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ECA to Serve Africa Better: A Framework for Partnership An Invitation to PartnershipI Synopsis of Programmes and Institution Strengthening Steps II The Gender Programme: A Cross-cutting Area of Concentration III Facilitating Economic and Social Policy Analysis IV Ensuring Food Security and Sustainable Development V Strengthening Development Management VI Harnessing Information for Development VII Promoting Regional Co-operation and Integration VIII Modality Challenges I am pleased to forward to you proposals for collaboration with a renewed ECA. This is more than a set of requests: it is a formal invitation to forge partnerships with ECA. We are sharing our thinking with you and inviting a dialogue on collaboration in the development and execution of Programmes. In commercial circles this is called an invitation to strategic alliance: shared goals, contributions from each side, joint investment in process and shared credit for accomplishments. If corporations with cash reserves the size of all of Africa's do this, certainly ECA with its modest resources cannot do otherwise than suggest that joining of strengths is necessary in today's world. We are deeply committed to renewing ECA. We are well into that process, as described in subsequent pages of this document, and this quest for partnership is a key part of the changes to be made. The partners we look for need to appreciate the potential of a vibrant ECA, and the stakes we all have in making ECA fully able to manage a strong Programme in partnership with other key institutions.
ECA can raise its comparative advantage within Africa because it is well placed to be influential on policy matters in five ways- by identifying role models in African performance, thus emphasizing positive examples; by comparing policies to show different ways of reaching development goals; by analysing different data systems to bring more accuracy and harmony into how Africa is portrayed; by helping governments to harmonize and coordinate development policies in areas where inter-state cooperation has important potential; and by advocating good governance. In spite of obvious limitations, ECA has been able to contribute significantly in support of economic and social development in Africa. ECA's management is determined to pursue fundamental renewal to build on that dedication, and on the support we find throughout Africa for an effective ECA. The case for the renewal is compelling. African countries are in the midst of multiple transitions--from state-dominated to free-market oriented economies, from autocracy to democracy and, in some cases, from conflict to rehabilitation and reconstruction. In other words the member states of the Commission are undergoing changes. Now ECA must change in answer to their needs. Change also comes in response to concern expressed both within and outside ECA, about the agency's effectiveness. This is documented in many of the Commission's recent policy and management reviews. Another factor is the financial constraint on the UN system in general, and in particular on the UN Secretariat, of which ECA is a part. For all these reasons, ECA needs to renew its programmes and its way of doing business. ECA will help build
national and regional capacities to take advantage of new opportunities.
It will be forward-looking, highlighting the promise of informatics. It
will also sound the right warnings--hence our focus on the nexus of food
security/ environment/ population, in which the survival of so many Africans
is at stake. ECA will be objective in its judgements of Africa's socio-economic
performance and its prospects, but it will accentuate positive trends.
Renewal has been an intense process over the past six months. The steps being taken are specific, and firm. The Diagnostic and Prescriptive Stage has involved
Actions on key management systems led by a Change Management Task Force identified through the above studies. (The Task Force is examining ways of improving human resource management; planning, budgeting and evaluation procedures; management information systems; and service projects to establish standards in security, building management, conference services, procurement and travel/protocol). Rationalization of ECA 's programmes which have been far too many. ECA used to have nine sub-programmes spanning some 21 different areas. Now we have decided to sharpen cur focus, drawing on Africa's development priorities, and after extensive internal reviews and a two-day consultation on future programme directions with a select group of 40 eminent African policymakers, academics, business people, parliamentarians and civil society activists, and the current Bureau of ECA's Conference of Ministers. We will concentrate in future on five strategic programme areas and two cross-cutting themes, to achieve greater relevance and impact. Reorientation of the Modus Operandi. ECA will be far less of a self-contained producer of knowledge and far more of a networker and marketer of knowledge. In so doing we will be tapping and promoting the best available thinking within Africa. A new oganisational structure. From nine programmes spread across 12 divisions, ECA's five programmes and the cross-cutting issue of gender will be implemented by five divisions and the African Centre for Women. Our administration structure has equally been rationalised. Actions to improve the skills mix in the house. Based upon the above study of ECA's skills mix, recruitment and training will be geared to meeting programme needs and the need for excellence in programme delivery. Actions to strengthen communications and publications processes. A number of steps are being taken to revitalise the content and flow of Communications, which is the lifeblood of ECA. At the heart of the new strategy are measures to improve the quality, presentation and dissemination of ECA's technical publications. We will motivate staff and other contributors to provide clear, digestible and user-friendly information for our core clients, the policymakers of our member states, and for all other partners. This will be done by developing new publications series, by streamlining and harmonising the design and output of publications, by greatly improving distribution, through renovated mailing systems and by expanding electronic publication. In this field, ECA is already a leading force in development information outreach, in networking and in advocacy for progressive policy changes. ECA is also working to invigorate media relations, to place the Commission where it ought to be in the public mind, as a centre of African development ideas And yet, much more needs to be accomplished.
Thus poised for a renewed ECA, with our programme directions charted and managerial changes under way for effective action, it is now timed to gather allies. We are ready to form partnerships, to sharpen programme strategies together, to form joint work and financing plans, and move to the implementation stage. In so doing, we must strengthen the institution as we implement. An advantage of forging partnerships is that programme and institution-building initiatives can be integrated. By being candid about the institutional challenges, ECA hopes to enlist the institutional strength of its partners while meeting mutual substantive programme aims. Thus, we seek partners
who can share resources in very insightful ways that would bolster programme
content and impact, even as institutional capacities are being built.
