NEPAD meeting picks peer review panel

African leaders working under the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) have chosen a six-member committee to operate a peer-review mechanism by which member countries can improve their records on good governance.

Nelson Mandela's wife Graca Machel and Adebayo Adedeji of Nigeria, former head of the United Nations Economic Commission, are among members of the peer-review committee chosen at the seventh meeting of NEPAD heads of state implementation committee on Wednesday.

Other members include Chris Staals, former head of the South African Reserve Bank, Marie-Angelique Savane of Senegal, Dorothy Njeuma of Cameroon and Betheul Kiplagaat of Kenya.

"This is a mechanism to enable African countries that have subscribed to NEPAD to be able to track progress towards the goals," NEPAD spokesman Isaac Aluko-Olokun, told reporters. "It is not going to be punitive, there is no name-calling, there is no shaming," he added.

African leaders also used the meeting to articulate a common position to be presented before the G8 industrial countries meeting in France, to which the presidents of Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Senegal and South Africa have been invited to discuss how best to help Africa.

The G8 countries have pledged to pump in requisite foreign investment to stimulate Africa's development if the countries provide the enabling environment through good governance and economic reforms.

Obasanjo, chairman of the NEPAD implementation committee, said he expected the G8 to honour commitments made to Africa to enable the continent meet the UN millenium goals of universal primary education for all, eradicate extreme poverty and drastically reduce under-five mortality, among others by 2015 . "If these nations fulfill the pledges they made, we will succeed," he said.