Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, or NEPAD, is a political initiative which was adopted in October 2001 by five African Heads of State, President Mbeki of South Africa, President Bouteflika of Algeria, President Mubarak of Egypt, President Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Wade of Senegal. Those five countries now form the Steering Committee of NEPAD. NEPAD is actually part of an ambitious project known as the ‘African Renaissance’. This partnership aims to enable Africa to become the master of its own destiny. What is original about the partnership is the desire to create an intra-African dynamic based on role models. Countries which are members of NEPAD commit themselves to respect for human rights, to the prevention and resolution of conflicts and to the principles of democracy and good governance, but also – and this is a cultural revolution – to the campaign against corruption. In brief, what we have here is African regional integration which will create optimum conditions for encouraging private investors to take part in the economic and social development of these African countries. At last we see a credible African initiative based on the principle that the participation of the private sector is a vital complement to public assistance in meeting the enormous needs of the African continent. This report is based on two vital central themes, the prevention and resolving of conflicts on the one hand and good governance on the other. Peace and stability are the prerequisites for any development. This is true in the case of public investment, but even more true in the case of private investment. After a conflict, the authorities can start to invest again fairly quickly, but the same is not true of private investors, who first of all have to regain confidence. From this point of view, the conflict in the Ivory Coast runs the risk of having negative consequences on the economy of the region for many years. Good governance is just as vital as stability. Democracy and respect for the rule of law are conditions which are essential to economic and human development. In the case of NEPAD, it is Africans themselves who are ensuring that these principles are met and who are making strong commitments. NEPAD consists of ten priority themes, the most important of which are good public governance, good governance of the private sector, infrastructure – and we know how important that is – education and health too of course, agriculture, the environment, energy, and, finally, access to markets in the developed countries, something which is difficult at present. NEPAD has received very favourable responses from the industrialised countries, particularly from the European Union and the G8, as we saw last year at Evian, although the resulting aid has not always fulfilled the expectations of the instigating countries. Generally speaking, the Commission’s report welcomes the NEPAD initiative and requests that it be implemented promptly. It highlights certain areas where there is a need for improvement, and warns against potential risks. The report notes the criticisms of many people who are involved in African civil society, and encourages member states of the African Union, and especially those countries which promoted it, to allow active and democratic participation by all sectors of civil society, including NGOs, trade unions, employers’ organisations and churches. This report also reminds us that NEPAD is a social and economic programme of the African Union for the development of Africa, and not an independent institution. It reiterates the firm belief that the role of providing the impetus for and exercising parliamentary control over NEPAD naturally falls to the pan-African parliaments which will be set up between now and the end of the year, and that duplication of effort and expenditure and institutional proliferation and overlapping should be avoided. Finally, this report attaches the greatest importance to the implementation and democratic parliamentary control of the African Peer Review Mechanism. Finally, this report is balanced. It represents the essence of this Parliament’s political sensitivities. I hope that it will be adopted as it is, without any amendments, apart from a few oral amendments.

Political group: PPE-DE