On October 23rd, 2001, the NEPAD was officially formalized here in Abuja. Can you tell us what have been its main achievements in those two years it has been functioning?

I think the best way to illustrate the achievements of NEPAD would be to briefly examine the problems confronting Africa and the rationale behind the creation of NEPAD. At the turn of the new century, that is, in the beginning of this millennium, there was a lot of brainstorming both in and outside Africa which clearly revealed that the continent was lagging behind the rest of the world. Although by 2000, Africa had 12% of the population of the world, nevertheless, it accounted for 7% of the Gross Domestic Product of the whole world; by contrast the United States accounted for 25%. Africa also accounted for less than 1% of the total foreign direct investment; less than 2% of the total trade and less than 2% of the total export. At the same time, it accounted for 75% of the people infected by HIV/AIDS worldwide. The region was just at the bottom of the ladder. The situation was so bad that African leaders thought it was necessary to initiate a comprehensive recovery programme so that Africans could claim the 21st century. They couldn't just continue with the unacceptable situation. That was the same feeling among the leaders of the developed world. This was the rationale behind the creation of NEPAD.

NEPAD could be described as the collective vision of African leaders to address all of the problems of underdevelopment as manifested in the statistics quoted above. And of course, a vision is a mental picture of a better future. So really, the leaders contrived NEPAD as the way out of these problems believing that if they all worked together - the 53 member nations of the African Union - they would be able perhaps to effect more changes than if they approached those problems individually because many of the problems confronting Africa at the beginning of the millennium were common to all. If they can all come together and sing from the same hymn book, it would be easier for them to address their problems and get solutions than approaching them individually.

Could you tell us what is/are the key plan(s) of NEPAD for Africa

The goals of NEPAD briefly are the following: one, to restore peace and security. The logical starting point was for peace and security. At the beginning of the millennium, one out of five Africans was living under armed conflict and of course that would not create a conducive environment for investment, growth and sustainable development. So, peace and security is the starting point. Next, there must be good governance. We must entrench good governance in all ramifications - political good governance, economic good governance and corporate good governance. Thirdly, there must be eradication of poverty or say alleviation of widespread poverty in Africa. We must also close the income gap between the rich and the poor which was too huge in Africa. Another goal is to reduce the marginalization of Africa in the process of globalisation. About the same time, the leaders of the industrial countries of the North, the G8 countries in particular, thought there was something to be done to help Africa. So, African leaders met with them first in Tokyo, Japan in the year 2000. It was agreed that the African leaders should draw up their own plan for the continent. They eventually came up with the document that is called the NEPAD document. The African leaders met the G8 leaders again in Genoa, Italy in 2001. The G8 accepted the document and formed their own group of experts on Africa to work further on how best to support NEPAD.
In 2002, during the summit of the G8 in Kananaskis , Canada, the G8 adopted the Plan of Action to support NEPAD. The support of the G8 had been very critical right from the beginning. The United Nations too saw NEPAD as a timely initiative to tag onto. So African leaders were able to secure the support of the UN and the industrialized countries. Currently, the United Nations has an office under the Secretary General in charge of NEPAD. Thus, the United Nations now has given its full backing. The General Assembly met in the year 2002, debated NEPAD for about a week and they came up with a resolution fully supporting NEPAD. Africa and African issues suddenly have become very prominent on the global stage and this is attributable to the whole new awareness created by NEPAD.

What is the position of NEPAD in regards to trade, the WTO and the initiative to boost intra-African trade?

One of the areas of concern under NEPAD is market access. Market access in the sense that there are too many obstacles, barriers, tariffs and non-tariffs in the way of African products in the industrial economies. The total of farm subsidies for OECD countries is about 350 billion dollars a year. This actually is about seven times the total of official development assistance (ODA). This situation creates problems for African products. So, what NEPAD seeks to do in the WTO is to call on the leaders of the industrial countries to open up and remove obstacles, especially the farm subsidies. For example, the African farmer is known to be perhaps more competitive in producing cotton but with US subsidising its farmers, the African farmer becomes less competitive. So in effect, subsidising the US cotton producer is subsidizing poverty in Africa indirectly. This is one of the areas where NEPAD is becoming very useful. This is why I said the sense in NEPAD is that all African countries are coming together to address their problems collectively. If individually, each of the 53 members go to France or the US, they will not be able to make as much impact. One of the things NEPAD has gained for Africa is enhanced advocacy. Enhanced advocacy to bring about effective change in the policies, actions and programmes of the OECD countries. Examples are debt remission, official development assistance and market access.

