Browsing by Author "Mkhize, Matthews B"

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    New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) : a hostage to conditionality?
    (2002) Mkhize, Matthews B
    The paper evaluates the validity of the widespread notion that one of the objectives of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) - to establish democracy continent-wide in Africa - will be undermined by conditionalities attached to donor assistance. Conditionality is said by critics to usurp sovereign power, and thus interferes with governance in•• recipient countries, pre-empting self-determination, local initiative, and self-reliance. This discourse is thus located within the tradition of practical, politically engaged scholarship. Several relevant sub-issues are generated in the paper's primary deliberations: Nepad and conditionality are defined and principles and nature thereof explored; ""democracy"" is located in African politics, its history and current state examined; the effects of structural adjustments programs on African states are explored; the question of state-market relationship in development is considered; IMF and World Bank positions (i.e. policy) on conditionality are assessed; possible alternative forms of political systems pertinent to Nepad are evaluated; and continental democracy paradigm and democratic conditionality paradigms are suggested. I argue that concern about adverse effects of conditionality on democracy is well-founded, but suggest that re-examination and re-construction of conditionality may avert foreseeable harm and produce favourable results.