Welcome Statement by Ms. Josephine Ouedraogo Acting Deputy Executive Secretary

ECA Meeting With NEPAD Secretariat
Addis Ababa, 26 July 2006

Dr. Hesphina Rukato, Deputy Chief Executive of NEPAD Secretariat, and Colleague, Mr.Karim Khalil, Coordinator.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you, on behalf of the Executive Secretary, Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, to ECA today. I would like to express our pleasure to get this opportunity to discuss with you areas of collaboration between our two organizations in pursuit of the goals and objectives of the NEPAD programme. On behalf of all my ECA Colleagues, I want to assure you that your time here will be well spent.

You are no doubt aware of ECA's historical role in NEPAD, from inception until now. ECA has played and continues to play a key role in NEPAD through the following major channels:

•  Participation in the process that gave birth to NEPAD and the elaboration of some of its key features – including: APRM;

•  Use of ECA's convening power to bring decision-makers and stakeholders together for consensus building – e.g. African Information Society Initiative, a precursor to ICT development in Africa;

•  Coordination of UN System-wide support to NEPAD through UN Agencies and partners activities in Africa – a role assigned by the UN General Assembly;

•  Responding to specific requests from NEPAD organs and related structures as a Strategic Partner Institution.

We all know that NEPAD programme has evolved since its adoption in 2001. This is a natural process in this fast changing world. While Africa's development challenges as reflected in NEPAD vision still remain to be attained, the environment in which this must be achieved have changed since 2001:

•  The World Community has supported NEPAD in the framework of the Millennium Declaration, drawing in many actors, from G8, Private Sector, United Nations, etc. – The involvement of many actors demands that we constantly reassess our own role.

•  Africa's development landscape has also changed – for the better, I believe: many more democratic governments in place; stronger regional institutions (AU, RECs); stronger record of economic growth.

•  The role of the UN is also changing – As outlined in the Outcome Document from the General Assembly Summit of Heads of State and Government in September 2005.

Naturally, ECA itself has to change in this dynamic world. As a result of UN General Assembly decision to support NEPAD, ECA's work programme was changed in 2002 in order to align it to the objectives of NEPAD. Furthermore, in its capacity as the regional arm of the UN, ECA was assigned the responsibility of coordinating UN support to NEPAD at the regional and sub-regional levels. This coordination is carried out in the framework of the regional consultations of UN agencies working in Africa. The objective of this framework is to fast-track programme implementation system-wide by the United Nations. So far six regional consultations have been organised and the 7 th one is planned for October this year. In addition to that, ECA's mandated work programmes and the activities carried out through its five Subregional Offices (SROs) support the achievement of NEPAD objectives.

Under the new leadership of Mr. Janneh, ECA will continue to align its forthcoming priorities with the implementation of the African Union/NEPAD agenda, as well as ensure that all its activities have direct, immediate and tangible bearing on NEPAD objectives. In addition, it will continue to respond to specific requests from NEPAD organs and related structures. The contribution of ECA to APRM process, Mutual Accountability, and the UN Regional Consultations have been helping to advance Africa's development agenda and to contribute to the consolidation and achievement of N EPAD objectives.

Mr. Janneh has on many occasions re-affirmed ECA's commitment toward Africa and to advancing the NEPAD processes and implementation – in various meetings with the Chief Executive Officer of NEPAD and the Chairman of the African Union Commission. This commitment has been recognized at the recent AU Summit in Banjul.

In this regard, ECA has undertaken a repositioning exercise, identifying two main pillars for its programme: Regional Integration and a comprehensive Support to NEPAD Programme Implementation .

ECA to revive its internal dynamics

The c reation of NEPAD support unit to provide functional support to the meetings of UN thematic clusters, ECA participation in the APR processes, contributions to the SG report on NEPAD and Support to NEPAD Secretariat, issues that deserve strategic decisions at the management level. These activities will be fully integrated in ECA's regular programme of work with the unit playing an oversight role.

Second, ECA will s ubstantially empower its Sub-regional Offices (SROs) to deliver agreed results consistent with the 18 December 2005 General Assembly resolution which called on the Secretary-General to present a plan to improve the role of its SROs. ECA is currently in the process of preparing a comprehensive plan aimed at improving the capacity and operational impact of SROs.

ECA will also continue to improving governance and development management to enhance national capacity and capability and to support the APRM process; as well as to ensure that member states continue to assess and monitor progress in delivering commitments of development effectiveness

Dear Colleagues,

The objective of our meeting is to identify common areas of collaboration between our two institutions in support of the implementation of NEPAD Programme. May I, therefore, suggest that following the introductory remarks, we present to you a brief overview of ECA's programme of work, which you will find is fully geared to support NEPAD programme. First, the Director of the Office of Policy and Programme Coordination will introduce the work programme. Then, each Director of the sub-programmes will highlight specific activities in support of NEPAD. These will then be followed by discussions and exchange of views.

This first part of the programme should take us up to lunch time. Of course, the exchange of views can continue during lunch.

After lunch, we will give opportunity to our colleagues from NEPAD Secretariat to present to us their views of possible areas of collaboration with ECA.

I hope that, by the end of the discussions, we will come up with clearly defined areas of collaboration.

To conclude, I wish to share my hope that our meeting will be able to come out with concrete measures to improve the quality of our combined assistance to AU/NEPAD.

I look forward to fruitful discussions.

Thank you, once again, for visiting us today.