I invite your most thoughtful review and long-term collaboration in achieving
these twin objectives. K.Y. Amoako Executive Secretary I. Synopsis of Programmes and Institution-strengthening Steps Briefly reviewed in this section are ECA's core programmes and plans to strengthen its institutional capabilities, several of which are suitable for collaboration through partnerships. Programme summary Following a thorough review of existing programmes, and after two days of consultation with leading Africans in government, academia, NGOs and civil society, ECA has decided that its core programmes over the next five years should concentrate on the following five areas:
Gender and Capacity Building are two critical programme considerations, which will cut across all the above five programme areas. In selecting issues to work on in pursuit of these goals, ECA will use the following criteria, suggested and endorsed in ECA's recent programme consultation with leading Africans
Specific institution strengthening steps To meet its responsibilities and enhance its impact, ECA is currently implementing a number of institutions strengthening measures. Some planned improvements could benefit significantly from the involvement of partnerships. Most of these could be introduced within the implementation of proposed programmes. Some could be done in partnership and carried out in and of themselves. In this section we review those institution-strengthening steps where ECA seeks partnerships. In subsequent sections we will identify partnership opportunities for each programme area Recruiting highly competent staff ECA must assure itself of a large core of excellent staff at two levels: at the managerial level, and at the middle and lower policy research and programme levels. UN recruitment procedures are a necessary but not sufficient means of achieving this objective. Partners could strengthen ECA's efforts in this by seconding top people while staff skills are upgraded, and indeed they could help in the upgrading process. Sharing staff resources The staff needs to be strengthened fairly rapidly to develop a critical mass in several substantive areas. An influx of younger, more recently trained policy researchers is also needed to shape new programmes and meet ongoing commitments. An effective way of achieving this would be for partners to lend experts to ECA, and cover the costs of the loan. This would give experts useful sabbatical experience, while providing ECA with crucial support. Training Wherever possible staff should be trained in more advanced methods of analysis as well as in new policy perspectives. Participation in the meetings of professional associations and organizations is another means of bringing staff up to dale on policy issues. ECA will need to institutionalise such staff upgrading efforts to an extent not normally permissible within the limits of its regular budget --hence the need for partners' support. Establishing distinguished visitors fellowships ECA is striving to become a centre for intellectual excellence. Our wish is to attract leading figures in public policy and policy research both to enrich our thinking and to use ECA as a centre from which to propagate views on issues of common concern. Parallel to this will be the expansion of ECA's senior policy seminars and Distinguished Speaker Series. Such visitors will be able to help generate high profile publications from their speeches/writings, and they will be a source of high-level advice on programmes. These initiatives, and a number of others in informatics, will be designed to reduce the intellectual isolation of ECA's staff. Establishing a network of country representatives ECA desires to set up a system of national representatives who will be responsible for making its work known, who will manage local dissemination of reports, identify opportunities for ECA activities in-country, and help ECA make useful link-ups. The successful functioning of such a system requires financial backstopping. Improving ECA's publications through selectivity and quality control ECA plans a significant change in its publications strategy. These will include greater selectivity in topics, an external advisory board to help in selection and in peer review of manuscripts, and improvement in quality and dissemination of publications. ECA intends to establish four new publications series (which will replace a wider number of existing series) to form the core of the written output of the house: Policy Briefing papers intended for a wide audience, occasional in-depth Policy Analysis papers, major Policy Position papers which will advocate positions to a wide audience, and an ECA newsletter to brief audiences inside and outside the UN system on what ECA is doing. This will be a challenging programme of improvements, which will require support beyond the regular budget in order to set up the necessary software and distribution systems, to strengthen editorial and production staff and to network and bring together an external advisory board. Beefing up information resources within ECA It is likely that information in CD-ROM form will figure prominently in ECA's future information resources and outputs, as will a wider and better collection of recurrent publications. There are significant capital costs involved, but with substantial returns in equipping ECA with double-duty information, for internal use and for networking throughout Africa through ECA's informatics outreach Through these and similar means ECA invites creative partnerships to strengthen core capabilities and services. We see such steps as important ways to accomplish shared programme goals. Subsequent sections
of this document will outline each of the core programmes, the cross-cutting
gender programme, the institution strengthening steps, and the opportunities
for partnership within these. II. The
Gender Programmes: Cross-Cutting Area of Concentration Goals
The overall aim of ECA' s gender programmes is to promote long-term gender partnership in African development. This is not seen as solely a "women's issue," but as a critical component of a more equitable and a far more productive society Programmes 1. ECA intends its gender programmes to have a high profile and impact in the years ahead. In cooperation with other organizations, ECA hopes to seize the opportunity of the momentum of Beijing, to bring the challenges of implementing its resolutions to major groupings within Africa and to member States, as well as promoting examples and ideas needed to meet the challenges. Not least, ECA will ensure that its work on gender issues transcends the institution. 2. The African Centre for Women (ACW) at ECA is an established centre with significant research holdings and a small but well placed staff. In a continuing dialogue with the programme divisions at ECA over the coming years, ACW will promote the mainstreaming of gender issues in the programmes of the commission. It will suggest specific strengthening of each programme, and develop joint programmes with other divisions. 3. In its 'external' programmes, the ACW will address four priority areas: Assisting member States in effective implementation of effective modalities of implementation and sharing of best practices. Poverty eradication. With emphasis on training in policy issues involved in countering the feminisation of poverty, modalities to improve women's access to productive assets, and encouraging full participation of girls and women in education. Promoting women's human and legal rights. Through expanded networking, policy analysis and advocacy. Participation of women in decision-making, politics and the peace process. With emphasis on leadership training, advocacy and policy dialogues. The ACT will accomplish this through the activities of its own staff, with visiting experts and by fostering forums throughout Africa. ACT's unique research holdings will be disseminated to a much wider audience through electronic and other means. Institution strengthening steps 1. A strong ACT is vital to ensure that gender is a cross-cutting concern of each of the five core programmes, and in work with member states to promote gender partnership in African development. To heighten the visibility and influence of gender policy and actions in the Commission's work, the ACT is being placed within the Office of the Executive Secretary of ECA. 2. The ACT will become a key networker, attracting leading experts, scholars and political leaders for assignments of up to one year, thus becoming a platform for outstanding spokes people on key programme issues. In future ACT will rely far more on external expertise for its policy research and public advocacy. There are indications that outstanding women in Africa could be attracted as distinguished visiting scholars. 