The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development, and at the same time to participate actively in the world economy and body politic. The Programme is anchored on the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world.

The poverty and backwardness of Africa stand in stark contrast to the prosperity of the developed world. The continued marginalization of Africa from the globalization process and the social exclusion of the vast majority of its peoples constitute a serious threat to global stability.

In Africa, 340 million people, or half the population, live on less than US$1 per day. The mortality rate of children under five years of age is 140 per 1000, and life expectancy at birth is only 54 years. Only 58 percent of the population has access to safe water. The rate of illiteracy for people over 15 is 41 percent. There are only 18 mainline telephones per 1000 people in Africa, compared with 146 for the world as a whole and 567 for high-income countries.

NEPAD calls for the reversal of this abnormal situation by changing the relationship that underpins it. Africans are appealing neither for the further entrenchment of dependency through aid, nor for marginal concessions.

African leaders are convinced that an historic opportunity presents itself to end the scourge of underdevelopment that afflicts Africa. The resources, including capital, technology and human skills, that are required to launch a global war on poverty and underdevelopment exist in abundance, and are within reach. What is required to mobilize these resources and to use them properly, is bold and imaginative leadership that is genuinely committed to a sustained human development effort and poverty eradication, as well as a new global partnership based on shared responsibility and mutual interest.

FAO actively supports NEPAD's goals and has helped write the FAO/NEPAD joint Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) report, the adoption of which is an important step towards ensuring agricultural stability and economic development in the region.

The programme, drafted with the participation of African Ministers for Agriculture, Regional Economic Organizations and Financing Institutions, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and other regional and sub-regional stakeholders, and with the technical collaboration of FAO, seeks to respond to the immediate crisis situation facing African agriculture while building upon the long-term conditions for development.