Look at debt remission. We are in a situation in Africa now where the debt that we owe is fiscally unsustainable. I give you as an example Nigeria: Nigeria borrowed 12.5 billion dollars from the Paris Club members. We have paid back over the years 17.5 billion dollars. Currently we still owe the Paris Club members nothing less than 26 billion dollars. That is a classic example of the African debt situation not being fiscally sustainable. Increasingly, it is realised that creditors ignore African debtors because they have little nuisance value compared with countries which had been granted generous relief in the past.

With NEPAD we can also achieve enhanced partnership which is also very important. In the last four decades, between 1960 and 2000, when most African countries became independent, there were partnerships between African countries and industrial countries but it was a state of dependency. We want it to become enhanced partnership with clearly defined mutual benefits, obligations and responsibilities on both sides. African leaders are committed, on our own side to restore peace and security, eradicate poverty, close the gap between the rich and the poor and entrench good governance. Our leaders want to ensure that we do things right in order to reduce our dependence on the outside world. The industrial countries too have accepted their own obligations, which are embodied in the Kananaski's Action Plan. This is a different type of partnership compared to what we experienced in the first four decades of independence when we were dependent. In the days of the cold war, we became victims of both the East and the West, we thought we were the darling of everybody, but it was not the case. Now we know better.

NEPAD has recorded impressive improvement towards restoring peace and security in Africa. For instance, take a look at the situation in Liberia, it was President Obasanjo from Nigeria, President Mbeki from South Africa and President Chissano from Mozambique who convinced President Charles Taylor to leave. This had never happened before in Africa. In the case of Burundi at present, there are in that country, troops from South Africa, Ethiopia and Mozambique, even as poor as those two last countries are. This was not the case before. In the Great Lake region, we have seen also peace initiatives in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. So on the side of Africa, our leaders are restoring peace and security, which is absolutely the pre-condition for continental progress. Unless you have peace and security, you cannot change the conditions in Africa for the better.

How would you describe the role of NEPAD in regional integration and what is the collaboration with other supranational initiatives and institutions like ECOWAS and the African Union?

First, NEPAD is premised on the principle of ownership. African leaders insist that the programme must be owned, defined and managed by Africans. Another principle is partnership. In other words, although we want to own it, but we fully realise that we do not have the wherewithal at present. We still have to partner. The mode of partnership under NEPAD is first global. In other words, Africans will talk to OECD, the industrial countries, and other global organisations. It is also regional - which means partnership from region to region. It is sub-regional, which means cooperation with COMESA, ECOWAS and so forth. And it is also national/domestic, in other words, public/private sector partnership. So the concept of partnership runs through all of NEPAD and the mode is very important - globally, regionally, sub-regionally and nationally.
Finally, there is also the principle of responsibility. African leaders realised that if they say they are going to own NEPAD, they must be more responsible. It is this principle of responsibility that compelled African communities to embrace the concept of entrenching good governance. Political good governance, which entails democracy, transparency, accountability, periodic elections, independent judiciary and independent electoral commission. There is also economic good governance which assures the commitment of African leaders to better management of their economies. Corporate good governance means NEPAD subscribes to the philosophy of private sector-led growth. There must also be a sense of social responsibility. There must be norms, guidelines and standards that would protect the weak members of the society. So that when we say we have the private sector leading the economy as in the free enterprise society of Europe and North America, we still advocate responsible corporate governance.

The core principles of NEPAD are very important to the leaders. They want to own it, they want to be responsible for entrenching good governance but at the same time, we still need enhanced partnership with the rest of the world because we do not have the wherewithal and need foreign direct investment. So you can say that NEPAD represents the vision - a mental picture of a better future for Africa and Africans. It represents a full-blown agenda with action plans of how to go about it. We do not want NEPAD to be words and no action. It must be translated into action so that people will be able to benefit from it. For instance, take an area like infrastructure development, we make the African Development Bank the lead agency in this area. The African Development Bank has come up with what we call Short-term Action Plan with flagship projects. The whole idea is to open up Africa. If we are able to open Africa, then we will be able to make investment inflow more attractive towards the continent. We will even be able to encourage Africans to interact more among themselves and invest in their own continent and their own countries.

