Meeting of the UN-Energy/Africa

Opening Statement by

Mr. Josué Dioné
Director, Sustainable Development Division (SDD), UN Economic Commission for Africa

May 24, 2006
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Distinguished representative of the Africa Union Commission and the AU/NEPAD
Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson of UN-Energy/Africa,
Dear Colleagues,

I am happy to welcome you back to ECA and to this meeting of UN-Energy/Africa. I know that some of you also took part in meeting of the Infrastructure Development Cluster of the UN Regional Consultations, which was held yesterday in this very room. Your presence and continued support testify to the interest you have in the objectives and work of this inter-agency collaboration created to ensure more coherence and effectiveness in our support to the NEPAD Energy Initiative, the Follow-up to the outcomes and Johannesburg Plan of Implementation of the WSSD. The presence of the African Union Commission at this meeting is particularly appreciated, as this is an additional sign of the improved working relationship and growing synergy between the AU and UN organizations.

Colleagues,

Since its launching two years ago, UN-Energy/Africa has made significant progress by bringing its members to adopt a work programme for 2004-2006, which embraces priority areas of focus and encourages joint implementation of key activities. One of the most commendable examples of such collaboration is the partnership between ECA, UNEP and UNDESA in conducting the study and organizing the stakeholders’ policy dialogue forum on how to make Africa’s power sector sustainable through well-designed power sector reforms. The conclusions and policy statement which emerged from these activities were later presented to the 1st Africa Union Conference of Ministers responsible for electrical energy in Addis Ababa in March 2006. Subsequently, as your Secretariat, ECA ensured that these conclusions were also made available to the international community at the last 14th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development in New York.

Such effective collaboration among UN agencies, from joint programming to joint implementation, constitutes a best practice to be shared, and replicated not only within UN-Energy/Africa, but also in the other UN Regional consultations and initiatives geared towards Africa’s development.

Dear Colleagues,

As African nations look more and more to the UN system for operational support in their efforts at sustainable development and poverty reduction, there is need for UN-Energy/Africa to address the challenge of improved energy access in Africa as part of the efforts at achieving key MDGs. Indeed, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation calls for “improving access to reliable and affordable energy services for sustainable development sufficient to facilitate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, including the goal of halving the proportion of people in poverty by 2015, and as a means to generate other important services that mitigate poverty, bearing in mind that access to energy facilitates the eradication of poverty.”

At the last CSD, it was reaffirmed that without energy, most development efforts will be in vain. CSD 14 also concluded that access to modern energy by all Africans is a priority.

This is why the Sustainable Development Division of ECA has emphasized two key energy issues in its 2006-2007 work programme on energy: Improving energy access to the rural population and more effective energy planning and management through Integrated Resource Planning.

The challenges presented by the specificities of the African energy context, and the barriers to be overcome in order to make a difference on these two issues, are so great that we believe that aggregating our collective efforts around them would make strategic sense, and guarantee more productive results. It is time for the UN to scale up its actions in support of development of the Africa’s energy sector.

As you are preparing to update your work programme for the next two years, I would like to challenge you to emphasize joint programming and implementation of key actions, and be as practical and imaginative as possible in designing the ways to mobilize resources.

Dear Colleagues,

Let me conclude by reaffirming ECA’s commitments to continue to serve as Secretariat of UN-Energy/Africa and provide appropriate support within its mandate and resources, to ensure a fruitful coordination of member agencies in support of Africa’s energy development.

I wish you a very fruitful meeting.

Thank you for your attention.