The New African Marshall Plan of 2001
January 2001

JOHANNESBURG -- PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki promoted a homegrown African "Marshall Plan" to escape the conflict and poverty dragging the continent down at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos this weekend.

An aide said Mbeki lifted the veil on the Millennium Africa Plan at a special plenary session of the World Economic Forum on Sunday to discuss the plight of the poorest continent.

But she said the programme being drafted by Mbeki, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was in a third draft and was not yet ready for presentation.

"This is an African initiative and the feeling is it should be presented at an African event - maybe around the Organisation of African Unity summit later this year," she said.

Mbeki has given little detail of the plan, which he originally described as a Marshall Plan for Africa along the lines of the Allied programme for European reconstruction after World War Two.

But he has made clear it will be a programme for Africa to break its dependence on aid and allow it to take responsibility for its own development. It will help Africa find a place in the global marketplace on its own merits.

The international view of Africa has long been a pessimistic one. Headlines on news from the continent tend to focus on civil war, poverty, disease and dictatorship. But South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, with other African leaders, is now developing what he calls the Millennium Africa Recovery Plan, a hugely ambitious plan to turn the continent around. But the question being asked is how realistic the plan is.

President Thabo Mbeki, "We march into the new era of the African century as Africans who have made the determination that this century will be a hundred years in which we cease to be victims of our circumstances but victors. Through our own actions we will ensure that poverty gives way to prosperity."

Mbeki's aide said that while Western governments were being consulted for ideas and guidance, the plan was entirely African and would not depend on foreign aid.

More specifically, African countries will form a compact committing themselves to the principles of the programme, while specific projects will be drawn up for aid and investment from outside. These will range from conflict prevention to the development of agricultural industries, the building of roads and railways and investment in education and communication technology.

Pretoria - President Thabo Mbeki leaves for Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania on Friday morning to brief southern and eastern African leaders on developments regarding the "Millennium Africa Plan", first unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month.

Mbeki, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika Algeria and their Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo met the heads of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Mali's capital, Bamako, on Tuesday afternoon, where an agreement was forged on the working document of the African renewal plan.

The meeting accepted the concept document, which was a partnership plan for African renewal, as a working document.