(continues)
For instance, among the flagship projects, there is the West African Gas Pipeline, which is the concept of piping Nigeria's surplus gas from the Niger-Delta through Benin Republic to Togo and Ghana in the first phase. Later, it will go up to Senegal. We also have the plan for a West African railway which will transcend all of the ECOWAS region from Senegal right to Nigeria. Another flagship project is the INGA Integrator Project, if peace and security is restored in the Great Lakes region and in the DRC. The total potential for hydro-electric power on the River Congo is 70,000 megawatts a day. It is just unbelievable, there is nothing like that in the rest of the world. If we are able to generate all this energy on the river Congo, we will double the current electricity capacity of all Africa. And remember it is hydro-electricity, which is environmentally friendly with no problem about sustainability. The plan itself is to export the surplus through the Mediterranean into Southern Europe. The plan is already there. The feasibility study has been done but there must be peace and security in the Great Lakes region.

What about the implementation of long term projects, how is NEPAD working towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)?

Let us consider the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The Millennium Development Goals have become the global benchmark for all nations to reduce poverty by 50 percent by the year 2015. It came out of the United Nations Millennium Summit in the year 2000 and this has been adopted by NEPAD as a goal to work towards. By the year 2015, African countries should be able to reduce, by half, the population of those caught in core poverty - those living below $1 a day. But that is a Herculean task which has been translated into 64 billion dollars investment annually in Africa to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Where is that supposed to come out from? If I give you figures, you will be amazed. All of the export credit agencies put together in 2002 did about 60 billion dollars export credits and only one percent came to Africa. The question now is how are we going to attract more investment towards Africa? This is a huge challenge. How do we make Africa the investors' destination? As I already said, under NEPAD we have identified the huge need for investment inflow of as much as 64 billion dollars per annum.

We also want to encourage capital repatriation so that Africans will keep their own money at home and invest it in their own countries. At present, not less than 40 percent of all the private capital in Africa is invested outside of Africa. If you look at China, which had a 10.3 percent growth last year, it obtains most of its investment inflow from overseas Chinese, who left before and are coming back and investing in China.

We also face a paradox in Africa as 70 percent of the investment into Africa today goes into extractive industries. In Nigeria, Mozambique, South Africa and Angola, it is all oil and gas, and minerals-mining. We cannot unravel this paradox. Why do they go to extractive industries and neglect the sectors of manufacturing, downstream petroleum and petrochemicals? We have to solve this puzzle.

One of the challenges of NEPAD is capital inflow inadequacy. What should we do first at home in each of the African countries? First, we must save more. There are not enough saving institutions in Africa. We save one third of what Asians save. There is no insurance culture or unit trusts. We must save more for the future so that we can be able to invest more. Secondly, the public finance must improve. The quality of the public finance; the generation, utilisation, and allocation of resources in all ramifications must be well managed. The quality of budget management must also improve. We must reduce budget deficit and go to the capital market to fund deficit so that you do not abuse Ways and Means facility. There must be fiscal discipline on the part of government. The quality of public finance is absolutely important in order to accelerate growth and sustain development in African countries. This is at the heart of good economic governance.

In most countries in Africa there is no strong financial and capital market except in South Africa. For instance, there is a young and nascent upcoming market in Nigeria, where we have a Stock Exchange with about 200 quoted companies, but we do not even have a vibrant bond market to talk about. No Municipal bond, no State governments bonds, no Federal government bonds are floated. In other words, outside of South Africa, you cannot tap substantial medium to long-term capital. So we must begin to look at the problem, first and foremost, from the domestic perspective. This will be in accordance with the principle of ownership. Ownership is what we have to do internally. To invest, we must mobilize more savings, pension funds, etc. In Nigeria, we are trying now to reform Pension Funds so that we can tap into household savings. The government also plans to introduce National Savings Certificates.

There is also the need for debt remission. We need debt relief because the debt profile is fiscally unsustainable. There is a need for the heavily indebted countries to be helped. There is also the need for market access, it is absolutely important because if you produce and you cannot export the products, there is no use for them. Right now, we are at a difficult impasse. The West is preaching to us the principles and advantages of a free enterprise economy and globalisation. At the same time they are the ones erecting the barriers. Market access must just be addressed as well as capital repatriation.

