ANNUAL REPORT, 2002

The annual report of the Commission has become a vehicle for reporting on the activities of the Commission as carried out by its main policy organs, its subsidiary bodies and the secretariat in assisting member States to tackle the socio-economic development problems they confront. The present report covers the period from 2000 to 2002. The report provides an overview of the major activities carried out by the Commission and its secretariat under the programme structure approved in 1996 and revised in 1998, which consists of seven mutually complementary sub-programmes which encompass the key priorities in Africa's development. These are facilitating economic and social policy analysis; ensuring food security and sustainable development; strengthening development management; harnessing information technology for development; promoting regional cooperation and integration; promoting the advancement of women; and promoting subregional activities for development. The strategy for carrying out the work programme, which is reflected in each of the subprogrammes, involves policy analysis and advocacy; convening stakeholders and building consensus on development policy issues; providing technical assistance and training to support the capacity-building efforts of member States; networking with African researchers to enhance information and experience sharing including best practices; and promoting closer collaboration with other UN agencies and international donors in support of Africa's development. The report is divided into five main chapters.

Chapter 1 reviews the economic and social developments in Africa in the period 2000-2002 against the backdrop of developments in the global environment. The review shows that economic performance in Africa during the 2000-2001 period remained stable at a rate exceeding 3 percent per annum. The review also estimates an average growth rate for the African economies of 4.9 percent in 2002 provided the major determinants of growth in Africa - weather, international commodity prices, social and political stability, ODA flows, debt and a stable macroeconomic framework - remain favourable. The review concludes that the social situation continues to deteriorate despite the modest improvement in overall regional economic performance. This is because the growth rate is not high enough and not sufficiently broad-based to achieve poverty-reduction. This is further worsened by the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS and the raging wars and armed conflicts across the continent.

Chapter 2 provides a description of the new policy and programme initiatives undertaken by Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) during the period. These include the establishment of the African Union and the adoption by African leaders of a new African-owned framework for development, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) which calls for a transformed partnership between Africa and the rest of the world in return for social and economic reforms by Africa. ECA has been instrumental in the process of elaborating the new initiative. It provided technical backstopping to the work that led to the merger of the Omega Plan and the Millennium Africa Partnership Programme (MAP) into NEPAD. Other policy and programme developments undertaken during the period include convening the second meeting of the "Big Table" which has become a forum for African Ministers of Finance to engage in dialogue with their OECD counterparts on the International Development Goals (IDGs) and the related poverty reduction strategies; the third African Development Forum (ADF III) on the theme, Defining priorities for regional integration in Africa; the first meeting of the African Knowledge Network Forum (AKNF), an ECA initiative aimed at facilitating knowledge-sharing and research partnerships between professional networks, and between them and key knowledge end-users, including policy makers, civil society groups and the private sector; and the African Learning Group on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP-LG), an annual forum which brings together senior African policy makers and experts to share information on the African experience with PRSPs, and articulate on African perspective on the process. The chapter also provides a preview of the fourth African Development Forum (ADF IV) to be held in December 2002 on the theme of governance and development.

Chapter 3 provides an account of the main activities undertaken under each subprogramme.

In the area of facilitating economic and social policy analysis, the work programme addressed broad macroeconomic issues of concern to member States. Emphasis was placed on research and analysis related to national mechanisms for the review and appraisal of socioeconomic conditions; the development of methodologies and techniques for enhanced national development planning. Several activities were also undertaken within the context of supporting African countries to adjust to the new international trading environment following the agreement reached at Doha. Particular attention was also given to the peculiar problems of the least developed countries (LDCs) in Africa, and countries emerging out of conflict; the African debt problem and the problems of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). The subprogramme also addressed social development issues, particularly the strategies and reforms needed to alleviate poverty and policy responses for addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other diseases.

The nexus of food security, population and environmental sustainability were addressed under the subprogramme on ensuring food security and sustainable development. The thrust of the Commission's work in this area was to assist promote the understanding and management of the interrelationships among the issues of this nexus which is at the heart of the poverty syndrome in Africa; assist in building national and local capacities; and foster interaction among sector experts and specialists at ECA and in the member States to undertake an integrated analysis of the interrelated issues of food security, population dynamics and environmental sustainability. Assistance under this subprogramme during the period under review was mainly focused on preparing African countries for effective participation in the forthcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2002.

Activities in strengthening development management continued to focus on the articulation of policies and strategies aimed at fostering effective public sector management, promoting private sector development and enhancing popular participation in the socio-economic development process of African countries. Significant progress was also achieved under this subprogramme in the preparation of a major publication, the State of African Governance Report which will become one of the flagship publications of ECA. The report will provide a quantitative and qualitative assessment on the state of governance in Africa with the aim of promoting dialogue on improving governance systems on the continent.

During the period under review, ECA continued to play a catalytic role in promoting Africa's connectivity to the information superhighway through its work under the subprogramme on harnessing information for development. The activities undertaken under the subprogramme were aimed at strengthening national, subregional and regional capacities for the adoption and utilization of communication and information technologies, strengthening capacity for the development and use of statistical, bibliographic, referral and spatial databases as decision-making tools in support of information and communication technologies for development. Several activities were also undertaken in follow-up to the recommendations adopted at ADF I which was held in October 1999 on the theme, "The Challenge to Africa of Globalization and the Information Age."

Various activities aimed at facilitating and enhancing the process of regional integration were undertaken, with the Abuja Treaty establishing the African Economic Community, providing the major impetus. The issues addressed in this regard were the strengthening of the regional economic communities through institutional development and elaboration of programmes; promoting intra-Africa trade; and strengthening institutional capacity for monetary and financial integration. Other activities carried out under this subprogramme were aimed at facilitating the rationalisation, harmonisation and coordination of pertinent programmes, with the aim of creating an enabling environment for integration through the development of infrastructure, harmonisation of policies, and collaboration in mineral, energy and water resources development. Much effort was devoted under this subprogramme to the development of a set of indicators for measuring the performance of African countries in achieving economic cooperation and integration. This effort will culminate in the publication of the Annual Report on Integration in Africa (ARIA), which will be launched at the next session of the Commission to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa in October 2002. The report will provide the core and organising framework for ECA's work in the area of regional cooperation and integration and its findings will guide the Commission's sectoral interventions.

ECA's work in the area of women in development focused on monitoring and assessing the progress made on the situation of women in the critical areas of the global and African platforms for action. In pursuance of these objectives, ECA put emphasis on the economic and social empowerment of women in Africa. The activities under this subprogramme were also geared towards providing assistance to member States in the implementation of the African plan of action for accelerating the implementation of the global and regional platforms for action, which was adopted at the sixth African regional conference on women in November 1999. Work is also at an advanced stage in the preparation of an annual publication, the African Women's Report (AWR) which will contain a gender development index for measuring progress in mainstreaming gender concerns into policies and programmes of member States and their institutions.

Under the subprogramme on promoting subregional activities for development, the subregional development centres of ECA, located in the five subregions of the continent, intensified efforts in providing technical support to and cooperating with the regional economic communities; facilitating networking and information exchange between governments, civil society and private sector, and strengthening ECA's outreach in the various subregions.

Chapter 4 provides a comprehensive review of the secretariat's technical cooperation in all the areas covered by ECA's work programme during 2000-2002.

Chapter 5 contains a summary of discussions resolutions major decisions and recommendations of the subsidiary organs of the Commission, which have held their meetings since the last session of the Commission held in May 2001.

AAI Alliance for Africa's Industrialization
AAPA Addis Ababa Plan of Action for Statistical Development in Africa
ACARTSD African Centre for Applied Research and Training in Social Development
ACCS Africa Centre for Civil Society
ACGD African Centre for Gender and Development
ACW African Centre for Women
ADB African Development Bank
ADF African Development Forum
AEC Africa Economic Community
AERC African Economic Research Consortium
AFREC African Energy Commission
AFRISTAT States of the African Institute of Statistics
AGDI African Gender Development Index
AGOA African Growth and Opportunity Act
AISI African Information Society Initiative
AKNF Africa Knowledge Networks Forum
AMCEN African Ministerial Conference on the environment
ARCT African Regional Centre for Technology
ARIA Annual Report on Integration in Africa
ASYCUDA Automatic System for Customs Data
AVLIN African Virtual Library and Information Network
AWCPD African Women Committee on Peace and Development
AWR African Women's Report
CAMI Conference of African Ministers of Industry
CAPAM Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management
CBD-COP5 Conference or Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity
CCA/UNDAF Common Country Assessment and United Nations Development Assistance Framework
CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
CEMAC Communaut� �conomique et mon�taire de l'Afrique Centrale
CEPGL Economic Community of the Great lakes Countries
CERPOD Centre d'�tudes et de recherch� sur la population pour la develeppement
CFC Common Fund for Commodities
CILSS Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel
CIPSD Committee on Industry and Private Sector Development
CNRST Committee on Natural Resources and Science and Technology
CODESRIA Council for Development of Social Science Research in Africa
CODI Committee on Development Information
COFAW Committee on Forests and Woodlands
COMESA Common Market for Eastern and southern Africa
CSAE Centre for the Study of African Economics
CSD Committee on Sustainable Development
CSOs Civil Society Organizations
DAC Development Assistance Committee
DHS Databases of Demographic Health Surveys
DISD Development information and Statistical Development
DMD Development Management Division
DND Dakar/Ngor Declaration
EAC East African Community
ECA Economic Commission for Africa
ECCAS Economic Community of Central African States
ECOSOC United Nations Economic and Social Council
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
ERA Economic Report on Africa
ESPD Economic and Social Policy Division
EU European Union
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FIG International Federation of Surveyors
FIS International Federation of Surveyors
G-8 Group of Eight
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GIS Geographic Information Systems
GKII Global Knowledge II
GKP Global Knowledge Partnership
HE Higher Education
HIPC Heavily Indebted Poor Countries
HIV/AIDS Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
ICE Intergovernmental Committee of experts
ICPD International Conference on Population and Development
ICT information and communication technologies
IDEP United Nations Institute for Economic Development and planning
IDGs International Development Goals
IDRC International Development Research Center
IFF Intergovernmental Forum on Forests
IFPRI International Food Research Institute
IGAD International Authority on Development
IGOs Intergovernmental Organisations
IGWA Inter-agency Group for Water in Africa
IIASA International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
IICBA International Institute for Capacity-building in Africa
IMF International Monetary Fund
IOM International Organisation for Migration
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IRORD Institut de formation et de recherche d�mographique
IT Information Technology
ITCA Information Technology Centre for Africa
KBO Kagera Basin Authority
LDC Least Developed Countries
MAP Millennium Africa Partnership Programme
MAP Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Plan
MEFMI Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute
MFA Multifibre Arrangement
MIGA Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency of the World Bank
NAI New African Initiative
NC-TTA Northern Corridor Transit Transport Coordination Priority pilot
NEPAD New Partnership for Africa's Development
NICI National Information and Communication Infrastructure
NORAD Norwegian Agency for International Development
NSOs National Statistical Offices
NTBs non-tariff barriers
NTTA
OAU Organization of African Unity
ODA Overseas Development Assistance
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
OHCHR Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
OSIWA Open Society Initiative for West Africa Soros Foundation
OSSREA Centre for the Study of African Economies
PEDA Population-environment-Development-Agriculture
PMAESA Ports Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa
POPIN UN Population Division and Global
PRSP-LG Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers - Learning Group
PRSPs Poverty Reduction Strategy papers
RCF II The Second regional Co-operation framework
RCID Regional Co-operation and Integration Division
RCMRD Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development
RECs Regional Economic Communities
RIPS Regional Institute for Population Studies
SACU Southern Africa Customs Union
SADC Southern Africa Development Community
SATCC Southern African Transport and Communications Commission
SDD Sustainable Development Division
SDIs spatial data infrastructures
SMEs small and medium enterprises
SNA System National Accounts
SPA Strategic Partnership for Africa
SSA Sub-Saharan African
SSATP Saharan Africa Transport Policy programme
TAR Third Appraisal Report
TCDC Special Unit for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries of UNDP
TEPCOW Technical Preparatory Committee of the Whole
TRIMS Trade-related Investment Measures
TRIPS Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights
UEMOA Union Economique et Mon�taire Ouest Africaine
UM A Arab Maghreb Union
UNCC United Nations Conference Center
UNCCD United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and development
UNDESA United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNFPA United Nations Population Fund
UN-IAGWAGE United Nations Inter-agency Group on Women and Gender Equality
UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization
UN-NADAF United Nations-New Agenda for Development of Africa
UNSIA United Nations System-wide Special Initiative for Africa
UNSTD United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development
UNTACD Second United Nations Transport and A II Communications Decade
USAID United States Agency for International Development
WAHO West African Health Organization
WBI World Bank Institute
WCAR World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related forms of intolerance
WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development
WTO World Trade Organization

Africa grew faster than any other developing region in 2001 reflecting improved macroeconomic management, increased agricultural productivity resulting from favourable weather conditions, higher oil prices which favoured African oil-exporting countries, higher demand for primary commodities and the cessation of conflicts in several countries. These gains were remarkable as they were achieved in the context of a global economic slowdown, made worse by the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

However, Africa's average gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 4.3 percent in 2001 masks wide disparities, from growth of 65 percent in Equatorial Guinea to -7 per cent in Zimbabwe. Moreover, economic growth remains fragile, and at current rates, Africa will find it difficult to achieve the International Development Goals (IDGs) of reducing by half, the proportion of Africans living in absolute poverty by 2015. Nevertheless, there are many reasons for optimism about Africa's medium-term prospects-including the opportunities created by the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act, the European Union's "Everything But Arms" initiative, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), and the launch of a new global trade round which provides hope of a fairer deal for African countries in the new global trading system. Ultimately, though, Africa's future depends on how it addresses its problems of economic and political governance, resolves civil conflicts, and responds to the need for deeper economic and social reforms. It is only by doing so that the continent can hope to attract the necessary long-term investment for its development.

The global economy underwent significant adjustments in 2001. Excess capacity in production of telecommunications equipment and computer hardware-partly reflecting a sharp drop in demand-reduced output and world trade. This reduction was most marked in East Asia, but imports-and hence exports-have been declining in most major economies since at least mid-2001. World trade in goods and services increased by no more than 2 percent in 2001, down from nearly 13 percent in 2000. In 2002, global demand for exports from developing countries is projected to drop about 10 percent.

Economic activity slowed in all the eight major industrial countries in 2001. Between the first and second quarters of 2001, real GDP rose just 0.1 percent in the United States and the euro zone, and in Japan, economic activity fell sharply. The terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. on 11 September 2001 and the commencement of military operations in Afghanistan in October 2001 worsened the already uncertain state of the U.S. economy and the global economy.

But economic fundamentals remain fairly strong in many of these countries, and policies are being implemented to deal with the economic downturn and the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The consensus view in financial markets is that, after another quarter of negative growth, the U.S. economy will recover in the second quarter of 2002. Almost all U.S. economic indicators have bounced back from post-attack lows and soared above pre-attack levels.

Given its enormous size, the U.S. economy will have to lead the world out of the current slowdown. With an annual output of more than $10 trillion in goods and services, the U.S. economy is larger than those of France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom combined. However, the key questions for 2002 are: How strong will the U.S.-led recovery be? And what form will it take? The analysis conducted for ECA's Economic Report, 2002(which serves as background for this overview), indicates that the U.S. economy will recover gradually, picking up speed in the second half of 2002 and achieving 3 percent growth for the full year. Such optimism is warranted because the main causes of the recession have abated: real oil prices have fallen 50 percent from their peak, stock markets have recovered from their post-September lows (though they remain well below the highs reached in 2000), and investment and inventory adjustments have made considerable progress.

The main threat to a global recovery, however, is Japan's economy. Japanese banks have $600 billion in bad debts, a sum equal to 18 percent of its GDP. Some analysts fear that Japan will try to solve its debt problems by printing money-a move that would depreciate the yen to 160-200 to the U.S. dollar, from about 130 in early 2002. Such a steep devaluation could cause competitive devaluations in China, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan (China), and Thailand because they have investment and trade links with Japan. Widespread devaluations in Asia would unleash a flood of low-priced goods onto world markets, hurting emerging African countries and Latin American countries.

Forecasts made shortly after the September 11 attacks predicted that economic growth would stagnate in Africa because of lower commodity prices, reduced foreign direct investment, and private capital flows. But the global slowdown has had a much less pronounced impact on Africa than expected. Output has remained relatively strong, with GDP growth accelerating in 2001 to an estimated 4.3 percent in 2001 from 3.5 percent in 2000.

Africa's resilience to the global slowdown can be attributed to the following factors: Lower oil prices, which helped reduce pressure on foreign exchange, inflation, and public spending for oil-importing African countries; increased agricultural output across the region; improved economic management resulting in stronger economic recovery in many countries-with lower inflation, better fiscal positions, stronger external positions; higher than expected export revenues, resulting from the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA); and the cessation of conflicts in several countries.

The significance of these factors should not be overstated, however, as most African countries are dependent on international markets, and a sharp and sustained deterioration in global conditions could take a toll on the region's economies.

Africa's average per capita income grew an estimated 1.9 per cent in 2001-better than the 0.7 per cent increase in 2000 but still not sufficient to achieve the international development goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015. In 2001, 30 African countries achieved per capita income growth above 1.5 percent, and in 2002, this number is expected to increase to 32.

In addition, 16 African countries experienced GDP growth of less than 3 percent in 2001, down from 27 countries in 2000. The number of countries with growth rates exceeding 3% increased from 26 in 2000 to 37 in 2001, and 3 more countries are expected to join this group in 2002. Thus, most African countries appear to be converging towards growth rates above the "traditional" 3%-with positive implications for poverty reduction.

In recent years, Africa's slower GDP growth relative to other developing regions has been attributed to its poor attractiveness in terms of trade and foreign direct investment. Underlying these, however, are the inadequate production and management systems resulting from years of poor economic management, and social and political instability. To close the performance gap, Africa needs to upgrade its technology, resolve armed conflicts, and improve economic and political governance systems and structures as well as improve economic management in order to achieve the level of growth necessary for poverty reduction.

Using continent-wide averages can be misleading because substantial population and GDP differences exist among and within the five subregions of the continent; except for the Southern Africa region, all the regions of Africa achieved impressive growth rates in 2001. In North Africa, GDP growth averaged nearly 6 percent (see table 1 below). Southern Africa's GDP grew just 2.4 percent, down from 3.0 percent in 2000-mainly because of negative growth in Zimbabwe and slower growth in South Africa, reflecting poor harvests. After falling in 2000, average GDP growth rose to 3.3 percent in West Africa and 5.0 percent in East Africa, driven by lower prices for oil imports and higher prices for agricultural exports. In 2002, GDP growth is expected to accelerate in East and Southern Africa and decline somewhat in North and Central Africa.

