Human Resources Development, Employment and HIV/AIDS

Sub-cluster: Education

Action Plans | Activities | Indicators of Achievement | Achievements to date | Next Steps |

Action Plan

• Human capacity building from the ground up, including:

  • Rapid advance towards universal primary education for both boys and girls and wider education for all in accordance with the agreed EFA programme;

  • Accelerating implementation of girls' education as a prerequisite for development.

Activities

Country Level

• Activities to accelerate girls' education;

• Ensure support to school enrolment and attendance objectives in food deficit situations, through school feeding and similar programmes: Lead Agency: WFP;

• Ensure support to enable children at special risk, including displaced and refugee children and AIDS orphans to attend school: Lead agencies: UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP, WFP, UNFPA;

Sub-Regional Level

Joint advocacy to expand the existing Health Desks at the RECs to include education and employment issues: Lead Agency: WHO: Participating Agencies: UNFPA, UNESCO, UNICEF, AU/NEPAD;

• Correlation of EFA sub-regional divisions with RECs in the context of NEPAD through the expanded Health and Social Affairs Desks. Lead Agencies: WHO, ECA, UNESCO, UNDP, AU/NEPAD;

Regional/AU Level

• Joint, high-level advocacy to engage NEPAD in the Education for All (EFA) process. Lead Agencies: UNICEF, UNESCO;

• Assist NEPAD to convene a workshop to finalize the plan of action on education priority areas;

• Establish database on education to facilitate monitoring of MDG goals on education and documentation of best practices: Lead agencies: UNFPA, UNESCO, UNICEF;

• Assess progress made towards making girls' education a priority in the context of MDG and agreement on strategy to accelerate: UNESCO, UNICEF;

• Improving quality of higher education including measures to halt and reverse the brain drain:
  Lead Agencies: ECA, UNESCO, UNDP, AU/NEPAD, IOM

Indicators of Achievement

• Advocacy to involve NEPAD as member of the education for all (EFA) process.

• Assist NEPAD to convene a workshop to finalize the plan of action on education priority areas.

• Establish database on education to facilitate monitoring of MDG goals on education and documentation of best practices.

• Assess progress made towards making girls' education a priority in the context of MDG and agreement on strategy to accelerate.

• Establish database on education and employment requirements.

• Explore establishment of inventory of African professionals working abroad: Lead agency, IOM.

Achievements to date

• NEPAD and UNESCO have agreed to convene the planned workshop on education priority areas during the first week of March.

• NEPAD/AU and IOM have agreed to convene shortly a roundtable workshop on brain drain and human resource development in Africa.

Next Steps

• Collectively support and strengthen assessment of the institutional capacity of the RECs in Human Resource areas.

• Joint action to collectively support Health and Social Affairs Desks in the RECs, to mainstream HIV/AIDS, Address education and employment issues in the Context of NEPAD, and mainstream these issues into their sectoral programmes.

• To advocate for the participation of social partners, especially employers and workers in NEPAD.

• To articulate a strategy and plan of action on reversing the Brain Drain.