It is important to improve on the perception of Africa as an investment destination. In other words, the risk image of Africa must be addressed. It is being said that the return on investment in Africa is among the highest in the world; about 30 percent. Nonetheless, we still have the image of a huge risk environment that everybody just tries to run away from. We also need the governments in industrialized countries to help create incentives, encourage their Export Credit Agencies to write more credits in Africa. That is also very important as part of what can be done externally to improve the inflow of investment funds to Africa. So after the 2 years of NEPAD and bringing Africa to the attention of the whole world, one major constraint now is capital inflow.

The other serious constraint is capacity gap. There are huge capacity gaps, by which I mean, the ability of indigenous Africans to do things by themselves without relying on foreign assistance. Under NEPAD, we say that the implementing agencies will be the regional economic communities like ECOWAS and COMESA as well as the national agencies. But we have found out that these agencies have huge capacity gaps. (Ownership without capacity is a sham) So, even if you provide the money, they may not be able to utilise it effectively. We must build capacity. The donor agencies are looking at how to help regional and national agencies to be able to deliver effectively. So, those are the two constraints that we have observed - capacity gap and capital inadequacy. Every country in Africa suffers in various degrees from those constraints. The general picture I have given to you applies to all of African countries, so if we all come together, sing from the same hymn book, then, we may be able collectively to address these problems and be able perhaps to solve them.

This is what led to Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). It is an instrument to ensure that African countries deliver on their obligations under NEPAD through sharing experiences, and peer reviewing one another. What happened in Liberia is classic peer review. Other African leaders approached Taylor, spoke to him and voluntarily he agreed to leave. Peer review will enable us to be able to track progress under NEPAD through the process of sharing experiences. Currently, we are also working on the mutual peer review; the framework is being worked out between the Economic Commission for Africa and the OECD in Europe. The idea is to monitor the promises and commitments made by both sides and how they are delivered. Africa will be represented by the Economic Commission for Africa and the industrial countries by the OECD. Together, they are developing the framework to enable both sides sit down and access progress towards the various commitments made in the NEPAD document and in the Kananaskis Action Plan.

Can you tell us about your professional background and what you have been doing before achieving this position within NEPAD?

For much of my years, I was a private sector person. When I returned from the United States where I did my private studies including a Masters Degree in New York University, I first served as an Economist with the Central Bank of Nigeria. Later, I served as a Fellow in the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs. After about one or two years there, I moved to the private sector. I became the Chief Economist of United Bank for Africa (UBA), which was one of the largest banks in Nigeria. From there, I moved to the Unilever subsidiary, United African Company Nigeria (UAC) where I became the Chief Economist and the Corporate Planning Manager. Later on, I was appointed a Divisional Managing Director of the company. During the period of President Babangida, I became the Minister of National Planning. After a short return to the private sector, I came back to Abuja where I was involved in the Vision 2010 project for Nigeria. After this, I was appointed Ambassador, in which position I served first in Spain and concomitantly to the Vatican and later on, I was in Brussels as Ambassador to Belgium and at the same time to the European Union. During that time I had a big challenge on my hands. I represented Nigeria during the negotiations of the present Cotonou agreement. When President Obasanjo came to power, he asked me to return home to be appointed Commissioner in the National Planning Commission. It is in this position he gave me the added responsibility of becoming a member of the Steering Committee of NEPAD. I consider it a very rare privilege to be so much involved in Africa.

What will then be your final message not only for investors but to all the people following the changes that are being seen in Africa?

Africa offers an immense potential. It is very well favoured in terms of natural endowments, resources, fauna and flora, but Africa is passing through a period of painful adjustment. It is struggling through a period of implementing a serious reform and recovery package as embodied in NEPAD. This is a trying period for Africa. Africans, increasingly have accepted the reality of globalisation but it should not be a subterfuge to bring us back into colonialism. It is a reality of the twenty first century. African leaders have expressed collectively that they are determined for once to ensure that they become the architect of their own destiny and that they would cooperate with the rest of the world to ensure that Africa makes contribution to global progress and uplift the standard of living of their citizenry so that Africans can claim the 21st century.

Thank you very much.