Programmatic Strategy Biennium 2006-2007

Special Ad hoc Expert Group Meeting
Programme of Work, Biennium 2006-2007

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
9-10 December 2004

Overview

The overall objective of the programme of work of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is the enhancement of the capacity of African member States and their development organizations to formulate and implement appropriate policies and programmes for accelerated and sustained growth for poverty reduction. This objective is in line with the goals and priorities of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and various internationally agreed upon development goals.

African countries have made significant progress in economic and social development in recent years. Nevertheless, the rate of poverty remains intolerably high and it is not likely that the continent will attain Millennium Development Goal 1 of halving poverty by 2015 at current rates of growth. Therefore, poverty reduction has emerged as the major challenge and ultimate goal of every development intervention in Africa.

In order to address the overall long-term challenge of poverty reduction in Africa, there are many related challenges of a medium-term nature, requiring immediate and compelling action. Key among these are:

The ECA will respond to these challenges by implementing activities in eight interdependent and complementary sub-programme areas. Under each of the sub-programmes, particular attention will be given to supporting member States in attaining their development goals. As a follow-up to the Brussels Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2001-2010, which included land-locked developing countries and small island developing States, the programme will address the special needs of this category of countries, accelerating their social and economic development.

Vigorous action to address the challenge of HIV/AIDS will be an essential component of the work of the ECA during 2006-2007. ECA's work will build on the research and analytical policy work currently being undertaken within the context of the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa (CHGA), established by the Secretary-General in February 2003 and chaired by the Executive Secretary of the Commission. With CHGA's work, ECA will heighten international awareness of the development impact of the disease and encourage appropriate policy responses. It will also continue to respond to the commitment of African member States to overcome HIV/AIDS.

The modalities for action will include advocacy, policy analysis, monitoring and tracking of Africa's progress in various areas of development; convening stakeholders and building consensus on key issues in Africa's development through fora such as the annual Conference of African Ministers, the African Development Forum and the "Big Table" meetings; and providing technical assistance and capacity-building support in the form of advisory services and training of African policy makers.

The Commission will continue to build on its existing partnerships with other United Nations agencies and African regional and sub-regional organizations, civil society and the private sector, leveraging its comparative advantage to achieve the above objectives.

To ensure system-wide coherence, ECA will undertake its work in close cooperation and coordination with other UN entities, including the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organization. As an active member of the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs, the Commission will devote attention to clarification of the roles and responsibilities of global and regional bodies with regard to follow-up on internationally agreed development goals. The Commission will continue to collaborate with regional and national organizations as well as civil society and the private sector.

The following sections of this document present a succinct overview of activities undertaken by the various sub-programmes over the recent years along with an assessment of their impact and the continuing challenges. For each sub-programme, the document also highlights the main activities/projects to be undertaken during the biennium 2006-2007.

1. Facilitating Economic and Social Policy Analysis

The objective of the sub-programme is to strengthen the capacity of member States to design and implement economic and social policies aimed at achieving sustained economic growth and reducing poverty in Africa.

African countries have made significant progress in terms of economic and social development in recent years. However, poverty remains at a critically high level, making it unlikely, at the current rates of growth, to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty by 2015.

Over the recent period, the sub-programme has oriented its activities around three key areas of work: monitoring and tracking Africa's economic performance; conducting research and policy analysis on macroeconomic, financial and social issues; and developing timely and sound statistical data of African countries.

With respect to monitoring and tracking performance, the Economic Report on Africa (ERA) has been produced on an annual basis since 1999 and used to launch a series of analytic contributions to better understand Africa's development. For example, ERA 2004 proposes the Trade Competitiveness Index, a tool designed to identify a country's competitive shortcomings compared to other economies in the region. Other analytical contributions of previous issues of ERA include: the Expanded Economic Policy Stance Index used to assess the state of economic policy reforms and broader social and institutional policies; and the Sustainable Development Indicator, which measures economic, institutional and environmental sustainability in African countries and can be used to identify the main obstacles to achieving sustainable development. These indicators highlight critical areas of policy intervention.

Over time, ERA has strengthened the reporting and understanding of Africa's development and the underlying macroeconomic principles affecting growth. ECA uses internal seminars and external peer reviews to improve each report before publication.

An important element for achieving the MDGs is the capacity of African countries to mobilize resources. To this end, the sub-programme has conducted, over the past few years, in-depth research and generated policy advice on the development of capital markets in the region. Detailed assessments were carried out to identify the challenges constraining the emergence of well-functioning capital markets in Africa. The recommendations called for improving access to information, supporting the development of institutional investors, encouraging trusts and pension funds, and enhancing the skills of key market players.

In response to these challenges, ECA launched, in 2002, a multi-year project Capacity Building for the Promotion of Capital Markets in Africa. The project aims at promoting capital market development in Africa at national and regional levels, including support to building capacity of member States related to the adoption of policies and establishment of the necessary regulatory framework and institutions for sustained development of capital markets.

Another critical issue of research is the external debt problem facing the region. Through this sub-programme, ECA has played a key role in stimulating and informing discussion on strategies to be analyzed and explored for reducing Africa's unsustainable debt. The expert group meeting organized in collaboration with the Republic of Senegal raised, for example, key issues to tackle the debt problem: exploring the strategies to achieve long-term debt sustainability; legal aspects of external debt management; financing debt relief for development; and minimizing the impact of commodity price volatility on African economies.

In the area of statistical development, the sub-programme has revitalized its statistics functions, in light of increased demands for robust, reliable and comprehensive data. To provide member States with a forum where they can build consensus on relevant and emerging issues, the newly formed ECA-serviced Advisory Board on Statistics in Africa (ABSA) will be critical to this function. The Forum for African Statistical Development (FASDEV), recently inaugurated in partnership with ADB, PARIS 21, and the World Bank, is another important step toward setting up a permanent medium for monitoring statistical development in Africa.

The activities and outputs carried out by the sub-programme have been increasingly more focused on its core functions leading to an improvement in their relevance and quality. As reported in the Review of work of ECA, the sub-programme has made tremendous progress in producing timely and analytically sound products. These activities and outputs have helped member States in the design and implementation of required policies and strategies as they promote market economies. Many have achieved significant improvements in their macroeconomic stance and regulatory framework.

However, for greater impact, some continuing challenges need to be addressed. For example, in a number of countries exchange rates and inflation remain highly volatile and the ratios of private investments to GDP are among the lowest in the world. As a consequence, between 2000 and 2003, Africa's economy grew at modest rates of below four percent annually. If the economic and social conditions fail to change, the number of people living in absolute poverty in Africa is projected to increase to 451 million by 2015.

It is generally recognized that poverty can be reduced either by increasing per capita income, through sustained medium to long term economic growth, or by reducing inequality in the distribution of income and wealth. Grounded in sound research and country as well as sub-regional level experiences, a far-sighted combination of policies that enhance economic growth, reduce inequality and promote broad-based patterns of growth constitutes the core of ECA's challenge.

Thus, the assessment of economic performance, poverty analysis and the link to statistical information need to be streamlined to further increase their relevance to member States. Moreover, the dissemination of policy recommendations should be undertaken in a more focused and timely manner.

Though some progress has been made, the statistics component of the sub-programme needs to be further enhanced. This will in turn lead to a concrete improvement in statistical capacities of African countries, which is needed as a basis for policy planning.

Against the background of high poverty in Africa, the strategy of the sub-programme will focus on the following four priority areas: (a) Tracking regional and country economic performance in order to provide timely and accurate information, analysis and options for short-term policy design and for other nationally owned development programmes in the context of implementation of the objectives of poverty reduction strategy papers; (b) Strengthening poverty reduction strategies, including programmes to improve the delivery of basic social services targeted at the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups; (c) Promoting measures to enhance financial resource mobilization for development, including reduction and renegotiation of debt to sustainable levels, promoting mutual accountability and aid effectiveness; and (d) Strengthening statistical capacity for gathering quality data for effective monitoring and evaluation as well as for tracking progress towards the achievement of the MDGs.

The strategy will comprise research, advocacy and policy analysis on salient issues related to Africa's development, including the role of inequality in poverty reduction and an examination of the implications of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other related infectious diseases for the development process. Technical assistance, with focus on strengthening national capacities for economic and social policy formulation and implementation will be provided to member States, with particular attention to the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), land-locked and small island economies.

Among the planned activities of the sub-programme, the following will be of critical importance:

Assessing economic performance in Africa. The sub-programme will continue to devote significant resources to producing ERA. Given Africa's low savings and investment rates, ERA2006 will identify key resource mobilization concerns in the continent and policy recommendations to improve the situation. The areas to be covered include: promoting domestic savings mobilization; effective utilization of workers' remittances; investment promotion, both at the domestic and foreign levels; and attracting investment from the African diaspora.

