Afrıcan Perspectıves On Relatıons Between Afrıcaand Turkey: The New Partnershıp For Afrıca's Development (Nepad)

1. Introduction

This presentation is inspired by the historic visit of His Excellency Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Republic of Turkey to Ethiopia on March 2, 2005.

The visit which also included the headquarters of the African Union in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, marked the Republic of Turkey's rene-wed relationship with Africa. The Prime Minister assured Africa that Turkey would stand by its African friends much more actively and that his visit wo-uld give further impetus to a positively progressing relationship in the pursuit of Turkish-African common vision of promoting a world of peace, stability and prosperity. The message was delivered in an address to a conference which the Institute I represent had the privilege of hosting and which was at-tended by all African diplomats accredited to the African Union and Ethiopia as well as members of the Ethiopian government.

I am honored today to relate that historic message with the vision of NE-PAD. This opportunity has been created as a result of the cooperation agree-ment which was established in 2005 between TASAM, the eminent Turkish Institution which is hosting this august Congress, and the Ethiopian Interna-tional Institute for Peace and Development. I wish to thank Ethiopia's Ambas-sador to Turkey, H.E. Dr. Mulatu Teshome, for his keen interest in the imple-mentation of this cooperation agreement with TASAM.

I shall attempt in this presentation to indicate how the pledge of His Ex-cellency Prime Minister Erdogan and, indeed this august Congress, demons-trate in practical ways that Turkey is ready to support Africa as stipulated in the programme of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

2. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)

Let me briefly outline the concept and strategies of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, NEPAD for short, to indicate Africa's perspective on the continent's relations with Turkey.

The holistic comprehensive and integrated strategic framework for the socio-economic development of Africa, that is NEPAD, was created in 2001 in Abuja, Nigeria, based on an earlier document called "The New African Ini-tiative."

In the subsequent activities, African leaders endorsed the initiative at the-ir summit meeting of the OAU in Lusaka in 2001 with improvements that cla-rified the concepts, implementation procedures and set up leadership commit-tees as well as a secretariat.

The paramount body created by the African Union Summit is an imple-mentation Committee of Heads of State and Government. As such, NEPAD is a programme mandated by the African Union. Its Implementation Committee reports annually to the African Union Summit Meetings and the Secretariat of the Union participants in the work of the Implementation Committee.

Following the adoption of NEPAD as an embodiment of the vision for de­velopment with international cooperation, on 23 October 2002 in Abuja, Ni-geria, a member of Task Teams were established to develop specific program-mes.

The priority areas of concern for NEPAD include, inter alia:

1. The building of capacity to foster peace, security and stability as basics to good governance and socio-economic development;
2. Accelerated development to eradicate poverty, with equitable distribu-tion of the benefits of development; and
3. The mobilization of resources that augment domestic resources in a meaningful scope through increase of capital inflows via further debt relief, increased flows of ODA, FDI and private capital.

NEPAD is a framework of development strategies owned by Africans; it is a framework of global partnership that is based on the pursuit of common interest with commitments to mutual obligations and accountability.

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It is anchored on the premise that the development, security and stability of Africa are in the interest of the international community which should join the global partnership with African governments and people.

NEPAD is a pledge by African leaders to live up to their pressing duty to the African people to eradicate poverty and to place their countries on a path of development that enables the continent to participate actively in the world economy and body politic.

3. Strategic Direction of NEPAD

At the initial stages of networking for resources mobilization, there was a perception that NEPAD appeared to focus on the G8 group of rich nations. It is a fact that members of the G8 have a decisive say in changing the global trading environment and ODA resource flows. However, the scope envisaged by NEPAD is much wider.

In the words of Prime Minister Meles ZENAWI of Ethiopia, who has be-en active on the Implementation or Steering Committee, NEPAD is based on the recognition of the fact that Africa's development is vital to the realization of the material interest, not only of Africans but also of the rest of the world. In the current global environment, he says, we all survive or sink together.

NEPAD has to garner support from peoples and governments outside the G8 countries and a massive marketing effort is required to achieve this. The involving government and non-governmental actor everywhere is what NE-PAD seeks in order to achieve its objectives.

Thus, the rest of the world has a very important role to play in Africa's development through South-South cooperation and a broad spectrum of arran-gements. NEPAD was promoted at the 56^th Session of the UN General As-sembly; the concept of NEPAD partly stemmed from the meeting of G77 in the year 2000 and was promoted at Summit Meetings of the Non-Aligned Mo-vement, and the existing development cooperation with European Union in the context of the Cotonou Agreement has relevance to the strategic direction of

NEPAD.

4. The Turkish-African Congress and NEPAD

4.1. The Republic of Turkey is seen in Ethiopia and, obviously in Africa, as a major player on the international scene. The strength of Turkey in indus-trial output and global trade is a recognized fact. As one of the fastest growing economies in Euro-Asia, which is to become a full member of the European Union, the Republic of Turkey is recognized as an important partner in the fra­