UN Secretary-General appoints panel to strengthen international support for African development plan

United Nations, New York, 20 July 2004 -- International support for NEPAD, the African development roadmap, will be strengthened by an international panel of eminent economists, development practitioners and academics newly appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Special Adviser on Africa, Ibrahim Gambari, said at a New York press briefing today. The Secretary-General's Advisory Panel on International Support for the New Partnership for Africa's Development is headed by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the former Commonwealth Secretary-General and president of the World Wide Fund for Nature. It has been created to advise Secretary-General Kofi Annan on global support for NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa's Development.

The 13-member panel includes the noted economist, Mr. Jagdish Bhagwati, former IMF head Mr. Michel Camdessus, Ms. Anne Kristin-Syndes, the former Minister of Cooperation and Development for Norway, Dr. Richard Jolly, the former deputy director of UNICEF, Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, the former finance minister of Ghana who currently heads the African Development Policy Ownership Initiative, and Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa, a former leader of the South African anti-apartheid movement and past chair of the country's Black Economic Empowerment Commission.

The panel will monitor the scope and progress of international support for NEPAD and advise Mr. Annan on ways to expand and strengthen global partnerships for Africa's development goals. The UN, Mr. Annan told African leaders at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa earlier this month, "will remain your firm advocate and your faithful partner" in accelerating African development efforts and reaching the ambitious poverty-reduction targets contained in the Millennium Development Goals.

New reports highlight progress

The advisory panel is among a number of initiatives the UN is undertaking to promote NEPAD internationally. Spearheading these efforts is the office of the Special Adviser on Africa, headed by Under Secretary-General Gambari. New reports issued by the Special Adviser highlight progress in three critical areas of the NEPAD programme -- increasing capital flows to Africa, integrating NEPAD priorities into Africa's national development strategies and strengthening cooperation with Latin American and Caribbean countries ("south-south cooperation") in reaching Africa's development objectives.

The report on capital flows contains specific recommendations for African governments and their development partners in six key areas, including:

-- improving market access for Africa's exports and reducing farm subsidies by industrialized countries

-- tax incentives to encourage foreign direct investment

-- expanding guarantees and other incentives for investors in Africa

-- greater efforts to promote trade with Africa

-- better-targeting of development assistance, including aid to small and medium-sized African businesses

-- strengthening African economic governance through NEPAD's innovative Peer Review Mechanism.

The report on south-south cooperation highlights links between African countries and their Latin American and Caribbean counterparts in agriculture, health and education, energy, telecommunications, peace and security, the environment and trade. The report notes that government-to-government cooperation between Africa and the region has fostered greater contacts among African and Latin American and Caribbean civil society organizations on a range of issues, including human rights and governance. Development bodies like the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, the report notes, could play "a catalytic role" in expanding development cooperation between the regions.

The experiences of three countries in incorporating NEPAD's objectives into national development strategies -- Algeria, Nigeria and South Africa -- are chronicled in a third report from the Special Adviser's office. The study notes that, while integrating NEPAD's continental goals into national and local development programmes is complex, substantial early progress has been made in each of the countries examined. NEPAD reporting and monitoring mechanisms have been established, and priorities for initial action identified. In Algeria and Nigeria, two of Africa's major energy producers, transport and regional energy projects have been highlighted. In South Africa, NEPAD enjoys the strong support of government at the highest level, and integration of the programme with national economic plans is "advanced." Although the involvement of civil society and the private sector with NEPAD varies greatly, the report observes, consultations among stakeholders in all three countries are increasing.

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