The five largest regional economies-South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, and Morocco, which account for 59 percent of the continent's GDP and 36 percent of its population-grew 4.3 percent in 2001, up from 3.2 percent in 2000 and 2.7 percent in 1999. This improved performance was due to rapid economic growth in Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco. Although South Africa experienced more stable mineral prices in international commodity markets, it had the slowest growth rate of this group. The continent's eleven oil-exporting countries which account for half of the continent's GDP and just over a third of its population had an average GDP growth of 5.8 percent, in 2001, up from 4.1 percent in 2000, while the 42 non-oil exporters had a growth rate of 3.7 percent in the same period, up from 2.9 percent in 2000 and 2.7 percent in 1999. Lower oil prices explain the improved performance of the non-oil economies in 2001.


Region	1998	1999		2000	2001a	2002b
Africa	3.1	3.2		3.5	4.3	3.4
North Africa	4.4	3.5		4.1	5.8	2.8
Sub-Saharan Africa	2.6	2.9	3.1		3.3	3.7
West Africa	3.6	3.2		2.7	3.3	3.3
Central Africa	4.9	4.4		4.4	4.9	4.4
East Africa	2.5	4.1		3.1	5.0	5.2
Southern Africa	1.7	2.2		3.0	2.4	3.5

At the sectoral level, growth rates increased in the agricultural, industrial and service sectors in 2000, although this performance was not evenly shared across the continent.

Agriculture remains the dominant sector in Africa, and improvement in that sector's growth fuelled GDP growth in most African countries. It accounts for 24 percent of Africa's GDP, 40 percent of its foreign exchange earnings, and 70 percent of its employment. In 2000, about 56 percent of Africans (431 million people) depended on agriculture for their livelihoods. (In this section and subsequent ones, only data for the year 2000 have been used because it is the most recent year for which complete economic data are available for all African countries). In East Africa, agriculture accounted for 39 percent of GDP, in West Africa 37 percent, in Central Africa 21 percent, in North Africa 17 percent, and in Southern Africa 11 percent. Good weather conditions and reforms, which resulted in improved availability and distribution of modern inputs, including credit contributed to the improved performance.

Despite huge investments in the agriculture sector, the sector remains heavily dependent on the weather and traditional methods, and is dominated by an illiterate and unskilled workforce. In some countries, the sector is negatively affected by civil strife and political instability. In addition, recent agricultural policies have placed too much reliance on market forces, neglecting more fundamental structural issues such as technology and extension services, marketing infrastructure, and civil conflicts over land and pasture.

Industry in Africa continued to face challenges from foreign competition, lack of skilled workers, and limited financial resources. In 2000, the industrial sector-comprising manufacturing, mining, construction, and electricity, gas, and water-accounted for 33 percent of Africa's GDP, with manufacturing and mining accounting for three-quarters of the total.

Many countries achieved industrial growth in 2000, with the fastest growth recorded in the electricity, gas, and water subsectors (with a growth rate of 4.9 percent), followed by construction (3.9 percent) and mining (3.5 percent). African manufacturing grew 2.5 percent in 2000, led by growth in East Africa (4.4 percent) and Southern Africa (3.5 percent). Mining accounted for a substantial share of industrial growth and remains the key to industrial prosperity in many African countries-a potential that has yet to be fully exploited.

During the period 1980-99, Africa's oil reserves grew 1.96 percent a year and oil production grew 0.38 percent a year. Yet, because of increased production in other parts of the world, crude oil exports dropped from 5.1 million barrels a day in 1980 to 4.7 million in 1999. Also in the same period, Africa's natural gas reserves grew 3.6 percent, production grew 9.8 percent, and exports grew 10.9 percent. In 1999, gas production increased 6.2 percent and gas exports, 6.4 percent.

African economies remain trapped in a vicious cycle of low savings and low investment. Investment as a share of GDP was 12 percent in 2000, mainly because of a sudden increase in domestic consumption, fuelled by increased public spending, which absorbed an estimated 88 percent of the continent's GDP, leaving little for savings and investment. Besides low incomes, the main obstacles to higher savings are inefficient financial intermediation and high macroeconomic volatility. To achieve sufficient growth, Africa requires investment of at least 25 percent of GDP. But in 2000, gross domestic savings in the region averaged 12 percent of GDP, indicating a wide gap-13 percent of GDP-between actual savings and the required investment.

Gross domestic fixed capital formation-spending on fixed assets such as buildings, vehicles, plants, machinery, and the like-was just over 20 percent of Africa's GDP in 2000, less than the 25 percent required for industrial takeoff. With many countries privatising state-owned enterprises, private investment accounts for a growing share of domestic investment and public investment for a shrinking share, especially public sector spending.

In 2000, Africa's average inflation rate-excluding Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo-rose to 7.3 percent, up slightly from 7 percent in 1999. Inflation of more than 50 percent in Angola (326 percent), the Democratic Republic of Congo (556 percent), and Zimbabwe (56 percent) reflected civil instability. But most countries, notably CFA zone countries, had inflation below 10 percent-a remarkable achievement given higher oil prices in 2000. CFA countries pursued tight monetary and fiscal policies consistent with those of the European Central Bank, and some recorded negative or less than 5 percent inflation. This performance was aided by favourable weather conditions, which supported higher food production.

In South Africa, inflation was caused partly by high fuel prices and by the depreciation of the rand relative to the U.S. dollar. Higher inflation in East Africa was driven by the 1999/2000 droughts, which raised local food prices, as well as by rising petroleum prices. In North Africa, inflation was subdued and is expected to stay that way in 2001-02 due to lower food prices. In addition, several African countries saw their real effective exchange rates depreciate in 2000 due to worsening terms of trade, government commercial polices that placed a premium on imports, and international movements of capital and incomes.

Higher unit values for exports and imports caused Africa's balance of trade to appreciate by 18.1 percent in 2000, the largest increase since the mid-1980s. But in 2001, the balance of trade fell by 2.1 percent due to falling oil prices.

In 2000, the favourable external environment-particularly for oil exporters-reversed the unfavourable position of Africa's trade account in 1998-99. In 2001, the trade surplus in goods is estimated to have fallen to $15 billion, driven by movements in oil prices.

The perennial imbalance in the services sector, driven by external debt payments, freight charges, insurance, and banking fees continued to put pressure on the current account balance and to claim an inordinate share of foreign revenue from merchandise exports. In 2001, this deficit is estimated to have fallen slightly, to $11.4 billion. However, due to higher export revenues in oil-exporting countries, the current account recorded a surplus in 2000 but this surplus was not maintained in 2001 due to a drop in oil prices.

In the medium to long term, countries that pursue sound economic policies are expected to see improved economic performance. However, countries in political turmoil, those mired in armed conflict or those where HIV/AIDS is most prevalent will have their development set back by these problems.

Resource flows to Africa declined in 2000 as a result of a reduction in private capital flows and ODA. Although net private flows to emerging markets in Africa - Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia nearly doubled between 2000 and 2001, there was a general decline in flows to the rest of the continent. Africa's share of foreign direct investment (FDI) - the most important source of external finance for developing countries _ dropped from 25 percent in the early 1970s to just 5 percent in 2000, but this average masks a number of interesting trends. First, new sources of FDI have emerged. In the past, most FDI to Africa came from a handful of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries _ mainly France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. During the 1990s, however, FDI from Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Spain increased from less than 10 percent to nearly 25 percent. Secondly, FDI from developing Asian economies has also increased, led by the Republic of Korea and followed by China, India, Malaysia, and Taiwan. Third, during the 1990s intra-Africa FDI rose, notably from firms in South Africa and Mauritius.

Aid to Africa increased from just under $1 billion in 1960 to $32 billion in 1991. But by the end of the 1990s, aid had fallen to almost half the 1991 level. (Aid is defined here, as gross official development assistance-whether grants or concessional loans-from multilateral and bilateral sources). The countries that make up the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) remain the largest source of aid, to Africa, although their share of the total fell from 72 percent in 1970 to 63 percent in 1999. Multilateral organizations are the second largest source, and their share of the total jumped from 21 percent in 1970 to 35 percent in 1999. Africa's remaining aid comes from Arab countries, which accounted for 7 percent of the total in 1970 and 2 percent in 1999.

Aid from DAC countries is extremely volatile, rising from $1.3 billion in 1970 to $23.4 billion in 1991-then falling to $11.8 billion in 1999. Aid from multilateral organizations is less volatile, increasing from $0.4 billion in 1970 to $9.5 billion in 1994 and then falling to $6.6 billion in 1999. Aid from Arab countries hardly changed, increasing from $0.1 billion in 1970 to $0.3 billion in 1999.

During the 1990s, aid to Africa as a portion of donors' GNP increased in just 4 of 21 DAC countries: Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, and New Zealand. The OECD target for aid to all developing countries is 0.7 percent of DAC members' GNP, but few members have achieved that goal. Still, in 1991-99 some rich countries provided significant aid to Africa-Norway provided aid equal to 0.30 percent of its GNP, Denmark and France provided 0.28 percent, Sweden provided 0.22 percent, and Portugal provided 0.18 percent. The world's two largest economies, Japan and the United States, provided Africa with aid equal to just 0.04 percent of their GNP.

Driven by a desire to rapidly reduce poverty, economic policies in Africa in 2000-2001 sought to promote macroeconomic stability and higher growth and improve the delivery of social services. Many governments revived stalled structural reforms such as deregulation and external trade liberalization. The main themes of economic policy included creating an enabling environment for producers, investors, and employers and improving governance and public finances.

Stabilization and structural adjustment programmes focused on maintaining tight fiscal and monetary policies and on realigning exchange rates. These measures were complemented by efforts to restructure financial markets, deepen customs and tax reforms, strengthen budget procedures and fiscal discipline, and review industrial relations and legal and judicial systems. Many African countries adopted the poverty reduction strategy framework introduced by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which requires developing clear strategies for investing the savings from debt relief in poverty reduction programmes and defining the human, social, and political environment in which poverty reduction is to be achieved.

The challenges that African countries will continue to face in the medium term can be reduced to four: to accelerate and broaden economic growth; to achieve a sustainable balance in the population-food-environment nexus; to achieve good governance and put an end to conflicts; and to cope with globalization and attain international competitiveness.

The first challenge is a consequence of wide-scale structural weaknesses, which require comprehensive reforms, innovative and pragmatic policies that have sufficient flexibility, generous support from external partners, patience and long-term commitment. The last two elements are important because the weaknesses that hobble Africa and prevent it from accelerating its economic growth and development cannot be tackled within a short period. To reduce the incidence and severity of poverty in Africa, sustained and broad-based robust growth is needed in the medium to long term.

The second challenge is a result of the rapid population growth rate; antiquated, inefficient and even destructive production techniques and a fragile ecosystem. Urgent action on each of the three fronts of the nexus is required to restore equilibrium.

The third challenge arises from the paradox that setting people free and empowering them is congruent with building peace and stability based on equity and participatory governance. The fourth challenge is a consequence of the evolution in information and communications that is making national borders increasingly meaningless in economic terms.

In facing these challenges, African countries will continue to be handicapped by limited financial resources, climatic uncertainties and factors beyond their control - such as world market developments which determine prices of commodities, imported goods, services and interest. The concessions to African countries under the Doha Round notwithstanding, African countries will have to engineer their accelerated growth under conditions remarkably unlike those under which the mature market economies and the new, emerging economies of Asia and Latin America attained their transformation. While these economies all engineered their growth behind protectionist walls, the implications of the Doha Round Agreement are that Africa will have to achieve growth and transformation within conditions of liberal global trade and financial flows. How can this be done? This is a formidable policy challenge indeed.

At the same time, unless Africa's creditors show greater political will in finding a solution to Africa's huge external debt, it will continue to siphon away scarce resources which could have been used for social development.

Within the context of these challenges and constraints, prospects for economic and social performance in 2002 are, obviously, heavily conditional. In spite of these constraints, however, Africa's average growth in 2002 is projected at 4.9 percent, because it is expected that the factors responsible for the performance of the past six years would continue to have an influence on growth in the short to medium term. These include low prices of oil, good weather conditions across much of the continent, a recovery in the prices of primary commodities, political stability, increase in the level of external assistance and a deepening of economic and social reforms.

The Millennium Declaration adopted by the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000 devoted a section to meeting the special needs of Africa. It placed particular emphasis on supporting the political and institutional structures of emerging democracies in Africa; encouraging and sustaining regional and sub-regional mechanisms for preventing conflict and for promoting political stability; ensuring a reliable flow of resources for peacekeeping operations; special measures to address the challenges of poverty eradication and sustainable development in Africa, including debt cancellation, improved market access, enhanced Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) and increased Foreign Direct Investment (FDI); transfers of technology; and building capacity to help Africa tackle the spread of HIV/AIDS pandemic and other infectious diseases. African leaders responded by developing initiatives aimed at meeting these challenges.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a 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, participate actively in the world economy and body politic.

The thought of a concerted effort for African recovery which eventually crystallized into NEPAD dates back to 1999. President A. Bouteflika of Algeria, President T. Mbeki of South Africa and President O. Obasanjo of Nigeria were at the time the Chairmen of the OAU, the Non-Aligned Movement and the G77 respectively. They seized the opportunity of their unique positions to address the problems of peace and security, as well as poverty and underdevelopment in Africa. President Mbeki became the arrowhead of MAP; and soon after, President Wade of Senegal sponsored the OMEGA Plan. Following the directive of the OAU, both initiatives were merged into NEPAD and President Obasanjo is now the Chairman of the 15-member Implementation Committee of Heads of State and Government.

NEPAD's central thesis is that Africa's development depends on its full participation in the global economy, and that this requires a combination of reforms in Africa and assistance from other countries. Broadly, the goals of NEPAD are to eradicate widespread and severe poverty; promote accelerated growth and sustainable development; halt the marginalization of Africa in the globalization process; and restore peace, security and stability.

The various priority areas - referred to as initiatives in the NEPAD document - can be classified into three categories, namely: those focusing on development of guidelines or codes, for example the codes and standards on economic and corporate governance and financial standards; those that require further policy measures by Africa's development partners to assist the recovery and development of African countries, for example, relief of external debt burden, improved market access, and increased ODA; and those for which projects, as traditionally understood, will be developed, especially in the areas of infrastructure, environment, human resources and social development.

NEPAD has identified strategic issues and key development challenges which confront Africa at this historical juncture, namely restoration of peace, security and stability; entrenchment of good governance; promoting accelerated growth and sustainable development; reduction of poverty and income inequality; consolidation of democratic gains and strengthening of democratic institutions and structures; rehabilitation and construction of infrastructural facilities; and bridging the digital divide between the North and the South. All these challenges cannot be resolved by individual African nations, and without partnership with the rest of the world, hence governments have opted for concerted and coordinated efforts in the form of NEPAD.

NEPAD calls for a new partnership with the rest of the world including multilateral institutions and the private sector. The new mode of partnership will operate at three levels: (i) at the global level will be Africa's relations with donors, development partners, international institutions; (ii) at the regional level will be African states cooperating in joint ventures and integration, across border projects, etc. and (iii) at the national (domestic) level will be revitalized partnership among the public sector, the private sector and the civil society. A mechanism for peer pressure and performance timetables and target is envisaged to hold governments accountable to their commitment.

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) worked closely with some African leaders who were developing initiatives for Africa's economic renewal, in particular the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Plan (MAP). The Compact for Africa's Recovery which ECA was developing at the time in response to the implementation of the Millennium Declaration, also underscored the urgent need for Africa to continue along the path of political and economic reforms, while advocating support from Africa's development partners through increased ODA, debt relief and market access. The Compact focused particularly on four issues. First, the desire for strong political will on the part of African leaders to take good governance seriously by establishing peace and security on the continent. Second, the need for commitment to promote economic growth and macro-economic stability, including developing fiscal targets for national deficits and inflation rates, among others. Third, the desire for Africa to tap the initiative and entrepreneurship of the private sector. Fourth, capacity-building to enable Africa to rise to the new and grave challenge of HIV/AIDS.

The Compact fitted very well into the MAP and Omega Plan that were consolidated into NEPAD. ECA's role in the merger of the MAP and Omega Plan was to facilitate and act as an instrument for the integrated initiatives as they evolve.

ECA also participated in all the meetings of the Steering Committee including the last meeting of the Heads of State Implementation Committee, which was held in Abuja, Nigeria in October 2001. In addition, ECA hosted a brainstorming workshop of the NEPAD cluster on economic and corporate governance and capital flows in January 2002 in preparation for the work-in-progress workshop on the two themes which was held in Pretoria, South Africa January 2002. ECA's work in these areas will thus provide substantive technical inputs to the implementation of NEPAD.

The Heads of State Implementation Committee of the NEPAD, comprising of the Heads of State of the five initiating countries (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa) and ten other countries (two from each subregion of the continent) has assigned various tasks to the OAU, ECA and ADB to elaborate various aspects of the initiative. The Committee also decided on the establishment of task teams/lead agencies to urgently identify and prepare specific projects and programmes as follows: capacity-building on peace and security (OAU); economic and corporate governance (ECA); infrastructure (ADB); Central Bank and financial standards (ADB) and agriculture and market access (OAU). Subsequent to that decision, ECA and ADB have been assigned the task of working on capital flows, and the UNCTAD and FAO have been requested to assist on the issues of market access and agriculture respectively. Thus, as a result of its ongoing work in the area of economic and corporate governance, ECA has been requested to assist with the development of guidelines and codes in the area of economic and corporate governance. In addition, ECA is collaborating with the ADB in devising strategies and measures for enhancing capital flows to Africa.

The Group of Eight leading industrialised countries (G-8) comprising of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the Untied States held its annual Summit in Kananaskis, Canada in June 2002. The Summit was also attended by four African Heads of State, namely President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, and President Abdelazeez Bouteflika of Algeria. Within the context of NEPAD, the African Heads of State appealed for $64 billion to fill an annual resource gap of 12 percent of Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) in order to achieve a 7 percent annual growth rate required to reduce poverty by half by 2015. The G-8 responded by endorsing NEPAD as part of their action plan for supporting Africa's development in the new millennium and committed a total of $6 billion in support of the implementation of NEPAD of this amount the sum of $1 billion represents additional support from the G-8 for debt relief under the enhanced HIPC initiative.

The overall goal of the project on capacity-building in economic and social policy analysis in Africa through the networking of expertise is to achieve more robust and broad-based economic and social development in Africa and enhance understanding of emerging challenges and persistent problems in global development. More specifically, the objectives of the programme are: to allow ECA and the its member States, increased access to information resources; to provide an opportunity for capacity-building and for raising the quality of research and policy advice generated not only by ECA, but also by national and African research institutions and organizations, as well as those overseas knowledge institutions whose work focuses on Africa; to open more channels for support to Africa by institutions in developed countries, thus galvanizing more resources to supplement official development assistance for capacity-building; and to give overseas scholars and graduate students access to information on Africa, which they need for analytic and policy research on Africa.

