Kufuor stresses need to accelerate implementation of NEPAD

President John Agyekum Kufuor on Friday said four prerequisite conditions were necessary to accelerate the translation of the vision of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) into action to stimulate the socio-economic development of Africa.

These were peace, security, democracy and good political governance, sound economic and corporate governance, fast tracking regional co-operation and integration and forging a new partnership with the international community, particularly with the private sector based on mutual responsibility and obligations.

President Kufuor, who is also the Chairman of ECOWAS was addressing the four-day UNESCO sponsored seminar on NEPAD under the theme: " From Vision to Action" in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The UN at its 57th General Assembly Session, adopted a declaration to support NEPAD and shortly after the meeting, UNESCO demonstrated its support by identifying forward looking strategies and innovative methods to promote sustainable development in Africa.

President Kufuor said the new generation of African leaders committed to the welfare of their peoples and ready to work together with them to restore the dignity of Africa in the commity of nations had strategically adopted NEPAD.

He said NEPAD was adopted as the vision and framework to take the continent out of the doldrums of under-development and marginalisation.

The ECOWAS Chairman called on the participants to adopt educational strategies that would be consistent with the tenets of NEPAD and be able to take Africa out of marginalisation in the process of globalisation.

He said what Africa needed was a well-educated crop of men and women, who could compete favourably with their counterparts from any part of the world and were equipped to propel the continent on the path of sustainable development.

President Kufuor said the inception of NEPAD injected a renewed sense of urgency into efforts of the African leaders to ensure that as early as possible, Africans were not only educated but also received quality and culturally relevant education.

He said it was only through sound education that benighted people could be enlightened and empowered to put behind them ignorance, superstition, poverty, avoidable diseases and other debilitating forces that held back the progress of the continent.

President Kufuor said the most critical challenge facing Africa was how to transform the abundant natural resources of primary commodities into secondary and even tertiary products.

He said, "our inability to effect this transformation has engendered the deep poverty, under-development and unequal terms of trade that had become the bane and misery of Africans".

President Kufuor said the key to unlock this predicament was science and technology and if UNESCO could support Africa's efforts to create a knowledge-based society steeped in science and information and communication technology, Africa would be moving NEPAD from vision to action.

President Blaise Compaore said education, the main challenge of the decade was already a source of attention from UNESCO and it had constantly shown some laudable efforts to ensure education for all with encouraging results.

He said UNESCO should persevere in its efforts to help Africa to continue to have the appropriate training centres for trainees capable of adopting, reforming, modernising assistance and consolidating teaching and dissemination of information.

President Compaore said there was not viable development without taking into consideration the cultural aspect of the people and urged UNESCO to help NEPAD to promote cultural heritage.

"We need a strong commitment from African leaders to ensure global development of Africa, " he added.

Mr M. Koichiro Matsuura, Director General of UNESCO said the pre-condition to development was peace and African countries should endeavour to reduce the high rate of armed conflicts and instability on the continent to push the NEPAD agenda forward.

He said NEPAD should move to the next stage of action through the identification of projects and activities that would accelerate the implementation of the concept.