3. ECA will cooperate on gender issues with other regionally active organizations for greater synergy in carrying out programmes. Addis Ababa is a centre for three of these: ECA, UNDP's regional gender advisor, and OAU. Close coordination among them and between them and UNIFEM's Africa Director, the World Bank's gender programmes and ADB's gender advisor should lead to a more judicious division of labour, complementary action and greater impact, with ECA in a prominent role. 4 ACT plans to strengthen its information management to collect and disseminate policy information on gender with greatly increased outreach. 5. Programming and operations will be strengthened through expanded staffing, developing existing staff, sponsoring visiting fellows and distinguished scholars, expanding programme outreach, and making advocacy work more strategic. Opportunities for partnership 1. ACT is already expanding. Its core professional staff has increased from four to six for the 1994/5-1996/7 period, and extra-budgetary staff, mostly at junior and mid-level, is being increased from one to eight over this period. Total resources will have doubled between 1999/3 and 1996/7, with more than half coming from donors. But given the scope of future programmes, these resources need to be considerably augmented, particularly the extra-budgetary component. 2. Significant opportunities exist for expanding the influence of ACW through partnerships. These, as outlined above, could entail:
3. In each of the sectoral areas of concern, partners are welcome to join ECA in devising and implementing programmes of strategic importance. Partners could: subscribe to an entire programme, hold joint conferences on specific topics, or join in specific outreach activities. By the end of the
four-year planning period ahead (1998-2001), these partnered programmes
should have had a continent-wide influence, and position ACW as a major
centre, poised for significant contributions in the years ahead. III. Facilitating
Economic and Social Policy Analysis Goals The general goal is to produce timely, appropriate and influential information and analysis, the products of an ECA that is alert to new issues and opportunities, serving the needs of member states, and keeping the world up to date on African development thinking. In so doing, ECA will highlight its proper role as a major voice for African development positions, and bring new authority to its core economic and social analyses. It will take a lead in articulating goals, policies and programmes. It will work for effective coordination of UN initiatives. Programmes Three dimensions are included in this overall programme area: Economic policy analysis and research, Social policy and development, and Special issues and programmes. At stake in each is the need for a major overview of Africa's development, interms of information gathering, trend analysis, prescriptions and monitoring. This programme area involves the core macro-policy analytical work in ECA. In this, ECA hopes for special cooperation as it embarks on focusing its work, strengthening its quality and timeliness, and marketing findings more effectively. The primary change in ECA will be from a self-sufficient approach in producing policy analyses to being far more of a networker of the best analyses it can find in Africa. This, added to its own work, should widen the outreach and impact. The three programmatic dimensions are discussed below. Economic policy analysis and research In its economic policy work ECA has three major functions: production of information, analysis of information, and sharing of information.
Thus ECA might well create ad hoc roundtables on such issues as debt, to advise on better ways to manage, negotiate and resolve debt issues. Another potential roundtable might be on new ways to finance such initiatives as proposals to tap the African diaspora, or engaging the financial services industry to help expansion of economic production on social services, and proposals for supra-national means of finance. In terms of particular emphasis:
In all these policy analysis meetings and clearinghouse activities, special emphasis will be placed on gathering and sharing of experiences on best practices within Africa. This is a tactical decision to foster peer learning among policymakers, A second cross-cutting emphasis will be on integrative thinking in two respects. cross-cutting studies to bring the benefits of sectoral knowledge to bear on common problems; and on multi-country studies of consequence to subregions or to Africa as a whole. The market for this work will be member states, Africa policy centres, media and relevant international communities. Social Policy and development ECA plans to deepen its already significant commitment to the continent's social development. It has already initiated forums which have led to articulating Africa's major positions for global gatherings on social development, such as the African Common Position on Human and Social Development for the World Summit for Social Development. It has launched a periodic overview on the human condition in Africa through the publication of the Human Development in Africa: /995 Report. Furthermore, through its leadership roles in the UN-System wide Special Initiative on Africa, ECA will be associated with major investments in social development in Africa ECA's primary role in social policy and development will be to maintain an overview of the social condition of Africa's peoples and to make strategic interventions to improve that condition. It will both regularly report on the social situation and carefully pick issues and opportunities to influence policy It will focus on ways to improve the social situation of women, on higher education, and on analysis and monitoring of poverty ECA will assist governments in formulating and implementing policies and practices which improve the social situation of women by organising forums for promoting policy dialogues between policy makers and community leaders as well as through research and advisory services. The emphasis on higher education is intended to complement the UN Special Initiative's major thrust in basic education. Focus will be on promoting higher education reforrns, with special attention to improving capacities to produce more scientists and engineers (with a special emphasis on increasing the participation of women in higher education, particularly in science and technology). ECA will use a combination of policy analysis, gathering experts in special forums and networking through its informatics systems. Its analysis and monitoring of poverty will demonstrate ECA's commitment to stressing poverty as a cross-cutting issue in its programmes. It will keep a policy overview of trends and issues -and 'what works' in the fight against poverty. It will also help provide the underpinnings of poverty analysis and monitoring through creating a regional data archive on household, community and other data sets. and promote the exchange of data and analytical experiences. ECA will maintain a watching brief on other social issues, which could emerge into major programme emphases, as resources permit. Special issues and programmes The third dimension of ECA' s focus at the policy level has to do with a more consolidated attention to UN global and regional agreements in which Africa has a major stake. A number of these programmes are ongoing They include the UN New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s (UN-NADAF) the Paris Declaration and Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the 1990s, and the Barbados Declaration and Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDs). All major UN conferences in recent years (for example Rio, Copenhagen, Beijing) have given special attention to the development challenges in Africa for which special actions have been agreed. The most significant of all is the newly adopted United Nations System-wide Special Initiative on Africa, given its concentration on specific actions and the significant financial resources to be mobilised for implementing them. ECA's Executive Secretary co-chairs the Steering Committee for the Special Initiative. He also chairs a UN Task Force charged with the monitoring of the implementation of UN-NADAF . ECA has a special responsibility for monitoring and reporting on the implementation of these initiatives and programmes and