Documents

Summary Discussions of The Sixth Regional Consultations of UN Agencies Working In Africa

Sixth Regional Consultations Meeting
9-10 July 2004
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

1. The sixth Regional Consultative meeting of UN agencies working in Africa, was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 9-10 July 2004. It was jointly chaired by Mr. K. Y. Amoako, the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, Under Secretary-General and Special Advisor on Africa, and Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa. The meeting was attended by several UN agencies, departments and programmes, as well as the NEPAD Secretariat. The meeting was convened to assess the effectiveness of the UN system support to NEPAD at the regional level through the instrumentality of the thematic clusters established in October 2002. A consolidated report of activities undertaken by the various clusters during the two-year period, as well as a Note by ECA outlining key challenges faced by the clusters and coordination in general were circulated as background documents.

2. Opening statements were made by Mr. K. Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, Under-Secretary General and Special Advisor on Africa, and Mr. Wiseman Nkuhlu, Chairperson of the NEPAD Steering Committee.

3. In his opening remarks, the Executive Secretary, welcomed all the participants to the meeting. He recalled that through its Resolution 57/7 the General Assembly had requested the UN system to align its activities with the priorities of NEPAD and to foster a coherent response at the regional, sub-regional and national levels. He summarized the essence of the request as having been geared towards greater support for building human and institutional capacities, greater harmony in mobilizing financial resources to support Africa's development, and a more coordinated programming of UN support to NEPAD. He recalled further that the UN system had responded by adopting the current cluster arrangement in order to provide a common platform for greater interaction with NEPAD sectoral priorities.

4. In assessing the effectiveness of the UN support to NEPAD through the cluster arrangement, the Executive Secretary noted that some notable progress had been made, although a number of challenges still remained to be addressed. Some of the accomplishments he cited included the efforts of the transport sub-cluster in building capacities of the RECs in transport policy under the sub-Saharan African Transport Policy Programme (SATPP); the assistance given by the sub-cluster on agriculture in developing and implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP); the contribution of the Environment, Population and Urbanization cluster in establishing the NEPAD cities programme and in preparing action plans for seven cities; as well as the preparation of the Environment Action Plan; establishment by the UN agencies in southern Africa working on food security, HIV/AIDS and other issues of a Regional Inter-Agency Coordination Support Office (RIACSO); UN agencies support to facilitate accelerated primary education for boys and girls; and their efforts in assessing the institutional capacities of the RECs in human resources development; and, the successes of UN Water/Africa in bringing together virtually all UN and non-UN agencies at the national, sub-regional and regional levels to develop a Water facility with a continent-wide portfolio of projects worth US $680 million. He noted with satisfaction that these examples demonstrated the essence of UN support to NEPAD as they provided a common entry point for several agencies to collectively channel support to NEPAD.

5. The Executive Secretary expressed concern over the challenges that have inhibited progress in many other areas, including the persistent difficulties of inter-agency collaboration and coordination that have significantly undermined the coherence and potential impact of our support to NEPAD. In this regard, he underscored the need to harmonize technical assistance and resource mobilization, and to improve inter-agency approach to programming. He encouraged the clusters lagging behind to move quickly towards implementation. He also urged the meeting to seriously consider how best the UN system could work together more efficiently and effectively in support of NEPAD.

6. In his remarks, Professor Ibrahim Gambari underlined the importance of regional consultation mechanism as a vehicle for enhancing collaboration and coherence within the UN system in support of NEPAD. He expressed concern over the lack of involvement in the regional consultations of the many secretariat Departments and assured the meeting that he would take up the issue at the level of the Inter-departmental Task Force in New York.

7. He informed the meeting that the Committee on Programme Coordination (CPC) had acknowledged the individual and collective efforts of the UN entities in supporting the NEPAD Secretariat and the RECs in policy development, programme formulation, capacity building and institutional development. He shared the highlights of the recent CPC debate which included the need for enhanced coordination of UN activities at all levels (global, regional and national) and the role of UN system in supporting financial resource mobilization. Mr. Gambari expressed appreciation to UN agencies for their cooperation in submitting inputs for the requisite reports to both CPC and GA.

