It is not seeking handouts from the West but to have a true and workable partnership which opens up the West’s vast trade markets to Africa, increases inflows of foreign direct investment to the continent, tackles Africa’s crushing debt burden and increases development aid in order to create a more peaceful and stable world.
By placing human rights and democracy high on the agenda of the plan, the African leaders are acknowledging that fundamental freedoms and rights of Africans are no different from those of other people in the world.
This is the way things should have been all along. Only unashamed dictators bent on trampling on their people would opt out of a plan like this one, but thankfully NEPAD has won resounding support from virtually all African leaders who want to pull the continent out of its largely self-inflicted economic misery and ruin.
As things stand now, Zimbabwe would not at any rate qualify to join NEPAD because of the government’s bloated human rights record and suspension of the rule of law. There would not even be a need to send the proposed peer review panel to check on Harare’s flagrant violations of the plan’s fundamental principles.
Because the government cannot afford to be left out of NEPAD unless it wants to commit political and economic suicide, it has to start putting its governance in order now or face embarrassing censure and possible expulsion from the plan by Africa.
By placing human rights and democracy high on the agenda of the plan, the African leaders are acknowledging that fundamental freedoms and rights of Africans are no different from those of other people in the world.
This is the way things should have been all along. Only unashamed dictators bent on trampling on their people would opt out of a plan like this one, but thankfully NEPAD has won resounding support from virtually all African leaders who want to pull the continent out of its largely self-inflicted economic misery and ruin.
As things stand now, Zimbabwe would not at any rate qualify to join NEPAD because of the government’s bloated human rights record and suspension of the rule of law. There would not even be a need to send the proposed peer review panel to check on Harare’s flagrant violations of the plan’s fundamental principles.
Because the government cannot afford to be left out of NEPAD unless it wants to commit political and economic suicide, it has to start putting its governance in order now or face embarrassing censure and possible expulsion from the plan by Africa.