assessing how such initiatives can be effectively implemented and improved upon. There is agreement in principle that ECA, like other regional commissions, should contribute to harmonising UN operations in its area. ECA anticipates that efforts to harmonise UN activities in Africa will be accelerated over the next few years. Under the leadership of the UN Secretary-General, it is expected that ECA will play a prominent role in this process. Setting up and running a special programmes component in its policy work will not only help ECA better discharge current responsibilities, but will provide useful operating experience as its harmonisation responsibilities become institutionalised. Institution strengthening steps As a unique regional institution, ECA can portray the continent's economic and social situation with fairness and candour. To have influence, its work must be timely, perceptive, well presented and disseminated. ECA has plans to gear the institution to fulfil its potential better. But however much it improves, ECA has decided that it cannot be self-sufficient in its analytical work. Increasingly ECA will draw upon, and help make better known to the world, Africa's impressively growing centres of intellectual excellence and the work of the leading experts of these centres. Drawing upon talent throughout the continent will make the production of information more efficient, enhance the quality of analysis disseminated by ECA, and provide a key service to Africa's intellectual community, by helping to bring their work into official circulation. Thus ECA's institutional
strengthening steps will have both internal and external benefits. Internal steps 1 ECA will strengthen its intellectual core around economic and social development analysis. It will do this through more focused recruitment and by establishing fellowships and other means through which outside talent can feed in its intellectual energy. 2. ECA will review and further focus its information gathering and analytic work around key topics. The world of data collection and analysis has been changing rapidly. This creates new challenges as to the value added by certain aspects of ECA work, and it offers new opportunities to produce data more quickly and comprehensively. There will likely be a considerable shift towards analysis. The internal consequences of this should be many: emphasis on data analysis rather than data collection, use of more cost-effective and timely data access and production methods, integration of best practices in analytic prescriptions to ground advice more in actual experience, and taking clearer, well-reasoned positions. 3. ECA will strive to create more synergy within the institution. As a more focused centre for policy analysis, the economic and social policy centres in the house both need to be drawn upon. More inter-divisional assignments, more debate, more structured internal reviews of products and joint outputs will enhance the internal learning process as well as the quality of products. A case in point is the need to draw more systematically on the positive examples of development performance in Africa. This information is expected to come from the regional offices and the more operational divisions of the house and should be more regularly available to ECA's policy work. Steps involving others 1. Institutional steps to draw more on outside thinking on Africa will include more systematic linkages with centres of policy analysis, particularly within Africa. There will also be a shift in linkages with outside groups towards a two- way information flow, special roundtables of experts and more strategic action to have policy dialogues with member states. ECA will draw upon a range of disciplines in its networking and include expertise from business and civil society. Other dimensions of networking will involve South-South exchanges of perspectives and dialogues in groupings of member states sharing particular development problems. Thus, the process by which ECA conducts its analyses will change. 2. So, too, will modalities for the dissemination of knowledge: ECA will seek to widen the influence of the thinking reflected in its analyses by modernising its marketing and outreach. Analysis and data will be electronically disseminated. Data networks will be used more, and there will be targeted marketing of products within countries, including focused marketing by country representatives . Opportunities for partnership While ECA is taking a number of internal steps to strengthen its economic and social policy analysis capacity, effective partnerships will be crucial in reinforcing the quality and impact of these efforts. 1. One type of partnership will be aimed at seeking a more thoughtful division of labour among producers of fundamental data series and analytical series. It is already clear that some major international donors would wish ECA to act as a regional centre in such fields as data and analysis on social development and poverty. There is also a need to avoid duplication in the production of basic series. Real partnership in these areas is not a one-off proposition, but rather the elevation of working relationships so that the work of all involved parties is enhanced. 2. Partnerships with centres of policy analysis, particularly within Africa, will be vital to the renewed ECA. This requires a regular and orderly sharing of agendas, seeking opportunities for joint sponsorship and/or publication, ECA serving as a home for meetings of professional associations, opportunities for fellowships and sabbaticals available within ECA, and a host of other means to strengthen working relationships. ECA and its partners also ought to search for ways to bring the results of African scholarship into official forums. Such partnerships, at their best, will help ECA to link African and other networks. It will foster the whole field of policy analysis in both academic and independent think tanks, as well as in policy centres based in government departments and regional institutions. 3. International donors have a special stake in the success of this effort. Over time, they should become more reliant on analysis from key African centres such as ECA. Insightful donors will recognise a stake in fostering this process through support for institution strengthening measures and the networking functions we propose. Some donors may prefer to help set up or enhance a special data/analysis series. This is also welcomed. 4. International donors may also support ECA's efforts to second distinguished African experts to ECA for short terms, and to launch seminars and speakers programmes at ECA. International agencies and organizations are also invited to foster information exchanges with ECA, particularly electronic exchanges, which could widen as ECA's networking system grows. Partnerships, on a project, programme and institution-to-institution basis, can all be based on a widely shared concern that ECA be a highly effective producer and disseminator of development data and analysis. IV. Ensuring
Food Security and Sustainable Development Goals To increase the urgency and level of national efforts devoted to the nexus, which links food security, population and environmental sustainability. Sub-goals are to:
ECA has a special responsibility to help rationalise a number of the regional and subregional institutions sponsored by ECA which relate to the nexus, and to reorient them to a training and policy focus on the nexus issues. Programmes In the search for fundamental driving forces in Africa's development, too little attention is paid to the dynamics of food security, population and environmental sustainability, which challenge the present and future viability of African economies. Of course, far more than per capita growth rates are at stake: the issues relate strongly to the quality of life and, in some cases, to survival. Food security is projected to decline over the coming generation, if current trends continue, with food imports looming larger than ever. Population dynamics indicate not just high growth rates, but dramatic shifts in the composition towards younger urban populations and an aging rural population. Pressure on the land and the consequent deterioration of the environment is well known (although less well known is the likely impact of global weather trends). But the gravity and urgency of all of these issues are often underappreciated in national policies. ECA's approach to helping its member states on the nexus issues covers the following aspects. It will add value if it can increase commitment to these issues.