There are many facets to ECA's knowledge network architecture in support of Africa's development, including the Africa Knowledge Networks Forum (AKNF); a visiting scholars' programme; a young African professionals fellowship programme; a staff exchange and secondment programme; and an external senior advisory services programme.

The AKNF has by far the largest number of stakeholders. It is complementary to the African Development Forum (ADF) and has now been transformed into the technical advisory mechanism for the ADF process. In October 2001, the AKNF annual meeting took place in Addis Ababa partly in preparation for the ADF III, which took place in March 2002. The meeting focused on setting priorities for regional integration. As AKNF's continuous substantive work programme is determined and reviewed at two levels, the 2001 programme was informed by the August 2000 workshop, while the 2002 work programme has been informed by, and was finalized after the October 2001 AKNF meeting. A draft medium-term strategy and business plan for AKNF, including the work plan for 2002 and its monitoring, and governance and operational modalities for the network, were also discussed and approved at the October 2001 meetings.

The project, through the young African professionals fellowship component, and drawing on AKNF database resources, has supported empirical work to deepen the analytical and empirical foundation of ECA's Economic Report on Africa, 2002. In-depth country studies are now a standard feature of the process of preparing the report. Expert consultations drawn from AKNF- affiliated organizations supported this enhancement. Altogether, fifteen country field studies have been undertaken. ERA 2002 is due to be launched in July 2002.

The project also continues to give support to the Annual Report on Integration in Africa (ARIA) process. Through the provision of services under the young African fellowship programme, data analysis continues to be facilitated by the project. The visiting scholars' programme has supported high quality analysis on macroeconomic policy harmonization. The first edition of ARIA is due for release in October 2002.

Other related significant activities undertaken during the period under review within the two components - the African Development Forum (ADF) and the African Knowledge Networks Forum (AKNF) processes include providing policy - relevant advice to member States; promoting synergies among researchers and between them and Africa's development partners' programmes; forging common positions on policy issues of importance to Africa; facilitating research and policy analysis within the Commission, in member States and among development organizations; serving as a clearing house of African development information; developing and strengthening research methodology expertise in the networks; undertaking studies of common national development policy issues; strengthening communications infrastructure through electronic connectivity with the target network institutions; convening of the Technical Advisory Committee on ADF III; international cooperation and interagency coordination and liaison;; implementation of a fellowship programme for young African professionals; and implementation of the visiting scholars' and staff exchange programme.

3. The African Learning Group on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP-LG)

One of the requirements that must be met by countries seeking debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative is the preparation of a PRSP. Many African Countries have neither the experience nor the capacity to prepare sound PRSPs. The PRSP-LG organized by the ECA provides a forum for African countries on the PRSP process. It also serves as a forum for the articulation of an African voice on the PRSP requirements.

During the period under review, ECA sponsored the African Learning Group on Poverty Reduction strategy Papers which held its first meeting in November 2001 at the United Nations Conference Center (UNCC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The meeting was attended by African PRSP experts, senior policy-makers and civil society representatives from nine countries namely: Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda. Attending the meeting also were resource persons and observers from the Strategic Partnership for Africa (SPA) secretariat, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), African development Bank (ADB) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The meeting was informed by a number of country studies commissioned by ECA and prepared by African experts.

The objectives of the first PRSP-LG were to identify best practices for replication in other countries in Africa; flag industrial and capacity constraints; recommend actions to remedy the constraints; and propose actions to be taken by Africans and donors in order to tap the full potential of the PRSP process in transforming the partnership between African countries and their donor partners. The meeting also aimed to stimulate increased dialogue and partnership in the reform of recipient and donor aid practices for increased aid effectiveness and poverty reduction in Africa. Stakeholders were able to discuss the appropriate framework for selecting indicators and tracking the poverty reduction impact of policies and programmes.

The meeting was organized around the following five themes: the scope and content of the growth strategies underpinning PRSPs; PRSP-related financing and public expenditure management; the depth and legitimacy of the PRSP participatory process; institutional and capacity requirements; and donor policies and modalities.

This first PRSP-LG meeting was unique in several important ways, in particular the rich and candid deliberations among the African country representatives on their experiences and, at times frustrations, with the required PRSP content, process and implementation; the strong, collective articulation in the presence of donor representatives, of an African perspective on the PRSP; the clear messages communicated from Africans to their external partners, and also to ECA on their role; the acknowledgement of the need for formulation of country-owned, broad-based, pro-poor development policy; and the unanimous acknowledgement that harmonized, PRSP-based, aid programs and modalities can better support an African-driven agenda for poverty reduction

NEPAD calls for a new partnership between Africa and the rest of the world, especially western donor countries UN agencies and Bretton Woods Institutions. The objective of ECA's partnership programme is to maximize impact by pooling efforts; coordinating diverse activities and coordinating agenda setting with development partners.

During the period under review, ECA sought partnership and worked closely with African intergovernmental organizations, UN bodies and specialized agencies, donor countries, African universities, research centres and civil society. ECA organized the second meeting of the Big Table in October 2001 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It also sponsored the African learning Group on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers.

The ECA Partners Forum established in February 2001 ushers a new era in the relationship between ECA and its donor partners. It represents a vote of confidence in ECA's reform program. Chaired by the Executive Secretary, the Forum meets every quarter to exchange views on an ongoing basis on ECA's key initiatives to assess the Commission's need for support; discuss concrete proposals around which collaborative arrangements and modalities for implementing them can be agreed; and review progress on coordinated partnerships in several key areas of work. The Forum also aims to foster professional exchange and networking at all levels between ECA and institutions in partner countries working on Africa. In addition, through ongoing interactions with ECA in Addis Ababa, the participants in the Partners Forum provide an important interface between the Commission and donor countries.

Participation in the ECA Partners Forum is on a self-selection basis and is open to countries that have on-going partnership programs and those seeking partnership with ECA. Participants include Ambassadors (and/or their representatives) of these countries stationed in Addis Ababa. Two group of partners currently participate in the Forum - i) the countries providing unearmarked program support and/or having strong ongoing partnerships with ECA including the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, and Germany - who constitute the core group; and ii) the wider group which extends to Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Italy, United States, and the European Union.

In addition to the qualitative change that it has brought to ECA's interactions with its donors, the Forum also has initiated a major shift in the form of donor support to the Commission - away from fragmented support to activities in a range of unrelated areas towards a programmatic support for the Commission's reformed strategic agenda. This shift helps ensure the allocation of extra budgetary resources to priority tasks and offers flexibility in medium-term planning. The partnership agreements with the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and United Kingdom reflect this shift.

The new relationship with partners is helping ECA with its role as an interlocutor between Africa and her development partners through the annual meetings of the "Big Table" - a forum which brings together selected African Ministers of Finance with their counterparts from OECD Development Cooperation Ministries and heads of aid agencies. ECA also interacts with donors through its participation in the Strategic Partnership with Africa (SPA) group, and is undertaking joint work with OECD on mutual accountability at the behest of the G8 Summit organizers.

ECA's new relationship with partners is also helping the institution to shift gear towards a truly knowledge-based organization. With the support from DFID, the Commission is launching a major initiative on knowledge management. Through major initiatives such as the ADF and PRSP Leaning Group which are donor supported, ECA is fostering African debate on development issues and in so doing, is reaching out to partners beyond governments, such as research institutions, think tanks, private sector actors, and civil society at large.

The Second meeting of the Big Table, an initiative of the ECA took place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in October 2001. The meeting was attended by Ministers of Finance and Development Planning of thirteen African countries and their counterparts from development cooperation ministries and senior officials of aid agencies from nine (OECD) countries. The meeting was also attended by high-level representatives from seven regional and international institutions including the ADB, the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), OECD-DAC, World Bank and UNDP.

The significance of Big Table II to the African development agenda lies in the fact that building upon the consensus reached at Big Table I, held in Addis Ababa in November 2000, on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), the meeting sought to advance the dialogue on African ownership of plans and strategies for effective poverty reduction and mutual accountability of African governments and their partners for effective international partnerships. The dialogue took place within the context of Africa's success in integrating the two prevailing development frameworks - the Millennium Partnerships for the Africa Recovery Programme (MAP) and the Omega Plan - into one overarching development agenda, the New African Initiative (NAI), underpinned by its technical component, the ECA Compact for Africa's Recovery.

The three major issues discussed at the Big Table II are: governance; making aid more effective and the Africa peer review process. Regarding governance, the meeting agreed that crucial to sustainable development are good governance and the African ownership of good governance; peace and security; capacity in advancing good governance; a more robust investment response by the private sector to improved investment climate and enhanced investor-confidence; independence of the judiciary; more donor support to African efforts to build judicial capacity and to increase the effective participation of citizens in the democratic process; new and bold resources to enhance the processes of a participation and political transition; more support to strengthen regional and sub-regional bodies to enable them to play an even more effective role in conflict prevention and resolution at the national level.

Regarding aid effectiveness the meeting recommended two conditions for effective aid delivery: strict monitoring of performance results to improve development impact of aid and to build a constituency for aid; and adequate funding to good performers to underpin the sustainability of economic and political reforms in Africa. Other enhancement measures include predictability in aid delivery, consistency in conditionalities and improvement in capacities. The meeting noted that differences in agendas between African countries and their partners constrained the process of aid effectiveness; and that demonstrating the transparency in aid utilization, perhaps through the engagement of the media, would expand and strengthen the constituency for aid in donor countries.

During the discussion on the peer review process, the African partners participating in Big Table II unanimously agreed to adopt a Peer Review Process. The meeting agreed that the ECA governance project could constitute a solid basis for generating the data required for the African Peer Review system. ECA's project on good governance has developed three sets of indicators for assessing political representation, institutional effectiveness, and economic management. The indicators are intended to provide the benchmarks for country and regional self-measurement over time of adherence to the standards of good governance. Through the measurement indicators and code of conduct, the base is set for rationalizing the process of information sharing and experience exchange in governance. It was suggested that African experts, drawn from the ECA, The African Development Bank (ADB), and other regional and sub-regional institutions be set up to carry out the peer review process.

The African Development Forum (ADF) is an initiative led by the ECA to establish an African-driven development agenda that reflects consensus among major partners and that leads to specific programmes for country implementation.

The aim of the ADF is to present the key stakeholders in African development (governments, civil society, the private sector, researchers and academics, intergovernmental organizations and donors) with the results of current research and opinion on key development issues, in order to formulate shared goals and priorities, draft action programmes and define the environment that will enable African countries to implement these programmes. In the short time since its existence, the ADF has registered significant impact and rapidly gained recognition as an effective forum for informed dialogue and consensus building on urgent development issues of relevance to Africa, and for agreeing on implementation priorities and strategies at national, sub-regional and regional level. The Forum will meet annually on a different development issues.

The first Forum was held in October 1999 in Addis Ababa, on the theme, "The Challenge to Africa of Globalization and the Information Age". The Second Forum, ADF 2000, was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in December 2000 on the theme "AIDS: The Greatest Leadership Challenge". The third forum, ADF III, was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 8 March 2002 on the theme "Defining Priorities for Regional Integration."

The coming into force of the Constitutive Act of the African Union provided a timely opportunity to focus on what needs to happen institutionally and at the policy level to galvanize regional integration. ECA responded to this need by holding ADF III in March 2002. The objective of ADF III was to energize and define steps towards accelerating and monitoring the process of regional integration in critical areas. It aimed to inform and to add value to the ongoing moves towards an African economic and monetary union. ADF III brought together all stakeholders and experts on regional integration from Africa as well as from across the world who discussed experiences of various regions with a view to drawing lessons for Africa; drew upon the rich experience of ongoing sub-regional initiatives to develop practical action points for furthering economic integration processes; and reached a consensus on practical policy and institutional measures needed to add value to, and accelerate the regional integration process.

ADF 2002 focused on five thematic clusters: economic policies for accelerating regional integration; physical integration through infrastructure development; regional approaches to regional issues; institutional arrangements and capacity; and the peace and security architecture.

ADF III supported and complemented a succession of initiatives by African Heads of State. The Abuja Treaty came into force in 1994 and its aim is to create an African Economic Community by 2025. The subsequent agreements of the OAU in Sirte, Libya in 1999 and 2001 demonstrated renewed determination to move ahead with continent-wide integration. The constitutive Act of the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament, and the Draft Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to the Pan-African Parliament, articulate these commitments.

A number of Regional Economic Centers (RECs) namely the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and others are making progress towards sub-regional economic integration.

ECA is organizing ADF IV on the topic of Governance and its nexus to development. This comes as a backdrop to numerous initiatives that have sought to address the issue of governance in its varied dimensions.

Stakeholders are beginning to realize that sustainable and equitable development in Africa will only become a reality if good governance accompanies all other development initiatives countries are engaged in. Consequently, there is an inordinate desire and commitment on the part of governments, civil society, and private sector to good governance. Underpinning this commitment is the urgency of reversing Africa's economic and social malaise and the probability that Africa may not meet the modest International Development Targets of halving poverty by 2015.

The general goals and objectives of ADF IV are consistent with previous African Development Fora (ADF 1999, ADF 2000, and ADF 2002). Specifically, ADF IV seeks to provide a forum for dialogue between the various stakeholders in Africa on how to improve and sustain good governance in African States; build understanding and consensus on key tenets of good governance and their relevance to development; generate implementable strategies of good governance practices at the national, sub-regional and continental levels; share and disseminate the outcome of the ECA's project on "Measuring and Monitoring Progress towards Good Governance in Africa"; provide a forum and mechanism for the development of partnerships between the civil society, the public and the private sectors in order to advance and sustain good governance practices in Africa; and develop monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for various stakeholders on progress towards good governance.

It is planned that ADF IV will consist of the following thematic clusters: a cluster dealing with the broad and overarching tenents of government, which will serve as the theoretical context for the other themes; and a cluster on "Good Governance for Progress in Africa", which will address the broad and comprehensive issues of governance and the nexus between good governance and the key development challenges in Africa and it should also provide lessons from other regions. Specific Sub-themes include the following: Peace, security and human rights; Democracy and participation; Judicial and legal reforms; Economic management and corporate governance; Gender and governance; and Decentralization and governance.

It is expected that the ADF IV process will help to develop consensus on the political, economic, administrative/institutional components of good governance, peace and stability in Africa.

During the period under review, ECA's programme activities cantered around seven mutually complementary subprogrammes, namely facilitating economic and social policy analysis; ensuring food security and sustainable development; strengthening development management; harnessing information for development; promoting regional cooperation and integration; promoting the advancement of women and supporting subregional activities for development. Other programmes are the United Nations-New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s (UN-NADAF) and the United Nations system-wide Special Initiative on Africa.

The objective of this subprogramme is to strengthen the capacity of member States to design and implement appropriate policies and strategies for sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. The responsibility for implementing this subprogramme lies with the Economic and Social Policy Division (ESPD).

The activities carried out under this subprogramme during the period under review were aimed at generating greater understanding of key issues in Africa's development and ownership of the economic and social policy for sustained growth and macroeconomic stability; trade and investment promotion; debt sustainability; social policy and poverty reduction.

In the area of poverty reduction and social policy analysis; ECA undertook activities that contributed to poverty reduction in Africa by conducting in-depth poverty analysis; assessing and recommending effective anti-poverty policies; and providing inputs to the PRSP Learning Group. The ECA secretariat undertook the following studies during the period under review: Broadened Development Agenda for Africa; Development Finance Requirements; Savings and Investment; The Compact for Africa's Recovery; Trade and Debt; Required Institutional Changes to Adjust to Globalization; Competitiveness of Africa's Major Exports; The Status of Africa's Debt; Promotion of Investment Agencies in Africa; The Impact of Trade Performance in Promoting Export Competitiveness; and Dynamic Competitiveness of Africa's Major Exports. The general conclusion reached by these studies was that Africa had to develop strategies and complementary measures needed to create a conducive environment, which would enable it to benefit from and adjust to globalization. Preconditions for successful integration into the world economy include the establishment of institutions in support of efficient market; removal of trade barriers reform of domestic policies; debt forgiveness or cancellation; and the establishment of investment promotion agencies to attract FDI and technology transfer.

During the period under review, the secretariat also completed work on its main flagship publication, the Economic Report on Africa (ERA), 2001 which was based on the theme of sustainable development in Africa. The report shows that 33 out of 53 African countries achieved an average growth rate of 3 percent in 2001, strongly higher than the rate achieved in 2000. The decline in oil prices, increase in ODA flows and private investment; and the sustainability of macroeconomic stability provided a positive impetus for the non-oil exporting countries. Some countries benefited from the HIPC arrangement, which freed up resources from debt service for poverty reduction programmes. The report also evaluated the performance of African economies in order to determine the extent to which African countries have achieved sustainable development. This was done through the construction of indices for economic, environmental, agricultural, industrial development, and overall sustainability.

Acknowledging that the development challenges and constraints facing Africa and other developing countries are complex and multidimensional, involving economic, social, cultural, political and environmental factors, and that their solution requires a comprehensive effort, the wide range of studies undertaken by the Secretariat in the area of poverty reduction during the period under review addressed the following issues: an estimate of the resources required for attaining Africa's development goal; measures and strategies for enhancing mobilization of resources; and the relationship between savings and investment rates in a selected sample of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.

The work programme of the secretariat in the area of trade and debt, during the period under review focused on the on-going multilateral trade negotiations within the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other fora. ECA, in collaboration with other regional and international organizations played a pivotal role in preparing African countries for the WTO Ministerial Conference, which was held in Doha, Qatar in November 2001. A number of actions have been initiated since Doha in the multilateral trade negotiations and they include preparations for negotiations on trade in agriculture; trade in services; Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Trade-related Investment Measures (TRIMS) and implementation issues. A number of studies were undertaken in the area of trade and debt which focused on the challenges Africa faces in integrating into the global economy, namely the fast pace of globalization; the competitive disadvantage of African exports; the debt burden; and the meager inflow of foreign direct investment into the region.

The thirty-fourth session of the Commission was held in Algiers, Algeria in May 2001 as a Joint Conference of Ministers responsible for Economic Development and Planning, and Ministers of Finance. The Conference focused mainly on the themes, "Implementing the Millennium Partnership for African Recovery programme (MAP): The New Global Compact with Africa" and "Mobilizing resources for a major response to HIV/AIDS in Africa".

With regard to the main theme of the Conference, the Ministers called on ECA to provide technical support in the consolidation of the two initiatives, the MAP and Omega Plan into a unified framework for Africa's development. As a follow-up to this mandate, ECA worked closely with the Steering Committees of the two initiatives to achieve a seamless merger of the two initiatives into NEPAD. ECA has continued to work with the Steering Committee of NEPAD in articulating various aspects of the initiative

The Ministers reaffirmed their commitments to addressing the following development issues: health challenges; education; information and communications technologies; generating finance for development and the need to diversify economies; development cooperation; debt relief; external trade; least developed countries; and measures to promote inter-regional linkages in transportation and communications.

