Committee of Experts of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development

Opening remarks by the Chairman of the Bureau of the Committee of Experts,

Mr. Lesetja Kganyago
Addis Ababa, 29 May 2003

Executive Secretary,
Distinguished Heads of Delegations,
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you all to the 22^nd meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development. I am particularly pleased to see among us some delegates who were also with us in Johannesburg last October during the last session of our Committee held under the theme: "Accelerating Africa's Performance and Progress: The challenge of NEPAD".

Without wanting to bore you, please allow me to summarize the recommendations we made in October. Firstly, we agreed that immediate action should be taken to build the objectives of NEPAD into nationally-owned development strategies. Further to that, we should engage Parliaments, and private and civil society stakeholders in the NEPAD process, and move quickly on the APRM to show concrete results.

As testimony to Africa's willingness to accept responsibilities for development outcomes, the NEPAD Heads of State Implementation Committee adopted the African Peer Review Mechanism, in Abuja, Nigeria, on 5 March 2003. The African Peer Review Mechanism came into effect immediately as more than 10 countries acceded to the mechanism, and it is expected that the first peer reviews will come underway in 2003. We also welcome the fact that more countries are preparing themselves to join the African Peer Review Mechanism. This is particularly important because the APRM was not imposed from outside but is a mechanism we devised as Africans, as a mirror to reflect on ourselves and monitor our progress in meeting the development goals of the continent.

The success of bringing the African Peer Review Mechanism into effect was the result of tireless efforts by our African leaders, supported ably by multilateral development institutions, not least on the continent. Please allow me - in that regard - to thank the ECA and the entire UN system for their support for NEPAD. The ECA has been a very important actor in all these UN system-wide efforts.

It should also be seen as an invitation to Africa's partners to join and support our efforts to build a new Africa. Their assistance can be much more effective if they accept the notion that they and us should be mutually accountable for the outcomes.

At the last Committee of Experts' meeting we also addressed a number of statutory issues. In particular, we approved proposed changes to the ECA's work programme to better serve the pressing policy objectives - which had emerged from Monterrey, Doha, WSSD, the transformation of the OAU to the AU, and the adoption of NEPAD as the socio-economic programme of the AU.

Over the next three days the Committee of Experts will take one step further in laying the foundation for good governance, best practice learning, and capacity building on the continent. The reports that are now before this session highlight some of the issues raised during our last meeting in Johannesburg and raise new ones. This includes mutual accountability and greater policy coherence for development effectiveness, the macroeconomic implications of HIV/AIDS, and the future role of the IMF in Africa. As always, the quality of the reports is very high, which will indeed assist the meeting in taking the issues further.

At Monterrey, we recognized the need for effective mobilization of resources to finance development programmes to assist in the achievement of the MDGs. In that regard, the Monterrey Consensus emphasized the need for effective partnerships to facilitate mutual accountability.

It is important that we commit ourselves to the principles of mutual accountability. In taking this path, we would need to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by this Conference to unpack the practicalities of the proposal prepared by the ECA. In our discussions, we need to ask ourselves: what will work for us? Will it be feasible? And what can we do at the national level to facilitate this process, and to make mutual accountability effective?

Specifically, we would need to avoid duplicating existing initiatives and processes as recommended by the Big Table III, in Addis Ababa, in January 2003. We must come up with a simple framework that makes use of existing fora like the Big Table and the Strategic Partnership for Africa.

I also expect that this Committee of Experts will build on the success of last year to further our efforts in making this gathering of technical experts constructive and result-oriented. In lending ourselves to address the key development issues on the continent, we should discipline ourselves to come up with concrete actions that can be implemented in the coming year, and subsequently evaluated at our next Committee of Experts' meeting. This will allow more consistency and focus in future meetings.

Lastly, it may be appropriate for me to explain to the Committee of Experts why the Bureau has remained the same as last year. Owing to the short time period between last October's meeting and this meeting, the Executive Secretary consulted with the Subregional Deans of the African Ambassadors in Addis Ababa, and it was decided that last years' Bureau would be maintained for continuity. For your information, in addition to the South African Chair, we have Cameroon as first Vice-Chair, Ghana as second Vice-Chair, Kenya as third Vice-Chair, and Sudan as Rapporteur.

Thank you ...