EXAMPLE ONE
=> paragraph 2 from the official NEPAD document: "2. The poverty and backwardness of Africa stand in stark contrast to the prosperity of the developed world. The continued marginalisation of Africa from the globalisation process and the social exclusion of the vast majority of its peoples constitute a serious threat to global stability."

=> response to this paragraph in the SA (NGO)document: "The automatic presumption is that the "poverty" and "backwardness" of Africa are as a result of "exclusion" and "marginalisation" from "globalisation." A different presumption, not even considered, is that worsening poverty for the masses is an intrinsic feature of globalisation, much as it was a corollary of apartheid in South Africa. Indeed, the presumption that globalisation correlates to growing poverty and inequality is now widely acknowledged as an entirely valid argument, given that the most profound, rapid cases of impoverishment (e.g. Argentina at present) occur because of excessive vulnerability and dependency upon global financial, trade and direct-investment markets."


EXAMPLE TWO
=> "7. Across the continent, Africans declare that we will no longer allow ourselves to be conditioned by circumstance. We will determine our own destiny and call on the rest of the world to complement our efforts. There are already signs of progress and hope. Democratic regimes that are committed to the protection of human rights, people-centred development and market-oriented economies are on the increase."

=> response to this paragraph in the SA document: "It is sophistry -- characteristic of NEPAD -- to imply, presumptively, that "protection of human rights, people-centred development and market-oriented economies" are mutually compatible, when evidence suggests that the latter typically trumps and eradicates the two former."

- we might also note the judgment upon NEPAD of, amongst many others, Yash Tandon, the Ugandan analyst and author, who recently stated:

"It [NEPAD] is worse than structural adjustment. At least under adjustment, the World Bank admitted that it was a purely economic programme, and when social costs were felt, made contingencies, however inadequate. In NEPAD, they've made those social problems part of the plan. They know there are going to be millions of poor people hurt by it, and they're going to do it anyway. Our leaders have betrayed us."

- but let me close instead with the words of one Africa's leading contemporary activist, South Africa's Trevor Ngwane, speaking to the question "Should African social movements be part of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)" at the recent World Forum in Porto Alegre. Amongst a number of other points, Ngwane, in his speech, notes the following:

"3.6 NEPAD calls for closer co-operation

"He who sups with the devil must have a long spoon. NEPAD calls for closer relations with the rich countries, it wants Africa to be 'integrated' more into the global economic system. But economic development theorists such as Andre Gunder Frank and Samir Amin have long shown how integration leads to growing poverty and underdevelopment because the structure of insertion is designed to benefit the rich; they get richer and the poor get poorer. Third World scholars have recommended less not more integration, namely, 'de-linking.' Argentina's crisis is due to its integration which made it vulnerable to global financial and market fluctuations. The falling rand (currency) in South Africa is due to the ease with which money can move in and out of the country - an indicator of integration into the global markets.

"3.7 NEPAD wants market-oriented policies

"NEPAD wants 'market-oriented policies,' that is, more capitalism, more profit-driven policies, more competition, more privatisation. Mbeki forgets that it is exactly the doctrine and practice of putting profit before people which led to slavery, colonialism, apartheid and neo-liberalism.

- and Ngwane concludes:

"5. Reject NEPAD, campaign against it

"Based on these few points above it is my strong recommendation that the African Social Forum rejects NEPAD and its model of economic development. Let us spend the first year of our forum studying and educating the African masses about the evils of the neo-liberalism contained in NEPAD. We must suggest alternatives to this self-defeating strategy and build mass struggles in defence of African economic interests."

"Phansi NEPAD phansi! Down with NEPAD!"


- or, at least equally to the point, the words of a far more simple and humble South Africa, cited in a recent, quite astonishing article in the Washington Post:

"When she could no longer bear the darkness or the cold that settles into her arthritic knees of the thought of sacrificing another piece of furniture for firewood, Agnes Mohapi cursed the powers that had cut off her electricity. Then she summoned a neighbourhood service to illegally reconnect it. Soon, bootleg technicians from the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) arrived in pairs at the intersection of Maseka and Moema Street. Asking for nothing in return, they used pliers, a penknife and a snip here and a splice there to return light to the dusty treeless corner.

"We shouldn't have to resort to this," Mohapi, 58, said as she stood cross-armed and remorseless in front of the home as the repairmen hot-wired her electricity. Nothing, she said, could compare to life under apartheid, the system of racial separation that herded blacks into poor townships such as Soweto. But for all its wretchedness, apartheid never did this: it did not lay her off from her job, jack up her utility bill, then disconnect her service when she inevitably could not pay. "Privatization did that," she said, her cadence quickening in disgust. "And all this globalization garbage our new black government had forced upon us has done nothing but make things worse ... Bur we will unite and we will fight this government with the same fury that we fought the whites in their day."

- alongside such comrades, we in Canada should fight NEPAD and "all this [capitalist] globalization garbage" in the same spirit, and anybody who can get within a hundred kilometres of Kananaskis this summer must echo Trevor Ngwane: PHANSI, NEPAD, PHANSI
Vault not open, Canada tells Africa
Kananaskis meeting of the G8 to focus on how to expand African economies