The Conference of Ministers also decided that the meetings of the two highest legislative organs of the commission - the conference of African Ministers responsible for Economic Development and Planning and the Conference of African Ministers of Finance which were held separately in alternate years be merged into a single joint annual meeting beginning in 2002. Thus, as a result of this decision, preparations are underway to convene the first Joint Conference of Ministers in Johannesburg, South Africa in October 2002.

The Secretariat also organized the following conferences and workshops: the UN Youth Unit of DESA/UNHQ in collaboration with ECA held the African Youth Forum in Addis Ababa in April 2000; a workshop within the framework of ECA's collaboration with the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) was held in Geneva in February 2001; the regional conference on Brain Drain and Capacity Building in Africa.

The subprogramme also organized the following ad hoc expert meetings; ad hoc expert Group Meeting on Africa's development strategies held in Addis Ababa in March 2000; promotion of investment agencies in Africa, held at in Addis Ababa in September 2000, whose main objective was to bring together experts from African investment agencies and the chief executives of those agencies to brainstorm on issues affecting Africa's ability to attract foreign investment; ad hoc experts group meeting on the development implications of civil conflicts in Africa, held in Addis Ababa in April 2001; and the reforms in higher education organized jointly with the UNESCO Regional Office for sub-Saharan Africa UNDP, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) which took place in Nairobi in November 2001 and provided forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences of on higher education reforms and the use of technology. The objective of the meeting on Africa's development strategies was to take stock of the most important aspects of Africa's development agenda as the continent enters the twenty-first century, while the meeting on the development implications of civil conflicts in Africa was aimed at creating an understanding of the economics of conflict informing policy-making as regards the prevention of their conflicts.

Technical assistance support provided to member States and their intergovernmental organizations included the following: (a) undertaking studies on WTO agreements; trade and investment; competition policy and government procurement; (b) analyzing the impact of HIPC Initiative; (c) analyzing the African debt problem; (d) strengthening member States' capabilities by contributing to training programmes on debt management; and (e) strengthening business links between South-North countries multilateral negotiations on business links between the African and Arab countries.

ECA continued to provide advisory services to the regional economic communities. For example, technical assistance was provided to ECOWAS on the establishment of a second monetary zone in the region involving all the Anglophone member States; institutional and technical support was given to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) secretariat on the analysis of the economic and social conditions, and on regional integration as a strategy for poverty reduction in the SADC region; provision of training on macroeconomic policy analysis to middle-level policy makers from Ministries of Finance and Planning and Central Banks at the Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute (MEFMI) of Eastern and Southern Africa.

Other significant advisory services which ECA provided during the period under review included providing technical assistance to the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, on analyzing of the revenue implications of establishing a common external tariff in the East Africa Community; policy advice and technical support to African countries during the negotiations for the Programme of Action and in preparation for the third LDCs conference held in Brussels, Belgium in May 2001; and analytical support to the Mano River Basin Secretariat on the capacity building and training needs of the region in macroeconomic policy analysis and economic management.

During the period under review, the secretariat collaborated with and sought partnerships with other United Nations agencies, including the Bretton Woods Institutions, African universities, the International Centre for Economic Growth and the African Economic Research Consortium for cross-fertilization of ideas, peer review and sharing of experience. The areas of collaboration included providing joint assistance to member Sates in building capacity for economic and social policy analysis; participation of African policy makers, representatives of civil society organizations and academics in major conferences and events organized by ECA. ECA also sought collaboration with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA), the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) and the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) at Oxford University in the United Kingdom which hosts highly trained experts in all social science fields.

In collaboration with UNCTAD, technical advisory services were provided for capacity building to sustain the computerization programme of Customs procedures, to enable member states migrate to the Automatic System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA); introduce the transit module for the benefit of the landlocked countries; to establish the African Road Transport Union; to implement the Advance Cargo Information System; and to arrange for technical support training systems.

In collaboration with the World Bank Institute (WBI), ECA provided capacity building in policy analysis poverty reduction and public expenditure as well as in growth analysis. ECA's role is to identify and support African resource persons, translate training materials and contribute to the servicing of the meetings. In addition, ECA is currently supporting the publication of a book on poverty analysis that it plans to use for building capacity in French speaking African countries. ECA also provided building capacity support to its member States by organizing training workshops at the national as well as regional levels on poverty analysis.

The objective of the subprogramme is to ensure food security and sustainable development in ECA member States by planning and implementing a critical programme to raise policy-makers' awareness of the urgency of food, population and environmental concerns (the nexus issues) in development planning; offering member States feasible solutions drawn from best practices within Africa and around the world; encouraging ECA member States to develop and take full advantage of their abilities to foster and utilise science and technology for development; and providing technical advisory services to enhance understanding and management of the complex interactions among agricultural productivity, population, environment and food security.

To achieve these objectives, ECA's Division on Ensuring Food Security and Sustainable Development which was renamed Sustainable Development Division February 2002, implemented an array of activities for the benefit of the member States during the period under review. These included a meeting of the Committee on Sustainable Development (CSD) to which six reports were submitted, focusing mainly on the review and appraisal of the implementation of plans of action emanating from global and regional conferences; one meeting of the Follow-up Committee on the implementation of the Dakar/Ngor Declaration (DND) and Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD); one meeting of the Committee on Natural Resources and Science and Technology (CNRST); three ad hoc expert group meetings; and the preparation of a number of recurrent and non-recurrent publications, booklets and pamphlets. The Division also provided advisory services, on request, to member States; and promoted international cooperation and inter-agency coordination.

The activities were aimed at awareness-creation leading to better knowledge and understanding of the holistic treatment of the nexus issues in development planning and policy-making; building national and local capacities to analyse and manage nexus issues in the context of sustainable development; monitoring political commitment to the implementation of the plans of action of various regional and global conferences; and adopting of effective science and technology policies and strategies for addressing the nexus issues as well as increasing awareness and commitment of member States in applying science and technology to ensure food security and sustainable development.

During the period under review, the secretariat organised three ad hoc experts' group meetings, as follows: the linkages among Population-Agriculture-Environment in Africa (Addis October, 2000); science and technology for food security and sustainable development (Addis Ababa, October, 2000); and indigenous food technology in Africa (Addis Ababa, November 2001). The main objective of these meetings was to assess progress in the implementation of the work programme in these areas. Thus, the meeting provided an opportunity for experts to share experiences on ECA's work in these areas, and make policy recommendations for in improving food security and sustainable development in Africa.

Several recurrent and non-recurrent publications were also prepared during the period under review to enhance the secretariat's advocacy role. These included population, agriculture and environment interrelationship in Africa: Some key indicators; two compendiums on best practices in population-environment-agriculture in Africa; two compendiums of best practices in science and technology for food security and sustainable development; a handbook on the Population-Environment-Development-Agriculture (PEDA) model; a study on the state of the environment in Africa; a study on the state of demographic transition in Africa; population, environment and agriculture inter-linkages and sustainable development; linkages between research and agro-industries in Africa; indigenous food technology: Application and potential for upgrading

The secretariat strengthened its collaboration with other UN agencies as well as other African regional organizations for the implementation of its work programme in this area. Key collaborating partners during the period under review included the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UN-Population Division and Global POPIN, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), World Bank Institute (WBI), the Organization of African Unity (OAU), African Development Bank (ADB), International Food Research Institute (IFRI), the World Bank, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), as well as some African universities/research institutions and ECA's sub-regional development centres (SRDCs). Collaboration took the form of joint meetings or undertaking joint research on issues relating to the nexus of food security, population and environment. In this context, the ECA secretariat worked closely with IIASA in developing the PEDA model; preparing users and technical manuals as well as advocacy booklets; and organizing a regional training workshop for Eastern Africa, in collaboration with SRDC-EA; and with UNFPA, UN Population Division, Institute de formation et de recherch� d�mographique (IFORD), Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS), African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), Central d'etudeset de recherch� sur la population pour le d�veloppement (CERPOD) in reviewing and appraising the DND and ICPD-PA, population estimates and projections, and activities relating to female reproductive health; and with OAU and ADB, in undertaking joint regional follow-up to the recommendations of the DND/ ICPD including jointly organizing the fourth General Assembly of the African Population Commission, and contributing actively to the preparation of ADB's guidelines on population policy; and with UNEP, on the African preparatory process for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development(Rio+10) to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2002.

During the period under review, the secretariat responded to several request from member States and their intergovernmental organizations for technical advisory services in various areas relating to the nexus, and in particular, on the use of science and technology to achieve food security and sustainable development. In this context, technical support was provided to the African Regional Centre for Technology (ARCT) which is an ECA-sponsored institution; two subregional training workshops on the use of the PEDA model were held in Kigali Rwanda in December 2000; to the Addis Ababa City Government in the preparation of a major study on internal migration and urbanization in Ethiopia with particular focus on Addis Ababa; and to the Tigray Regional State Government of Ethiopia, in preparing a report on the planning and management of urban infrastructure. Other operational activities undertaken by the secretariat included preparations for the World Environmental Day celebrations in Ethiopia.

During the period under review, the ECA secretariat organized or participated in several meetings aimed at preparing African countries for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). These included a high-level stakeholders' meeting on sustainable development (January 2000, Addis Ababa), which considered a regional agenda and established the preparatory process for the review of progress in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda (November 2000, Addis Ababa). The meeting also adopted the Addis Ababa Declaration on Human Settlements in the New Millennium, which contained commitments on shelter policy, social development goals, environmental management, economic development and good governance. In addition, two meetings of the expanded Joint Secretariat for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) were held. The first one was held in Abidjan, C�te d'Ivoire in June 2000 and the second in Dakar, Senegal in March 2001; a consultative meeting the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the Division for Sustainable Development, the Regional Commissions and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in New York in June 2000. The meetings discussed the regional institutional frameworks for the preparations; work plan; communications and awareness raising at all levels; components of the review process; identification of priority concerns; respective roles of various institutions and regional meetings.

The secretariat also participated in the following meetings: first session of the Preparatory Committee for the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on the Habitat II + 5 (Nairobi, May 2000); eighth session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (Abuja, Nigeria, April 2000); the fifth session of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (UNSTD) which renewed opportunities and challenges offered by new technologies for improving food security and sustainable development (Geneva, May 2001).

A global consensus is emerging on the linkage between peace and development. In this connection, good governance has become a fundamental prerequisite for poverty reduction and sustainable development. A system of good governance is also required for the state to discharge its legitimate functions, for civil society to flourish, and for the private sector to function properly. Thus, the challenge before Development Management Division (DMD) during the period under review was to promote good governance by ensuring that Africa's social and economic priorities are based on common societal needs, and that broad-based stakeholder participation is encouraged in the development process in Africa. In view of the enormous challenges to be met in strengthening good governance, the activities of the ECA secretariat in the area of good governance can be grouped into three major themes, namely public sector management; private sector development; and encouraging civil society participation in governance. The activities undertaken in support of the three thematic areas included research, workshops and meetings to facilitate exchange of experience, studies and publications aimed at fostering public-private partnerships, and creating an enabling environment for private sector-led growth and development.

Activities in support of public sector management were undertaken as part of the work-in-progress on a major flagship publication to be entitled, State of African Governance Report. Work continued on the preparation this flagship publication during the period under review. The report is aimed at developing codes indicators for monitoring progress towards good governance in Africa. It will also serve as a tool for promoting dialogue and building consensus on the issue of good governance in Africa. The codes and indicators to be developed will focus on three dimensions of governance, namely political representation; institutional effectiveness; and economic management.

Several activities have been undertaken during the period under review towards the development of the codes and indicators. These included an ad hoc expert group meeting on prototype codes and indicators to monitor efficiency in administrative governance in Africa which was held in Addis Ababa in March 2000; a subregional workshop on the development of codes and indicators to monitor administrative governance, also held in Addis Ababa in April 2001 to fine-tune the research instruments and methodology for the State of African Governance report. Other activities undertaken in this context included the preparation and dissemination of a number of recurrent and non-recurrent publications. The last edition of the Development Management newsletter published as a recurrent publication focused on issues of good governance, globalization and the developmental implications of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. The non-recurrent publications prepared during the period under review included a technical publication on prototype codes and indicators of monitoring efficiency in administrative governance in Africa; and a technical publication on strengthening the effectiveness of financial resources management by regional and local government. The first publication was a research instrument, which was designed to obtain information from a cross-section of the population in several countries where the instruments were administered.

The activities undertaken in support of private sector development were aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of African economies and enable them take advantage of the benefits offered by globalization. To achieve these objectives, the ECA secretariat organized several ad hoc experts group meetings and prepared a number of studies to facilitate information sharing on strategies and approaches for promoting private sector development in Africa. The emphasis of these activities was on enhancing the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through the promotion of policies and programmes that allow wider access to finance, technology and manpower by SMEs.

ECA also organized the first meeting of its Committee on Industry and Private Sector Development (CIPSD). The meeting, which was held on the sidelines of the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of African Ministers of Industry (CAMI-15) in Yaound�, Cameroon in October 2001, examined strategies and policies for enhancing the competitiveness of Africa's private sector, as well as reviewed progress in Africa's industrialization process. The recommendations of the Committee formed the basis of discussions at CAMI-15, which was jointly organized by UNIDO, ECA, OAU and the Government of Cameroon. The secretariat organized or participated in other meetings in support of private sector development. These included an international conference on the role of business schools in business and development in Africa held in Addis Ababa in November 2001; and the Asia-Africa Association Summit, jointly organized by the ECA secretariat, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency of the World Bank (MIGA-World Bank), and the Special Unit for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC) of UNDP in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in November 2000. The Summit discussed a range of issues including enhancing the advocacy role of the private sector at national, regional and global levels; financing Asia-Africa business ventures; use of ICTs in identifying business opportunities; and institutionalization of networking among Asia-Africa business.

Several reports and analytical studies were also prepared and disseminated during the period under review, which served as background papers for some of the meetings organized by the secretariat during the period. These included a report dealing with emerging issues in private sector development which was, submitted to the first meeting of the CIPSD; two studies on enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs in Africa through an improvement of support services; needs assessment for the development of private sector enterprises in selected post-conflict countries in order to determine the appropriate type of support needed; needs assessment for capital markets development in several countries; and studies on best practices in fostering public-private partnerships for development.

Since its launch in 1997, Africa Centre for Civil Society (ACCS), located in the ECA secretariat, has been working to promote popular participation and strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Africa, by serving as a repository of relevant and timely information, both from within and outside Africa on issues related to civil society in development and governance; facilitate effective and programme-based linkages between African CSOs and the international development community

During the period under review, ACCS was actively engaged in activities aimed at strengthening the capacity of African CSOs for effective participation in governance and development. The activities included meetings, conferences, workshops and preparation of analytical studies. In this regard, the Centre organized the third meeting of its Steering Committee in Nairobi in May 2001 which adopted a partnership framework for ECA/CSOs relations, as well as the Centre's work programme for the 2002-2003 biennium; a conference on building partnership for peace and development in Africa, jointly organized with OAU in Addis Ababa in June 2001 which stressed the role of civil society organizations in the development process in Africa; and a workshop on the participation of civil society in the development and implementation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), organized in collaboration with the World Bank and ADB in Addis Ababa in July 2001. Other meetings and conferences in which ECA participated included the African regional preparatory conference for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related forms of intolerance (WCAR) held in Dakar, Senegal in January 2001 which adopted an African Common Position on the issues on the agenda of the WCAR.

ECA also participated in the WCAR, which was held in Durban, South Africa in November 2001. The conference, which was jointly organized by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Government of the Republic of South Africa, brought together participants from all regions of the world including government officials and representative of civil society groups to examine the issue of racism, racial discrimination and other related issues. The Conference adopted the Durban Declaration and plan of Action aimed at addressing the problems of racism and racial discrimination. In addition, the ECA secretariat participated in an experts' meeting, which adopted the draft OAU Convention on Combating Corruption in Africa, which was held in Addis Ababa in November 2001.

Several studies were prepared on issues relevant to the development of civil society during the period under review. These included a Baseline study for the establishment of indicators to assess and monitor African CSOs' participation in development programmes; ECA and CSOs: A framework for partnership Source Book of People's Organizations in Africa. The ECA secretariat also organized training workshops and seminars in four African countries - Cameroon, Egypt, Namibia and Senegal to facilitate dialogue and build consensus on the best approaches for broadening participation in governance and development.

The overall objective of the subprogramme on harnessing information for development is to strengthen national capacity for the utilisation of information and communication technologies, including strengthening capacity in the development and use of statistical, bibliographic, referral and spatial databases as decision support tools for socio-economic development. Within this broad objective, the specific goals for the 2000-2001biennium were:

To achieve these objectives, ECA's Division for Development Information and Statistical Development (DISD) undertook several policy-relevant and operational activities. In particular, the Division continued to play a key advocacy role for appropriate policies and strategies for the adoption of information and communications technologies in the region; build associated capacity in the area on ICT development; and build effective partnerships and regional networks to promote the development of ICTs.

In the area of information and communication technologies (ICT) for development, efforts were focused on raising awareness of member States on the need to embrace the new information society and use ICT to build competitiveness of their economies and enhance human development; providing assistance to member States in developing their national information and communication infrastructure and plans, as well as regional communication systems for information exchange within Africa and with the rest of the world. This was pursued through the provision of appropriate advisory services and studies on how to make information and communication technologies more accessible to various sections and sectors of an economy, including health, education and commerce with emphasis on capacity-building in the organization and management of information and knowledge on Africa's development.

In this regard, the ECA secretariat organised a review meeting in March 2000, as a follow-up to the first African Development Forum held in 1999(ADF '99) on "The Challenge to Africa of Globalisation and the Information Age", to develop follow-up action plans on issues that come out of ADF `999. During the same period, the annual meeting of the African Technical Advisory Committee of African Information Society Initiative and the meeting of the Partners for Information and Communication Technologies in Africa were also organised to discuss the strategies to accelerate Africa's development through increased use of ICTs. Both meetings review four background documents prepared by the secretariat, namely: Electronic Commerce in Africa; The African Learning network; Information and Communication Technology Policies and Strategies; and Information and Communication Technology for Health Sector.

In 2000, the SCAN-ICT pilot study was launched in six countries - Morocco, Senegal, Ethiopia, Uganda, Mozambique and Ghana. The study is aimed at building support for the progressive development of a comprehensive African programme for capacity building in the collection and management of key information, including indicators needed to support the growing investment in ICT in Africa. The Scan-ICT partnership is comprised of Acacia/IDRC-Canada (International Development Research Center), European Commission (DGVIII), Norwegian Agency for International Development (NORAD) and ECA.

