The new Partnership for Africa’s Development. Challenges and Prospects

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Africa, language: English, abstract: Through this study, Africa accelerates an African Agenda by embracing the philosophy of African Renaissance which is premised on the renewal and rebirth of Africa. This thesis therefore focuses on a continent aspiring to engage in dialogue and forge a partnership with the rich Global North to implement the millennium developmental plan like NEPAD. The primary lesson from this thesis is that the continent must ensure that it has the full support of 54 states and that continental plans cannot be implemented by a single country whose leadership is contested. Africa’s challenges in implementing the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) have to do with fundamentals of the very idea of NEPAD and its dependency underpinning. These challenges include structural, endogenous and exogenous factors which continue to constrain Africa’s endeavours. So the argument is that Africa failed to implement or was initially destined to fail. Deploying the dependency theory, the thesis delves deeper into Africa’s development trajectory to reflect that NEPAD, just like preceding developmental plans such as the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA), was destined to fail as long as there was no clear paradigm shift from the long standing and perpetual asymmetric donor - recipient relationship although NEPAD is espoused as a partnership but it is still steeped within weakened neo - colonial relations that are incommensurate with Africa’s developmental path.