Ibrahim Mayaki, CEO, NEPAD

By Crusoe Osagie

As the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the blueprint for the continent’s development marks 10 years, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has convened a panel to reflect on the agency’s achievements and challenges in advancing Africa’s trade and other areas of  development.

Speaking at the panel discussion on trade and development in Africa, Chief Executive Officer of the NEPAD Agency, Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki, explained that NEPAD has played a crucial part in the steady progress made by the continent, both in terms of democratisation and development.

“If we look at NEPAD, the focus has been on strategic thinking, planning and coherence in resource mobilisation. There has also been an emphasis on proper governance and management of public resources, with effective tools such as those provided by the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). Today, African countries are quite well managed,” said Mayaki.

Participants at the conference, who included Ambassadors from Gabon, Rwanda, Algeria, Tunisia and Nigeria called on NEPAD to accelerate regional integration, technology, economic progress, peace and mobilise local funds to deepen gains recorded in the past ten years.

In his remarks, UNCTAD Special Coordinator for Africa, Mr. Kamran Kousari, stressed that NEPAD must reduce aid-dependency and focus on domestic resource mobilisation for sustainable development. Africa’s leaders must renew their commitments to mobilise adequate financial resources for NEPAD, he said.

At the end of the session the participants agreed that the relevance and success of NEPAD depends on the extent to which African leaders, the African people and particularly civil society and development partners are involved in the process of implementing NEPAD.

The NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (the NEPAD Agency), is a technical body and development vehicle of the African Union (AU). The NEPAD Agency is responsible for the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a strategic framework for pan-African socio-economic development.

In order to address criti¬cal challenges facing the continent, the NEPAD Agency facilitates and coordinates development programmes and projects, pushing for partnerships, resource mobilisation, and research and knowledge management.