As a result of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), an action framework adopted by the ECA Conference of Ministers in 1996, 22 member States have developed National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) plans and similar NICI development process is currently underway in 28 other member States, with 15 countries completing the process of developing comprehensive ICT plans and strategies. About 17 African countries now have telecentres, providing wider access to ICT tools, though their number per country vary widely, ranging from one in Ethiopia to about 9000 in Senegal.

During the period under review, the Information Technology Centre for Africa (ITCA), established at the ECA was actively involved in building skills and capacity for the information age. The Centre organized a series of workshops for journalists from the private and public media, as well as African ambassadors based in Addis Ababa. In collaboration with Cisco Systems and information Development it also organized a six-month training programme for women from different parts of Africa on computer networks management. Other key capacity building tasks carried out include: a workshop on the use of ICTs by Small and Medium Enterprises (Addis Ababa, September 2001), and the sub-regional NICI workshops for Southern Africa (Windhoek, Namibia, April 2001). Similar NICI workshops were organized for Eastern Africa (Addis Ababa, June 2001). In addition, ECA mounted exhibitions during ADF 2000 to emphasize the use of ICTs in various economic and social sectors, including in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Closer collaboration with key international development agencies was enhanced by participation in various events, such as the Global Knowledge II (GKII) Conference and Action Summit, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in March 2000; an international symposium on information technology for development held during the Summit of the Group of Eight industrial countries in Okinawa in Japan in July 2000; the ECOSOC meeting on information technology for development held in New-York, in July, 2000; Forum of African Telecommunication Regulators, South Africa (29 August - 1 September 2000); Forum on Telecommunication Regulation in Africa, Gaborone, Botswana, 25 - 27 October 2000; Third UNESCO Congress on Ethical, Legal and Societal Challenges of Cyberspace, 13-15 November 2000; ITU Development Symposium for Regulators, 20-22 November 2000. During the period under review, the ECA secretariat also participated in the GKP annual meeting, (March 2001); the meeting on Africa's contribution to the G-8 Dot Force and the high-level segment of ECOSOC which was devoted to the theme of ICTs development, 11-12 May; ECOSOC High Level Panel Discussion on "Bridging the Digital Divide", 2 May in New York.

Advisory services were also rendered to countries and regional economic bodies and various institutions, during the period under review, particularly in helping them develop their national information and communication policies and infrastructure.

In the area of statistical development, emphasis was placed on strengthening the statistical infrastructure and the capacity for the collection, processing, analysis and dissemination of data in Africa. The related activities included the harmonisation and co-ordination of programmes, methods, concepts and standards and the development and networking of national, sub-regional and regional information systems.

The awareness of member States was raised with respect to the utility of new technologies for database development and data dissemination for decision-making. Databases of Demographic Health Surveys (DHS) were developed for 29 countries based on surveys carried out. For instance, the improvement in the scope and quality of African statistics has resulted in the adoption of harmonized concepts and procedures for the collection of port statistics in the countries of the Ports Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa (PMAESA) region. Several member States also received assistance in the implementation of the 1993 System of National Accounts, which provides a framework for integrating a wide range of statistics.

ECA provided training to over 180 experts from national and sub-regional institutions on a wide range of statistical areas; and supported a national workshop in Mozambique on the implementation of the 1993 System of National Accounts held in December 2000. Similar assistance was also provided to Mauritius, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia to enable national experts from these countries learn from the Mozambique experience.

In the area of geographic information, activities undertaken were aimed at raising awareness of the importance of national geographic information systems in socio-economic planning and development; encouraging African Governments and institutions to invest in the production, maintenance and management of geo-spatial data, as well as in promoting the development of integrated data sets and data standards in order to make relevant information available to decision-makers and the public. In this context, assistance was provided to Member States in developing national geographic information infrastructures that respond effectively to the needs of the various development sectors, such as natural resources, environment, food security, land reform, transport and communication infrastructure, human settlements, health and education, energy and tourism.

ECA organized a workshop on the technical and institutional components of spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) in Addis Ababa in September 2001. The workshop was attended by more than 50 high level officials from the African public and private sectors and the academia. In addition technical to two important technical meetings, namely: international conference on spatial information for sustainable development held in Nairobi, in October 2001, with the joint collaboration of the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), HABITAT, UNEP and the Association of Surveyors of Kenya; and the AfricaGIS-2001 International Conference, also held in Nairobi in November 2001 on the theme, Enhancing Socioeconomic Development with Geo-Spatial Knowledge. A workshop on national spatial infrastructure was also organized in Nairobi, in November 2001.

A position paper entitled, the future orientation of geo-information activities in Africa, was released in November 2001. Based on the recommendations of the experts', which met in November 2000, the paper elucidates the framework for the acquisition, management and use of spatial data, modern concepts and trends of spatial data management, and their development in Africa. Another important paper, "The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in National Statistical Offices (NSOs) was published in the same period, with the aim of enabling NSOs review policies and actions for adopting modern analytical tools especially on account of the role of GIS in enhancing the quality of analysis and decision making. A booklet, Success Stories on GIS Applications, was also issued in December 2001 shows which shows the diversity of application areas of GIS in a number of African countries, as well as best practices for adoption.

Progress was registered in strategic areas of geo-information development work, as internal legislative bodies and external regional forums endorsed policies and strategies formulated by ECA on the future geoinformation in Africa. A number of countries have also taken steps aimed at developing spatial data infrastructures and geo-information policies, and virtually every national agency is converting analogue data files. There was also evidence of increased cross-fertilization of ideas among stakeholders, including national agencies, professional bodies, private sector and international organizations during the period under review.

In the area of library and technical information services, ECA implemented a fully integrated library information system to enable it become an integrated socioeconomic information and knowledge dissemination and exchange hub for the region. Based on international standards for information processing and exchange, ECA for effective international co-operation and exchange in socioeconomic information and knowledge. The associated database can be accessed on the Internet at this system will position http://ecalib.uneca.org.

As a follow-up to the development of the system the idea of an African Virtual Library and Information Network (AVLIN) was conceived. The concept document which outlines the mission, objectives and operational framework were discussed by an of experts group meting from the Africa region in September 2001, and based on the recommendations of the experts, ECA was mandated by the Committee on Development Information (CODI) to develop AVLIN as a platform for sharing development information and knowledge. The African Virtual Library and Information Network (AVLIN) will serve as a network of internet-based information and knowledge resources and services that form a web of virtual libraries and knowledge exchanges linking African libraries, information centres and specialized networks. Its main objective will be to help bridge the digital divide between Africa and the developed world by focusing on capacity building at national and regional institutional levels. It will also focus on regional cooperation especially on standardization and system development, and the facilitation of research and developmental activities in both infrastructure and development of digital and virtual libraries. The enthusiasm and unanimity with which AVLIN was launched indicated that African countries were becoming acutely aware of the need for co-operation and networking in the sharing of development and socio-economic information in the region.

The ECA Library intensified efforts to deliver on its mandate to provide library and technical information services to the secretariat and member states of the Commission through the acquisition, processing and dissemination of relevant print and electronic information resources. To this end, it participated in UN system-wide consortium on acquisition of electronic information resources and developed enhanced bibliographic information retrieval service. ECA also produced and distributed several socioeconomic information sources for use by the secretariat, researchers and policy-makers in member States during the period. These included: Africa index, ECA-in-Print, New Acquisitions, Index to African Official Publications and Journal Contents.

The subprogramme went through a major legislative review at the second meeting of the Committee on Development Information (CODI), a subsidiary organ of the Commission which was held in Addis Ababa in September 2001, on the theme, New directions in information and knowledge management for decision making.

The overall objective of the subprogramme during the biennium was to promote policies, methods and strategies geared towards the creation of an integrated economic space spanning the entire African continent, through a coordinated development of natural (mineral, energy and water) resources, expansion of transport infrastructure and facilitation of transport operations, as well as sectoral integration and policy harmonization within and across the sub-regions. More specifically, the activities carried out under the subprogramme was aimed at: assisting to improve transport services and to foster the physical integration of the continent in order to ease the movement of goods and people, and improve Africa's competitiveness through reduced transaction costs; providing assistance in the joint or coordinated development and management of transboundary water resources in Africa by, inter alia, strengthening transboundary river/lake organizations and facilitating policy dialogue among riparian countries; sustainable exploitation of mineral and energy resources to the development of Africa through inter-country cooperation and enhanced public-private sector collaboration; and facilitating the effective implementation of cooperation instruments, building capacities for policy analysis and implementation, and helping upgrade Africa's role in the world economy by ensuring that Africa's economic integration agenda conforms with key provisions of the WTO agreement.

The activities undertaken by the ECA secretariat in promoting the process of regional integration were primarily aimed at providing member States with technical assistance for implementing the Abuja Treaty, which established the African Economic Community (AEC). In this regard, the ECA secretariat organized and serviced a meeting of the Committee on Regional Cooperation and Integration which reviewed two studies on subregional trade liberalization, and provided guidance on the secretariat's work in the area of trade liberalization. The meeting underlined the pressing need to address the issue of loss of revenue resulting from the integration process, by putting in place efficient compensation mechanisms. It underscored the need to dismantle non-tariff barriers (NTBs) and rationalize the regional economic communities (RECs). Although the relationship between the African Union and the RECs has not been clearly spelled out in the Constitutive Act of the AU, it is imperative to clarify it at the outset. The meeting underscored the need to delineate the responsibilities of the AU and RECs on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity. Political will was considered crucial in achieving successful integration in Africa. An ad hoc experts group meeting was also organized during the period under review to assess the effectiveness of institutional mechanisms for macroeconomic policy convergence. The outcomes of this meeting and in particular the best practices distilled with respect to macroeconomic policy convergence will be used in a case study to be published in the course of the next biennium.

Four policy briefs were prepared by the secretariat during the period under review to support African trade negotiators under the new multilateral trade agreement. The briefs covered issues relating to market access; trade and labour standards; agriculture; trade-related investment measures (TRIMS) and their potential impact on African economies.

Several subregional groupings received assistance in the form of studies undertaken on various aspects of economic integration, such as the cost and benefit of integration: the establishment of self-financing mechanisms; and studies on a system of compensation and equalization for revenue losses suffered as a result of the integration process. Among the institutions which benefited from such assistance were the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS); Communaut� �conomique et mon�taire de l'Afrique Centrale (CEMAC); Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA); and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)

In addition, a study on harmonization of fiscal policies in the African context was published during this period, which focused on structural rigidities peculiar to African economies that make the harmonization process difficult; and a case study was initiated on the cost and benefit of integration within the context of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern African (COMESA).

During the period under review, ECA organized the third annual African Development Forum (ADF III) on the theme, Defining priorities for regional integration in Africa to help galvanize support for and renew the commitment of African's leaders to the process of regional cooperation and integration. Although the Forum itself was held in first quarter of 2002, the main working document considered by the Forum, the Annual Report on Integration in Africa was prepared during the period under review.

The first ARIA introduced during ADF III as a major ECA flagship publication, is aimed at providing a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the status of integration on the continent, and serving as a tool for policy-makers in monitoring progress in several areas of the integration process in Africa. For ARIA to have a credible measurement tool, ECA has constructed a number of quantitative and qualitative integration indicators (indices) in each of the integration sectors. The indices are intended to facilitate the comparison of outcomes and performance against common denominators. ECA has already started the preparatory work for the second ARIA which central theme is on institutional issues relating to regional integration with emphasis on the rationalization of Regional Economic Communities (RECs) towards building an effective African Union. In particular, the main issues to be addressed in ARIA II will revolve around: the goals and agendas of RECs; rationalizing and mainstreaming the issues on the agenda of the RECs in national plans, budgets and policies; building consensus; and clarifying the relationship of the RECs with the AU.

ECA continued to work closely with OAU to advance the implementation of the Abuja Treaty, particularly in the execution of the UNDP funded project on the promotion of Africa's economic integration. With the advent of the African Union (AU) and its attendant implications, the cooperation between OAU and ECA will need to be reviewed taking into account emerging needs and priorities.

The work of the ECA secretariat in the area of transport and communications was aimed at promoting the physical integration of the continent through the establishment of an efficient, safe, reliable and affordable transport and communications system. The secretariat of the ECA organized and contributed to several policy-relevant meetings and seminars, and also prepared a number of policy framework documents. These included an ad hoc experts' group meeting on private sector participation in infrastructure development held in Lusaka, Zambia in May 2000; a seminar on transport facilitation for Eastern Africa held in Mombassa, Kenya in November 2000 (in collaboration with PMAESA, COMESA, SATCC); the annual meeting of the Sub-Saharan African Transport Policy programme (SSATP) held in Washington D.C. in June 2000; an international symposium on transportation organized by the United States Department of Transportation in Washington D.C. in October 2000; the first and second meetings of the Monitoring Body of the Yamoussoukro Declaration held in Addis Ababa in November 2000 and Dakar, Senegal in January 2002 to develop a unified regional programme and action plan for the implementation of the Decision; and ministerial workshops on the implementation of air services liberalization policies in the West and Central Africa subregions as well as in the SADC and COMESA subregions. ECA also participated in the OAU Summit of Heads of State and Government in Lom�, Togo in July 2000, which endorsed the Yamoussoukro Decision on the liberalization of the air transport market in Africa and assigned ECA with the secretariat responsibility of the Monitoring Body.

The following policy documents dealing with issues in the area of transport and communications were published and disseminated by the secretariat during the period under review: Rural transport and empowerment of women: Policy guidelines on best practices; a study on the elements to measure the impact of gradual liberalization of traffic rights on the air transport industry within the COMESA region; and Current status of the Trans-East African Highway; Railways interconnection in Central Africa; Newsletters on best practices on transport issues; Impact of the air transport liberalization in West and Central Africa; and Impact of non-physical barriers on the integration and improvement of transport infrastructures and services.

The secretariat of ECA provided assistance to ECOWAS, CEMAC SADC and COMESA in the area of transport development, particularly on the implementation of the air transport liberalization programme. This assistance was aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Secretariats of these subregional intergovernmental organisations to monitor the implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision on the liberalization of the air transport market in Africa in their respective subregions.

ECA led the finalization and the presentation of the final evaluation of the UNTACDA II programme, which was reviewed by the IACC in October/November 2001. The final evaluation report of the second United Nations Transport and Communications Decade (UNTACDA II) was prepared by ECA secretariat focusing on the review of the implementation of both the sectoral and global objectives in order to determine the impact of the programme's implementation on transport and communications development in Africa. The evaluation exercise has been accomplished with OAU's cooperation. An African experts' meeting was held in March 2002 to prepare for the twelfth session of the Conference of African Ministers of Transport and Communications, which was also held in March 2002 in Addis Ababa.

The twelfth session of the Conference of African Ministers of Transport and Communications held in Addis Ababa in March 2002 reconsidered the evaluation report and adopted successor arrangement for the programme. The main objective of the new arrangement is to establish an efficient and integrated transport and communications system as a basis for the physical integration of Africa and facilitate national and international traffic.

Developing yesterday's African transportation into a future system for reducing poverty and meeting globalization challenges was the theme of the second symposium on transport in Africa which was held in conjunction with the meeting of the twelfth Conference of African Ministers of Transport and Communications in Addis Ababa in March 2002. This event provided an opportunity for the Ministers to exchange ideas and experiences with experts and representatives of multilateral and bilateral agencies. Five presentations were made at the symposium focusing on transport infrastructure and policy issues; transport costs in Africa and their impact; promoting public-private partnerships in developing and managing road infrastructure; and the role of the private sector in infrastructure development.

Advisory services were also been given to several member States in transport development, especially in the implementation of the liberalization of the air transport access in Africa. The ECA has also contributed to the preparation of the infrastructure component of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

In the area of minerals and energy development, the ECA secretariat organized and contributed to several meetings and conferences to strengthen regional cooperation for the development of the sector. These included an ad hoc expert's group meeting on the establishment of a subregional programme for the development of energy and mineral resources in Central Africa held in Douala, Cameroon in December 2000; the OAU/AEC African energy expert's meeting on the establishment of the African Energy Commission (AFREC) held in Cairo, Egypt in May 2000; and the special conference of African Ministers for Mining and Energy held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in December 2000 which made recommendations for the sustainable development of the mining sector in Africa.

In addition, five major studies were prepared by the secretariat to advance information and knowledge for effective and sustained development of the minerals and energy sector. These included Framework for enhanced government - private sector cooperation in the development of energy in Africa; Framework for enhanced government - private sector cooperation in the development of mineral resources in Africa; Framework for rural electrification with emphasis on new and renewable sources, including mini-hydropower stations; Mineral resources development and alleviation of poverty in Africa, which served as a background document for the special Conference of African Ministers of Energy and Mining held during the period. Two issues of the newsletter on energy and mining in Africa were also prepared during the period under review.

In the area of water resources development, the secretariat organized several meetings and participated in meetings organized by other bodies to share experiences on the best approaches in the development of the water sector. The meetings organized by the secretariat included the seventh annual meeting of the Inter-agency Group for Water in Africa (IGWA), held in Accra, Ghana in January 2000, the eighth annual meeting of IGWA held in Niamey, Niger in April 2001, and an ad hoc experts' meeting, jointly organized with the OAU and ADB in July 2000 to examine strategies for implementing the Africa Water Vision 2025. The secretariat also participated in various activities organized during the second world Water Forum held at The Hague, The Netherlands in March 2000. It organized an exhibition of ECA water sector activities, with posters, charts, maps and various publications, and contributed to organizing the Africa Day at the Forum, which featured activities of the Lake Chad Basin.

In addition, several studies were prepared by the secretariat and presented at various international fora. These included a comprehensive study/compendium of trans-boundary River/Lake Basin water development in Africa; a pre-feasibility study on various aspects of Inter-basin water transfer to replenish the water volume of the Lake Chad Basin; report on the implementation of major recommendations/decisions of all previous annual meetings of IGWA which was presented at the eighth meeting of the Group; and a status report on regional and subregional cooperation in water resources management in Africa.

Regional advisory services to member states, intergovernmental organizations and other stakeholders in the African water sector were provided on request. These included missions undertaken to participate in and contribute to the following meetings and conferences: Regional Conference on water sector reforms in Uganda; consultations on the formation of the African Water Task Force, and the synthesis of the World Water Development Report launched by the United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination sub-committee on water resources.

During the period under review, various activities in were accomplished in partnership with other organizations in the area of water resources development. In that regard, a comprehensive program proposal on the Institutional Strengthening of the Inter-Agency Group on Water in Africa for Implementing the African Water Vision was approved for funding by The Netherlands Ministry of Development Cooperation. Under the 3-year programme, the major outputs will be a bi-annual African Water Development Report, an African water information-clearing house and analytical studies on water sharing as an instrument of regional integration. In addition, the African Water Task Force was formed and plans\for the Water Dome Event at the World Summit on Sustainable Development were initiated.