In 2007, ERA will focus on the delivery of public services which have significant impact on poverty reduction. These include the improvement of health and education facilities.

At the end of the UN poverty decade 1996-2006, a report will assess the progress towards the MDGs and poverty eradication in Africa, including a full-fledged set of recommendations developed in collaboration with research institutions in the continent, on how to achieve the MDGs.

In addition, in an effort to identify challenges and opportunities facing Africa's LDCs, the sub-programme will carry out a stocktaking exercise of previous annual reports monitoring the MDGs. This exercise will include the identification of challenges and opportunities facing African LDCs in fulfilling the Brussels Plan of Action (BPoA).

Defining an African development framework. A consensus is clearly emerging, from various research sources including ECA, on the fact that growth is necessary but not sufficient to reduce poverty. To have a tangible impact on poverty, growth needs to be pro-poor. The sub-programme will continue its strong emphasis on studying pro-poor growth and examine new sources of growth and wealth creation. In this context, the work will focus on issues of inequality, public expenditure and service delivery in Africa, capital flows and development of African economies, and mainstreaming health into the development agenda.

Mutual accountability and policy coherence. The dialogue initiated with the main development partners will continue to monitor the implementation of various international commitments made to Africa. The dialogue will pay particular attention to the quality and quantity of development assistance, policy coherence regarding aid and trade as well as the progress achieved with respect to institutional reforms.

Enhance African statistical capacity. Given the crucial role of timely and high quality statistics, the sub-programme will further enhance the collaboration with its partners to improve statistical capacity in the region. It will continue to advocate for and provide support to the implementation of the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA 93) in African countries. It will also provide guidance on the measurement of the informal sector.

The Commission has convened an Advisory Board on Statistics in Africa (ABSA), to advise on work content; approaches and actions for mobilizing resources to implement regional programmes; and ways of promoting and disseminating good practices in statistical development to member States and sub-regional organizations. The Advisory Board, made up of prominent African and international experts, will continue its work to clearly identify gaps in institutional coverage for statistical capacity building. In this respect promotional material for African Statistics Day, a statistical information kit, the publication of an annual African Statistical Yearbook, and the continuous updating of ECA's statistical database are essential.

To ensure deeper and broader policy impacts, the sub-programme will continue to carry out internal and external peer reviews of its work and monitor changes in partner actions as a result of its projects.

The sub-programme aims at enhancing the capacity of member States to design, implement and monitor gender-sensitive and pro-poor development policies consistent with the MDGs and the priorities of NEPAD. As a result, the number of countries with PRSPs reflecting deeper assessment of poverty, gender disparities and growth sources should increase.

In the area of statistical development, in the longer term, member States will be in a better position to establish national statistical systems capable of supporting their economic and social development efforts in a sustainable manner.

2. Fostering Sustainable Development

The overall objective of the sub-programme is to foster sustainable development and forge better interrelationships between agriculture, food security, population, human settlements, natural resources, science, technology, innovation and the environment consistent with the development goals and priorities for African countries.

2.1 Main activities undertaken in the recent past

Despite its impressive natural resources endowment, Africa remains the poorest and the least developed continent in the world. Its natural resources have not been used appropriately to foster development and industrialization. Linkages between the natural resources sector and other sectors of the economy are still weak. In most African countries, reliance on natural resources revenue streams has not spurred development. Most approaches and outcomes have been government - centred with very little room for participation of other stakeholders, including local communities affected by the exploitation of natural resources. Development perspectives in this regard may be narrow and take into consideration government and private sector interests, without due regard to the views and aspirations of local communities and civil society.

In this context, achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and sustainable development in Africa constitutes a major challenge. Indeed, meeting the various development challenges in the area of poverty reduction, food security, health, water and sanitation, productivity and international competitiveness, requires strengthened scientific, technological and innovation capabilities on the African continent. These are monumental challenges given that most African countries have not accorded adequate priority to science, technology and innovation for development. In most cases, institutional and human capacities are too weak to ensure proper management of scientific progress and technological innovation for developmental purposes.

Africa is still grappling with problems of land tenure and land use, which have often been the cause of conflicts and contributed significantly to the degradation of the resource base, thus exacerbating poverty. In addition, desertification has its greatest impact in Africa, as two-thirds of the continent is desert or drylands and the region is affected by frequent and severe droughts. The transition to a sustainable and integrated management of land resources requires work on land-related institutional and legal frameworks, and land improvement investments.

In response to the challenges of fostering sustainable development and forging better interrelationships between the key variables for sustainable development, the sub-programme has focused its activities on: (i) undertaking analytical work to inform policy options and development strategies for the member States; (ii) building/strengthening human and institutional, analytical and policy making capacities of member States; (iii) identifying and disseminating best practices and experiences to foster knowledge sharing; (iv) building partnership and promoting policy dialogue, awareness raising and consensus building on pertinent issues for Africa's development; and (v) developing integrated tools to monitor and track progress on the level of implementation of commitments made by member States to development goals and priorities.

Although the linkages between population, environment, food security and development may be conceptually clear, the policy outcomes of various interventions in a simultaneous framework are not so obvious. ECA, in partnership with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, has focused on the development and application of a Population, Environment, Development, and Agriculture (PEDA) simulation model to analyze these interactions. The model is able to show the impact of key emerging issues in specific countries, such as HIV/AIDS, gender mainstreaming, trade and poverty. Training in PEDA and environmental impact assessment techniques has taken place in about 15 African countries.

The sub-programme also prepared, in 2001, a report on the state of the environment in Africa, confirming that the situation continues to be influenced principally by rapid population growth, increasing poverty and inappropriate development practices, especially agriculture production methods. In 2003, ECA published The State of Transition in Population, Environment and Agriculture in Africa to assist in tracking progress in these inter-related areas.

ECA has been one of the very few entities working to foster science and technology in Africa's development. Science and technology provide opportunities to address issues, such as raising agricultural productivity; improving competitiveness and opening up new opportunities for Africa in global markets; and combating droughts, malnutrition, and controllable diseases. ECA's programme was developed in consultation with multilateral, bilateral and African institutions and experts.

The African Green Revolution Initiative, the subject of a range of publications and meetings, was developed by ECA as a system for sustainable modernisation of agriculture and rural transformation designed to have technological and socio-political inputs. The technology side includes more advanced applications of biotechnology and gene technology to produce improved varieties; improved crop management technologies; biophysical technologies varying from tools to simple irrigation; and post-harvest handling processes and marketing technologies. The socio-political perspective includes roles for the community and the government.

Africa is endowed with abundant freshwater resources. However, while some countries in the region have an abundance of water resources, others continue to experience water scarcity and stress. The region's fast growing population places a high demand on water resources to meet domestic, agricultural and industrial requirements. In response to these growing challenges, ECA is focusing on promoting the implementation of the African Water Vision 2025. On behalf of the constituent members of UN-Water/Africa, and with their active collaboration, ECA also produced the African Water Journal, an interim African Water Development Report (to become a biennial publication) and the sub-regional Portfolio of Water Programmes and Projects in Africa. ECA also collaborated with the African Development Bank to initiate the African Water Facility, which aims to raise over $600 million to finance medium term water projects in Africa.

2.2 Outcomes, impact of activities and continuing challenges for the near future

The policy analysis and advocacy activities undertaken by the sub-programme have produced a noticeable impact on its clients. For example, a study conducted in 2003 to evaluate the impacts of ECA's work with respect to PEDA concluded that ECA, in combination with a number of other influences, has helped countries: 1) to strengthen their awareness of the key issues for sustainable development in all 10 countries sampled, 2) to move to a more participatory policy-making process involving multi-sectoral and stakeholder views on these topics; and 3) to implement strategies which highlight the requirement of execution of policies in a multi-sectoral framework. On the other hand, the study found that ECA's PEDA model was little used. ECA will, therefore, expand its PEDA training programme in order to build a critical mass of knowledgeable people who will use the model in policy analysis and advocacy.

The sub-programme has deployed considerable efforts to encourage dialogue and forge partnerships, which resulted in the establishment of fora such as the African Ministerial Conference on Water (AMCOW), the Conference of African Ministers of Energy, the Africa Mining Partnership, and so on. Of equal importance are the tools established by SDD to manage and share knowledge such as the African Water Information Clearing House (AWICH) and ECA's Science and Technology Network (ESTNET).

ECA teamed up with about ten UN agencies with programmes on water issues in Africa to form UN-Water/Africa. It also collaborated with the AU and the ADB to develop the African Water Vision 2025, which was acknowledged in Libya in February 2004 by African Heads of State. Similar interagency collaboration is informing the UN-Energy/Africa and UN-Biotech/Africa.

