The Foreign Service Journal, May 2004

designed by NEPAD. There is debate across Africa about NEPAD—whether or not it is a new way to hold out a tin cup for alms, whether civil society has been involved enough in the process, etc. — and it won’t end soon. But one key component of the program seems a striking departure from modern African tradition and is linked to the “new Africa” that the African Union hopes to shape. A peer review forum comprised of African heads of state and government will monitor each other’s performance on economic management, human rights, corruption and democracy. Teams of experts will travel to the countries that have enlisted for review. African governments seem genuinely committed to this departure from the deeply held and often articulated shib- boleth that there shall be no interference in the internal affairs of another state. And because this commitment centers on economies, it seems far more radical than, say, Nyerere’s political and humanitarian decision to send in Tanzanian troops to help oust Uganda’s Idi Amin 17 years ago. As of this writing, 16 nations have signed up for peer review. That may seem a small number on a continent of 54 eligible nations. But as one African ambassador, whose country has signed on to peer review told me recently, interference in another country’s affairs is tricky. “It is going to take time for peers, like presidents, to think clear- ly about other countries,” he said. Try to imagine the United Sates agreeing to subject itself to peer review by Canada and Mexico! This unfolding story is worth watching. The continent’s leaders have made “a very important commitment in terms of a new direction” to achieve recovery and development, says Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, who chairs the steering committee of the NEPAD Secretariat. Speaking in February to a luncheon hosted by the Sullivan Foundation in Washington, Nkuhlu added: “We believe that Africa is [now] better organized to engage the developed coun- tries.” Indeed, history may well record the demands Africa makes on itself because of NEPAD as one of the conti- nent’s greatest successes in the beginning years of the 21st century. F O C U S 42 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 4