Within the framework of inter-regional cooperation initiated among ECA, ESCWA and ECE by their Executive Secretaries, a proposal on the Utilization of Shared Groundwater Aquifers in the Mediterranean Region was developed under a joint technical assistance programme of the three Commissions. This proposal has been submitted to the European Union for funding.

The achievement of women's full participation and the empowerment of women remains one of the most important challenges facing Africa. There is, therefore, an urgent need to promote the consolidation and strengthening of institutional mechanisms of African countries for reducing gender inequalities in various spheres of development. ECA's work in this area is informed by this need.

The activities undertaken under this subprogramme during the period under review were aimed at enhancing the institutional and technical capacities of member States for designing and implementing gender-sensitive policies and programmes to enable women in Africa contribute to the development process. More specifically, the work under this subprogramme is aimed at providing member States with tools and information for improving their capacity for mainstreaming gender issues into national policies, programmes and structures in order to promote the socio-economic empowerment of women. The tools used included advocacy, policy dialogue and networking with ECA partners and clients. Thus, a major plank of the subprogramme was aimed at strengthening the capacity of member States in monitoring progress in the implementation of the action plans on the advancement of women adopted at both global and regional levels. Specific issues focused on by the subprogramme included the need to mainstream a gender perspective into national accounts and budgetary processes as well as promoting and advocating the inclusion of women's unpaid labour in national accounts. In pursuit of these objectives, ECA's African Centre for Women (ACW), which was, renamed African Centre for Gender and Development (ACGD) in February 2002 to reflect the linkage between gender issues and development, used various modalities and mechanisms. These included training workshops and seminars; ah hoc experts' group meetings; conferences; information dissemination; policy analytical and research activities.

The ECA secretariat undertook several policy-relevant works in the area of promoting gender equality. These included the development of a set of monitoring and evaluation tools for assessing the status on women in the member States. This assessment tool was validated by the Committee on Women and Development at its last session held in Addis Ababa in November 2001. During the same period, the secretariat commenced work on the preparation of a major annual publication to be known as the African Women's Report (AWR). The report, when it is launched, will bring the list of ECA's flagship publications to four.

The AWR will develop an African Gender Development Index AGDI) for measuring progress in achieving gender equality and serve as a source of strategic information on the status of women in Africa, including identifying best practices and new priorities for promoting the advancement of women in Africa. Other gender-related publications prepared during the period under review included a policy document on engendering budgetary policies and processes whose major aim was to stimulate policy discussions on the gender implications of national budgetary policies; women's unpaid labour and their vulnerability to poverty. The Secretariat also published a compendium of best practices covering four areas, namely engendering national budgets; land reform processes that advocate women's legal rights to land ownership; best practices on the promotion of women entrepreneurship in Africa; and best practices in promoting women's rights education in Africa in the context of the implementation of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education.

Two studies - one on the status of women in economic and social development; and another on gender and governance in Africa were prepared in 2000 in support of improving the status of women in selected areas. While the first study highlighted the lack of accurate and reliable gender disaggregated data on women in decision-making and economic governance, the second study addressed the issue of the inequality in political power-sharing between men and women, as well as among women.

In support of its information-dissemination and outreach, the secretariat undertook the following activities during the period under review: production and dissemination of a bilingual brochure on the mission, objectives and activities of ACGD; updating ACGD bilingual website; and database; establishment of a comprehensive network of public focal points at the national, sub-regional and regional levels, as a means of further consolidating ECA's information outreach and; collation of information for the production of a gender quarterly.

Technical assistance to member States in the period under review focused on two key areas, namely the promotion of women's human and legal rights; and the socio-economic empowerment of women.

The primary objective of the activities undertaken in the area of promoting the legal and human rights of women was to provide assistance to member States and non-governmental organisations to enhance the capacity of national machineries for ensuring compliance with global and regional human rights instruments related to women's rights. In this regard, advisory services were provided to the Government of Niger Republic in the implementation of its national plan of action for the promotion of the legal status of women. A workshop on improving women's access to legal and judicial services in sub-Saharan Africa was held in Lom�, Togo in November 2000; and another one focusing on mobilising civil society groups in support of the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights related to Women's Rights was held in Addis Ababa in June 2001. Both workshops were organised in collaboration with other agencies.

Assistance was also provided to several non-governmental organisations in strengthening their capacity to play an effective advocacy role for women's legal and human rights, particularly in providing legal services to women. A notable example of such assistance was the one provided to an NGO based in Tunisia, Alliance des femmes de carriers Juridiques de Tunisie.

In the area of socio-economic empowerment of women, technical assistance was rendered to several member States in strengthening their capacity for promoting women's empowerment by removing obstacles that limit their participation in the development process. Assistance in this regard was provided to the Government of Lesotho. The Government of Rwanda received support in designing a national gender policy as well as in drafting a gender policy framework; the Government of Mauritius, in the design of a micro-credit scheme for poor women and the Government of the Republic of South Africa, in the design of a comprehensive national capacity-building programme and in training for gender mainstreaming. The Uganda Police Force was given assistance in the development of a gender-training programme a training of trainers programme for gender analysis on the protection of women's human rights. Similarly training was provided to the professional staff of ECA's programme Divisions and subregional development centres on mainstreaming gender issues in their work. The training programme was aimed at strengthening their capacity to assist the member States in integrating gender concerns into their national development policies and programmes - a key objective of ECA's work in this area.

Other technical assistance activities undertaken in the period under review included the organisation of workshops on the development and application of indicators for monitoring the implementation of the African Plan of Action for accelerating the implementation of the global and regional platforms for action which was adopted at the sixth African regional conference on women in Addis Ababa in November 2000; a methodology workshop on mainstreaming gender concerns in governance which drew high-level participants from various parts of the world to examine policy issues relating to gender and governance; and a workshop on the development and strengthening of networking among African women entrepreneurs held on Lom�, Togo in June 2001.

During the period under review, the African Women Committee on Peace and Development (AWCPD), whose Secretariat is provided by ECA, collaborated with the African Leadership Forum, a regional NGO in organising the third Africa Women's Forum in Tunis, Tunisia to review various women's initiatives in conflict resolution and management, and develop a strategy for strengthening the role of women in peace-making and peace building. The AWCPD Secretariat also convened a consultative meeting on the unification of Africa in Tripoli, Libya in April 2001. In addition, the Secretariat prepared various reports and briefs on peace issues, and established databases on African women peace organisations and major conflicts in Africa.

Activities under this subprogramme were implemented by ECA's subregional development centres (SRDCs) located in each of the five subregions of the continent.

During the period under review, the SRDCs intensified efforts in providing technical support to and cooperating with the regional economic communities (RECs) and other intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) in their respective subregions; facilitating networking and exchange of information among Governments, civil society groups and the private sector; and strengthening ECA's outreach in each subregion. In addition, the Centres continued to participate in the activities of the United Nations Country Team in their respective subregions to implement operational activities. The next section of this report highlights the major activities and achievements of the SRDCs during the period under review.

Activities undertaken by the subregional development centres for Central Africa (SRDC-CA) during the period under review were aimed at providing effective technical support to the regional economic communities in order to promote cooperation among the countries of the subregion and ensure the achievement of the objectives of integration. Following a request made to it in 1998 by the Conference of the Economic Community for the Central African States (ECCAS) Heads of State, the Centre continued to support ECCAS in consolidating the process of regional integration. In this connection, the Centre elaborated and submitted a multisectoral project proposal for financing to UNDP. It also provided assistance to the Central African Mineral Resources Development Centre in its revitalization efforts.

The Centre organized and participated in several meetings, conferences, workshops, and seminars during the period under review, member sates in their capacity-building efforts. The areas covered included the role of the new information and communication technologies in development; the nexus issues of food security, population and the environment; capacity building for public sector management; and issues of gender and development.

The Centre was also engaged in activities of the United Nations coordination system in the subregion. It continued to serve as the lead agency in promoting regional integration and cooperation and Internet connectivity for United Nations agencies based in Yaounde. The Centre is also cooperating with MIGA in promoting investments through the establishment of institutional mechanisms to facilitate investment in the subregion. To this end, the Centre provided technical assistance to some member States in the establishment of national investment promotion agencies.

During the period under review, the work of the Kigali-based Subregional Development Centre for Eastern Africa (SRDC-EA) focused on supporting the efforts of its member States in promoting economic cooperation and integration through harmonization of monetary, fiscal, trade and investment policies, promoting private sector development, promoting the development of physical and social infrastructure, providing assistance in gender mainstreaming into the programmes and policies of member States, and providing capacity-building support to the regional economic communities and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) to enable them function effectively.

In terms of economic policy analysis, the Centre carried out surveys of the economic and social conditions in countries of the subregion and survey reports were prepared and submitted to its legislative organ, the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE). The report focused on developments in the subregion and provided an assessment of current trends and short to medium-term outlook of the economies of the subregion, including an analysis of the factors that affected their performance, taking into account developments in the global economic environment. The Survey has become one of the most important sources of information on macroeconomic and social trends in the subregion, and is widely read by policy makers and other development practitioners. In addition to providing an assessment of the socio-economic situation in the subregion, the Survey also helps to disseminate socio-economic data and best practices in policy formulation as widely as possible.

In the area of food security and development, the Centre prepared country case studies on the integration of the nexus issues of population, agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability into national development planning; and strengthened its advocacy for the adoption of the PEDA model which demonstrates the interactions among the nexus issues.

In the area of transport and communications, the Centre recorded a major achievement. It contributed to providing technical assistance to Rwanda in the development of a pilot National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) plan which has resulted in the adoption of a new approach in development planning. The Centre also provided assistance to the Secretariats of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Northern Corridor Transit Transport Coordination Authority (NC-TTA) in rationalizing and streamlining transport facilitation procedures along corridors in the subregion.

In the area of strengthening economic cooperation and integration among the countries of the subregion, member States and their IGOs received assistance in the harmonization of trade, monetary, fiscal and investment policies in the subregion. Assistance was also provided in strengthening subregional cooperation on the management of national resources; and in adopting a subregional approach in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS, and other diseases. In addition, the Centre contributed to the development of a post-conflict peace-building and reconstruction programme for the Great Lakes region, an initiative led by the World Bank with the support of other development partners aimed at addressing the subregional dimensions of post-conflict reconstruction and development.

These activities have contributed to raising awareness of the development constraints faced by the countries of the subregion, particularly in meeting the Millennium Development Goals and in mobilizing resources for their development. The activities also underscored the urgent need to adopt policies and programmes that promote human-centred development and accelerate economic integration in the subregion as a step towards closer integration into the global economy.

During the period under review, the centre strengthened its collaboration with other United Nations agencies working in the subregion through joint activities within the framework of the Common Country Assessment for the countries of the subregion.

The Subregional Development Centre for North Africa based in Tangiers, Morocco made considerable effort in widening the scope of its activities and services to promote subregional cooperation, integration and socio-economic development of countries in the North Africa subregion. Accordingly, the Centre carried out range of activities within and outside the region. The Centre convened the sixteenth and seventeenth meetings of its International Committee of Experts (ICE) during the period under review. In addition to reviewing the work programme for the preceding biennium and setting priorities for the next biennium, the sixteenth meeting reviewed the following studies and reports: Report on the economic and social conditions in North Africa, Irrigation and Water Management in North Africa, Long-term Perspective Studies, and North Africa Development Bulletin. Other important activities undertaken by the Centre during the period under review included an investment forum, which brought together private sector operators, foreign investors, policy makers and representatives of NGOs to discuss strategies for promoting investment in the region.

The seventeenth ICE meeting considered among other issues, a survey of the economic and social conditions in North Africa; the issue of women and poverty; and strengthening collaboration in support of the implementation of NEPAD in the subregion. The meeting recommended the establishment of a subregional organization to deal with environmental issues in the subregion.

As an arid area, the North Africa subregion is particularly prone to land degradation and deforestation - trends that are intensified by rapid population growth. Consequently, the subregion faces the challenges of food security and a fragile vegetation cover. A considerable part of the work of the Centre is, therefore, aimed at sensitizing policy makers on these issues, and to make recommendations based on best practices.

The Centre strengthened its collaboration with other Untied Nations agencies as well as other organizations in the subregion during the period under review through its participation in the various inter-agency meetings organized periodically by the Untied Nations Resident Coordinator, and its contribution to the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) in various sectors. The Centre also participated in the meetings of the Governing Board of the African Centre for Applied Research and Training in Social Development (ACARTSD) and collaborated with the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) in organizing a workshop on the harmonization of fiscal policies in the UMA region. Following an agreement reached between the Secretariat of the Arab Maghreb Union and the ECA Secretariat in June 2000, a number of programme activities will be undertaken to strengthen collaboration in the areas of desertification and the environment, water resources management, promoting new information and communication technologies as well as gender issues.

During the period under review, the subregional development centre for Southern Africa (SRDC-SA) convened two meetings of its Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE). The sixth meeting of the ICE was held in Windhoek, Namibia in April 2000 while the seventh meeting was held in Lusaka, Zambia in April 2001. Both meetings brought together representatives from all the Governments of the subregion as well as representatives of the regional economic communities (RECs) in the subregion and other United Nations agencies. The meetings examined the following issues: the economic and social conditions in the southern Africa subregion, with particular emphasis on the socio-economic impact of crime in the subregion; population, gender and social issues emanating from various regional and global conferences; application of the Population-Environment-Development-Agriculture (PEDA) model in developing policy options to ensure food security and achieve environmentally sustainable development in the subregion; and formulation and implementation of National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) policies and plans in the subregion.

The Centre also organized three ad hoc experts' group meetings during the period under review, focusing on various issues. The first meeting which was held in Lusaka, Zambia in June 2000 focused on gender networking in the southern Africa subregion; the second meeting held in November 2000 examined issues relating to the establishment of a network of technical training institutions for mineral resources development in the subregion; and the third held in November 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia was on national mechanisms for coordinating regional cooperation and integration. In addition, a Roundtable meeting on enhancing partnership among the public sector, private sector, and civil society was jointly organized by the Centre and the United Nations Staff College alongside the seventh meeting of the ICE in Lusaka, Zambia in April 2001.

The Centre prepared and disseminated reports on several topical issues to facilitate information exchange during the period under review. These included the Report on food security and sustainable development in southern Africa, 2000; four issues of the Development Bulletin (a recurrent publication); review of the road safety situation in southern Africa; a study on the development of small-scale mining in southern Africa; gender networking to control HIV/AIDS in southern Africa; and report on the economic and social conditions in southern Africa, 1998-1999 and 1999-2000. The last report provided an overview of the economic and social conditions in the countries of the subregion in preceding years and an outlook for 2001. The report noted that the economies of the countries of the subregion grew at an average rate of 2.9 percent in 2000 as a result of consistent implementation of macroeconomic policy reform measures, a conducive investment climate particularly in the transport and communications sector, and favourable weather conditions.

The report, however, warned that this growth performance remains fragile and unsustainable in the long-term owing to the deep structural constraints and institutional weaknesses of most of the economies of the subregion, including armed conflict in some of the countries.

Consistent with its mandate, the Centre provided technical assistance to several RECs and IGOs in the subregion in such priority areas as gender mainstreaming, transport, mining, economic and social policy analysis. COMESA and SADC benefited from assistance in this regard. The SADC Secretariat received assistance in the preparation of its annual report on the economic and social conditions in southern Africa, for 2000, which focused on regional integration as a strategy for poverty reduction in the southern Africa region; and COMESA received assistance in the ongoing exercise for restructuring its Secretariat. The Centre also prepared a study on the development of small-scale mining in southern Africa at the request of SADC Ministers for Mining and Mineral Resources Development.

Advisory services were also rendered to several Governments in the subregion in the development and implementation of national ICTs policies and programmes; and in the formulation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). Beneficiaries of such assistance included the Governments of Zambia, Mozambique and Swaziland.

During the period under review, the Centre remained actively involved in various activities undertaken by the UN Country Team (UNCT) in the subregion, especially in the UNCT for Zambia. It made significant contributions to the preparation of the Common Country Assessment/United Nations Development Assistance framework (CCA/UNDAF) for Zambia, and also supervised the implementation of the ECA pilot project on the development of the informal sector in Zambia.

During the period under review, the subregional development centre for West Africa (SRDC-WA) based in Niamey, Niger carried out several programme activities to address the development challenges facing the countries of the subregion. These activities were often carried out in collaboration with other UN agencies as well as regional economic communities (RECs). Two meetings of the Centre's Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) were organized during the period under review. These meetings provided an opportunity for policy makers to engage in dialogue on the economic and social situation in the subregion. The meetings considered and discussed a number of sectoral and thematic reports prepared by the Centre, such covering issues as food security and sustainable development; gender and development; transport and communications infrastructure; information technology; and integrated lake and river basin management. In addition, the Centre, in collaboration with ECOWAS, ADB and CILSS prepared two reports which reviewed the economic and social conditions in the subregion with particular emphasis on macroeconomic policy performance. The reports also examined the major obstacles to the achievement of development objectives and targets. The report on food security in West Africa focused on the Centre's project on Xanthan Gum technology. The objective of the project was to explore, at laboratory level, the development of a technological process for the production of a specific formula of Xanthan gum that can be used as gluten substitute in bread-making with tropical flours that lack gluten.

The objective of the report on progress in establishing a West African website for sustainable development was to increase awareness of the increasing importance of the internet and the use of information technology in promoting information exchange as well as in conducting research on various aspects of sustainable development.

The report on physical integration in West Africa placed emphasis on: (i) the role of efficient interstate transport and communications links in the economic cooperation and integration process in West Africa; (ii) the state of development of these facilities, including the missing links; and (iii) programmes that are in the pipeline for removing bottlenecks both at physical and institutional levels.

A report on debt management and poverty alleviation in West Africa, and a report on Nigeria's national policy on sub-regional integration were also reviewed. The first demonstrated that the debt burden was unsustainable for most countries. The second report highlighted the preoccupations of the Government of Niger in its quest for a national policy on sub-regional integration. The merits of regional integration and the advantages and disadvantages of customs unions were examined.

The Centre organized four ad hoc experts group meeting during the period under review. These included a meeting to review guidelines for enhancing information exchange and networking on the West African website; a meeting on the informal sector and development in West Africa which also examined guidelines for establishing partnerships among the informal, formal, and public sectors; a meeting aimed at enhancing networking and information exchange on gender mainstreaming; and a meeting on capacity-building for trade analysis and programme development in support of regional integration which focused on the impact of the Uruguay Round Agreements on food security policy in the West African subregion. In addition, the Centre organized two seminars during the period under review. The first one focused on physical integration in the subregion, and specifically on the subregional infrastructural project, ECOAIR; while the second one which was jointly organized with FAO, WHO and ECA's Division for Sustainable Development reviewed strategies and policies for the development and management of integrated water resources in West Africa.

