Second Annual Meeting - Report

Summary of Discussions

1. The second annual meeting of the Regional Consultation of UN system agencies working in Africa was held from 26 to 27 June 2000 at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The meeting was chaired by Mr. K.Y. Amoako, ECA Executive Secretary, and was attended by representatives of twenty-one UN system agencies, including the Bretton Woods Institutions. The list of participants is attached.

2. The meeting, convened within the framework of the modified SIA, exchanged information on the activities over the past year, and the work plans for the coming year, in selected SIA clusters where there is tangible progress in UN collaborative work (education, health, water, governance, and information technology). The meeting also showcased as best practice the significant progress that had been achieved over the last year in defining a clear way forward in the work of the UN in the water cluster as articulated in the water sector strategy paper "Equitable and Sustainable Access to Water in Africa". This strategy was developed based on the outcome of the SIA Technical Working Meeting .on Water chaired by the ECA Executive Secretary at The Hague in March 2000 and the follow up meeting convened by UNEP in Nairobi, Kenya from 4 to 5 May 2000.

3. The meeting included a special session on the upcoming African Development Forum on the theme "AIDS: The Greatest Leadership Challenge" and also considered a Draft Operational Framework for Action on Diversification of African Economies. The meeting called on UNCT AD to facilitate follow-up inter-agency consultations on the work program contained in the Draft Operational Framework, as well as on how the concept of diversification can be operationalized in the context of SIA cluster arrangements. UNCT AD is expected to report on the outcome of these consultations at the next Annual Regional Consultation.

4. On the basis of the above, the meeting considered in some detail a number of issues related to deepening coherence and synergies in the UN's work in Africa and arrived at a common vision of how UN agencies working through the annual regional consultation should collectively address these issues. Agreements were reached around the following six
areas.

5. First, however varied the mandates and expertise of UN agencies, supporting sustainable peace and poverty reduction must remain the overarching objective of the UN family's partnership with African member States. As such, the UN's efforts in Africa should be guided by the most basic requirements associated with this objective -- investing in people, improving governance, and preventing conflict.

6. Second, each annual regional consultation should aim to deepen collaborative action by the UN in the SIA priority clusters of health, education, water, governance, and information technology. Based on discussions in parallel breakout sessions, the collaborating agencies working in these areas agreed on cluster work program~ for the coming year. Implementation progress in the above areas will be assessed on the basis of cluster-specific time-bound actions and performance indicators. In addition, the agencies working in the following priority clusters agreed to undertake the actions listed below by during the coming year.

• Water: Prepare an interim report on the implementation of activities under the SIA water cluster. (March 2001). The report should be submitted to the Secretariat for wider distribution to all agencies;

• Education: Prepare a report on the education cluster clarifying the vision that guides the UN's work in this sector, elaborating the sector goals as well as the UN system collaborative activities towards these goals, and identifying the benchmarks for monitoring implementation progress in this regard (March 2001);

• Health: Convene a technical working meeting on the health cluster to rededicate=tl1e commitment of collaborating agencies to the cluster objectives under the SIA (by April 2001); and

• Information Technology: Convene a technical working meeting to revisit the SIA objectives and taking into account the various ongoing IT -related activities by the UN, agree on a strategy for a coherent UN system approach to harnessing information technology for development. (September 2000). ECA and UNESCO will prepare the background paper for this meeting. UNESCO has indicated willingness to provide resources to support the convening of this meeting.

• Governance: Convene a cluster meeting o~ the work of the UN on governance - including the ECA project' on governance indicators, the activities under the UNDP/ECA African Governance Forum, and the DESA Public Ethics project -to ensure synergies, avoid duplication, and arrive at a coherent work program with a clear timetable for the upcoming planned activities. The meeting will take place back-to-back with the AGF IV (Kampala, September 2000). UNDP Resident Representatives from the countries where country-level work is expected will be invited to take part in this meeting.

7. In addition to focusing on the five above-mentioned SIA priority clusters, the annual consultation should aim to be more inclusive of the work on all UN entities in Africa. To this end, co-ordinating agencies should be more proactive in facilitating consensus around collaborative work programs in clusters not currently included among the priority clusters under the SIA. On the basis of progress in implementing such work programs, the Annual Regional Consultation will consider adding new clusters to the SIA priority cluster category. The Second Regional Consultation decided to add the water cluster as the fifth among the SIA priority clusters based on a review of the progress that had been achieved over the last year in arriving at a common vision of the UN's effort in this sector.

8. Third, each annual regional consultation will devote a special session to the theme of the ECA-initiated African Development Forum. (ADF). The objective of this special session will be to stimulate concerted UN action to address the issues associated with this theme. In this regard, the meeting discussed the theme for this year's ADF (ADF'2000) -"AIDS: The Greatest Leadership Challenge". Agencies gave their strong support to the theme of ADF'2000 and pledged their commitment to make the Forum a success.


9. Fourth, the value-added of the UN rests on the developmental impact of its collective efforts at the country-level. Towards this end, working through the UN Resident Co- ordinator system, the UN agencies should aim to utilize fully the complementarities among the various country level instruments -such as CCA, UNDAF, CDF, and PRSP -to achieve greater coherence and synergies in the UN's country-level programs. An important aspect of the UN's value-added is the scope to draw on the expertise of the regional commissions with a view to incorporating the sub-regional and regional dimensions of Africa's development challenge in country programs. In this connection, the SIA Secretariat will establish an ad-hoc group of agencies to examine the potential entry points for strengthening operational linkages between the regional priority-setting and policy consensus-building functions of the ECA and the country-programming function of the UN Resident Co-ordinator system. The recommendations by this group will be c9nsidered at the regional consultation meeting next year.

10. Fifth, there is growing weariness among UN agencies over the heavy demand placed on them by the multiple reporting requirements to various UN intergovernmental bodies on the UN's work in Africa. There is also the continuing concern, as stressed by the Committee and Program Co-ordination (CPC) at its last meeting, that many of these reports tended to be descriptive and weak in analytical content. Streamlining and improving the quality of the reporting on the UN's work in Africa is therefore a matter of urgency, particularly in light of the need to succinctly articulate the value-added of the UN's work in Africa in the context of the upcoming mandated reviews of the Africa-related UN programs. As a first step in this regard, the SIA Secretariat will work with OSCAL to compile a list of all the major reports on the UN's work in Africa that are due during the coming year. The envisaged approach is to use the cluster reports to the Annual Regional Consultation meeting as a basis for servicing all the other major reporting requirements on the UN's work in the continent.

11. Sixth, resource mobilization for SIA activities is best addressed at the country level on the basis of sound country-owned sector-wide programs. The articulation by the UN system agencies of a clear vision and coherent approach to the UN's work in any given sector is a prerequisite to the delivery of effective UN support (funding and technical support) to country programs. The UNDAF process offers a coherent framework to access agency funds in support of country programs in priority areas under the SIA.