OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Jean Chrétien starts criss-crossing Africa today in a bid to bring to life a new funding partnership between the richest and poorest countries in the world.
He hopes to give momentum to a proposal called the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), which he will present to other leaders of developed countries at the G8 meeting in Alberta in June.
Mr. Chrétien launches his trip today with a meeting with Moroccan Prime Minister Abderrahmane el Youssoufi. Over 11 days, Mr. Chrétien will tour six countries, holding talks with up to 18 leaders as he zips from North Africa to south to west to east. Details of the tour are still being worked out: Mr. Chrétien has just announced he will attend the funeral of the Queen Mother in London on April 9.
In Africa, his goal will be to rally other developed countries behind a plan to increase foreign aid to less-developed countries that meet the required conditions of democratic government and open markets.
Canadian officials say they hope that with the appropriate incentive, African countries will push ahead with democratic and legal changes to bring their people out of their spiralling poverty.
Under NEPAD, a list of successful countries will be created, and they will receive more aid from Canada, the United States, the European Union and other developed countries. Canada has already pledged $500-million over three years to the partnership, expected to cost a total of $64-billion in public and private funds.
"The way to measure success is to come out of this trip knowing that we, as the G8, and they, as developing countries in Africa, are on the same wavelength as to the objectives of Kananaskis, and that the document we're working on is understood in the same way by all participants," one Canadian official said of the Africa trip. (Kananaskis, Alta., will be the site of the June summit.)
Mr. Chrétien will also have to convince a global legion of critics that NEPAD is not simply old wine in a new bottle. Western countries have long imposed conditions on poor countries in exchange for foreign aid, often with little success.
Roy Culpeper, the president of the North-South Institute in Ottawa, said the success of NEPAD is far from guaranteed. "It presupposes that conditionality bring about the intended results, which are growth and poverty reduction."
Mr. Culpeper said he fears NEPAD will be least effective where it is most needed: in the rural and agricultural areas of Africa, where poverty is deepest. He added that many Africans feel the process is top-down and that African leaders have held little consultation with local populations on the matter.
But Canadian officials defend the initiative by saying it was brought forward by African states themselves.
One Canadian official said the objective of NEPAD is not a short-term spike in international aid, but a long-term commitment to increased aid to developing countries that embrace the required development model.
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