed 12 November 2009.

34 A Wade, ‘Africa, an outcast or a partner?’, African Geopolitics, 6, 2002, pp 49–56.

35 See I Taylor ‘“Advice is judged by results, not by intentions”: why Gordon Brown is wrong about Africa’, International Affairs, 81(2), 2005, pp 299–310.

36 A Vines, ‘Commission for Africa: into Africa’, World Today, 61(3), 2005, pp 22–23.

37 Star (Johannesburg), 29 March 2004.

38 Business Day (Johannesburg), 24 March 2004.

39 East African, 2–8 July 2007.

40 See I Taylor, China's New Role in Africa, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2009; and Taylor, China and Africa: Engagement and Compromise, London: Routledge, 2006.

41 See I Taylor & Xiao Yuhua, ‘A case of mistaken identity: “China Inc” and its “imperialism” in sub-Saharan Africa’, Asian Politics and Policy, 1(4), 2009, pp 709–725; and I Taylor ‘Beyond the new “two whateverisms”: China's ties in Africa’, China aktuell: Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 3, 2008, pp 181–195.

42 Guardian, 16 November 2006.

43 Business Day, 19 October 2007.

44 I Taylor, ‘China's oil diplomacy in Africa’, International Affairs, 82(5), 2006, pp 937–959.

45 N Obiorah, ‘Who's afraid of China in Africa?’, in F Manji & S Marks (eds), African Perspectives on China in Africa, Cape Town: Fahamu, 2007, p 40.

46 S Kleine-Ahlbrandt & A Small, ‘China's new dictatorship diplomacy: is Beijing parting with pariahs?’, Foreign Affairs, 87(1), 2008, pp 38-39.

47 S Breslin & I Taylor, ‘Explaining the rise of “human rights” in analyses of Sino-African relations’, Review of African Political Economy, 115, 2008, pp 59–71.

48 Jing Gu, J Humphrey & D Messner, ‘Global governance and developing countries: the implications of the rise of China’, World Development, 36(2), 2007, p 288.

49 Xinhua News (Beijing), 17 December 2003.

50 I had personal experience of this after the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited me to engage with the NEPAD Secretariat at a workshop in Copenhagen in 2005. Every single criticism of NEPAD was rejected by its Chief Executive on the grounds that ‘that was not what NEPAD was about’, or that critics had ‘misinterpreted’ the project (with hints that such misinterpretation was deliberate and probably inspired by ‘Afro-pessimism’). This was the case even when critiques were directly quoting from the NEPAD document. Eventually an exasperated Danish official declared the workshop exercise a waste of time.

51 Quoted in Business Day, 6 December 2002.

52 I Motsi, NEPAD: The Unveiling of an Urban Legend, Briefing Paper 28, Centre for International Political Studies, 2005, p 4.

53 R Herbert, Time to Rethink NEPAD , Braamfontein: South African Institute of International Affairs, 2008.

54 Ibid.

55 East African, 2–8 July 2007.

56 A De Waal, ‘What's new in the “New Partnership for Africa's Development”‘, International Affairs, 78(3), 2002, p 467.

57 Voice of America, 20 October 2009.

58 The Times, 20 October 2009.

59 East African, 2–8 July, 2007.