2.3 Work Priorities for the biennium 2006 - 2007

In response to the urgent sustainable development challenges in Africa identified in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, adopted at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), and contained in the NEPAD framework, the sub-programme's strategy will focus on the following priorities:

(a) Strengthening capacities of member States in designing institutional arrangements, policies and programmes to reinforce the interrelationships between the key variables for sustainable development, including support for regional programmes and partnerships for addressing challenges arising from rapid population growth and HIV/AIDS; natural resources and environmental degradation; low agricultural productivity; and food insecurity.

(b) Strengthening integrated natural resources development and management, including land, mineral, energy and water resources, for the achievement of sustainable development, gender mainstreaming and poverty reduction.

(c) Contributing to the development of human and institutional capacities of member States for harnessing science, technology and innovation.

(d) Monitoring and assessing progress in the implementation of the outcomes of the WSSD and the commitments on sustainable development under NEPAD in order to improve the quality and impact of information for policy-making.

In addressing these challenges, the activities to be undertaken will include a combination of research, policy analysis and advocacy, institution-building, training, knowledge networking, sharing of information and experiences; identification and dissemination of best practices; and technical cooperation, including advisory services to member States.

The priority activities to be undertaken during 2006-2007 will be on monitoring and tracking Africa's sustainable development performance and on policy analysis.

Of great potential in the years ahead, in response to the comprehensive paradigm of sustainable development adopted by the WSSD, and with a view to improving the quality and impact of information for policy-making, the Division is developing an integrated approach to monitoring and assessing progress on sustainable development. Activities in this regard will aim at preparing and disseminating the Sustainable Development Report on Africa (SDRA) with key indicators of sustainable development and livelihoods (featuring critical elements of the economic, social, population, environmental and institutional dimensions of sustainability) and present best practices as well as in-depth analyses of selected themes of crucial importance for sustainable development in Africa. In these dimensions, special attention will be paid to the role played by population issues and human development in sustainable development.

In addition, as decided by the Committee on Sustainable Development the sub-programme will try to align, to the extent possible, its activities with the multi-year (2004-2017) programme of work of the Commission on Sustainable Development. In this respect, the sub-programme's work programme for 2006-2007 will focus on mining and the ten-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production patterns, among other subjects.

Furthermore, the UN General Assembly has declared the period 2005-2015 as the international decade of water. The sub-programme will continue with the activities related to this mandated theme, the bi-annual African Water Development Report (AWDR) to monitor progress made; the African Water Information Clearing House (AWICH) to improve access to accurate and timely information for decision makers and enhance the implementation of the African Water Vision 2025; and the African Water Journal to stimulate scientific research to underpin implementation efforts. Within the partnership of UN Water/Africa a concerted effort will be made to support member States to implement the objectives of the water decade drawing on lessons learnt from the last International Decade for Water and Sanitation 1980-1990, at the end of which Africa was the only region being in a worse than at the beginning.

2.4 Expected benefits to member States in the longer term

The sub-programme aims at enhancing the capacity of member States to foster sustainable development and forge better interrelationships between agriculture, food security, population, human settlements, natural resources, science, technology and the environment. In addition, the sub-programme will also foster the capacity of member States to mainstream gender in key areas for sustainable development, promoting awareness of the need to integrate concerns of the three pillars of sustainable development - economic development, social development and environmental protection - into national development planning and poverty reduction programmes. It will also aim to improve stewardship of the natural resource base and the environment by strengthening the capacity of member States for the sustainable exploitation, management and effective utilization of such important natural resources as mineral, energy and water resources in line with the goals and priorities of NEPAD and other internationally agreed development goals. The sub-programme will aim to achieve an increase in the number of policies and programmes formulated to achieve sustainable development in Africa and in the number of African countries incorporating the key issues related to sustainable development in national policy frameworks and poverty reduction programmes.

3. Strengthening Development Management

The main objective of the sub-programme is to improve good governance practices for establishing an enabling environment for all sectors of society to participate in the development process and consolidate the foundations for sustainable development in Africa.

3.1 Main activities undertaken in the recent past

In recent years, the emphasis of the sub-programme has shifted from development management (public sector management, private sector competitiveness, and civil society participation) to good governance. This shift is a response to the growing consensus that good governance is a prerequisite for equitable, inclusive and sustainable economic and social development of Africa. The adoption of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) as the development framework for African countries has underscored the importance of good governance on the continent. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) also state that success in meeting the objective of reducing poverty by half in 2015 depends, inter alia, on good governance within each country.

In order to inform better African policy makers and other stakeholders on issues related to good governance, the ECA has undertaken a major and ambitious project Assessing and Monitoring Progress towards Good Governance in Africa. Using a scientific and rigorous approach, the project measures and monitors progress towards good governance. As of December 2003, the project was completed in 28 African countries, resulting in the production of national governance reports and country profiles on good governance. The national reports underwent several validation steps: national launch workshops, national stakeholders workshops and sub-regional workshops. They are expected to become "living" documents to be used by policy makers and other stakeholders to address the key findings and recommendations. One of the unique features of the national governance reports and the AGR is the painstaking attempt to identify the institutional capacity deficits at the country, sub-regional and regional levels and to demonstrate the linkages between capacity endowment/deficit and good governance in Africa.

In the recently published document, Striving for Good Governance in Africa, ECA presents an overview of the project and identifies 10 priority areas for action in building capable and accountable African states. The first African Governance Report (AGR), to be released in early 2005, will present an exhaustive survey of the project.

The main results of this work were discussed at the Fourth African Development Forum (ADF IV) in October 2004. The Forum presented the first opportunity for an open and in-depth discussion on the different features of the governance challenges facing African countries. As a result, the consensus on the need of capable states was broadened and deepened. The Forum was preceded by the Symposium on Youth and Governance. This symposium represented a golden opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the citizens and leaders of tomorrow. The discussion focused on how to translate their interest to participate in the reconstruction of the continent into concrete actions. To this end, issues related to HIV/AIDS, education and employment as well as democracy and governance were debated.

The sub-programme has also played a key role in the development and conceptualisation underlying the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an important component of the NEPAD initiative. For instance, ECA has been heavily involved in assisting the APR Secretariat and member States to undertake technical assessments in the preparation for and participation in the process. This has entailed reviews of the policies and practices of participating states to ascertain that progress is being made towards achieving the mutually agreed goals and compliance with adopted political, economic and corporate governance values, codes and standards, as outlined in the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance document.

3.2 Outcomes, impact of activities, continuing challenges for the near future

Overall, the perception gathered in the study is that governance is getting better in African countries over the past decade. The political space has been liberalized, human rights and the rule of law are more widely respected. Moreover, the media and civil society are advancing in many countries. The project showed however that the results do not apply in a uniform manner across countries included in the study. Some have made much more progress than others.

Citizens of African countries also highlighted the areas of governance that need further attention on the part of policy makers and other stakeholders. For example, much more could be done in terms of decentralization of government structures. In addition, the study showed that the efficiency of government services, control of corruption, and the transparency and accountability of the civil services remain of serious concerns to Africans.

The work of ECA in the domain of governance constitutes a rich and informative source of data for African policy makers. It provides them with a unique African perspective on the current situation. The priority areas identified by the project contribute to voicing a clearer and stronger African position on how to go about improving the situation on the continent.

Although, African countries have made significant progress towards good governance, persistent poverty, absence of lasting peace, and structural deficits in governance systems and processes in many countries render the continent's benefits of good governance fragile. The challenge, therefore, is to ensure that Africa's strides towards good governance are sustained through a focus on building a capable state, a state endowed with transparent and accountable political and economic systems, efficient public institutions, and adequate checks and balances among the different arms of government.

3.3 Work Priorities for the biennium 2006 - 2007

Good governance is the main requirement necessary for mobilizing, securing, and optimizing the management of resources. Political and economic governance represent the central point in implementing the NEPAD initiative. Against this background, current and future activities and outputs of the sub-programme will be oriented toward supporting and strengthening the capable state, one with transparent, accountable political and economic systems, and efficient public institutions providing an enabling environment for the private sector and civil society to play their respective roles in development process. To that end, the sub-programme will need to undertake a set of strategies related to political governance, economic and corporate governance and institutional effectiveness.

The sub-programme will focus on promoting and monitoring good governance, strengthening public financial management capacities and promoting the role of non-governmental stakeholders, including the private sector and civil society, in development processes. In this respect, among the outputs planned for the next biennium, there will be:

Africa Governance Report. The second edition of the AGR will be issued in 2007 and will assess further the progress towards capable and accountable states in 12 additional African countries. The results will directly feed into the APRM process for those countries. Accordingly, there will be an additional 12 country reports and country profiles on good governance.

