ECA Executive Secretary Abdoulie Janneh Opens First Partners Forum of 2008

Addis Ababa, 12 March 2008 (ECA) – UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA, Abdoulie Janneh, on Wednesday convened the first in a new series of “Partners Forums” at the ECA headquarters in Addis Ababa . The six monthly Forum aims to promote deeper dialogue between the ECA and its donors, and other key partners, on economic and social developments in Africa . It is also intended to be a key forum through which partners are regularly and updated on ECA's activities.

Mr. Janneh opened the meeting by informing the gathering of the close link between the Forum and a new Thematic Working Group, which has been established to enable partners to “have deeper and more specific engagement on some key areas of ECA's work”. He explained that each meeting of the Thematic Working Group would cover different sectors in order to allow time for in-depth discussions around the chosen theme while also enabling partners to engage with ECA across the entire spectrum of its work.

In his presentation the Executive Secretary, outlined ECA's perspectives on current socio-economic trends in the regions. In that regard, while noting the continued positive regional economic growth rates Mr. Janneh stressed that “efforts to continue improving economic and political conditions in the continent must be assessed against the goal of long-term development and structural transformation”.

He ended his review of developments with by bringing a focus on the short term challenges posed to Africa by the spectre of recession in key industrial countries and high international oil and food prices. He noted “the cumulative impact of these challenges could compound efforts to scale-up and sustain growth and extend its benefits to socially excluded groups including women and children”.

Mr. Janneh also briefed the Forum on the progress made on several fronts since the 2006 ECA Repositioning exercise and the start of the implementation of the 2007-2009 ECA Business Plan. In particular, he highlighted improved collaboration with the African Union (AU) and African Development Bank in a cross section of areas. These include the co-production of flagship reports such as the Economic Report on Africa , the Assessment of Regional Integration in Africa , and the African Economic Outlook.

In the spirit of closer partnership, the next ECA Conference of Ministers (and ECA's 50 th anniversary commemorations) will take place at the same time as the first session of the Joint Annual Meetings of the AU Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance and ECA African Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development. The theme of the conference, which will take place in Addis Ababa , from 31 March to 2 April 2008, is “Meeting Africa 's New Challenges in the 21 st Century”.

Mr. Janneh presentation to the Forum also included an update on the steps that are being taken to strengthen of ECA's sub-regional offices (SROs) to enable them to play an enhanced role in delivering our work programme at the sub-regional level. He said that these offices would continue to be strengthened to enable them to play an increasing operational role in their respective sub-regions with required support from all Divisions at ECA headquarters. He informed the meeting that the SROs, which are a critical pillar of ECA's support for regional integration, have all now agreed on multi-year programmes of work with their respective Regional Economic Communities reflecting specific sub-regional priorities and programmes.

Regarding the repositioning of in ECA's programme activities, the Executive Secretary, highlighted the deepening of ECA's work in the areas of statistics, science and technology and climate change. He also used the opportunity of his presentation to inform the Partner's Forum of the creation of a new forum, the “Coalition for Dialogue on Africa” would also be created (CoDA) which will merge the best elements of the “Big Table” (Africa – OECD ministerial consultation) and the Global Coalition for Africa .

The Partner's Forum was followed immediately by two days of technical thematic group discussions.