Several recurrent and non-recurrent publications were also prepared and disseminated during the period. These included, four issues of the Development Bulletin. The first two issues of the bulletin focused on monetary integration in ECOWAS, the third on the nexus of population, food security and environment, and the fourth issue the Centre's covered programme implementation in the biennium 2000-2001. The objective of the Bulletins is to serve as a source of information for policy-makers and facilitate consensus-building on regional cooperation and integration. It is prepared by staff members in close partnership with researchers in universities and other sub-regional institutions and IGOs. The two non-recurrent publications produced focused respectively on the biological and socio-economic attributes and community characteristics of child survival in West African countries and food security and sustainable development with special reference to women and vulnerable groups in post-conflict countries in West Africa.

Collaboration with other UN system agencies as well as subregional economic entities was strengthened through joint activities in support of priority issues of common concern to countries of the subregion. In this context, the Centre remained actively involved in activities organized within the context of the UN Resident Coordinator system, particularly as they relate to the elaboration and implementation of the Common Country Assessment and UN Development Assistance Framework (CCA/UNDAF) for Niger. The Centre was designated the lead agency for the UN System's thematic groups on gender and on sustainable development in Niger. The Centre also participated in the meeting of the Africa Regional Committee of WHO, which was held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in September 2000, which resulted in an agreement with WHO-Africa Regional Office on undertaking a joint research study on the impact of HIV/AIDS on the economies of selected countries in the West Africa Subregion.

Collaboration with ECOWAS in particular, was strengthened during the period under review. The Secretariat of ECOWAS received assistance in capacity-building on issues of gender and Women-in-Development involving the preparation of three reports; and in the implementation of the monetary integration programme which was aimed at establishing a second monetary zone in the ECOWAS subregion. The preparation of the Centre's annual report on the economic and social conditions in West Africa also provided an opportunity for enhancing collaboration with ECOWAS and other intergovernmental organisations in the subregion.

Similarly, technical assistance was rendered to several countries and IGOs on various issues. The West African Health Organisation (WAHO), a specialised agency of ECOWAS received support in the establishment of effective administrative and financial management systems and procedures, establishment of an effective information management system, preparation of a medium-term strategic plan, and in the planning and organisation of a donors conference; and the Government of Niger was offered assistance, in the preparation of its position paper for ECA's second ADF held in December 2000 focusing on HIV/AIDS.

The Centre also participated in the meeting of the Conference of Ministers of the Niger Basin Authority held in Cotonou, Benin Republic in September 2000; and contributed to the review of the progress report on the implementation of the Authority's three-year action plan (2000-2002), which was prepared in collaboration with the Centre.

Efforts towards developing a Programme on post-conflict reconstruction in the Mano River Basin countries were intensified during the period under review. The programme is aimed at encouraging and supporting the Governments of the Mano River Basin countries to undertake joint sub-regional projects aimed at consolidating peace and preventing future conflicts. Among the activities undertaken during the reporting period was the preparation of project proposals on three themes, namely, revitalisation of the Mano River Union Secretariat; capacity-building for economic management, and fostering networking among Governments, civil society organisations and the media. The experience of the Centre with the Mano River Union peace-building programme was the subject of a presentation at a meeting convened by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA, Soros Foundation) in May 2001.

1. United Nations - New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s. (UNDAF)

The objective of this programme is to ensure the implementation of the action programmes and other major international initiatives adopted in the 1990s in support of the socio-economic development of Africa. This objective is pursued by promoting partnerships for achieving positive country, regional and international responses.

Within the context of the role entrusted to it to monitor the implementation of UN-NADAF, ECA undertook a number of activities in support of the continent's economic recovery. These activities can be classified into four broad areas, namely those aimed at providing support to member States for economic policy-making and management; those aimed at strengthening the democratisation process in Africa; those aimed at promoting gender equality; and those aimed at strengthening the regional integration process in Africa.

In support of improved economic management, the ECA Secretariat organized a number of intergovernmental and experts' group meetings and provided technical assistance to some member States. These included a regional conference on Brain Drain and Capacity-building in Africa which was organized in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada in February 2000; an experts' group meeting on the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the education sector in Africa (jointly with UNDP Uganda and the National Aids Commission of Uganda) in September 2000; an experts group meeting on the development implications of civil conflicts in Africa in April 2000; and an experts group meeting in Sub-Saharan francophone African countries in May 2000. Several useful recommendations were made the Conference were aimed at reversing the brain drain and retaining critical capacities for Africa's development. Among the recommendations were the need to establish a database on brain drain and capacity-building in Africa; create centres of excellence; and build effective partnerships with African experts in the Diaspora for the benefit of the continent.

In support of promoting the advancement of women within the context of the implementation of UN-NADAF, the ECA Secretariat prepared a paper, Women's Human Rights Education in Africa: Western Africa subregional outlook and best practices which was presented at an ad hoc experts group meeting held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in December 2001.

In support of the regional integration process in Africa, the ECA Secretariat prepared an analytical study entitled, Assessment of the Regional Cooperation/Integration Instruments under the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and the Union Economique et Mon�taire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA). The study was aimed at rationalizing and strengthening the institutional framework for regional integration with emphasis on trade and investments issues.

Effective partnerships remained an important modality for achieving the objectives of this programme. In this regard, ECA developed and strengthened its cooperation with other UN agencies, RECs and development institutions for maximum impact. Notable examples of collaborative activities undertaken with other bodies included a high-level seminar on trade in Central Africa (in collaboration with UNCTAD, WTO and ITC); the articulation of a revitalisation programme for the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) General Secretariat (jointly with UNDP); cooperation with other UN agencies within the context of the UN Country Team for Ethiopia in the preparation of the UNADAF; joint technical assistance support for a project document on educational planning and economic development in Africa jointly undertaken with UNESCO; International Institute for Capacity-building in Africa (IICBA). The secretariat of the ECA also provided technical advisory support to UNESCO on gender and educational issues particularly as they relate to the establishment of the International Centre for Girls and Women's Education in Africa.

Despite the impediments encountered in the implementation of the UN-NADAF - inability to mobilize resources, lack of African ownership of the programme, and a proliferation of competing initiatives on Africa, the programme made modest contributions to Africa's developments and there is consensus that its objectives are still relevant today as they were a decade ago.

ECA has a mandate to assist its member States and their institutions in developing capacity to design and implement development policies and programmes through technical cooperation activities. Technical cooperation activities take the form of on-demand regional advisory services to member States and their intergovernmental organisations; training workshops, seminars and fellowships; institution-building and field projects. ECA's multidisciplinary team of regional advisers, deployed in the various substantive divisions undertake advisory missions and provide technical assistance to member States in addressing clearly defined policy and technical challenges in areas where the countries lack socialised expertise. There is a strong focus on the needs of countries emerging from conflict. ECA also pursues stronger cooperation and collaboration with global, regional and sub-regional and national partners involved with development activities in the region.

Thus, during the period under review, ECA responded to several requests for technical assistance in all the areas covered under its regular work programme, namely, economic and social policy analyses; promoting trade and investment, food security and sustainable development; promoting good governance and conflict prevention; information technology; enhancing regional cooperation and integration; and promoting gender equality.

Advisory services in the area of harnessing information for development were provided to member States within the framework of the implementation of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), which was endorsed by the ECA Conference of Ministers in 1996 as an action framework to leapfrog Africa into the information age. As a first step towards building an African information society for sustainable development, member states need to put in place the necessary, policy, legislatives and regulatory frameworks at national level. In this context, ECA, in cooperation with its partners provided technical assistance for capacity-building to its member States in the design and implementation of national information policies and programmes for infrastructure development. Thus, during the period under review, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe received assistance in developing their national information and communications infrastructure (NICI) plans which articulated long-term policy, infrastructure, content and application strategies as an integral part of their overall national development programmes.

Technical assistance in this area was also aimed at assisting member States translate the recommendations of the first African Development forum (ADFI) held in December 1999 on the theme, The Challenge of Globalisation and the Information Age. Some of the key recommendations that emerged from ADFI, on which ECA is providing assistance included the promotion of ICT applications to support education processes and meet the needs of Africa's youth; ICT applications in support of the delivery of healthcare; building the capacities of small and medium enterprises to benefit from ICTs and electronic commerce; and creating an enabling policy and regulatory environment at national and regional levels.

Assistance was also provided in the form of workshops at the subregional and regional levels which provided a forum for policy makers and other stakeholders from the member States to share experiences on national ICT strategies and develop networks among key actors to promote regional and subregional cooperation in the field of ICT. In this context, ECA secretariat organised two subregional workshops during the period under review -one for the southern Africa subregion and another for the Eastern Africa subregion; a workshop on national and sectoral ICTs strategies for Commonwealth countries in Africa; an experts' group meeting on electronic commerce (e-commerce) strategies for countries of the COMESA region; and a workshop on the application of ICTs to solve the problems of rural communities in Africa. In addition, the ECA Secretariat strengthened its advocacy for Africa on issues related to ICTs development through participation in various international events and support in the development of a coherent African position on major global issues in the area of ICT. It also provided useful inputs to the work of the Digital Opportunity Task Force, which was established by the Group of Eight industrialised countries to assist Africa in its efforts at achieving digital inclusion.

The ECA secretariat also organised several training programmes on networking technology for network developers from the member States, including a six-month residential course on networking technology held in Addis Ababa to train 27 women from 17 member States.

In the area of statistical development, technical assistance was geared towards helping member States develop capacities in the organisation and management of statistical systems. Specific activities undertaken in this regard included providing support in the form of organising workshops and providing resource persons for the workshops and seminars organised by others. Such assistance was provided on the workshop on quality and statistics for member States of the African Institute of Statistics (AFRISTAT) held in Bamako, Mali; a seminar on statistics organised by the Congolese National Statistical Office in Brazzaville, Congo; a Round Table on new trends in agricultural census organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Abidjan, C�te d'Ivoire; a workshop organised by ECA for students of the Ecole National d'Economie Appliqu� in Dakar, Senegal in February 2001; and a lecture on statistics and quality management delivered at the United Nations Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP) in Dakar, Senegal in June 2001. The Government of Rwanda received assistance in the elaboration of a strategic plan for the development of its national statistical system. Other capacity-building activities undertaken in the area of statistical development involved building capacity of member States and their institutions in undertaking analysis and research work for household surveys.

As part of its advocacy role in enhancing Africa's capacity for statistical development, the ECA secretariat participated in various meetings and contributed to various initiatives on statistical capacity-building, particularly as they relate to Africa's development. In this connection, ECA participated in the Consortium PARIS-21 meetings held at different times in New York and Paris, France; the thirty-first session of the United Nations Statistical Commission held in New York; the PARIS-21 regional seminar for East Africa and countries of the Horn of Africa on supporting policy through statistics held in Kampala, Uganda in July 2001; the workshop on food and agricultural statistics held in Pretoria, South Africa in November 2001; the seventeenth session of the African Commission on Agricultural Statistics held in Pretoria, South Africa in November 2001.

In the area of food security and sustainable development, technical assistance focused on providing advisory and other technical support to Governments and their intergovernmental organisations in the formulation of policies and programmes related to the nexus issues, linking poverty, food security, population growth and the environment; and providing training aimed at developing and building capacity of policy-makers for addressing nexus-related issues. In this regard, advisory services were provided to several member States on policies for leveraging the linkage between production support services and increased agricultural productivity, as well as in the assessment of the performance of smallholder agricultural units. Other areas covered by the advisory service included strengthening rural-urban linkages in Africa and policy requirements for increasing agricultural yields. In addition, training was provided to various ladies of officials from several member States on the development of methodologies and guidelines for formulating policies for achieving food security and sustainable development; conflict minimising strategies in natural resource management; and analysis of environmental investments in Africa.

ECA also served as a member of the Inter-agency Task Force established by the United Nations Secretary-General to coordinate the preparation of a framework document on national as well as regional plans of action for a concerted UN system response to long-term food security agricultural development and other related issues in the Horn of Africa. Advisory services were provided to the State of Israel, the University of Pretoria, the University of Zimbabwe and the World Food Prize Foundation on various aspects of strengthening nexus interactions for long-term food security and sustainable development.

In the related area of environment, ECA's technical assistance was aimed at assisting member States realise national, subregional, regional and global goals of sustainable development. In this regard, member States and their intergovernmental bodies received assistance in preparing for major global conferences through the adoption of an African Common Position on major issues on the agenda of such global events. Specific activities undertaken included the expert consultations of the Committee on Forests and Woodlands (COFAW), an arm of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), in preparation for the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF), (Nairobi, January 2000); the fifth Conference of parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD-COP5), (Nairobi, May 2000); the fifth African Regional Conference in preparation for the fifth session of the Conference of the parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), (Maputo, Mozambique, August 2001); and expert review of the African chapter of the report by the second Working Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change in the Third Appraisal Report (TAR), in preparation for consideration and approval of the report by the panel at its seventeenth session (Nairobi, April 2001).

Assistance was also provided to the Interagency Committees of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in the development of a medium- term programme of work. Part of assistance in preparing African countries for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2002, a number of subregional bodies were also given technical assistance in monitoring progress on the implementation of Agenda 21 at the national and subregional levels. In addition, ECA provided resource persons for the workshop on environmental and natural resources accounting for countries of eastern and Southern African held in Pretoria, South Africa in June 2000; and a workshop on the interactions among population, environment and development, for senior policy staff of the Zambian Ministry of Finance and Economic Development held in Kabwe, Zambia in April 2000.

Technical assistance in the area of public sector management reform was geared towards the reform of public service institutions, strengthening of policy analytical and implementation capacities, and promoting the concepts and techniques of New Public Management (NPM) within the public service of African countries. To achieve these objectives, the ECA secretariat undertook several activities, including fielding advisory and training missions, workshops and seminars aimed at exposing national, sub-regional and regional institutions to best practices in public sector management and enhancing their capacity for responding to multiple technical and policy challenges. In addition, the secretariat strengthened its collaboration with other organisations within and outside the United Nations system by implementing joint activities in the areas of governance and public sector management reform.

During the period under review, ECA leveraged its comparative advantage in institution-building, to provide technical assistance to its member States, subregional and regional institutions in support of their efforts at restructuring and reorganising. Assistance in this regard was provided to the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD); the West African Health Organisation (WAHO); and the Mano River Union (MRU) secretariat. Assistance was also provided to the Conference of African Ministers of Public Service in organising their meetings, held in Windhoek, Namibia in February 2001. In addition, advisory services were rendered to the Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland, the Government of Bayelsa State in Nigeria, and the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria on various aspects of public sector management reform.

In addition to the advisory services provided, the ECA secretariat organised several training workshops or participated as resource person in similar workshops or seminars organised by the Government of member States or their institutions. For instance, the secretariat provided a resource person to participate in a training workshop organised for Director-level staff of the federal civil service of the Government of Nigeria held in Abuja, Nigeria in April 2000; the Conference of Directors of African civil services also held in Abuja, Nigeria in June 2000; and the sixth and seventh Africa training courses organised for middle-level civil servants by the United Nations Centre for Regional Development in Karen, Kenya in October 2000. ECA also participated and presented papers at the following meetings and workshops: the biennial conference of the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) held in Cape Town, South Africa during the period under review; an experts group meeting on managing diversity in the civil service organised by the Division of Public Administration and Public Economics of the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in New York in May 2001; and a regional workshop on capacity-building for election administration, jointly organised by the African Centre for Administrative Training and Research for Development (CAFRAD) and UN-DESA in September 2001.

During the period under review, the ECA secretariat intensified its cooperation with other United Nations agencies in providing assistance to African countries in the area of public sector management reform. In particular, ECA continued its collaboration with UN-DESA on a range of policy issues relating to governance and public administration. As a member of the Steering Committee of the public service ethics project, ECA participated in various meetings of the Committee and contributed to the preparation of the final report on the project, which was distributed at the third Pan-African Conference of Ministers of Public Service in Windhoek, Namibia in February 2001. ECA also cooperated with DESA in the establishment of DESA's On-line Network on Regional Institutions for Capacity-building in Public Administration and Finance (UN-PAN), and participated in all the activities aimed at realizing the objectives of the network. In addition, ECA collaborated with DESA and CAFRAD on the preparation of a draft public service charter. ECA prepared a paper on the modalities for implementing and monitoring the enforcement of the charter, which was presented to and adopted by the Conference of African Ministers for Public Service at its meeting in Windhoek, Namibia in February 2001. In this regard, the conference requested both DESA and ECA to assist CAFRAD in the establishment of a regional secretariat for the implementation and monitoring of the Charter.

In the area of promoting private sector and entrepreneurship development, ECA's technical assistance activities were geared towards enhancing the competitiveness of the African private sector, including enhancing the competitiveness of small and medium-scale (SMEs) enterprises to enable them take advantage of the opportunities offered by globalisation. Support in this regard involved the preparation and dissemination of technical studies on the establishment of a strategic framework for designing and providing support to SMEs to enhance their competitiveness; and training workshops aimed at building the capacity of member States in designing and implementing policies and programmes that are conducive to private sector growth and development.

During the period under review, the secretariat undertook study missions on enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs in three countries - Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa; and prepared a review of support services to SMEs in the three countries.

In the area of promoting the advancement of women, technical assistance focused on two main areas - promoting women's human and legal rights; and promoting the economic empowerment of women. In the area of promoting human and legal rights of women, assistance was aimed at enhancing awareness of various international, regional and national human rights instruments to facilitate compliance. In this regard, assistance was provided to the Government of Niger Republic in the implementation of its national plan of action on promoting the legal status of women. In the same vein, the secretariat organised several workshops on the issue of promoting the legal and human rights of women.

In the area of promoting the socio-economic empowerment of women, technical assistance was rendered to several member States to strengthen their capacity in promoting women's empowerment by removing obstacles that limit women's participation in the development process. Assistance in this regard was provided to the Government of Lesotho; the Government of Rwanda, in the design of a national gender policy as well as in drafting a gender policy framework; to the Government of Mauritius, in the design of a micro-credit scheme for poor women and to the Government of the Republic of South Africa, in the design of a comprehensive national capacity-building programme and in training for gender mainstreaming. The Uganda Police Force was given assistance in the development of a gender-training programme and in the training of trainers for gender analysis. Similarly training was provided to the professional staff of ECA's programme Divisions and subregional development centres on mainstreaming gender issues in their work, with the aim of strengthening their capacity to assist the member States in integrating gender concerns into their national development policies and programmes - a key objective of ECA's work in this area.

