Cluster Objectives

Cluster Members

Report of the First Meeting of the Steering Group of the NEPAD

11 February 2005

The first meeting of the Steering Group of the NEPAD Advocacy and Communications Cluster was held at UN Headquarters in New York on 11 February 2005. The meeting was held in accord with the decision reached at the first meeting of the NEPAD Advocacy and Communications Cluster on 9 July 2004, to establish such a Steering Group, chaired by the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA). The summary of the Steering Group meeting follows.

Present:

Agostinho Zacarias, OSAA (Chair)
Mieko Ikegame, OSAA
Cheryl Larsen, OSAA
Timothy Bandora, UNDP
Akwe Amosu, ECA
Ernest Harsch, DPI

Proposed Strategy Document

The meeting began with a discussion of the June 2004 draft of the proposed Strategy Document for an Advocacy and Communications Campaign on NEPAD, with a view towards fine-tuning it. Among the suggestions were:

• To review the draft in light of the advocacy components of the African Union and NEPAD Strategic Plans, to ensure consistency.

• To clarify the relationship between advocacy (including promotion and mobilization) and public information, which would entail the provision of concrete information on NEPAD’s implementation.

• To keep in mind that most target audiences, within Africa and outside, require information on both concrete results and on the NEPAD process itself, such as the African Peer Review Mechanism.

• To regard the media as an especially important target audience, both as recipients of information and as “re-disseminators” that can take that information to wider audiences.

• To recognize the potential role of the UN Information Centres (UNICs) as partners, along with UNDP, in helping to implement the NEPAD advocacy and communications strategy at the national level.

• To shorten and to clarify the language of the proposed Strategy Document.

The Chairman informed the meeting that a consultant will likely be retained to solicit further suggestions on the document, incorporate them and produce a final draft.

Potential Joint Activities

It was recognized that while there has been some debate and discussion about NEPAD at the global level, there remains only very limited discussion of it within African countries, given the lack of basic information, with the partial exception of those countries now undergoing a Peer Review process. It is therefore important to develop communications and information programmes and projects to address the gaps in knowledge and understanding at all levels, including the national, regional and global. At the same time, care must be taken, especially at the national level, that NEPAD does not appear to people as a UN-originated programme, but as an African-led initiative, directed by the African Union and the NEPAD Secretariat.

The Steering Group agreed, however, that while guidance from the NEPAD Secretariat would be very welcome for developing joint advocacy and information activities, the Group’s members can also develop their own agreed joint initiatives, which can then be presented to the Secretariat. The Chairman, who was about to travel to South Africa, accepted the task of consulting with the NEPAD Secretariat about any advocacy or information activities that it regards as especially important.

Next Meeting

With the aim of finalizing the Advocacy and Communications Strategy document by the time of the next regional cluster meeting in July, it was agreed to try to hold another Steering Group meeting, by video- or tele-conference, during the latter half of March. The Chair of the Group will confirm the date.