Legislative and regulatory framework on good economic and corporate governance. Parliaments represent the best opportunities for all societal forces to be represented at the national level in the policy-making process, since points of entry into the executive and judiciary are more restrictive. Since the parliamentarians are the "trustees" of the public mandate, it is assumed that they will uphold national and public interests over other narrow and parochial interests. Parliamentarians, through enactment of national legislation, and oversight of the executive organs, are expected to lay down the fundamentals for establishing peace, security, democracy, good governance and sound economic management. They are expected to take measures to promote and overcome social inequalities, eliminate poverty and promote sustainable and equitable development for all citizens. In a nutshell, Parliaments provide arena for peaceful resolution of conflicts or compromise on divisive issues within nation-states.

The work of the sub-programme in this regard will reflect on the legislature as an important arm of government and its crucial role in establishing necessary checks and balances to the Executive. It will expand on issues of independence, legislative activism, standards of transparency and accountability, training and skill-building needs, particularly in the areas of policy analysis and review and budget control. In particular, the sub-programme will study the role of parliament in the design and implementation of a medium term expenditure framework to guide the public expenditure strategy. Among the other activities and products, the sub-programme will analyze strategies to enhance stakeholders' participation in the policy formulation and implementation. In addition, they will prepare a document for the promotion of codes and standards of good economic and corporate governance.

Political Parties and Public Policies. The sub-programme will analyze how political parties have helped in shaping public policies in the contemporary era in Africa through the articulation of policy issues, their engagement in parliamentary discourse and their pursuit of party programs in the political arena. It would propose ways and policy options on how to strengthen the capacity of political parties to lead and contribute to public policies and through it, promote the welfare and development of their societies.

Political Parties and Good Governance in Africa - Lessons Learned and the Way Forward. The sub-programme will also take an introspective and holistic view of political parties in Africa in the post-colonial era and how they have furthered the course of good governance on the continent. It would through a comparative analysis of Africa's current experience with its past, explicate the lessons learned so far, the problems and challenges confronted by political parties and how they can be better institutionalized and become an effective vehicle for good governance and democratic stability in Africa.

3.4 Expected benefits to member States in the longer term

While the primary responsibility for implementation of the good governance programme rests with African governments themselves, regional organizations such as ECA, AU, and AfDB can provide invaluable support to reinforce and accelerate that process. In this respect, the sub-programme will continue to assist member States through the Good Governance project and the AGR, with a view to applying objective criteria for measuring and monitoring good governance in Africa. In the long run, the AGR will help African countries to develop, sustain and internalize the norms of good governance within the public and private realms; enhance analysis and dissemination of information and best practices. With respect to the APRM, the sub-programme will continue to assist member States in (i) providing relevant advise to the APRM Panel and Secretariat on the implementation of the APRM process; (ii) assisting member States to build and maintain a database of information, including providing access to data sources, and sharing of information and experiences; and (iii) providing support to countries in the preparation for and participation in APRM.

4. Harnessing Information for Development

The overall objective of the sub-programme is to further strengthen an African information society that better addresses the continent's development challenges.

4.1 Main activities undertaken over the recent past

It is widely recognized that without embracing information and communications technologies (ICT), the development gap between Africa and the rest of the world will grow even bigger than the current. Information and knowledge have increasingly become essential resources and raw materials in the global networked economy. Africa can exploit these technologies to become fully integrated into the global economy and accelerate socio-economic development.

The work programme of Development Information Services Division (DISD) is composed of three major themes: Harnessing Information Technology for Development - implementing African Information Society Initiative (AISI); Improving access to information and knowledge through enhanced library services; and Strengthening Geo-information systems for sustainable development.

The AISI is the result of a vision shared by African policymakers in the quest to bridge the digital divide on the continent. Many initiatives were launched in the first African Development Forum (ADF) in 1999 on "Africa's Information Society." Driven by critical development imperatives, AISI focuses on priority strategies, programmes and projects, which can help in building African information societies.

AISI is also the framework for coordinating the support that UN agencies provide to NEPAD, which at the continental level has identified ICT-related projects and initiatives to speed up sub-regional and regional connectivity and inter-connectivity plans. NEPAD aims to strengthen the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) whose role should be to coordinate national efforts and harmonize national regulatory frameworks across the sub-regions.

A key component of the AISI is the development of national e-strategies, known as the NICI Plans. ECA helped countries to introduce policies and strategies that deploy, harness and exploit ICTs for socio-economic development at the local, national and sub-regional levels; and to enable citizens' access to affordable telephones, broadcasting, computers and Internet services. For this to happen, countries need to adopt concrete measures that include developing sound regulatory frameworks and building human resource capacity.

ECA has been assisting member States in their endeavours to initiate, formulate and implement national e-strategies to achieve development goals. The success is evident in that the number of countries with ICT policies increased from 13 in 2000 to 16 in 2002, while countries in the process of developing a policy jumped from 10 in 2000 to 21 in 2002. Some of the NICI countries have also embarked on the formulation and implementation of Sectoral Information and Communication Infrastructure (SICI) policies and plans.

Another key component of AISI is the Information Technology Centre for Africa (ITCA), an ICT-focused exhibition and learning centre at ECA. On-site workshops and seminars are provided to conference delegates and policymakers to promote awareness of the importance of ICT for economic growth and competitiveness. Overall, a significant number of countries have benefited from training (e.g., African women from 38 countries).

AISI also promotes networking with partners, including UN substantive organs and agencies, the Partners for Information and Communication Technologies for Africa (PICTA), the United National ICT Task Force, all relevant digital opportunity initiatives and specialized institutions working in the field of ICTs.

Furthermore, AISI is the umbrella under which various outreach products and services to promote the information society development in Africa are launched. For instance, the AISI radio series were produced to enhance people's understanding of the role and impact of ICTs and raise questions on the issues of access and disparities in the African information society. While one of the programmes provides an overview of the information society in Africa, the other three are based on the state of ICTs in Ghana, Mali and Uganda. The series won the internationally recognized New York Festival 2003 Radio Awards.

Geo-information makes it possible to relate economic and development decisions to a specific location or to inputs needed for their implementation. The work of ECA in this area places emphasis on ensuring that geoinformation is delivered to decision makers, and to the community at large, in a form that is easy to access and use. ECA has been key in assisting member States to raise awareness on the need for geoinformation, and to develop National Spatial Data Infrastructures (NSDI) that make it possible for effective and efficient productions and use of geoinformation. To reach its objectives, the sub-programme has organized many workshops and training sessions in African countries.

The geo-information work required training, research and consultancy on a large scale. To help accomplish this, ECA, as part of its review of sponsored institutions, decided to retain as Centres of Excellence the Regional Centre for Training in Aerospace Surveys (RECTAS) located in Ile-Ife Nigeria and supported by eight West and Central African countries. It also retained the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) located in Nairobi and supported by 15 Eastern and Southern African countries.

ECA has revamped its library services from a largely in-house service to a regional centre for socio-economic information and knowledge exchange. The ECA organized workshops and developed a series of new products to foster its services. Through the African Virtual Library and Information Network (AVLIN), the sub-programme has facilitated the access of its members to a wide range of information resources. ECA's activities have also contributed to assist in building capacity and standardizing virtual library systems. For example, since 2002, the Library has been collaborating with other UN system libraries to better coordinate library services across the UN system. Furthermore, the Knowledge Works I, the first in a series of training workshops that will focus on content management, information literacy and general research skills, and the training manual on Research Information and Knowledge Services equip ECA staff with advanced information retrieval and organization skills necessary for efficient and effective research.

4.2 Outcomes, impact of these activities and continuing challenges for the near future

Since the inception of AISI, the sub-programme made relentless efforts to raise awareness on Africa's Information Society, Africa's participation in the global information economy and its translation at the national level.

The central role e-strategies played was affirmed during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) organized in Geneva in December 2003. One of the actions recommended in the Plan of Action encourages all the member States to initiate the process by 2005. ECA led the African participation through AISI which was recognised as one of the most successful ICT initiatives. It was evident in the fact that an ECA's initiative, SCAN-ICT, was modelled as a basis to develop harmonized information society indicators at the global level.

The major challenges continue to be further consolidation of NICI implementation efforts at the local, national and sub-regional levels, while building capacity among various key stakeholders and establishing their networks at the regional level. Most of the NICI countries have already started the implementation process, but some countries requested ECA's support to translate the national policies into sectoral policies and build institutional and individual capacity to carry out the activities. How to bring the benefits to the local level will pose a next challenge in the process.