- organise seminars for decision-makers on key S&T policy and institution-building issues - promote policy dialogues with stakeholders in selected countries, and - establish a consensus-building framework for the evolution of African regional standards for information exchange and delivery on S&T. Thirteen of the 30 regional institutions for development sponsored by ECA are in the field of S&T. ECA will rationalise these largely underfunded, and in some cases overlapping institutions and reorient the consolidated institutions to give far more attention to the nexus issues. Eventually, ECA would like to prepare periodic reports on S&T development in Africa. Institution strengthening steps Of all its core programmes, this nexus programme will create the most formidable challenges for ECA. It will involve consolidation of existing staff in the agriculture, population, and natural resources divisions, a considerable reorientation of the work programmes) and strengthening human resources through training and staff augmentation. The steps ECA must take in the nexus area include: 1. Further conceptualising and focus of its approach to articulate a compelling programme where ECA is seen as bringing value added to the issues. 2. Staff strengthening through on-the job training, intensive courses and staffs augmentation. 3. Establishing networks initially to help get up to speed on issues and, over a longer-term, to position ECA as a synthesiser of experience, analysis, and trend information. 4. Establishing new collaborative arrangements with relevant UN family members (particularly, FAO, IFAD, UNFPA, UNEP and UNIFEM) 5. Phasing out a number of programmes in an orderly fashion, and re-engineering staff, publications and other services. Uppermost will be the need to position ECA to engage in high level dialogue on the key nexus issues. 6. Rationalising 13 ECA-sponsored S&T institutions, which involves technical considerations, and numerous political ones. Opportunities for partnership Major opportunities present themselves for partnerships in the nexus programme. Indeed, the programme cannot be successfully implemented without the creation of solid partnerships as ECA will be a synthesiser of information and an organiser of forums where it must draw upon and use a weight of influential opinion and perspectives usually found in specialised agencies and institutions within and outside of Africa. By bringing analyses and institutions together, ERCA can add its influence as a key African-based institution. Partnership opportunities include: 1. Establishing distinguished visiting positions at ECA so that key international leaders in nexus fields can come, initially to help establish an intellectual agenda and to provide on-the job training through seminars, and also contribute policy analysis. 2. Staff exchanges to help broaden perspectives and expose staff to new methods of analysis and new sources of information. 3. Assisting in identifying the best opportunities for networking and in facilitating such networks. For example, a partner might enable particular intellectual centres to have close working relations with ECA. 4. Joint sponsorship of new publication series and other programmes. 5. Participation in missions to help rationalise ECA-sponsored institutions. 6. Assisting in sponsoring a council of advisors for the nexus programme. This should add direction, support and visibility to the new programme. 7. Jointly sponsoring dialogues on the nexus issues with African governments, particularly on how best to organise and institutionalise high level attention to the nexus policy issues in governments, as well as how to strengthen policy contributions on each of the three components of the nexus, within line ministries. 8. Finally, partners
can help ECA plan how best to bring the results of the nexus programme
to the attention of donors so that programmes can help reinforce capacity
building and institutionalise actions within Africa's governments in the
three nexus areas. V. Strengthening
Development Management Goals The overall goal of this core programme is to strengthen national ownership of the reform programmes and create an enabling environment for development. ECA will particularly focus on:
The test for ECA is whether it can improve these facets of an enabling environment through its work on fostering appropriate policies and enhancing human resource capabilities. Programmes ECA's programmes in development management are relatively straightforward, yet they deal with very sensitive areas. ECA must make the case in a variety of political settings that regardless of the political context, an enabling environment for development is critical. The programme covers three areas: public sector management, promotion of the private sector, and promotion of popular participation. Each can build on recognised programme strengths and past successes. Yet each requires further focus. The key challenge of these programmes is to find ways to efficiently cover as many countries as possible, to create added momentum for these initiatives across the continent. Public sector management ECA's programme will concentrate on enhancing accountability, strengthening civil service systems and promoting decentralisation. In each of these areas efforts will lay emphasis on promoting reforms, sharing best practices and building on the strengths of local 'traditional' organizations and structures. ECA will support the strengthening or promotion of institutions of accountability to foster a climate of higher expectations of performance and to better ensure that public officials uphold and adhere to ethical standards of public service. Sharing of best practices will be important. The strengthening of civil service systems will be assisted by creating a centre of information on experience in public sector reform and by helping instal standards and indicators for better civil service performance. Decentralisation of administrative power will be promoted through advisory