Other technical assistance activities undertaken in the period under review included the organisation of workshops on the development and application of indicators for monitoring the implementation of the African plan of Action for accelerating the implementation of the global and regional platforms for action which was adopted at the sixth African regional conference on women in Addis Ababa in November 2000; a methodology workshop on mainstreaming gender concerns in governance which drew high-level participants from various parts of the world to examine policy issues related to gender and governance; and a workshop on the development and strengthening of networking among African women entrepreneurs held on Lome, Togo in June 2001.

During the period under review, technical assistance support was provided to member States and their intergovernmental organizations in addressing various challenges in their social and economic development; particularly in strengthening their capacity for the adoption of policies and strategies for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Assistance in this area took the form of advisory services; training workshops and seminars on dealing with defined issues of priority in the development of the member States. Thus, assistance focused on such issues as debt management; reform and modernization of customs procedures; trade facilitation; and financial and monetary integration at regional and sub-regional levels. Assistance in this regard was given to ECOWAS in the establishment of a second monetary zone in the region covering Anglophone member States; to SADC, in the preparation of the survey on economic and social conditions in the southern Africa subregion and the Secretariat of the Mano River Union (MRU), on the development of a capacity-building and training programme in macroeconomic policy analysis and economic management within the context of the United Nations system's support for the revitalization of the Manor Rive Union. ECA also provided technical assistance to the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis on the analysis of the revenue implications of establishing a common external tariff in the East African Community; and to the Botswana Stock Exchange, in undertaking a needs assessment for the establishment of an independent stock exchange. In addition, ECA organized a training course on macroeconomic policy analysis for middle-level policy staff drawn from the Ministries of Finance and Planning, and Central Banks of countries of the Eastern and Southern Africa regions in November 2000; and a training course on the harmonization of the macroeconomic convergence programme in West Africa in June 2002.

Within the context of preparing member States for global conferences and events, the ECA secretariat provided technical assistance to member States in preparing them for the third Untied Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC III) held in Brussels, Belgium in May 2001; and in sensitizing the African Group in New York on the implications for Africa's development, of the major issues on the agenda of the first International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) held in Monterrey, Mexico in March 2002.

The main thrust of ECA's technical assistance in the area of regional cooperation and integration is geared towards supporting the efforts of member States in institution-building to accelerate the integration process as provided for in the Abuja Treaty establishing the African Economic Community (AEC); building management capacities for infrastructure development and operations; implementing policy reforms in the area of transport and communications; promoting the development of the mining and energy sectors; and promoting cooperation in the development and utilization of trans-border water resources. These are further complemented by capacity-building activities aimed at assisting member States in designing and implementing polices and strategies that allow them to maximize the benefits from globalization while minimizing the inevitable costs. Assistance in this respect involved the preparation of analytical studies and training courses to assist policy makers and negotiators in understanding new and emerging issues in the multilateral trading system.

Other specific capacity-building activities undertaken during the period under review included support to member States in the development of a common transport policy and infrastructure development programme, including support in the implementation of the air transport liberalization programme. ECA also prepared the guidance documents for the execution of the water component of its technical assistance programme for Malawi, which was funded by UNDP. In addition, it collaborated with the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and the Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA) in the development of a project proposal on the utilization of shared groundwater aquifers in the Mediterranean region which has been submitted to the European Union (EU) for funding.

In the area of mining and energy resources development, the ECA secretariat provided support to member States in organizing and servicing meetings of several intergovernmental bodies in the area of mining and energy development. These included the meeting of the Bureau of African Ministers for Minerals and Energy Development held in Durban, South African in February 2000; and the meeting of the Conference of Ministers of Minerals and Energy held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in December 2000. ECA also prepared a study, Mineral Resources and Alleviation of poverty in Africa, which served as a background document for the Conference.

This chapter document contains summaries of the discussions, resolutions, decisions and recommendations of the subsidiary organs of the Commission, which have held meetings since the last session held in May 2001.

All these bodies meet in ordinary session on a biennial basis, i.e. once every two years.

The following subsidiary bodies held meetings since the last session of the Commission:

The discussions, resolutions, decisions and major recommendations adopted at the meetings of these subsidiary bodies are summarized as follows.

This meeting was held at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Africa, in Addis Ababa, from 4 to 7 September 2001. It was organized in plenaries and three Subcommittees: Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Statistics and Geo-information. Issues pertaining to libraries, information services and knowledge management were dealt with under the Subcommittee on ICT.

The Subcommittee considered the following issues: progress report on NICI implementation and evaluation of the impact of NICI in Africa; evaluation of the four initiatives of the ADF'99 (health, education, e-commerce and ICT policy and regulation); new trends in Library automation; and ECA activities in the area of information and communication technologies, information systems and libraries during the period 1999-2000. It was particularly recommended that the United Nations should take the ICT issues as a cross-cutting issue covering all sectors rather than being a sector on its own, and reflects this in the country programmes. Coordination is also required at the UN level to harmonize and strategize programmes and projects at country level. For this purpose, the UN ICT Task Force and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) programme needs to be strengthened.

The Subcommittee noted the issues raised which included: statistical system organization; user/producer relations; statistical activities; household surveys; data-dissemination practices; contribution of improved statistical capabilities to the preparation of poverty-reduction strategy papers; major activities and current plans; donor relations and contributions; and national priorities. The Subcommittee also discussed the follow-up to the assessment of the implementation of the Addis Ababa Plan of Action for Statistical Development in Africa (AAPA) in the 1990s. In this connection, the Subcommittee endorsed the establishment of new mechanisms and structures, namely: (i) a new plan of action or a framework or guiding principles for African statistical development in the next decade using the outcomes of the assessment of the AAPA, as well as, emerging data requirements; (ii) the establishment of an Africa Chapter of the PARIS 21 consortium; and (iii) of an Advisory Board on Statistics in Africa. With regard to the Advisory Board, there should be a clarification of the following aspects: its mandate; the role and responsibilities of national statistical institutions, subregional institutions like AFRISTAT and regional institutions and the objectives and follow-up and evaluation mechanisms of its recommendations. Member States should be closely associated with the establishment of the Board and with the formulation of the Terms of Reference and the framework for statistical development in Africa.

The subcommittee considered major policy issues. These included: the future orientation of geo-information activities in Africa; economics of geo-information; and economics of environmental information systems. The subcommittee made recommendations on: the proper funding for geo-information institutions; the urgent need for building a sustainable spatial data infrastructure; and national mapping agencies that should be allowed to compete with a private sector for value added products if fair competition is guaranteed.

2. Sixth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Subregional Development Centre for Eastern Africa

The sixth meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Subregional Development Centre for Eastern Africa, was held in Kigali, Rwanda from 23 to 26 October 2001.

The meeting addressed the following issues: socio-economic conditions in the East-African subregion; trade liberalization; activities of the subregional economic communities (CEPGL, IGAD and KBO); transport and communications including East-African transit corridors; operationalizing the African Information Society initiative (AISI) through the process of developing integrated ICT-led socio-economic development policies and plans; food security and sustainable development; capacity building in natural resources accounting management; small scale mining; geo-information; cooperation in the area of energy production and distribution; gender and development; regional cooperation for the control of pandemics (HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis); and post-conflict agenda (the Great Lakes Initiative).

3. First Meeting of the Committee on Industry and Private Sector Development

The first meeting of the Committee on Industry and Private Sector Development was jointly held with the meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Whole on Industrialization in Africa preparatory to the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of African Ministers of Industry (CAMI-15). The joint meeting was organized by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in cooperation with the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Government of Cameroon, and was held in Yaound�, Cameroon from 25 to 27 October 2001.

The joint meeting examined the following issues: emerging issues in the private sector development; enhancing the competitiveness of the SMEs in Africa; opportunities for and challenges of exploiting information and communication technologies and e-commerce in Africa; new strategies and mechanisms for industrial development in Africa; strengthening regional integration in Africa; and progress report on Alliance for Africa's Industrialization (AAI). The meeting particularly welcomed ECA's report on "Emerging Issues in Private Sector Development: Enhancing the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Africa". The Committee recommended that ECA should work in partnership with UNIDO to explore ways and means of promoting SME clusters in Africa. The Committee also urged ECA to continue to provide information and share experience related to the enhancement of competitiveness of SMEs in Africa. ECA was requested to carry out an in-depth study on factors limiting foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into Africa.

The fifteenth meeting of the Conference of African Ministers of Industry was held in Yaound�, Cameroon, from 29 to 30 October 2001. The meeting was jointly organized by UNIDO and ECA, in cooperation with the OAU and the Government of Cameroon.

The main objective of the meeting was, inter alia, to review progress made towards the industrialization of the African countries and to examine ways and means of harmonizing industrial policies and strategies in the region in order to achieve accelerated development during the new millennium. With regard to strategies and mechanisms for the industrial development of Africa, the Conference suggested that consideration be given to the establishment of an African Industrial Development Fund including Venture Capital Facilities in order to address the financing needs of African enterprises. The Conference considered and adopted the following three resolutions:

5. Second Meeting of the Committee on Natural Resources and Science and Technology

The Committee on Natural Resources and Science and Technology held its second meeting in Addis Ababa from 30 October to 1 November 2001. The theme of the meeting was "Enhancing Africa's Competitiveness: Policy issues in Natural Resources and Science and Technology". The meeting was jointly organized by two Divisions of ECA, namely: The Regional Cooperation and Integration Division (RCID) and the Sustainable Development Division (SDD).

The main objective of the meeting was to set out a course of action to enhance Africa's competitiveness and strengthen development efforts through the imaginative use of science and technology and its application in the utilization of Africa's natural resources. The Committee examined the following issues: New and emerging technologies and Africa's natural resources; and enhancing science and technology systems to promote Africa's natural resources. Also, group discussions were held to consider and prepare the conclusions and recommendations of the meeting. Two topics were discussed, namely: (i) Harnessing Africa's potential for science and technology and innovation; (ii) Capacity building in science and technology for competitiveness.

(a) The Committee noted that in certain sectors Africa possesses a comparative advantage in its natural resources capital. Such capital includes its biodiversity in flora and fauna, mineral energy, water resources and others. These resources could be used as a platform for developing clusters of competitive industries. The Committee recommended that;

(b) The Committee noted that competitiveness is knowledge driven and that human resources are central to knowledge creation. The Committee further noted that there were networks and institutions for knowledge creation and exchange that are under-utilized. In this regard, the Committee recommended, among other things, that;

(c) The Committee observed that the application of science and technology would be meaningful only if it leads to the alleviation of poverty in the region. The Committee further noted that there is potential to use national innovation systems to create appropriate technologies that can improve the productivity and commercial return on small scale operations. In this respect, the Committee recommended that:

(d) The Committee underscored the need for regional cooperation and integration approach to attracting foreign direct investment. The Committee recommended that:

(e) Finally, in the light of the mammoth scale of poverty on the continent, the Committee decided that the theme of the next meeting of the Committee should be "Taking Technology Work for the Poor in Africa" and asked the ECA secretariat to develop sectoral sub-themes and an agenda to that effect.

The Committee met at the Ministerial level on 8 November 2001 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Ministerial meeting was preceded by the experts of the Committee on Women and Development, which was held from 5 to 7 November 2001 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Ministerial meeting registered a high level of attendance. The meeting was also a rich mix of senior officials from the Ministries of Women Affairs, Finance and Economic Development, UN partner agencies, IGOs and NGOs.

The Ministerial Committee endorsed ECA's Monitoring and Evaluation Programme for the implementation of the Beijing and Dakar Platforms for Action. To facilitate the monitoring and evaluation process, the ECA's African Centre for Gender and Development (ACGD) has developed Monitoring and Evaluation tools for national gender policy frameworks and institutional mechanisms put in place. Of high priority will be the development of impact indicators that will be used as a Gender and Development Index to measure the impact of mainstreaming gender on the status of women and men. It is expected that these indicators will facilitate the preparation of evaluation reports for the Beijing + 10 regional and global meetings.

The Ministerial Committee noted with appreciation, ECA's active involvement in the development of Poverty Reduction Strategies Papers (PRSPs). The Committee considered the strategies for introducing gender concerns in PRSP. The Committee strongly felt that there was a need for PRSPs to address the differences in both the understanding of poverty and vulnerability and in prioritizing actions, set monitoring performance indicators and take cognizance of the gendered nature of poverty to ensure that poverty reduction strategies impact positively on men and women.

This meeting was held at the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Africa, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 26 to 29 November 2001.

The theme of the meeting was: "Agricultural Intensification: Feeding Ourselves and Sustaining Africa's Land Resources in the New Millennium". The choice of the theme was influenced by the vicious cycle of deep and widespread poverty, hunger, malnutrition and underdevelopment in which many of the African countries are entangled. Other issues considered by the Committee were: Review and appraisal of the implementation of plans of action emanating from global and regional conferences and other major initiatives; and statutory issues.

8. Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of African Ministers of Transport and Communications

The twelfth meeting of the Conference of African Ministers of Transport and Communications was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 6 March 2002. The Ministers considered the report of the preparatory meeting of experts together with the document on the succession arrangement for the UNTACDA II programme. The Ministers had the opportunity to participate in the Third African Development Forum on the theme " Defining Priorities for Regional Integration", that took place from 3 to 8 March 2002 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A plenary session of the Forum, organized on the 6^th of March, discussed the topic on physical integration through infrastructure development.

The twelfth meeting of the Conference of African Ministers of Transport and Communications was organized together with a Transport symposium. The symposium aimed at drawing lessons from past experiences in order to enable African countries to translate into operations the various policies and best practices.

Beyond the Second United Nations Transport and Communications Decade (UNTACDA II) Programme in Africa: Plan of Action for the way forward

9. Seventeenth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Subregional Development Centre

The seventeenth meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Subregional Development Centre for North Africa was held in Tangiers, Morocco, from 3 to 5 April 2002.

The meeting addressed the following issues: survey of the economic and social conditions in North Africa; women and poverty; the implementation of NEPAD; and progress report on the other substantive activities undertaken by the Centre.

10. Twentieth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Subregional Development Centre for Central Africa

The twentieth meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) of SRDC-Central Africa was held on 9 and 10 April 2002 in Yaounde, Cameroon.

The agenda for the session covered the following: (i) Progress with regard to main activities and major ECA programmes ; (ii) report on economic and social conditions in Central Africa; and (ii) implementation of SRDC-CA activities for the biennium 2001-2002.

11. Eighth Meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Subregional Development Centre for Southern Africa

The eighth meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) of the SRDC for Southern Africa was held from 24 to 26 April 2002 in Lusaka, Zambia.

The meeting addressed the following issues: Survey of the economic and social conditions in Southern Africa; ECA programmes in Southern Africa; Technical cooperation and partnerships in Southern Africa; and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

The Committee requested that the next report of the Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers Learning Group should focused on best practices of member countries.

12. The Fifth Meeting of the International Committee of Experts of the Subregional Development Centre for West Africa

The fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts of the Subregional Development Centre for West Africa (SRDC-WA) was held in Niamey, Niger form 20 to 22 June 2002.

The meeting considered several reports dealing with a broad range of sectoral and thematic issues. The issues covered included the implementation of the Centre's work programme during the period 2001-2002; major policy and programme developments at ECA in the 2001-2002 period; utilizing new information and communications technologies (ICTs) for development; and a survey of the economic and social conditions in West Africa. In addition, the meeting was briefed on the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD); ECA's on-going project on developing indices for measuring progress towards good governance in Africa; and the work of various subregional and regional organizations including specialized technical institutions.

The Meeting of the Committee on Women and Development met at Ministerial level on 12 October 2002 in Johannesburg South Africa to review the state of implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action. The Ministers noted that, despite the progress achieved in reducing gender inequality since Beijing, a lot remains to be done in eliminating gender disparities and enhancing the role of women in the development process in Africa. In this regard, Ministers emphasized the importance of periodic monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of various UN declarations by policy makers in order to determine existing gaps and address them.

The discussions, decisions and recommendations of the meeting are summarized below:

(a) Evaluation of the implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action

The Ministers discussed modalities for the evaluation of the implementation of the Platforms for Action at all levels in the context of Beijing + 10 process. They recalled the findings of the mid-decade assessment of the state of implementation, (which was undertaken by the sixth African Regional Conference on Women in November 1999) that the progress achieved in establishing the necessary policy and institutional mechanisms to foster and promote gender equality fell short of expectations. They further recalled the outcome of the Regional Conference, the African Plan of Action to accelerate the implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action, endorsed by the Council of Ministers of the OAU in March 2000. Similarly, the Ministers reviewed General Assembly Resolution A/Res/55/71 following the Special Session on Beijing + 5, in which Governments reaffirmed their commitment to overcome the difficulties encountered in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action by mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies, plans and programmes and by regularly assessing progress in the implementation of the global and regional platforms with a view to bringing together all parties involved in 2005 to assess progress and consider new initiatives as appropriate. In this connection, the Ministers made the following recommendations:

The Ministers noted with appreciation that ECA is developing an African Gender and Development Index (AGDI) whose objectives are: to provide African policy makers, gender planners and politicians with an appropriate tool to measure the extent of gender inequality in their countries by providing both quantitative and qualitative information relating to all major international mechanisms focusing on gender issues; to monitor progress made in the implementation of the recommendations for the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and other international Declarations, the Platform for Action drawn up after the Fourth Women's World Conference in Beijing; and facilitate the dissemination of statistics, to provide gender planners and NGOs with a monitoring tool that is effective in enhancing political awareness of gender concerns and achieving women's full participation and empowerment in various spheres of development. In this context, the Ministers recommended that the AGDI be used within NEPAD as a tool to measure the status of gender inequality and the situation of women in Africa; and urged that the index be adopted by the Ministries of Economic Planning and Development in the formulation of national development plans and programmes.

The Ministers noted that women's work in the "non-market economy" has been identified by the United Nations in the Beijing Platform for Action as a key area of policy intervention for poverty reduction. Non-market economy includes domestic work, care of children, the sick and elderly, and voluntary community work. They also noted that ECA has launched a programme to strengthen the capacity of national machineries in African countries to use national accounts and national budgetary process as tools to translate time-use data and statistics on women's work in the non-market economy for policy formulation. The programme is expected to create awareness for policy makers to mobilize action and resources towards a new approach to poverty reduction in Africa.

Noting with satisfaction that ECA's focus on the underdeveloped, but promising approach that examines the links between non-market economy and the formal economy and the implications of these links for policy-making and poverty reduction, the Ministers called on African Governments to adopt the time use-surveys, to allow for the inclusion of work in the non-market economy into national accounts and budgetary processes; and to evaluate the effectiveness of their development policies and strategies on women's welfare, long-term growth and poverty reduction through analysis of sex-disaggregated data.

ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA	ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA
Twenty-first meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development	Thirty-fifth Session of the Commission/Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development
Johannesburg, South Africa	Johannesburg, South Africa
16-18 October 2002	19-21 October 2002