namibia: nepad - old wine in new bottles?

South Africa and Nigeria were the main architects, protagonists and stakeholders in the process resulting in NEPAD and advocating it as the blue print for Africa's development. Their combined economic and political relevance gave weight to their initiative, which was actively supported by Algeria, Egypt and Senegal as other core countries in the initiative. Critical observers question if this is once again old wine in new bottles. And indeed, its catalogue of socio-economic proposals offers hardly any new conceptual approach. It is largely reflecting in a rather uncritical way the dominant neo-liberal paradigm and discourse of the international financial institutions (World Bank and International Monetary Fund). It hence offers no alternatives to the current trends of economic globalisation but instead adheres to the underlying concept of liberalised trade regimes and the dogma of the private economy.