The Uending Matrix: NEPAD, Globalization and African Development

The paper examines the development prospects of the continent in the prevailing globalisation order under the NEPAD. It argues that the NEPAD while invaluable in keeping the development question in the continent in the front-burner of public discourse falls short of effectively coming to terms with the challenges of globalisation and the position of the continent in the world order. Thus the NEPAD in spite of its lofty goals resembles in so many troubling ways a rehash of the modernization ideology of development that has been the bane of the continent’s development since the 1960s. In precise terms, its goals even though well intentioned cannot be accomplished by the development vision it canvasses. In view of the above, the paper suggests that the NEPAD must relate radically to the historical and current constraints imposed by the prevailing international order or globalisation and in a self-reflective manner relate itself to the daunting domestic weaknesses and challenges confronting the continent. It must therefore envision a development process hinged on a focused and critical engagement with the external world on terms genuinely defined by Africans and African needs.