8. Mr. Gambari also informed the meeting that his office had, in collaboration with the NEPAD Secretariat, prepared an advocacy and communication strategy that would provide the framework for collaboration by the UN system, the NEPAD Secretariat, and the AU Commission in raising awareness and in supporting advocacy for promoting NEPAD programmes at all levels. In this connection, he proposed the creation of a cluster on Advocacy and Communication under the convenorship of OSAA, aimed at reinforcing coordination of advocacy and communication for NEPAD. He further informed the meeting that the Secretary-General had appointed a 13-member panel of eminent persons to advise him on strengthening international support for NEPAD. OSAA will serve as the secretariat of the panel.

9. In his presentation on the assessment of UN support to NEPAD since the establishment of the cluster arrangement, Mr. Robert Okello, Director of the Office of Policy and Programme Coordination, noted progress that had been made by the UN system towards supporting NEPAD at the regional and sub-regional levels. He, however, acknowledged that the collaborative potentials of the regional consultative mechanism had not been fully realised, as in many cases agencies were individually providing support to NEPAD, devoid of unity of purpose. He recalled that the key guiding principle for constituting clusters was to enable the UN agencies to identify synergies in their individual work programmes for cooperation, taking into account their respective mandates, comparative advantages and resource base. In this regard he appealed to the UN system to pool their resources together around selected joint activities in support of NEPAD.

10. Mr. Okello noted that a significant expansion of UN activities at the regional level in recent years had increased opportunities for collaboration in joint programming and implementation, on one hand, while also posing a major challenge on coordinating the organisation's work in the region. In this regard, he highlighted the need to establish linkages between UN coordination at the regional level and inter-agency processes at the national level. He also higlighted the weak links that existed between the RECs and the UN system and urged the clusters to directly engage with the Secretariats of the RECs to expedite programme implementation. In addition, he encouraged the clusters to indicate the division of responsibilities among its members, resource implications as well as benchmarks for delivery of identified joint activities.

11. Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu expressed his appreciation for the support given by the UN system in promoting NEPAD at all levels, and, specifically, at the regional level where much progress had been made by the UN agencies to accelerate the pace of Africa's transformation and in mobilizing additional resources for NEPAD implementation. He noted that in the past three years since the adoption of NEPAD as the framework for concerted action by the UN system in support of Africa's development, significant progress had been made in several key areas including strengthened political leadership; increased focus on political, economic and corporate governance; more integrated approach to programming in key priority areas; increased and consolidated role of the RECs; and enhanced support by the development partners and multi-lateral institutions.

12. He briefed the meeting on the on-going integration of NEPAD into AU structures. He explained that NEPAD would focus mainly on areas where it has developed capacity in order to complement the AU Commission in the implementation of the AU programmes. He further stated that the integration would build on the successes achieved so far, and on the momentum generated in the implementation of NEPAD.

13. He highlighted key areas of priority where sustained support would be required: post-conflict reconstruction; APRM; agricultural development; infrastructure development, including ICTs; science and technology; environment; diversification of production, agro-industries, beneficiation of raw materials, and targeted industrialization; tourism; and selected health and education initiatives. Other priority areas where support was needed include development of Africa's positions and support of negotiation with industrialized countries and multi-lateral institutions on trade, ODA flows and other matters; and mobilization of resources for peace support operations and for health, education, and poverty reduction programmes.

14. ECA made a brief presentation on the work of the sub-cluster on water which is deemed the best practice of the UN cluster approach. The presentation highlighted the factors which had contributed to the success of the sub-cluster on water. It was noted that the sub-cluster started out as the weakest and most dispersed in terms of agency mandates. All the concerned agencies turned the situation into an opportunity to derive common benefits by collaborating with one another. They built upon existing mechanisms both within and outside the UN. For instance, they facilitated the merger of IGWA and UNSIA water cluster. The sub-cluster adopted a "Task Manager" system which clearly defined work elements and responsibilities. This system had additional benefits of generating positive peer competition in getting the task done and reported on. It also provided opportunities in pooling resources together to organize joint activities such as PANAFCON. The key players within the UN are UNEP, FAO, WMO, UN-Habitat, UNDP, UNESCO, and ECA. The non-UN players are AMCOW, African Union, African Development Bank, the African Water Task Force, Global Water Partnership, the Netherlands Development Bank, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the World Bank.

