African rendezvous in Paris

Determined to launch a new partnership with France, African leaders lobbied for more trade and improved aid at last week's Franco-African summit, writes Layla Hafez from Paris
Keen to shake off the legacy of colonial subjugation, African countries today are seeking to establish a new partnership with the former colonial power, France. Accordingly, 13 African heads of state ended, on 8 February, four hours of heated debate with French President Jaques Chirac and Michel Camdessus, former director of the International Monetary Fund and currently the French president's personal representative in the New Partnership for the Development of Africa (NEPAD), at the Elysée Palace in the French capital.
The meeting, held at the initiative of President Chirac, was meant to be an "informal discussion" aiming at allowing the five countries that founded NEPAD in 2001 -- Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, Nigeria and Senegal -- in addition to eight other African countries representing the different regions of the continent, to present their plan for African development. This partnership initiative emerged from the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, and its results will be presented by France to the other member nations at the next meeting of the G8, to be held in Canada in June 2002. President Chirac stated categorically, "It is morally and politically essential that all industrial countries reconsider in a clear way their prior commitment to contributing 0,7 per cent of their GDP in aid to the least developed countries."
President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal pointed out that African leaders did not come "to the meeting to beg for money" and that it was "in the interest of the rich countries and the world economy to save the continent from economic collapse and social disintegration. Africa is rich in resources and represents 13 per cent of the planet's population." In similar vein, President Hosni Mubarak said, "Gandhi said that poverty is the hardest kind of violence. I would add that poverty is the hardest kind of terrorism," adding that if "the rich countries delay their aid again, I am sure that the war against terrorism will become a world war and no country in the world will be safe from it." Meanwhile, President Olusejun Obasanjo of Nigeria affirmed: "If we don't do anything to end poverty, rearmament will continue, there not being any security anywhere."
The vision of the "new Africa" was equally clear in the mind of Anil Gayan, Mauritian minister of foreign affairs, "We have a vision of an Africa free of conflict and engaged in its mission of reconstruction," he said. He also envisaged the birth of "a new spirit whereby Africans will no longer consider the rest of the world to be the sole source of their problems." Only thus can African countries assume "responsibility for their difficulties and be successful."
President Chirac showed concern for the wealth imbalance between Africa and the West in arguing for the "boosting of this process that will enable the NEPAD aeroplane to take off. The G8 in Canada must be the starting rather than the arrival point." He also linked aid provision to African countries to the degree of their success in fighting "corruption."
However, the Elysée meeting witnessed some tension as well. Camdessus accused African countries of being incapable of pulling themselves out of the deplorable state they exist in, saying, "You always talk of taking off but never actually do so." The African leaders present at the meeting took offence at his superior tone and made clear that they objected to his comments on three points. They started by objecting to the "good governance" and '"democratisation" conditions imposed on Western aid, arguing that this was exactly what they themselves desired without the need for donors to set humiliating preconditions.
Secondly, African leaders protested that aid given to them came in small quantities and only after long and tedious bureaucratic processes. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan the West was pouring in money without such restraints, they complained.
Thirdly, African leaders objected to the arrogance with which the West related to them and requested equal treatment, stating that it was in the West's interest for Africa to get out of its present poverty-stricken and unstable state.
The 8 February meeting, despite being touted as an "informal discussion," was the fruit of months of hard work and thorough studies completed by the NEPAD member-countries. The grouping emerged through the integration of both the New Initiative of Africa (NIA) -- founded in 2000 by Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt and Algeria -- together with the OMEGA Plan, started by Senegal in 2001. The initiative focuses on allowing Africa to take control of its own destiny and map out an integrated plan of development based on its own priorities, rather than those of outsiders. It will allow Africa to prove its capabilities for good governance with the aim of securing accountability and credibility, first to the continent's inhabitants and then to the entire world.
At the meeting, Senegalese President Abdullah Wade put forward the main priorities that African countries will have to address before they can start on the road towards development. In order to minimise the gap between themselves and richer industrialised nations, they will have to strengthen themselves in the fields of health and education, develop their agricultural, energy and technological sectors, as well as maximise infrastructure, attracting foreign investment and developing good governance. The NEPAD plan also underlined that there are rich resources present in Africa whose correct exploitation will enable it to progress, namely its energy and mineral deposits in addition to its rich human resources pool.
For these plans to succeed and for Africa to achieve a certain credibility with its own investors and the private sector, let alone with those rich nations that will provide foreign capital and investment, NEPAD is making a point of underlining the kind of political, economic and social stability that can only be achieved through democracy and good governance.
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