Kubatana - Archive - NEPAD conference findings - Crisis in Zimbabwe

Members of NGO’s, women’s groups, workers, business, academic community, students and youth groups, liberation war veterans, indigenous farmers, pressure groups and the African Diplomatic Community attended a two day consultative workshop to consider a Zimbabwean position on the New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).

After a careful consideration of the NEPAD document and processes to date, the delegates unanimously agreed that:

NEPAD constitutes a serious departure from participatory methods of policy formulation. It is a document that was formulated by a few African Heads of State. The process marginalized the peoples of Africa and thus represents a top down approach to policy formulation. Furthermore, NEPAD is a document crafted and intended specifically for consumption by the West, namely the G8 group;
NEPAD disregards pertinent historical factors in the design of economic development solutions, as did the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), which prescribed a one-size-fits-all solution to Africa’s developmental needs. Like the SAP’s, NEPAD fails to prioritise human development and instead places undue emphasis on performance indicators that do not reflect the human element of development. In short, NEPAD is a market-based solution to the needs of a continent with severe human development deficits.
NEPAD ignores the important roles of women in the economy thereby trivializing their actual and potential contribution to the future development of Africa. The patronising tone that comes through in the loose, lip-service reference paid to issues relating to empowering women reflects an attitude of a paternalistic leadership. A leadership that is not really committed to improving the condition of women but rather washing their hands of problems of gender inequalities by sending women and girls to school. Ironically educational systems largely teach women to be subservient to the very patriarchal institutions that are sending them to school.
In the context of Africa’s current political challenges, the Proposed Peer Review system is not adequate to censure states that violate international human rights obligations and undertakings, e.g. the Government of Zimbabwe’s conduct in the period 2000 to 2002 notably during elections;
NEPAD does not adequately outline the role that western partners' are supposed to play beyond financing of the 15 year-long programme. In particular, NEPAD avoids the contentious but emergent, issues of unsustainable debt, unequal trade, reparations, and the specific legal responsibilities of multinational corporations (MNC's) to local communities e.g. bio-piracy and environmental degradation questions;
NEPAD also ignores existing African alternatives spear headed by the now defunct Organisation of African Unity. This historical amnesia further extends to existing international, regional and national obligations in the areas of gender equity, environment, human rights and governance.

Notwithstanding the above stated fundamental weaknesses, NEPAD offers unique opportunities for Zimbabwean citizens to engage the Zimbabwean Government and African governments on issues of political and economic governance and gender equity in human development.

Delegates called upon the business community to finance the wide spread circulation of the NEPAD document. They also called upon civil society in its numerous sectors to take the NEPAD debate to the grassroots for the purposes of conscientisation and mobilisation.

Delegates also called upon the Government of Zimbabwe to state clearly its position on NEPAD. They further called for quadripartite consultations between labour, business, civil society and political parties in the formulation of a truly Zimbabwean position.

They unanimously agreed that the Zimbabwean question should remain foremost in the NEPAD debate as it provides a litmus test of the credibility of the programme given the prevailing crisis of governance and legitimacy.

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