Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie

This concept paper is presented as a contribution to the debates to be held during the African Development Forum III (ADF III), “Defining Priorities for Regional Integration”. The paper attempts to contribute to two of the five thematic areas, Institutional Arrangements and Capacity and Regional Approaches to Regional Issues. Specifically, it draws on the perspectives and experience of the London-based African Foundation for Development (AFFORD) to sketch out ways in which the African diaspora can support efforts towards increased regional integration in Africa. These issues are of central concern to AFFORD with its mission to expand and enhance the contribution that Africans in the diaspora make to Africa’s development.

The publication of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in October 2001 appears on the face of it (we may alter our view with the benefit of hindsight) to be significant. Ostensibly, it is the first major attempt since the 1980 Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) by Africans to put forward an African agenda aiming to shift the continent out of its current crisis and onto a path of sustainable development. The African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment accompanied the LPA. (It is perhaps a sad sign of the times that activists once critical of the LPA now look back at it with misty-eyed nostalgia!)