What is new in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD)

Abstract

This treatise highlights the recent dreams and dialogues of African Renaissance and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). These dreams and dialogues have been driven as much by Afro-optimism as by Afro-pessimism, by both the positive and the negative political and economic changes that have taken place in postcolonial Africa. The paper briefly surveys the resurgence of the idea of the African renaissance in the 1990s and the foundation of NEPAD at the turn of the 21st century. It then reviews the ingredients of the NEPAD policy document with the hopes for African redemption. This is followed by an assessment of NEPAD initiatives, focusing on the reality of its formulation, implementation and ownership. The essay concludes by trying to profess the future of Africa and the continent’s alternative efforts to find solutions to its peoples’ problems.