Minutes of the African Committee on Sustainable Development - Third Bureau meeting

Tuesday 7 June 2005

Introduction

1. The Third meeting of the African CSD-3 Bureau was held on 7 June 2005 at the UNCC Caucus Room 6 to discuss the preparatory process for the global CSD-14, and to adopt the draft Agenda and Programme of work for African CSD-4.

2. The Agenda of the meeting was as follows:

- Remarks by the Chair

- Preparatory process for Global CSD-14

- Adoption of the draft Agenda and Programme of Work for African CSD-4

- Any Other Business

3. The members of the Bureau who attended the meeting were:

- South Africa (Chairperson).

- Congo

- Ethiopia, and

- Ghana (see the list of participants on the last page)

Egypt which is the ongoing chair of the CSD-3 Bureau apologized for not be able to attend this session.

4. Mr. Ousmane Laye led the Secretariat team on behalf of Mr. Josué Dioné, the Director of the Sustainable Development Division (SDD) on mission. Other staff members from the Secretariat included Mr. Abdoulaye Niang, Agriculture and Food Security Team Leader; Mr. Pedro Antonio, Natural Resources Development Team Leader; Mr. Alex Tindimubona, Science, Technology and Innovation Team Leader; Mr. Hassan Yousif from Population and Social Development Team; Mr. Yinka Adeyemi, Communication Officer; Mr. Johnson Oguntolla, Regional Adviser; and Mr. Negussie Gorfe from Sustainable Development Monitoring Team.

Remarks by the Chair

5. In the absence of the Chairman of the Bureau from Egypt Embassy due to illness, Ms. Mandy Solomon from the Embassy of the Republic of South Africa and Vice-Chairperson of the Bureau chaired the meeting.

6. Ms. Solomon thanked the members of the Bureau for coming to the meeting, introduced the Agenda and then invited Mr. Laye to present the Agenda items.

Preparatory process for Global CSD-14

7. Mr. Laye apologized that Mr. Josué Dioné could not be available at the meeting as he was on mission. He also apologized for the short notice given to the Bureau members with regard to the meeting and explained that consultations were undertaken with the Chairman of the Bureau concerning the meeting.

8. Mr. Laye pointed out that an informal consultation on the African Preparatory Process for the Fourteenth Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-14) was convened on 9 and 10 February 2005 by ECA. The main objectives of the consultations were to:

(i) Discuss the best approach to carry out a comprehensive review of the state of achievements of the goals of the Johannesburg Plan Of Implementation (JPOI) and Agenda 21;

(ii) Agree on a strategy to undertake the review and to prepare Africa's regional review reports on the thematic clusters of issues to be addressed; and

(iii) Define necessary actions, key actors and a timeline to attain these objectives.

9. He then presented the agenda of the consultations, which included four items, as follows:

(i) Review of the scoping papers on the four thematic issues for consideration by CSD-14; which are, energy, industrial development, climate change, atmosphere/air pollution;

(ii) Define the roles and responsibilities of participating agencies in the preparation of the different thematic reports;

(iii) Agree on the format of the thematic reports; and

(iv) Draft a timetable for the preparation of the reports.

10. Under the review of the scoping papers he indicated that a decision was reached to:

(i) Agree on the format of the reports for the four thematic issues relevant to CSD-14;

(ii) Review the thematic scoping papers proposed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) in working groups; and

(iii) Discuss the outcomes of the working group session in plenary.

11. With regard to the format/structure of the reports, it was agreed in the consultation meeting that all thematic reports should consist of five chapters, which will include:

(i) Overview of the current situation of the thematic issue

(ii) Review of progress made in the implementation of JPOI and Agenda 21

(iii) Challenges and constraints to meet goals and targets

(iv) Lessons learnt

(v) The Way Forward.

12. He further explained that the responsibilities for the preparation of the three thematic review reports were also decided as follows:

(i) Energy by ECA;

(ii) Industrial development by UNIDO, and

(iii) Climate change, and Atmosphere/Air pollution by UNEP.

13. In addition to the above, NEPAD Secretariat and the Millennium Project agreed to provide inputs to the lead agencies.

14. The draft reports prepared by the lead agencies will be circulated for comments to the Bureau members, the Joint Secretariat and other institutions; reviewed by member States and other stakeholders; and the finalized report will be submitted to UNDESA at the end of November 2005.

15. During the discussions, Mr. Laye indicated that follow-up action was taken by SDD to know the status of the reports. In the case of the Energy report, he indicated that the contribution of UN Energy Africa was requested and the preparation of the report is progressing well. Furthermore, he also pointed out that continuous contacts were made with UNIDO and UNEP to consult on the status of the reports. If any problems are faced during the preparation of the reports, the SDD will let the Bureau know.

16. SDD is in the process of streamlining its activities with the global CSD progamme. Feed-back on the activities of SDD are obtained from UNDESA and other partners. Besides, regional commissions had a consultation with UNDESA during the global CSD-13 meeting to discuss preparatory process activities for CSD-14.

17. In order not to coincide with other important meetings of ECA and the African Union, it was pointed out that the dates for the African CSD-4 meeting are fixed in consultation with concerned bodies.

18. The Chairperson encouraged ECA to finalize the reports on time and invited Mr. Laye to present the second Agenda item.

Adoption of the draft Agenda and Programme of Work

19. In introducing the Draft Agenda and the Draft Programme of Work Mr. Laye pointed out that the proposed African Regional Review Forum for CSD-14 will be merged with the forthcoming session of the African CSD-4, which is a statutory meeting to be organized by ECA within its work programme. He added that, following a decision taken at CSD-3 in 2003, the African CSD should be considered as a regional component of the global CSD. Therefore, theme of the African CSD-4 should be aligned to that of the global CSD-14.

20. However, he indicated that note should be taken that SDD is in a transitional period during which the ECA work programme for the period 2004-2005 was decided before the mandate of African CSD was revised to take into account the thematic programming of the global CSD. Therefore, the African CSD-4 will deal both with the issues to be considered according to ECA work programme and with the African Regional Review Forum for the global CSD-14.

21. Mr. Laye explained that to have enough time for the above activities the number of days for the meeting should be increased from 3 to 5.

22. During the discussions the Bureau endorsed the Draft Agenda and the Draft Programme of Work without amendments, but emphasised the principle of aligning the work and activities of the African CSD-4 with that of the global CSD-14.

Any Other Business

23. It was indicated during the meeting that the documents should be sent to the Bureau members weeks in advance of the meeting date. The Secretariat took note of the concern raised. Mr. Laye thanked the members for coming to the meeting at such short notice, for their contributions in the discussions and informed them that this was the last Bureau meeting of African CSD-3.

24. It was agreed during the meeting that invitation letters for African CSD-4 meeting should be sent to the respective Embassies of member States in Addis Ababa. The Embassies will then follow-up the matter with their respective countries.

25. In order to avoid duplication of work, it was indicated that consultations should be made between SDD of ECA and UNDESA when requests for information are sent to member States.

Closing

26. The Chairperson thanked the participants and closed the meeting at 10:45 AM.

List of participants