There is also the need to monitor and evaluate NICI implementation. Some of the NICI countries will complete their first 5-year plans in 2004 and 2005. The sub-programme should be at the forefront of assisting member States to undertake analysis on the first phase of NICI policies, emerging trends and major bottlenecks, based on the experience accumulated through the SCAN-ICT project. This should be coupled with the convergence of SCAN-ICT and the global efforts to enable harmonized and standardised data collection and analysis at the national, regional and global levels, so as to monitor and assess the development of the Information Society.

Another challenge is how to strengthen linkages between NICI efforts and the overall national development frameworks, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). The evidence of ICT contributions to socio-economic development in general and poverty reduction in particular has been slowly emerging in various disciplines. The sub-programme anticipates that the next challenge will be the consolidation of the analytical work in the context of Africa, strengthening of pro-poor growth components of NICI policies and plans and mainstreaming of ICT for Development into PRSPs and other efforts aimed at achieving the MDGs.

4.3 Work Priorities for the biennium 2006 - 2007

The strategy for the next biennium is informed by the deliberations of the Committee on Development Information (CODI III) and the WSIS Plan of Action and will focus on the following priority areas:

(a) Providing assistance to member States to strengthen conditions for a sustainable African information society; and providing support in research on emerging information-related issues, which will have significant impact on the course of development in Africa.

(b) Strengthening capacity in the use of information and knowledge for development, including evaluation and benchmarking to monitor progress and identify gaps to be addressed to ensure a balanced and sustainable growth of the African information society. The activities will also focus on ICT and the development of library services and geographical information resources.

(c) Supporting policy dialogue for sharing experiences, best practices on policies and strategies for fostering the information society and the application of information and communications technology in key social and economic sectors, such as health and education, especially for the empowerment of marginalized groups.

The above activities will be supported by the analytical work of the sub-programme in the form of publications, outreach materials and online discussion lists which will strengthen networks among various stakeholders.

The sub-programme will be implemented in close collaboration with other organizations within the UN system as well as other key stakeholders, including civil society, private sector, media, academia, women and youth organizations. Such collaboration will ensure dialogue and broad consultation for achieving an inclusive information society in Africa. Existing partnership and coordination mechanisms, such as with the RECs in the respective sub-regions will also be strengthened.

Efforts will also be geared towards addressing key and emerging information society issues, such as financing the NICI process, building the implementation capacity of relevant institutions and stakeholders and harmonizing regulatory and legal frameworks. This will involve the RECs and integrate NEPAD's requirements. In further promoting the use of information for decision-making, ECA will continue to provide training on the use of combined statistical and spatial data with a specific application to poverty mapping and country poverty profiles. In order to empower and build local capacity to speed up the process of the implementation of NICI plans, ECA will provide regulatory and policy expertise, multimedia resources, and guidance and advisory services in support of among others, governance issues, especially in the context of the e-Policy Resource Network (ePol-NET) of which ECA is the African regional node.

This will be supported by analytical work by the sub-programme on good practices and lessons learned in the development and formulation of NICI policies and plans, the role of development information in the economy and geo-information in the socio-economic development. The recurrent publication will also address emerging trends and issues in the development of an Information Society as an advocate tool for member States. Some of the key challenges will be highlighted at the fifth meeting of the CODI in 2006 where various perspectives and views will be shared and consolidated. The meeting will also provide a forum where the 10 years of AISI implementation will be reviewed and assessed, while leading to the way forward.

Raising awareness will continue to be AISI's major activity. Its focus will be expanded to target a broad spectrum of stakeholders through knowledge sharing, outreach and communication. ITCA will offer on-line manuals and training for policy makers and parliamentarians and will expand on existing activities to pilot innovative applications and address major constraints and challenges in advancing Africa's Information Society. The project will provide critical information through multimedia and touch-screen kiosks in many local languages.

In addition, through the AVLIN project, ECA will facilitate the building of a network of virtual libraries and specialized information centres as a means to provide better access to African knowledge. AVLIN will provide access to e-books, policy documents, bibliographic databases, and standardize virtual library systems.

ECA will also establish a facility that will offer member States easy access to up-to-date geo-information tools, techniques and data resources. Focus will be placed on national spatial data infrastructure-which combines the technology, policies and standards necessary to promote data sharing.

In response to existing gaps in educational curricula, their relevance to the employment market, and the resulting brain drain, ICT in support of education and research and development (R&D) is another critical area of ECA's agenda. Activities are in place in support of primary schools and job creation for out-of-school youth. Mechanisms will be developed for establishing linkages between governments, academia and the private sector and securing the commitment of the latter as an important constituency in developing and diffusing ICTs.

Finally, the sub-programme will assist member States to implement the Plan of Action of WSIS II with the WSIS Implementation Guidebook and parliamentary documentation: Follow up on WSIS.

4.4 Expected benefits to member States in the longer term

The planned activities during the biennium 2006-2007 will be critical to strengthening institutional and individual capacity among key stakeholders to build sustainable and balanced information society at the national and regional level. The capacity will also enable member States to actively participate in the global decision-making processes and reflect Africa's concerns and perspectives in their outcomes.

5. Promoting trade and regional integration

The overall mission of the sub-programme is to accelerate the effective integration of member States in the global economy and strengthen the process of regional integration in Africa through promoting intra-regional and international trade as well as physical integration, with particular emphasis on the transport and communication sectors.

5.1 Main activities undertaken in the recent past

It has been widely acknowledged that trade is a vital engine for economic growth and poverty reduction. Although global trade expanded exponentially over the past twenty years, Africa's share of trade, and sub-Saharan Africa's share in particular, has fallen sharply. Between 1980 and 2000, Africa's share of global exports fell from 4.1 percent to 1.6 percent. Reasons for this decline include a deterioration of the terms of trade for African exports, the narrow export base of most African countries, a lack of market access and supply-side constraints.

Moreover, given small size of domestic market, most African countries have been severely constrained in utilizing economies of scale. In this context, regional integration becomes a crucial first step towards achieving greater participation in, and benefits from the global economy. However, thus far, the results are not commensurate with the efforts. Progress towards integration has been very slow.

Against this background, the activities carried out by the sub-programme can be summarized as the following: assessing progress towards regional integration; fostering the regional economic communities (RECs); strengthening transport infrastructure; and enhancing capacities for trade promotion.

The most ambitious initiative on regional integration ECA carried out was the African Development Forum (ADF) III, in March 2002 on "Defining Priorities for Regional Integration." The forum was important in building consensus among a broad spectrum of actors on regional integration in Africa, including governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society and other partner regional and sub-regional organizations. It also presented the opportunity to discuss a major ECA new publication, the Assessment of Regional Integration in Africa (ARIA), produced with advice from a Steering Committee including ECA, OAU/AU and ADB. For tracking progress towards regional integration in Africa from the early years to the creation of the AU, ECA developed innovative performance indicators, which provide a clearer comparative picture of the relative pace of integration at the sub-regional and continental levels. The qualitative assessments describe and analyze the content and impact of various policies, plans and interventions. In addition to institutional aspects, the assessment covers integration performance in major sectors such as trade, money and finance, infrastructure, natural resources, commodity production, and human resources development.

The RECs are considered as the main building blocs of African integration. The Commission and its sub-Regional Offices (SROs) work closely with the main RECs to harmonize membership, strengthen policy and build technical capacity to pursue regional integration. Examples of work done by ECA to foster the RECs include feasibility studies on the establishment of self-financing mechanisms for the RECs; analysis of alternative financing mechanisms; and technical studies to address the issue of trade policies and the establishment of a free trade areas.

The second edition of ARIA (ARIA II) to be published in 2005 involves a detailed study on the rationalization of the RECs. It investigates the long-standing issue of multiple RECs and overlapping mandates and memberships, and the problems posed for Africa's integration.

The main sectoral area of ECA's integration work is in transportation using the framework of the UN Transport and Communications Decade in Africa (UNTACDA), which ended in 2002. Clear progress was made on policy coherence, as for example in the field of liberalizing air transportation under the Yamoussoukro Decision, ECA being instrumental in the preparation and adoption of competition rules by various entities on the continent. But the vision of a well inter-connected Africa has not yet turned into reality. The final evaluation of UNTACDA called for follow-up work in the sector, and much of the focus is now on NEPAD for that work, particularly for intra-regional connections. ECA played a major role in the preparation of NEPAD's infrastructure Short-term Action Plan.

As the agenda of the multilateral trade negotiations has expanded in recent years, most African countries have found their capacities inadequate to deal with the complex issues that have emerged in the WTO processes. The sub-programme together with the AU, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), WTO, the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) and the Southern Africa Trade Research Network (SATRN), organized several meetings for African Trade Negotiators to brainstorm on ideas on how to develop common African positions for negotiations. These positions were later debated by African ministers of trade, and formed the basis for the African Position, both at Doha and Cancun.

