OTTAWA (Reuters) - The world's most powerful nations are still committed to a new initiative to help drag Africa out of endemic poverty despite patchy progress so far, Canadian officials say.
But they caution that the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) -- formally endorsed by leaders of the Group of Eight nations a year ago at a summit in Canada -- could falter if the West starts seeing evidence its African partners are no longer serious about the idea.
Canada is one of the main driving forces behind NEPAD, which aims to attract more foreign investment to the world's poorest continent in exchange for African leaders cracking down on corruption, rigged elections and rights abuses.
At the next G8 summit in France in early June, leaders will receive a report from officials on NEPAD's progress.
"We've seen a draft of this and it shows a lot of action that's been happening -- specific commitments, specific undertakings and spending," one Canadian official told Reuters.
"It's too early to make a judgement on NEPAD but certainly things have moved and the fact Africa is on the international agenda now as compared to two years ago -- and attracting resources -- is I think a significant step."
The need to help Africa is one of the few foreign policy initiatives dear to the heart of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who at the last G8 summit announced the creation of a C$500 million ($365 million) "Canada Fund for Africa." He will release a report on Monday detailing the achievements of the fund, which has spent C$70 million.
MAJOR CHALLENGE
NEPAD faced a major challenge in April when presidential elections in Nigeria -- one of the countries which brought forward the initiative -- were widely condemned as flawed.
One of the main planks of NEPAD is a peer review mechanism which is supposed to give other African nations a chance to pass judgement on political and economic governance in other countries. It remained silent about the Nigerian elections.
"Africa is not going to change overnight. This is going to be a step-by-step process and there will be steps forward...and some steps back," said the official.
"I think we have to be careful not to pick one country, one example, and to say the whole thing undermines NEPAD."
The official said that for their part, African nations had to show they were serious about strengthening democracy.
"If there are too many reversals in terms of governance in Africa that could get things off the rails. If we had a few coups d'etat during the year, that could really hurt," the official said.
John Watson, president of the aid group Care Canada International, said that despite its flaws he saw no alternative to NEPAD.
"It is a very important experiment...it's really got to work. I really fear that if it doesn't work, everybody's going to say 'Oh, that was Africa's chance and it's a hopeless case'. It isn't a hopeless case," he told Reuters.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.