15. They also adopted a biannual rotating chairmanship. This system fostered a sense of shared ownership and responsibility whilst maintaining continuity through the Secretariat at the ECA. Under the leadership of ECA, the sub-cluster sought extra-budgetary resources for joint activities under the IGWA framework, with all concerned agencies mobilizing both internal and external resources.

16. There was extensive discussion on the challenges in the current cluster arrangement and in bringing coherence in the work of the UN support of NEPAD. To address these challenges, the clusters were requested to focus in their respective group discussions on (i) how to render the cluster arrangement more effective; (ii) how to link cluster work to the sub-regional and national levels to ensure NEPAD implementation at country level using the UNCTs; (iii) targets to be met before the next regional consultations; and (iv) how to strengthen inter-cluster linkages. The outcome of the cluster break-out sessions was subsequently discussed at the full plenary. (The respective cluster reports are annexed to this Report).

17. Conclusions and Recommendations

· Having considered both the successes and shortcomings of the cluster approach to-date, the meeting endorsed the current thematic cluster arrangement as the most viable mechanism for concerted UN support in the implementation of NEPAD. It was generally felt that the clusters provided a common platform for greater interface with the NEPAD sectoral priorities, and facilitated the identification of priority areas for joint action. In this regard, the meeting proposed ways to render the cluster arrangement more effective, by emphasizing the various levels of responsibilities in coordination: (i) the convener agencies' responsibility to galvanize, monitor, and coordinate the activities and reports of their respective clusters, and to facilitate intra-cluster activities; and (ii) ECA's role, as overall coordinator, to ensure strategic coordination, inter-cluster interaction and information sharing, establish goals and identify priorities, monitor and report on progress towards achieving targets. In this regard, ECA, with the support of other agencies, should consolidate its institutional arrangements to optimally support the work of the clusters.

Other recommendations made by the meeting include the following:

In order to facilitate the operational coherence on the implementation of NEPAD, possibilities should be explored to establish stronger linkages between the work of the clusters, the RECs at the sub-regional level and the processes at the national levels through the UNCTs.

Joint programming on the capacity building of the NEPAD Secretariat and the RECs should be developed with responsibilities assigned to participating agencies based on their comparative advantage.

The need to mainstream the cross-cutting issues of conflict management and post conflict reconstruction and recovery was emphasized. It was further agreed that the clusters should engage the NEPAD Secretariat, AfDB and the World Bank more systematically in humanitarian and development activities and programmes.

Relationships with AU should be strengthened and better coordinated, so as to garner the much-needed political support for implementation of cluster activities.

It was generally felt that while the PRSPs are serving a useful purpose in the short-term as an organizing framework, particularly with regard to post-conflict countries, the current generation of PRSPs is largely inadequate as a development tool. Further review of the PRSPs is critical to overcoming this limitation.

With regard to mobilization of resources the meeting highlighted the need to bring other partners on board to mobilize both human and financial resources, including Africans in the diaspora.

The establishment of a new cluster on Advocacy and Communication, convened by OSAA, was endorsed, with ECA, DPI, UNEP, UNON, UN-Habitat, UNAIDS, UNHCR, UNESCO, UNDP, UNFPA, WB, NEPAD as initial members.

The proposal to hold the Regional Consultations twice a year, back-to-back with the AU Summit was endorsed.

18. In his concluding remarks, the Executive Secretary expressed appreciation to all the UN agencies for their active participation. In particular, he noted with satisfaction that the richness of the discussions had accomplished a lot in terms of identifying key issues and challenges to be addressed in moving the regional consultative process forward. He reaffirmed the importance of the cluster approach and the need for coordination at all levels. He encouraged the clusters to interact continuously, including through available electronic platforms such as the recently launched ECA website on Regional Consultations. He pledged that ECA would use its sub-regional offices to engage the RECs in the NEPAD process.

19. In responding to issues raised on accountability, the Executive Secretary highlighted the critical linkages between mutual accountability, resource mobilization, PRSPs and MDGs. He also informed the meeting that ECA was currently preparing a report jointly with OECD/DAC on mutual accountability to better understand the role of OECD and the responsibilities of the African member States in meeting the mutually agreed development goals.

20. He expressed hope that substantial progress would have been made in support of NEPAD by the time of the next regional consultations and on the on-going transformation of the AU.