The heavy workload imposed by the agenda is a mismatch with the small size of many of the Permanent Missions of African countries in Geneva. The concern expressed at Doha about this situation led the Coordinator of the Africa WTO Geneva Group to request ECA to provide support to the Africa WTO Geneva Group. In late 2003, ECA opened an Advisory Services office in Geneva and pledged to work there at least through the end of the Doha negotiating round. As a result of the activities of the office, African States are now in a better position to synchronize negotiating positions than in the past.

In addition, to expand assistance in all areas in support of NEPAD's trade objectives, ECA has begun to operationalize the African Trade Policy Centre (ATPC) since 2003 with the strategic partnership of the Canadian government. ATPC activities have involved advisory services on such issues as accession to the WTO and negotiations on the trade protocol of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the European Union (ACP/EU) Agreement; national and sub-regional forums for stakeholders on trade issues; and support to the African WTO Geneva Group.

The second phase of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiations between ACP/EU countries has now begun. Although the EPAs are expected to generate enormous benefits to ACP countries, their implementation is deemed to impose a number of severe challenges that include: managing the expected losses of fiscal revenue; coping with more competition expected to be entailed under the principle of reciprocity; ascertaining net benefits from the EPAs, especially in LDCs; and dealing with limited negotiations capacity. In response to these challenges, ECA undertook a comprehensive impact assessment of EPAs on which Africa can build an effective strategy and positions for successful negotiations the EU. ECA is organizing four sub-regional expert group meetings/seminars to enhance negotiation capacity of RECs and to elicit sub-regional positions. Further to four sub-regional meetings, ECA is to organize a continent-wide meeting to draw common Africa positions for the future negotiations.

5.2 Outcomes, impact of activities, continuing challenges for the near future

On trade issues ECA has made several important contributions in the area of research, policy advocacy and technical advice. However, all these activities have not led to a significant improvement in the continent's participation in global trade. In many cases, trade policies have been static and applied indiscriminately with little reference to overall development strategy. Most African countries have not succeeded in providing incentives for production and export.

To reverse the trend of marginalization in the global economy, Africa needs to effectively participate in the international trade negotiations on the one hand. On the other hand, effective integration into the global economy requires Africa overcoming the low competitiveness of its industry; the narrow export base of its economies; and small fragmented domestic markets. Thus, ECA needs to continue its support to African countries in trade negotiation issues for them to maximize potential gains and materialize the gains from the negotiations on on-going WTO round and the EPAs. ECA will also exert efforts to assist African countries in mainstreaming trade policies into their national strategies so that trade can play its role of engine of growth.

While the onset of the AU now gives ECA the momentum necessary to advance regional integration, challenges remain enormous before the continent can reap the full benefits from an integrated African economy. Key challenges include such issues as addressing overlapping of membership and mandates in RECs, integration of institutions, and macroeconomic policy-convergence indispensable for economic integration.

Strengthening infrastructure in the continent is critical, in particular transportation so as to enhance regional integration and promote intra-African trade. Despite efforts to integrate transport, gaps still exist in policies and implementation processes across RECs and countries, which cause high costs of doing business in cross-border transaction and impediments for factors and goods movement. Therefore, ECA needs to focus on coordination and rationalization of relevant transport policies and services in African countries.

5.3 Work priorities for the biennium 2006 - 2007

For the 2006-2007 biennium, the strategy of the sub-programme will concentrate on the following issues: (a) In the area of trade and cooperation, the efforts will focus on conducting in-depth policy and analytical studies on trade-related issues; promoting intra-African trade; mainstreaming trade into national development policies and programmes; addressing issues related to the WTO and the trade negotiations between the ACP countries and the EU; the implementation of a comprehensive trade-related capacity-building, research and training programme for Africa through the ATPC; and the provision of advisory services and technical support to African Governments to enable them to participate effectively in the process of trade negotiations of the WTO.

(b) In the area of policy and institutional aspects of regional cooperation and integration, particular attention will be given to assisting member States, the AU and the RECs in identifying opportunities and challenges at the regional and global levels. This will include enhanced support for the strengthening of sectoral integration at the regional level and continent-wide in the fields of trade, industry, agriculture, money and finance, transport and communications, as well as support for the regional economic communities integrating their programmes with the objectives and programme for the establishment of the African Economic Community. Performance indicators for tracking progress towards integration at the regional and subregional levels will also be developed.

(c) In the area of transport and communications, support will be provided to the infrastructure component of NEPAD, including support to member States in integrating the new air transport policy into their national transport programmes and monitoring progress in the implementation of the Liberalization of the Air Transport Market Access in Africa under the Yamoussoukro Decision.

The activities envisaged by the sub-programme include:

Promoting trade through policy research and capacity building. ECA will assist African countries to negotiate international trade agreements. In this line, ECA is to tackle two major challenges facing Africa: the Doha round and the negotiation of EPAs with the EU. ECA is planning to provide in-depth research and analyses to inform policy positions, which will then be widely disseminated, promoted and defended.

Ongoing training activities in consort with the ATPC will target African trade negotiators and officials based in Geneva and national capitals, parliamentarians, and civil society organizations that are also expected to make a major input into trade issues. Training courses organized in collaboration with UNCTAD and the WTO are expected to continue in the next few years.

The sub-programme will keep providing technical assistance to African countries for negotiations within the WTO and EPAs frameworks. This will include assistance to the government of Sudan for its accession to the WTO. As the EPAs negotiations are now moving into the regional phase, the sub-programme is preparing a number of technical assistance missions to RECs in order to assist them in building a cohesive strategy for the talks, on the technical detail of the day-to-day progress of the negotiations.

Further technical assistance will be provided for enhancing trade facilitation with selected African countries by disseminating best practice, i.e., the experience of Tunisia in external trade facilitation via Tunisie Trade Net (TTN). In cooperation with ECA, TTN is planning visits to Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Mauritania, and Senegal.

Promoting regional integration. ARIA III will be published in 2007 with a focus on the challenge of monetary integration and macroeconomic policy convergence for African economies. The report will examine the appropriate supranational monetary institutions such as a central bank and other institutions needed for a successful monetary union. The report will also analyse the set of convergence criteria needed for member countries to embark on as they move through the transition phase to the adoption of one common currency for the continent. A key component of the report will be a study on the cost and benefits of integrated financial markets in Africa.

Strengthening transportation infrastructure. In the area of transportation infrastructure, the sub-programme will continue to promote the physical integration of the continent through the establishment of an efficient, safe, reliable and affordable transport and communications system. Supporting transport development within the sub-Saharan Africa Transport Programme (SSATP) Group and NEPAD, ECA will assist member States in implementing existing transit and transport agreements, analyze their impact on transport cost reduction along transit corridors in Africa as well as on the movement of people and goods; and compile best practices related to the commercialization and privatization of rail, air, road and maritime services in Africa. In particular, working with AU as the leading regional body, ECA will be the designated Secretariat for the implementation of the Yamoussoukro Declaration, one of the formative instruments designed to streamline the development of Africa's airline sector.

The strategy of the sub-programme will include research, advocacy and policy analysis with particular emphasis on the challenges confronting Africa's integration and its participation in the global economy. The sub-programme will remain focused on knowledge-based activities, and will therefore assemble a comprehensive database and information network to aid its research and publications. Published outputs will be differentiated and carefully targeted to suit a wide range of audiences in accordance with its communication strategy.

In addition, as part of its core activities, the sub-programme will deepen its collaboration with its clients, stakeholders and partners, such as the AU, ADB, UNDP, RECs, and other UN agencies; and non-governmental organizations such as AERC, ENDA Tiers-Monde, International Lawyers and Economist Against Poverty (ILEAP), SATRN, and Third World Network (TWN). The sub-programme will continuously develop new partnerships as seen appropriate.

5.4 Expected benefits to member States in the longer term

To ensure deeper and broader policy impacts, the sub-programme will carry on internal and external peer reviews of its work and monitor changes in partner actions as an effect of its projects.

In the area of trade, the sub-programme will target an increase in the number of common regional positions on trade negotiations-related issues which will, in turn, enable African countries to participate more effectively in the process of international trade negotiations and ultimately reap more benefits from the globalisation process.

The rationalization efforts by the RECs and an improved coordination and cooperation of economic and structural policies will lead to an increase in the number of countries harmonizing their national policies towards achieving regional integration.

6. Promoting the Advancement of Women

The overall objective of the sub-programme on the Advancement of Women is to mainstream gender in development structures, policies and programmes in order to ensure parity in the distribution of resources and enable women to participate in strategic decisions with respect to economic and social development.

6.1 Main activities undertaken in the past 5 years

The core message that underlines ECA's new strategic direction, since 1997, is that African women's advancement and Africa's development prospects are inseparable. More specifically, African women's economic and social advancement is a crucial pre-condition for the economic and social development of the region.

