Partners for Africa

Promoting the production of cash crops for export was a core component of development strategies and structural adjustment programs in the 1990s and remains one of several options for African agriculture. (Photo: D. Leraand)

Partnerships remain a viable way to contribute to economic and social development in Africa. These have mainly been formed between governments and institutions in Africa and governments and development agencies of the North. In recent years, such partnerships have been strengthened by the private sector.

Furthermore, a large number of partnerships have been established in fields such as culture, education, health, science, technology and defense - benefiting both partners in Africa and the North. Partnerships for development efforts in Africa have been both a political goal and a practical reality for years; forged between governments, institutions, organizations, companies, and communities.

Partners for Africa's development
Major development organizations and institutions, such as the UN system and the Bretton Woods institutions, as well as individual donor countries and regional groupings, such as the EU, have played a major role in establishing partnerships with Africa.

The two regional multinational institutions, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have played a key role, with strong support from the North. The African Union (AU; formerly the Organization of African Unity, OAU) and several regional development organizations, such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC, formerly SADCC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD, formerly IGADD), have also played a major part. These have all contributed to various partnerships with institutions and organizations in the North, as have NGOs, in the South and in the North.

At the same time, African governments have themselves established some Public-Private Partnerships to carry out major projects, South Africa being a prominent example.

Programs for Africa's development
While there was considerable optimism on behalf of Africa's development in the early years after most countries won their independence in the early 1960s, an increasing "afro-pessimism" gradually set in, and the 1980s was labeled a "lost decade".

African countries received development assistance on an individual basis. From the 1980s, special international focus on Africa as a continent developed as well, although in reality this has meant sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This focus has come particularly from the UN and multinational development banks, as well as donor governments and organizations.

Several special initiatives were launched to support Africa, in close collaboration with African states, through the OAU. The first major initiative was the Lagos Plan of Action, adopted by the OAU in 1980, founded on the ideas of a "new international economic order", and covering the period 1980-2000. The plan set ambitious targets, with an annual economic growth of 7% a year - based on agricultural revolution (4% annual growth) and industrialization (9.5% annual growth). At the same time, it declared the aim of African economic integration.

The growth targets were far from achieved, and the platform for integration was laid down with the establishment of the AU in 2002. The World Bank also came up with a plan for SSA in 1980, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action, and in 1985, ECA launched the Africa's Priority Program for Economic recovery (APPER) as an emergency program designed to address the development crisis of the 1980s.

In 1986, a special session of the United Nations formulated its Program of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development (UN-PAAERD. In 1991, this was followed by the New Agenda for Development of Africa in the 1990's (UN NADAF) - and in 2001, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) agenda, which seeks to generate new forms of cooperation and to articulate mutual interests between Africa and the developed world. It was based on several initiatives, and was followed up by the G-8 group, and its Africa Action Plan of 2002.

In 2005 there was a renewed international focus on Africa, with the launch of the report Our Common Interest, by the Commission for Africa, the so-called Blair-commission, in March as a main event. The report was debated at the G-8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland in June, where a number of new initiatives aimed at supporting Africa's development were adopted.

The World Bank picked these up in its Africa action plan, Meeting the Challenges of Africa's Development, calling for stronger partnerships and integration of development efforts. Also, the EU presented its own strategy for Africa, as a platform for further cooperation.

External resources