services, capacity building at local levels and publications that focus on these issues Promoting private sector development The key areas here will be to promote a more enabling public environment for developing enterprises of all sizes, and to focus particularly on the needs of micro and small-scale enterprises, to enable them to grow into the 'missing middle' in African enterprise ECA will assist governments to reform regulatory frameworks that are vital for private sector operations, to foster enterprises and improve market functioning. Member states will be helped to improve their capacity for regulatory policy and management. ECA will also expand its work to ensure more open and productive dialogue between the private sector and governments by fostering creation of roundtables and groups necessary for a full view of enterprise needs (such as the African Federation of Women Entrepreneurs, initiated by ECA). ECA will advocate appropriate policies to foster micro-enterprises and the financial services they need. A number of donor agencies have expressed interest in micro credit but a critical mass of thinking and action has not yet been developed on how best to promote national policies and the necessary financial intermediaries . In promoting industrial development, ECA will discharge its continuing responsibilities under the Second Industrial Development Decade for Africa and the Abuja Treaty by fostering improved policies at national, subregional and regional levels; promoting an industrial culture for developing and sustaining entrepreneurial capabilities; helping national and supra-national training programmes including rationalising/strengthening of its own sponsored institutions; dialoguing with member states on steps agreed in the Protocols of the Abuja Treaty regarding industrial cooperation; and promoting South-South cooperation between organised business communities and through closer work with other regional UN commissions in Latin America and Asia. Promoting popular participation in development ECA's future work will concentrate on enhancing the legitimacy and capabilities of civil society. This will be approached through enhancing dialogue between governments and civil society to improve public policies which affect organised civil society; and through strengthening the human resources of civil society organizations in a number of areas. ECA will establish an independent centre on non-governmental and civil society organizations to build on its recognised contributions and activities, such as its African Charter for Popular Participation in Development, national consultations on promotion of civil society policy analysis for fostering popular participation in development and capacity building of civil society organizations. Institution strengthening steps The key institutional issues for this core programme area are to develop depth in staffing at the Commission, and, as noted above, to devise ways to create more breadth in programme impact. To do this, ECA will take a number of steps. 1. A more refined programme will be developed with more narrowly defined goals and impacts. This will involve a more reflective process than has so far been possible. Part of this process should involve mapping the situation in member states of each of the three issue areas. 2. ECA will develop means to leverage its resources over a larger number of countries. ECA cannot anticipate taking each of these programme areas into each of its member countries. Therefore it will need to develop ways to have an impact in more countries, for example, working through subregional groupings, networks, training of trainers and regional seminars. This might well involve more deliberate steps to bring the subject areas into the official forums coordinated by ECA. 3. Considerable upgrading of staff resources will be needed through training, recruitment, and working with partner resources. 4. ECA has the potential to be an implementing agency and to work in closer collaboration with UNDP's governance programme. 5. ECA could also use the new UN Conference Centre for regional gatherings of key civil society groupings in the profit and non-profit sectors. 6. ECA will need to strengthen the launching and initial operations of its centre for the promotion of civil society, in a way which creates a strong constituency among civil society leaders across Africa. To achieve these
aims, staff skills will need to be upgraded, and programme focus, outreach
and accountability improved. This is a challenging agenda, but ECA is
taking off with very icefall assets in place. Opportunities for partnership Partners interested in strengthening this programme would be welcome to collaborate in the following areas: 1. Establishing a series of distinguished visiting positions in ECA, including outstanding former leaders in governance (largely from Africa, but also from other relevant areas of the world). Also, outstanding actors in the business and non-governmental sectors would spend time in ECA to help establish programmes, to give in-house training to plan expansion of activities using more effective modes of outreach, and to participate in policy analysis and outreach programmes. 2. Helping to establish longer-term support of programmes to achieve greater outreach . 3. Special opportunities exist for fostering North-South and South-South interactions with the African business communities and NGOs. In the past, such linkages have tended to be sporadic and not devoted to institution strengthening in Africa. 4. Longer-term partnership opportunities also exist around such specific programmes as launching and maintaining regular assessments of the state of civil society in Africa, the state of Africa's enabling environment and other means of fostering peer learning and creating a momentum on development management issues. 5. Partners could
cooperate in developing and co-sponsoring efficient modalities to foster
decentralisation, devolution of services and training of local leaders.
