Cluster Objectives

Cluster Members

The objectives of this cluster are to advance the implementation of the NEPAD priorities, consistent with the commitments in the Millennium Development Goals, the resolution of the twenty-sixth special session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS, and the Abuja Declaration on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Other Related Infectious Diseases. There are three sub-clusters working in this area, namely: education, employment and HIV/AIDS. UNICEF is the convenor of this cluster.

The sub-cluster on education is supporting rapid advance towards universal primary education for both boys and girls, helping to establish database on education to facilitate monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals on education and documentation of best practice and exploring the establishment of inventory of African professionals working abroad. The agencies in this sub-cluster have also agreed to collectively support and strengthen assessment of the institutional capacity of the regional economic communities in the human resources area. The NEPAD secretariat/the African Union and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have agreed to convene in the near future a round-table workshop on brain drain and human resources development in Africa.

UNESCO has provided assistance in setting up a task team for the preparation of the NEPAD action plan on human resources development. In this regard, it organized in Paris from 10 to 12 December 2003, a meeting of experts on the theme “Female Participation in Education”, which reviewed gender gaps in education in Africa and formulated a series of recommendations that could be reflected in the NEPAD action plan on human resources development. The outcomes were transmitted to the NEPAD secretariat and the African Union Commission. UNESCO also set up another task team to serve as a consultative body to assist the African Union Commission and the NEPAD secretariat in revising and finalizing the Education Action Plan, seconded an expert to the secretariat of NEPAD from mid- September 2003 up to February 2004, and provided financial support to organize the meeting of the task team which was held in Johannesburg, Africa, on 22 and 23 March 2004.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) continues to implement its Africa capacity-building initiative through the Africa regional technical assistance centres, with the primary aim of strengthening domestic capacity in macroeconomic management and in the design and implementation of sustainable poverty reduction strategies. The second centre, the West Africa regional technical assistance centre, which was inaugurated in May 2003 and covers ten countries in West Africa, is now fully operational. Under a joint training programme with the African Capacity-Building Foundation, the East Africa regional technical assistance centre organized workshops on revenue administration, treasury reform, and banking supervision, while the West Africa regional technical assistance centre organized workshops on fiscal decentralization, monetary policy and government finance statistics, moneylaundering and bank balance sheet analysis.

The employment sub-cluster is working on the finalization of the draft Social Policy Framework for the African Union/NEPAD, the draft Declaration and Plan of Action on Employment and Poverty Alleviation in Africa, Finalization of Draft Declaration and Plan of Action; and support to the African Union/NEPAD to mainstream employment in its activities and halting and reversing the brain drain that is rapidly diminishing the availability of human capacity in key development areas. The International Labour Organization (ILO) is the convenor of this subcluster and is taking the lead on these various activities.

The sub-cluster on HIV/AIDS is facilitating the implementation and monitoring of the HIV/AIDS-related commitments of the Millennium Development Goals, the special session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS and the Abuja Declaration at the country, regional and continental levels. A Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Support Office has been established in Pretoria by United Nations agencies in Southern Africa working on food security, HIV/AIDS and the humanitarian issue. This is an important example of inter-agency collaborative efforts on intersecting subregional issues.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has continued to be a strong advocate of NEPAD within the United Nations system at both regional and country levels. UNAIDS is supporting NEPAD in the mainstreaming of HIV/AIDS into all of its sectors. A consultation is currently under way to develop a strategy that will enable each sector to integrate HIV/AIDS in its core activities and make HIV/AIDS an overarching issue in NEPAD. UNAIDS has strengthened its office in Addis Ababa by appointing a senior level staff member and recruiting staff to be responsible for ongoing follow-up on NEPAD and other regional bodies. In addition, UNAIDS has focal points on NEPAD at the headquarters and regional levels. UNAIDS is supporting NEPAD to identify best practices for use as strategic information for policy with regard to the development of an advocacy policy to achieve the recent 3x5 initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO), under which anti-retroviral drugs are to be made available to 3 million HIV/AIDS patients by 2005, and in monitoring the implementation of the Abuja Declaration.

To address the various governance challenges posed by HIV/AIDS, in February 2003, the Secretary-General established a high-level Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance under the chairmanship of the ECA Executive Secretary.The Commission, which has its secretariat at ECA, will complement the policy analytical work and advocacy activities of the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, as well as other ongoing initiatives. Since its establishment, the secretariat has consulted extensively with a wide range of experts to arrive at a research framework that will examine the impact of the pandemic on key areas of governance and economic development and advocate for measures to reverse the epidemic. The first meeting of the Commission was held in Addis Ababa in September 2003 and the second in Maputo in March 2004. UNAIDS is providing support to the high-level Commission.

A decision has been made to establish a fourth sub-cluster on health, with WHO as the convenor. Other agencies that are part of the sub-cluster include ECA, IOM, UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank. The sub-cluster is to work in support of the combined African Union Social Affairs/NEPAD collaborative arrangement and within the framework of African Union health decisions and the NEPAD health strategy. The action areas include popularization and implementation of the African Union/NEPAD health strategy; support to health desks in the regional economic communities; availing expertise of the United Nations to better support achievement of the health strategy; raising the profile and perceived value of investing in health; development and implementation of strategies to redress the brain drain in the health sector; and intersectoral action and inter-agency strategy harmonization to support implementation of the health strategy.

The WHO Regional Office for Africa made an important contribution to the development of the NEPAD health strategy. During the past year, WHO collaborated with NEPAD in developing project briefs. These cover broad areas, such as enabling stewardship and harnessing multisectoral efforts; securing health systems; scaling up disease control; scaling up programmes for management of pregnancy and childbirth; empowerment of people to improve their health; and mobilization of resources. These project briefs are now with NEPAD for finalization and will be used for resource mobilization at a “donors” conference to be organized in the near future.

The WHO Regional Office for Africa, in collaboration with the NEPAD secretariat, is supporting the integration of the NEPAD health strategy into the national health strategies and development plans of the member countries of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC). Discussions have been held between the Regional Office and the Organization of Coordination for the Control of Endemic Diseases in Central Africa on the preparation for a meeting of Experts from the CEMAC member countries scheduled for 26 to 30 April 2004. The Regional Office (represented by the WHO country representative/Cameroon) participated in the preparatory meeting that was held in Yaoundé, on 4 and 5 March 2004, and will provide the venue and technical support for the meeting of experts to be held in April 2004.

UNFPA participated in African Union expert group meetings and provided technical inputs, including for Africa’s Social Policy Framework; and the Draft Action Plan on the Family in Africa. In collaboration with the African Centre for Gender and Development, the Fund organized a regional workshop on gender and HIV/AIDS.

The various agencies in this cluster have also agreed to harmonize their policies and programming on HIV/AIDS, to include monitoring countries’ performance on HIV/AIDS, and to support the effort concerning the WHO initiated dialogue with regional economic communities on establishing health and social affairs desks at the communities, for which agreement has been reached on the terms of reference for the health desks at the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the Economic Community of West African States.