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afrol News, 8 July - A tunnel linking Africa with Europe under the Mediterranean Sea; an inter-Africa road network linking Dakar to Indian Ocean seaports; airports and railway lines on the eastern side of the continent. These prestige projects were on Friday presented by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade as the aims of the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad). Nepad is about Africa's partnership with the outside world to assure Africa's further development. One of Nepad's main issues is therefore to "sell" Africa to the outside world; to increase African credibility; to make Africa an interesting place for investments; and to show the world that African leaders are serious on promoting development and fighting poverty. Nepad was greeted and hailed by Western leaders as it was presented as a truly African initiative last year. The initiative's promoters - Senegal's Wade, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo - had indeed included the best-selling ingredients in Nepad's recipe to cure Africa. These included good governance and democracy as part of a positive climate for private investments. The first blow to Nepad came with Zimbabwe's rigged elections. Even Africa's leading democracy, South Africa, failed to condemn the Zimbabwe poll. At this stage, the only African leader to do so was President Wade, obviously in an attempt to save Nepad. Western leaders' interest in Nepad had however dropped significantly as the upcoming "new partnership" had demonstrated it would not move against undemocratic leaders. One pillar was lost. A second blow to Nepad - though less noted - was when Senegal's Wade also lost his credibility over the last months. An independent investigation had shown that Senegal suffered from widespread corruption. Instead of welcoming the new knowledge and using it to fight corruption, Wade reacted furiously and claimed the study was a political product; it was all lies. Senegal's leader obviously was not the man to promote good governance, one concluded in Western capitals. There went that pillar. Now, Wade does it again. He explains what he expects of the "infrastructure pillar" of Nepad. He presents three dinosaurs, resembling the dreams of the 1880s, the optimism of the 1960s and the megalomania of the 1970s. A tunnel under the Strait of Gibraltar would be a costly affair; probably more costly than the ruinous longer tunnel under the English Channel, which goes under much shallower water. There is a certain traffic basis between England and France - however not enough to make the tunnel pay off - but traffic between Spain and Morocco is much more limited and is very well served by existing ferries. The tunnel construction would have to be paid by Europe, Wade says. But Europe still bitterly remembers the high costs of the French-English tunnel. Maybe the users could pay? If the Gibraltar tunnel's real costs are handed to those using the tunnel, the existing ferries will have no problem competing. There is little realism connected to the concept. A new highway connecting Morocco's north and Dakar - as part of Wade's proposal - would not change the tunnel's market potential. Further, the Tangier-Dakar highway would also be without a market potential. Between Morocco's southern town of Agadir and Senegal's northern town of Saint Louis, the only urban centre of some weight is Mauritania's capital, Nouakchott. Traffic on the almost 2,000 kilometres between Agadir and Nouakchott would almost exclusively be long-distance; something mostly better and cheaper served by water-borne traffic. Further, almost half of the road would pass through Morocco-occupied Western Sahara. Such a road could further cement Morocco's occupation, which is only defended by Morocco and Senegal on the African continent. The next giant infrastructure project proposed by Wade in an enormous highway linking Dakar - Africa's westernmost city - with the Indian Ocean ports on Africa's east coast. In direct line, one talks about 6,500 kilometres. Only a dozen "adventure tourists" a year will want to make the Dakar-Mombassa trip. It will have limited interest for traders. Truly, much of the east-west connection already exists, and some missing links - such as Dakar-Bamako (Mali) and Kinshasa (Congo) - Kigali (Rwanda) might have a traffic potential for local rides. Still, Wade seems most obsessed by the idea of symbolic acts. He might be imagining the prestigious inauguration of two road signs in Dakar, saying "Paris 6,000 km" and "Mombassa 6,500 km". Why not unearth the good old idea of Cape to Cairo? Finally, there is the "Nepad" concept of more railways in Eastern Africa. This may be Wade's concept of decreasing the attention on Dakar in his infrastructure planning, but it seems an unflattering "gift" to Eastern Africa. All over the world, including Africa, railroads are rather dismantled than constructed. Dismantled long-distance rail connections in Africa are found in Guinea, Mauritania, Congo Kinshasa (DRC) and more. Most other African long-distance connections only compete well were no reasonably good roads are available. Dakar-Bamako and Cameroon's Yaoundé-Ngaoundéré are two functioning examples. Within Senegal however - were road traffic is quicker and cheaper - the Dakar-Bamako line is barely used. The same goes for Cameroon's Douala-Yaoundé line. Nigeria's worn-down rail network cannot compete with road traffic at all. Therefore, Wade's infrastructure plans only serve to further discredit the Nepad concept. If this is Nepad's infrastructure pillar, it is useless. Actually, the great costs it implies even discredit Nepad's pillars of economic and political governance. The outlined "new" partnership for Africa therefore more and more seems to be mirroring the old partnerships for Africa, those before the financial crisis of the 1980s. This means new prestigious projects there are no need for, greater debt and less money to fight poverty. The increased call for a grassroots discussion on the Nepad concept therefore indeed seems legitimate. The best thing about Nepad is that it is to be an African initiative. It should therefore be initiated by the African populace at large, not by some elderly leaders that have their shaping in French or British boarding schools. Africans at large do not accept dictatorship in Zimbabwe or spending their money on large-scale corruption or prestigious intercontinental road projects. Therefore; Popularise Nepad before it is too late!
By Rainer Chr. Hennig, afrol News editor
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