VI. Harnessing
Information for Development Goal The overall goal of this core programme is to expedite the information revolution in Africa by helping to ensure that information services are a major focus of national attention and action with appropriate international support In pursuit of this goal, ECA will
Programmes ECA plans to upgrade and expand its established initiatives in the informatics field by focusing on two areas: development information systems and statistical development. Development of information systems will build on the activities of ECA's Pan African Development Information System (PADIS), now in its I 5th year of operations. ECA will aim at the following:
Institution strengthening steps As evidenced by the January 1996 consultative meeting on ECA's future programme, this core programme area is seen as well defined. Strengthening actions are suggested in a number of areas to help implement the programme. 1. There are a number of strategy issues to be worked out to implement i.e. programme: refinements of audience, delivery systems, review of technical options, and ways to better promote the financing and delivery of the telecommunications infrastructure required, on which to base electronic informatics systems. Special seminars on these topics and information exchanges would be useful to accomplish this and will be planned as part of the implementation of the programme. 2. In the statistical area skills will be upgraded to enable ECA to develop less labour intensive means of data collection. 3. Marketing techniques need to be further developed along a whole range of issues: from how best to persuade national leaders to liberalise informatics policies to how best to market ECA' s information services, including commercial options. Staff upgrading in these skills is imperative 4. ECA intends to become more conversant with applications of informatics to key development services such as education, health services and electronic libraries. Seminar opportunities will be welcome to involve the informatics and the ECA staff with the options and systems implications. 5. As can be expected in a rapidly moving field operated by a resource-strapped international system, there is a. backlog of electronic equipment needed in the Commission to service expanding informatics programmes efficiently. As affordable, these needs will be met in order to improve the impact of ECA's services. Opportunities for partnership 1. Additional expertise would be useful to help strategise on the best ways to implement a number of features of the planned programme in such areas as consideration of technical options, political/policy strategies, and marketing. This could be senior-level policymakers available for short-term consultation. 2. ECA would also welcome the establishment of fellowships and distinguished visiting positions to enable experts from around the world to work more intensively with us on policy analysis, staff training and special programmes. Similarly, ECA would welcome support to be able to offer staff the opportunity of attending short-term courses and to review national systems in areas of the world with relevant advanced informatics systems and policies. The core of such training/fellowships would be in the informatics field, with a segment reserved for applications so that ECA could better consider and promote feasible applications of informatics to various areas of development in Africa. 3. Help is also sought to organise meetings for a group of top-notch government statisticians to work out an improved international division of labour in data production and analysis covering key African data series. The rule should be that wherever integrity and efficiency can be assured by others, ECA will be willing to put its own series up for possible adoption. In turn, ECA should be assisted to elevate the level of its statistical analysis and its assistance to national governments. This group could also advise on the formidable challenge of how to support Africa in carrying out the year 20Q0 census (and thus how ECA should best position itself to be of help in that census, including helping re-establish donor support for census taking). 4. Another area of potential collaboration would be in helping assure that development data exchanges and networks are established between ECA and major parts of Africa's academic community. 5. It would be useful to contemplate a more organised dialogue with private sector leaders (from abroad and in Africa) on telecommunications and information systems so that ECA may benefit from their expertise and can serve as a more effective interlocutor with Africa's public sector. 6. Finally, it would be very useful to explore with partners how ECA's equipment needs could best be met. Donors might help support this and/or be helpful promoters of ECA's needs with relevant potential private sector sponsors. VII. Promoting
Regional Cooperation and Integration Goals The overall goal of this core programme is to support efforts aimed to establish and expedite regional economic cooperation and integration. Within this goal, ECA aims to:
Programmes A key part of ECA' s continuing mandate is to foster economic cooperation and integration within Africa. ECA has a solid record in this area particularly in sponsoring the creation of the African Development Bank and a number of initiatives aimed at strengthening key subregional organizations with responsibilities for economic cooperation in their subregions. A key issue raised at the January 1996 consultative meeting, in which several executive heads of Africa's sub regional inter-governmental organizations participated, is that while it seems incontrovertible that economic integration will greatly benefit Africa's long-term development, that case must still be made to a large number of political leaders. Weak political support and consequently, weak financial support of institutions charged with promotion of integration and cooperation diminish the chances of success in this field. Hence, ECA was asked to help "make the case for integration" and to help rebuild political support for the process. In this call, it is clear that ECA is asked and expected to take leadership positions in the field of integration. It is also clear that ECA must work beyond political leaders to reach economic and civil society actors to help create a stronger constituency for integration and cooperation. It was also noted in the consultation that regional groups should be alert to ways of drawing North and Sub-Saharan Africa closer together. Finding additional common economic interests would help in this direction. ECA's programme of work for the next five years will concentrate on four key tasks to promote integration.
All this requires a significantly greater effort than presently exists. Out of the current joint OAU/ECA/ADB secretariat there must emerge an African Economic Community institutional structure and a work plan for the Community. This is a time when the experience of other associations can be drawn upon in blueprinting the future of integration in Africa. Two tasks are quite urgent:
It has been proposed that ECA's regional office in each of the subregions (the Multinational Programming and Operational Centres, MULPOCs) will be moved to co-locate with the subregional organizations. Core capacity building tasks will be continued and augmented.