Based on the strategic needs expressed by member States in various fora organized by ECA, the programme of work of the African Centre for Gender Development (ACGD) is informed by two medium-term programmes, one covering the period 2000 to 2005 and the second from 2006 to 2010. The first one has influenced the working agenda of the past five years and includes four main components:

ˇ Influencing public policy priorities, by improving the use of gender disaggregated data to promote women's contributions to economic growth and development;

ˇ Providing ECA's divisions with the ability, by the year 2005, to use gender analysis and monitoring indicators throughout their programme development cycle;

ˇ Monitoring progress in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action in the priority areas as identified at the 6th African regional Conference on Women (Beijing + 5);

ˇ Generating documentation and disseminating gender information for policy makers, parliamentarians, civil society organizations and specialized institutions.

To fulfil its commitments, the major thrust of the sub-programme's work with member States has been in the area of building and strengthening the capacity in gender mainstreaming. This includes the promotion of women's human and legal rights as well as the elaboration of methodologies and mechanisms for monitoring. In addition, the activities facilitated and supported the development of a strategy and tools to mainstream gender into national planning instruments, and the strengthening of networks for sharing information and advocating for gender equality at regional and national levels.

During the period under review, the sub-programme developed the African Gender and Development Index (AGDI) and 53-country gender profiles to respectively measure the performance of member States in addressing gender inequalities, and to provide a summary of secondary data on various thematic areas. An in-depth analysis of the results using this index will be reported in the forthcoming edition of the African Women's Report to be published in mid-2005.

As an illustration of the activities undertaken, through ECA's regular advisory services and training activities, ten countries and two sub-regional intergovernmental organizations (ECOWAS and ECCAS) developed gender policies and action plans. Moreover, the sub-programme developed a monitoring and evaluation tool used in 19 countries on the implementation of the African Plan of Action (2000-2004) focusing on gender mainstreaming in sectoral development policies and programmes.

One major contribution during the period under review is the elaboration of a gender-aware macroeconomic model to assess impacts of national economic policies on women and men. This model provides member States with a powerful tool to simulate policy options and influence the decision-making process in such a way as to enhance gender-sensitive outcomes.

6.2 Outcomes, impact of activities, continuing challenges for the near future

The work of the Commission with respect to gender equality and gender mainstreaming into national policies have gone a long way in putting these issues at the forefront of the African development agenda. The ground-breaking work of ECA in this domain has contributed to fill a vacuum in this agenda. African policy makers and the myriad of other stakeholders now have access to a rich and wide-ranging source of information, tools and methodologies on issues related to gender.

Though progress has been achieved the recent years, the awareness and sensitivity to issues related to gender inequality remain a critical challenge in Africa. Political leaders still need to demonstrate a genuine commitment to gender equality rather than complying in vague political statements and promises or timid actions. The direct relationship between the persistence of gender inequality and the level of poverty in Africa is a serious concern. Effective mechanisms for women's empowerment are still too few resulting in ineffective women's participation in the decision-making process at the local, national and regional levels.

6.3 Work programme for the biennium 2006 - 2007

The strategy of the sub-programme for the 2006-2007 biennium will be implemented by pursuing the following lines: a) Supporting research and analysis aimed at refining instruments for mainstreaming a gender perspective into development policies and programmes; b) Promoting the advancement of women in the economic and social development process through training, research, awareness-raising and dissemination of information, with a view to strengthening the capacity of policy makers and other stakeholders in gender mainstreaming; c) Ensuring that gender issues are adequately reflected and addressed in regional intergovernmental fora and conferences related to poverty reduction, public expenditure, regional integration, enterprise development and governance; and d) Monitoring the implementation of regional and global action plans using among other tools the AGDI.

Monitoring and Tracking African Development Performance. A new issue of the African Women's Report (AWR) to be published in 2007 will provide further insights and assessment of progress achieved towards gender equality. The analysis will be based, among other indicators, on the AGDI using an enhanced sample of 25 countries. In addition, following a thorough exercise to test at the country level, the different tools and methodologies developed by the sub-programme, the report will draw conclusions on their impacts on the capacity of national experts in collecting and applying gender disaggregated data to policy formulation, monitoring and evaluation. ACGD will also produce two Gender Net to showcase best practices for gender mainstreaming.

Poverty and Social Policy Analysis and Capacity Building. The gender-aware macroeconomic model will be simulated using data from six other African countries. To this end, an exhaustive exercise needs to be undertaken to collect and process the data from these countries to make them readily available for the simulations.

Information for Development. The severe lack of gender-disaggregated data, in particular at the household level, is a major bottleneck to conduct gender-sensitive policy analysis. Using the Guidebook on Mainstreaming Gender and Household Production in National Accounts, Budgets and Policies in Africa, a guide developed by ECA, the sub-programme will work in collaboration with member States to improve the skills of national experts to collect, analyze and integrate gender-disaggregated micro and macroeconomic statistics into national planning instruments. These activities will greatly assist member States in preparing regular National Satellite Accounts of Household Production (NSAHP) as part of the System of National Accounts (SNA). The NSAHP is a very useful approach to determine the respective contribution to the economy of household and market-driven production activities.

Communication Outreach. The sub-programme will place a renewed emphasis on information dissemination and communication outreach to complement its activities. It will pay particular attention to some key areas such as the expansion of the network of Public Liaison Officers to cover 52 African countries. It will also enrich its bilingual website, establishing strategic links with other gender-related sites at the sub-regional, regional and international levels. Moreover, a knowledge-sharing network addressing gender issues will be developed with the objective of linking various audiences, including the Public Liaison Officers, women MPs, media organizations, women NGOs as well as research institutions.

In implementing its programme of work, the Division works with various partners including UN agencies and worldwide experts from private institutions, bilateral and multilateral agencies. Moreover, to ensure that the products and services of the sub-programme are of high quality, a system of internal and external quality control has been put in place to review, refine and validate the tools and methodologies on mainstreaming gender.

6.4 Expected benefits to member States in the longer run

As a result of the activities of the sub-programme, it is expected that the major impacts on member States will be an enhanced capacity to formulate and implement gender-sensitive policies and programmes for accelerating progress towards gender equality and poverty reduction. To this end, the tools and methodologies developed by ECA will be of great support. For example, the enhanced ability of countries to generate and integrate gender disaggregated data into national policy formulation, analysis, monitoring and evaluation will be key. It will help member States to provide new and more accurate figures on the situation of women in Africa and will most likely improve the modelling and forecasting of African economies.

7. Supporting Sub-regional Activities for Development

The activities under this sub-programme are the responsibility of the five ECA sub-regional offices (SROs) located in Tangiers (North Africa) Niamey (West Africa) Yaounde (Central Africa), Kigali (East Africa) and Lusaka (Southern Africa). These activities are primarily meant to articulate the priority areas of the work programme and reach out to member States as well as sub-regional and regional stakeholders. In this context, the Offices are vital links between policy-oriented analytical work generated at headquarters and the decision-making and implementation processes. In addition, the SROs contribute to ECA's core activities, including policy analysis and advocacy, enhancing partnerships, technical assistance, communication and knowledge sharing.

7.1 Main activities undertaken in the recent past

The case for regional cooperation and integration has a long history in Africa and reflects the widely accepted recognition that without economic integration, the continent will not reach its full potential.

It is against this background that ECA has strengthened the Commission's sub-regional presence by making the operations of the SROs more relevant, efficient and focused on member States' requirements. Acting as operational arms of ECA, the SROs are now considered key partners of major RECs and other sub-regional organizations.

More specifically, the main activities of the SROs in the recent past concentrated on (i) building institutional capacity for enhanced conceptualization, planning and management of economic integration programmes; (ii) facilitating policy dialogue, especially on macroeconomic policy harmonization and convergence, trade liberalization, monetary cooperation, infrastructure and services development, sustainable development, and advocating for best practices in cross cutting areas such as information and communication technologies (ICTs), HIV/AIDS, gender and environment sustainability; (iii) supporting peace building and post conflict reconstruction through two major field projects, one on the Manu River Union and the second one in the Great Lakes; and (iv) contributing to the work of the UN country team with a view to bridging the gap between international action plans and partnerships at the field level.

In support of the NEPAD initiative, core activities undertaken by the SROs include the provision of advisory services and technical assistance to member States. Major achievements in this regard include the assessment of the implications of the NEPAD agenda for national policies and the formulation of sub-regional strategies for infrastructure development. In fulfilling the UN mandate to promote and facilitate the implementation of the MDGs, the SROs are actively involved in the work of UN country teams in their respective host countries. The enhanced inter-agency coordination in the five countries facilitated, for example, the conceptualization and formulation of their poverty reduction strategies.

