Methodology of the Evaluation of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) : Challenges and the Way Forward

Many African states at independence wanted to be popular with the African masses. They, as a result, came up with many development projects than what the local resources could finance. The option was to supplement the local capital base with foreign capital. In the more recent past, the cold war and post cold war politics, protracted conflicts, structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) and HIV/AIDS pandemic have left the continent poorer than before. Unlike East Asia, which has enjoyed a dramatic reduction in the number of people living in poverty over the past 15 years, sub Saharan Africa has seen dramatic increases in both the total number of poor people and the fraction of its population that is poor (World bank, 2000). In order to deal with the above mentioned challenges, various initiatives have been adopted even though most of them are tantamount to rhetoric. From Tony Blair’s Africa commission, the G7 Finance Ministers debt relief, the live 8 concerts, the make poverty history campaign and the G8 Gleangles promises to the United Nations 2005 summit, Africa’s gains seem to be reduced to some kind of public relations exercise indicating that the world has taken stock of the plight of the continent. However, since 2001, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a vision and strategic framework for Africa’s renewal was launched as a driver for African countries to move from long severe poverty to sustainable economic development. Almost seven years after the launch of the initiative, African states in general are still suffering from the same ills. The current contribution is an attempt to propose an approach for the evaluation of the NEPAD programme in order to effectively and efficiently deal with real challenges that the continent is facing. The first part of the paper presents a glimpse of the current continental economic/political/social situation and the need for immediate actions. The second part defines the concepts of NEPAD and evaluation and the importance of the latter in the development agenda of the African continent. The third part proposes a methodology for evaluating the NEPAD programme with specific reference to the redefinition of its strategic framework in a context of a more globalise and competitive world