- enhancing human resource development in transport and communications, in which ECA will identify and dialogue around particular needs and recommended approaches - making key institutions more effective either through privatisation or through institutional strengthening steps, in which ECA will assist countries to manage a process of change or will bring key stakeholders together for dialogue - promotion of regional transport and communications linkages through helping to harmonise rules, regulations and standards, and helping subregional groups create policy and operational frameworks for cooperation, and - creating a regional data base on transport and communications as an aid to policy analysis and planning
Institution strengthening steps A significant degree of re-engineering of organizational and manpower strengths will be undertaken to improve the focus and impact of ECA's work on economic cooperation and integration. Three divisions will be merged into one. As noted above, it will be recommended that regional field offices be co-located with subregional organizations. And, clearly, the strengthening of the joint OAU/ECA/ADB secretariat for the effective backstopping of the Abuja process will call for additional staff and managerial oversight. In addition to organizational realignments, ECA will undertake the following institutional strengthening steps: 1. Capacity building of existing staff will be sought through special training, peer learning from existing regional organizations, training assignments in formal courses, and staff exchanges from inside and outside Africa. 2. This particular area lends itself to the establishment of a distinguished visiting fellowships programme for major students and practitioners of the integration process. Experts might come to ECA both to contribute to the analysis of special issues and to lend expertise in programme definition and key implementation issues. 3. ECA will organise a series of guest seminars for leaders of the integration process from outside Africa for exchange of experiences with ECA staff. External experts will a3so be consulted on work problems during their stay. 4. ECA is considering establishing an electronic network to link up with experts in other regional organizations to use them as sounding boards on special issues.. 5. It is clear from the January 1996 consultative meeting that a regular process of consultation among heads of subregional organizations and the "the big three" regional organizations should take place. 6. Similarly, ECA needs to establish a network of supporters of integration from among well respected current Of former leaders of government, business and civil society in Africa. Opportunities for partnership Given the experience of regional and subregional integration in other parts of the world, productive partnerships are essential to accomplish the programme and institution-strengthening steps outlined above. 1. ECA looks forward to longer-term partnerships with major regional and subregional economic organizations. What could be envisioned is one or more longer term strategic alliances in which a mix of human and other resource support is invested in the process of creating regional cooperation. 2. Partnerships are desirable both at the technical and at the political level. At the technical level partners would assist with establishing fellowships, training and other staff-enhancing assistance. At the political level we foresee a series of consultations on such issues as how to best persuade political authorities on the virtues and responsibilities of intra-African cooperation and integration. 3. Partners might also wish to consider sponsorship of special linkages, for example: seminar series, creating and operating an expert' s network, and creating and operating a network of supporters of integration, or at least the groundwork for such a network. 4. Partners could be very useful in fostering linkages with networks in their own areas, for example, facilitating longer-term institution-to-institution relationships with centres of expertise on regionalism, transport and communications, and energy. 5. Partners are also encouraged to consider sponsorship of ECA staff training in specialised courses in this programme area. All of these and
similar linkages should lead to a better understanding among partners
of the challenges for regional cooperation in Africa. Undoubtedly partners,
particularly in Europe, can also affect the environment for cooperation
in Africa by sending welcoming political signals for this cooperation.
Insightful political leadership on all sides can set the stage for a new
day of progress in Africa, if old fault-lines drawn in colonial times
can be bridged insofar as trade and other economic cooperation is concerned.
A new Europe of cooperation surely can help foster a new Africa of cooperation.
Guidance on how to best encourage this kind of partnership with Africa
would be welcome. VIII. Modality
Challenges Based upon the external studies and internal reviews outlined in the preamble of this paper and the January 1996 consultative meeting, ECA is embarking upon a number of improvements in how it does its work, outlined in section I, above There are issues that still need to be resolved in some areas (where assistance from partners could be quite useful), but the directions are clear that ECA will be simplifying services and shaping them for more outreach and impact. The basic institutional challenge to ECA is to enhance its human resource capacities as rapidly as possible so that its modalities and programme impacts can benefit from updated skills and procedures . This can be done through creative linkages. As this proceeds, ECA will make a number of modality changes aimed at utilising its staff resources more effectively and in increasing the impact of ECA's work. These include the following.
- short briefing papers, aimed at top policy makers and a wide audience in Africa and beyond, to give background facts and frameworks for thinking about issues, - policy analysis papers, issued occasionally, to present detailed research analyses - policy position papers, issued as needed to a readership of leading policymakers and to media, to present in cogent form an ECA viewpoint, under the Executive Secretary's name and - an ECA newsletter, to cover the range of ECA activities, and signed opinion pieces to update audiences on ECA's work. (Partners would be welcome to help in the development and marketing of these series. ECA would particularly seek ways of effectively and inexpensively circulating key documents to policymakers in the North and, similarly, would welcome inclusion of its reports in information networks in the North. )
Establishing and maintaining such a network does require dedicated effort. Operation of the network through extra-budgetary resources has a keen advantage of allowing far more flexibility in personnel arrangements. It is quite possible that a senior person would prefer to be a special advisor/representative to ECA under an arrangement providing honoraria and expenses rather than having to join a formal personnel system.
Through these and
other means, it is clear that ECA is rethinking its business operations
in a fundamental way. insights and support from partners will surely help
this process along. ECA is no different from other institutions in welcoming more dependable finance at times of resource uncertainty. What is special about ECA is its excellent position from which it can work constructively with leaders of governance and of civil society, across a continent where there is more openness to influence by a regional economic commission, and the fact that it is undertaking a breadth of reforms and a renewal of commitment unusual in the multilateral system. (As a leading South African academic said at the January 1996 consultative meeting, 'This is our institution, on our continent Working on our agenda.") This sense of ownership and commitment is a key asset. Perhaps drawing on this unique situation, potential partners can consider special types of partnerships with ECA. Partnerships for each programme area have been suggested in sections II through VII of this document. In this short section are suggestions for broader formulas of support Partners may wish to consider core funding of ECA's institutional reform to permit ECA to have the possibility of strengthening a large number of programmes at once. Such core funding would be used to support the training of staff, the establishment of new publication series and far broader dissemination arrangements, the rationalisation of all the sponsored institutions in a more cost efficient way, and the development of institution-to-institution as well as broader electronic networks in a number of areas. A number of donors have established trust funds in support of key institutions in order to permit them to draw upon human resources from defined countries. This, too, might well be worth exploring, particularly if the donor also helped ECA to gain up-to-date knowledge about the potential institutional resources in the area of eligibility. A more undefined, but quite important, area would be to provide ECA with a ' Special Issues Fund' to assist it in tackling special issues as they arise without having to wait for another budget cycle. This would enable ECA to react quickly to key global and regional events of significance to Africa' s development. Finally, given that ECA's total extra-budgetary needs are not huge by international assistance standards, some donor partners might wish to consider endowing ECA with a general purpose support which could be used to undergird both programme and institutional improvements. Discussions of any of these options would be welcome. |
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