The SROs have also enhanced their outreach capabilities, which significantly improved communication with their major partners such as the RECs, universities, research institutions, governments, ministries, civil society organizations and the private sector. These improved outreach capabilities have resulted in strengthened support to the networking of civil society organizations and gender experts in many African countries.

In addition, the sub-programme has enhanced member State and RECs' awareness on the need to address sectoral issues to buttress current stabilisation efforts. The SROs have played an important role in some sectors advocating for inter-RECs coordination. Tangible breakthroughs have been recorded in the areas of transport corridor management and operations through substantial support to the Northern Corridor Transport Authority, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the finalization of the NEPAD infrastructure medium-term plan.

Core achievements have also been noted in the development of self-financing mechanisms for major RECs. ECA conducted through its SROs, detailed studies to explore alternative financing mechanisms for COMESA, the SADC, and ECCAS. On the basis of the study, ECCAS recently adopted a self-financing mechanism known as the "contribution communautaire de l'intégration - CCI" (Community Contribution to Integration). This mechanism is seen as a prerequisite for strengthening institutional capacity of ECCAS and to effectively launch the implementation of its plan of action. SADC is currently examining the study for possible adoption. COMESA has reviewed the study and is considering its relevance with respect to its recent initiative of establishing a Development Fund.

Trade policies of individual RECs have also been addressed in response to specific requests for advisory services. For example, a technical study was conducted on the establishment of a free trade area for ECCAS, which had remained inactive for some time. The conclusions of the study were endorsed by experts and ministers of ECCAS and are now forming a new basis for revitalizing the trade liberalization process of that community. Community of Sahel and Saharan States (CEN-SAD) also requested ECA to carry out a feasibility study on the establishment of a free trade area. The study was presented at a meeting of CEN-SAD Ministers of Trade in March 2003. SRO-WA became a key partner in several sub-regional priority programmes, including in supporting the advancement of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) trade liberation scheme and monetary cooperation. The Office has also provided technical support to the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) in its effort to extend the common external tariff mechanism of the Union to the entire ECOWAS member countries.

7.2 Outcomes, impact of activities, continuing challenges for the near future

As a result of the renewed process and significant shift towards more effective and focused operations, the SROs were able to make greater impact in the formulation and implementation of the developmental agenda in their respective sub-regions. This was the case in the areas of quality delivery of approved work programme and relevance of occasional studies and field projects, technical assistance to major RECs and cooperation with sister organizations in the framework of the UN country team arrangements.

At the sub-regional level, the Inter-governmental Committee of Experts (ICEs) constitute the machinery for policy dialogue and feedback on the performance of the Office as well as establishment of priorities and guidelines for programme formulation and planning. The improvements of ECA's visibility can be seen through the renewed interest of member States in the deliberations of the meetings of the ICEs. In the case of West Africa, an increased number of countries are represented at ministerial level in the meetings of the ICEs. The regained interest has brought about a departure from a mere review of parliamentary documentation to in-depth discussions on burning issues of importance to countries at the national and sub-regional levels.

It should be recalled that ECA acted as a major sponsor to the establishment of a large number of regional organizations, including the African Development Bank (ADB) and major RECs. This historical relationship has kept ECA as a major partner of these organizations. However, in order for ECA to continue enjoying this status, it should forge a strategic partnership with the main regional organizations by ensuring that its work is inspired and informed by the real challenges that these organizations are mandated to respond to. Hence, the need for the SROs to be seen as providing more demand-driven technical assistance to their constituencies. It is in this framework that in the course of the preparation of the programme budget for the biennium 2006-2007, effort has been made to shift ECA resource for advisory services from headquarters to the SROs so as to consolidate the move toward greater synergy between the SROs, headquarters and among themselves.

7.3 Work priorities for the biennium 2006 - 2007

With the acknowledgement by member States of the critical role of RECs in the implementation of NEPAD, the strategy under this sub-programme will focus on building capacity of RECs in four priority areas: (i) tracking the economic and social performance in each sub-region; (ii) supporting the implementation of the medium-term plan of major RECs under NEPAD; (iii) assessing the impact of regional integration schemes in the various sub-regions with special consideration to policy convergence criteria; and (iv) providing group-training workshops to senior policy makers and major stakeholders in the areas of macroeconomic policy design and analysis, trade, transport infrastructure and services development, sustainable development and the integration of regional cooperation strategies and arrangements into national policies.

The objectives will be pursued through ensuring that the sub-regional dimensions feature in the work of the Commission and that the SROs remain vital links between policy-oriented analytical work generated at headquarters and policy making at the field level. In doing so, specific core areas in the various sub-regions will be given consideration. Specifically, priority will be given to issues that are specific to sub-regional circumstances and sectoral development such as human and infrastructure development, sub-regional long-term development perspectives, as well crosscutting issues of gender mainstreaming and information communication technologies for development. Emphasis will be placed on high-impact activities that member States themselves have identified as priority for the respective sub-regions.

The modalities for implementing the strategy will include enhancement of programmatic synergies with the various sub-programmes, using main part of activities under the sub-programme to support the streamlining of the Commission's operations at the field level and improving interaction with member States and other sub-regional stakeholders. This will bring about cost effectiveness and enhanced impact of the work of the Commission.

7.4 Expected benefits to member States in the longer term

In the longer term, the sub-programme is expected to enhance the capacity of member States in the formulation and harmonization of macroeconomic and sectoral development policies at the national and sub-regional levels, particularly in the areas of trade, infrastructure, and human development, including gender mainstreaming, agriculture, food security and environment. In so doing, the sub-programme will provide fora for increased consensus on policies and emerging challenges with a view to enhancing policy implementation at the national and sub-regional levels.

The sub-programme is further expected to assist in strengthening the human and institutional capacities of RECs and other IGOs so as to enable them better coordinate and monitor the implementation of inter-country priority programmes/projects under NEPAD.

With regards to enhancing the impact of the deliberations of legislative organs and particularly the ICEs, it is expected that the ICEs would also truly serve as preparatory fora to the Conference of Ministers of Finance and Ministers of Economic Development Planning with inner-related core agenda.

8. Development Planning and Administration

The objective of the sub-programme is to enhance national capacity for the formulation and implementation of development policies and economic management. The responsibility for the sub-programme lies with the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), the oldest training institute in Africa dealing with issues related to economic management and planning.

8.1 Main activities undertaken in the recent past

It is generally recognized that African countries need to build a critical mass of skilled and knowledgeable experts in economic policy and management in their public and private sectors. These experts can play a critical role in meeting the challenges of poverty reduction, economic transformation and creating and sustaining a sound and effective regulatory framework to support the transition from state-dominated to market economy in the region.

To reflect this recognition, the sub-programme has been increasingly active in training mid-career and senior government officials in economic development and the improvement of technical expertise over the last few years. The institute organizes seminars, both in English and French, of varied duration on practical problems of national and regional development and on the forecasting and planning of various economic factors. For example, the number of trainees has increased from 120 in 2000-2001, to 225 in 2004-2005.

The institute also produces cutting-edge research on key issues related to African development challenges. A recent paper, for example, analyses various scenarios on how to optimise the use of funds made available for the NEPAD initiative. Making use of the modern theory of financial economics, the paper sheds some light on the identification of the optimal financing weights to be allocated to various sectors of the economy.

8.2 Continuing challenges

The institute is strategically located and benefits from state-of-the art facilities both in terms of excellent quality premises and modern information and telecommunications systems. However, in carrying out its mandate, IDEP continues to face significant challenges. Limited human and financial resources seriously constrain its ability to offer more training sessions. Despite a rich and well-organized network of former trainees who are now occupying high-ranking positions in African countries, IDEP still lacks adequate visibility at the decision-making level in some African countries, thereby making it more difficult to attract additional financial contributions from member States.

8.3 Work priorities for the biennium 2006 - 2007

The key elements of the strategy for pursuing the objective of the sub-programme include organizing diploma and certificate programmes to equip mid-career and senior officials from the public and private sectors of member States with the skills to respond to present and emerging development policy challenges in Africa. In doing so, particular attention will be paid to enhancing skills aimed at developing an analytical framework for strategic economic planning and management; and formulating policies to deepen understanding of trade, regional integration and globalization issues. In addition, technical advisory services will be provided to sub-regional economic groupings.

The institute will maintain effective partnerships with African regional organizations, UN agencies and other multilateral and bilateral donors in support of capacity building and Africa's development. For instance, the Secretariat of the ECA will continue to assist the institute in every possible way in order to facilitate its work. In particular, ECA will make available, from time to time, experienced staff to give lectures, assist in supervising research and participate in seminars. As part of a closer collaboration with the Secretariat, IDEP will also be involved in the capital market project initiated by ECA.