Home About SIA Programmes SIA
News Publications Lead Agencies
Economic Commission for Africa
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
June 9, 2000
Summary of Discussions
I. Introduction
1. A Training Workshop on the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) was convened on 9 June 2000 at the ECA Headquarters in Addis Ababa. The purpose of the Workshop was to familiarize ECA staff with the process and content of the CCA and UNDAF, discuss how these instruments fit into the overall UN reform, and explore the implementation of these instruments in the context of the ECA’s work program.
2. The Workshop included four sessions: - a) UN Reforms, b) CCA and UNDAF: Objectives and Applications, c) CCA and UNDAF: Implications for ECA (Conclusions and recommendations from breakout sessions), and, d) The Way Forward.
3. The Workshop was facilitated by Mr. Brendan O’Brien, Program Department Head, UN Staff College. Thirty-eight ECA participants, including five Heads of Divisions, engaged in highly stimulating discussions during the two-day Workshop. The Executive Secretary took part in the opening and the wrap-up sessions.
II. Opening Remarks by the Executive Secretary
4. At the start of the Workshop, the Executive Secretary expressed appreciation to Mr. Brendan O'Brien, UNDGO, and colleagues in the RCO/NY for the support given to ECA in organizing this Workshop. He explained the critical position of the Regional Commissions (RCs) in the architecture of the United Nations. As the regional arm of the UN, RCs must provide a regional framework to the country program of the UN system and ensure a coherent UN presence at the regional level.
5. The Executive Secretary asked participants to consider the following questions during the course of their two-day discussions. In light of the ECA reforms and ECA-initiated modalities such as the African Development Forum, how can the Commission facilitate African agenda setting and help the UN system to work around this agenda? What role can ECA play to facilitate enhanced coherence and synergies in the work of the UN in Africa? How can ECA bring its intellectual capacity to bear on the UN’s country work? How can the Commission use the country-based processes such as UNDAF and CCA to bring to bear the regional dimension to the UN country programs?
6. The Workshop deliberations on these and other related issues were informed by Mr. O’Brien’s presentations on UN Reforms, CCA, and UNDAF.
III. UN Reforms
7.
In introducing the UN Reforms, Mr. O’Brien stated that the future success of the UN hinged on its ability to adapt to the changing global environment in the post cold war period. He added that the political dimension of the UN was not in question. Rather, the challenge was one of defining a coherent development role for the UN, and in this connection addressing the related institutional weaknesses, and building on its strengths.8. He added that the framework for change charted by the Secretary-General, is focused on attaining sustainable peace and development. At the core of this framework is the concern for human rights, which is fundamental to the entire work of the UN and thus, impacts on everything the UN does.
9.
The UN Reform is system-wide. As such, all entities in the UN system have a role to play in advancing this Reform. On the process side, the focus must be on attaining organic unity and getting the UN system as a family to work more collaboratively toward shared objectives.9. Country ownership is fundamental in all this. As such, country priorities are the only basis for the UN to operate at any level.
10. Central to the UN Reform is the need to enhance UN country response in demonstration of the values for which the UN stands. The CCA and UNDAF processes are at the core of this response. Four related factors are important in this regard.
The Resident Coordinators and Country Teams must collaborate closely for team-building at country level.
Effective knowledge networking is essential to get the UN’s full intellectual capacities to impact at the country level. This includes tapping the analytical capacities residing in specialized agencies and the regional commissions. In the case of the UN’s work in Africa, this means systematically tapping on ECA’s work and sharing knowledge.
Forging partnerships with international financial institutions, the Bretton Woods Institutions, bilateral agencies, and other non-UN development actors.
Simplification and harmonization of UN instruments and initiatives.
11. Mr. O’Brien then added the UN Reform is indeed yielding results. Streamlined policies and procedures have been put in place at the UNDG and ACC level; the introduction of the UNDAF process is ushering increasing evidence of enhanced coordination at field level; and in the case of Africa, process improvements are accompanied by greater focus of the UN’s work on reducing poverty by half by 2015, girls education, human rights, gender, HIV/AIDS, and conflict prevention.
12. The Group discussions focused on the need to better align the UN to the emerging new development architecture; to deepen and internalize the UN reforms; broaden UN reform to incorporate better the regional dimensions and the linkages to political dimensions; have a more comprehensive approach to countries in crisis, tap more fully on the UN’s knowledge base to improve the analytical content of the UN’s country work, and to enhance the coherence of the UN’s response at the country level.
IV. CCA and UNDAF: Objectives and Applications
13. The facilitator stressed that both the CCA and UNDAF are processes and not products. The Resident Coordinator’s role is fundamental to ensuring that these processes are credible, participatory, and reflective of the development priorities as identified by the country. The UNDAF is the centerpiece of UN reform at country level and is designed to promote a country-driven, collaborative and coherent response by the UN system to achieve greater impact at the country level. The UNDAF is unique in that it offers a coordinated country-level programming framework with common objectives and strategies for co-operation. Indeed, if properly implemented, the UNDAF exemplifies the UN’s collectively response to the development challenges facing the country.
Since its inception in 1997, 17 UNDAFs have been completed, 74 countries are in various stages of preparation, and all countries will have joined the UNDAF process by the end of 2001.14. The CCA is a country-based process for reviewing and analyzing the national development situation and identifying priority issues. It is also a basis for advocacy and policy dialogue and for the preparation of the UNDAF. As such, a good quality CCA, is the prerequisite for a good UNDAF.
15
. The Group discussions focused on the need to strengthen the analytical context of the CCA. Information was given that the CCAs prepared to date have been weak in analytical content and have suffered from the lack of country data that is sufficiently up to date and disaggregated for meaningful analysis. The group underscored the need to make CCAs sufficiently comprehensive while at the same time focused on selected priority issues with actionable options. The need to address the regional dimensions of the development challenges facing the country was also stressed. The importance of greater involvement of the governments in the CCA process was also stressed.16. There were also some discussions of how the CCC/UNDAF related to PRSP, CDF, and the proliferation of country level instruments and region-wide initiatives. The facilitator explained that the SIA was an integral part of the CCA and UNDAF process. With regard to the proliferation of country level instruments, the UN was fully committed to the CDF, and where PRSP existed, the UN work could relate to the PRSP through the UNDAF process. The overlaps in country-level instruments should be used as opportunities for synergies rather than points of tension.
17.
The Group observed that the UNDAF is about defining the UN’s niche and as such, has to focus on few attainable objectives and set clear benchmarks on how the UN family is going to achieve these objectives. Furthermore, given the importance of the UN’s work in countries in crisis, the UNDAF process needs to be adapted to the circumstances of such countries. In this connection, the Group also stated that consideration should be given to making the UNDAF process broad enough to include non-UN partners.V.
CCA and UNDAF: Implications for ECA18. Participants discussed in some detail the implications of the CCA and UNDAF for ECA’s work program in small breakout sessions and presented their conclusions and recommendations to the Executive Secretary in the wrap up session. The following are highlights of the discussions and recommendations.
Bringing the regional dimension to the UN’s work at the country level through the UNDAF process. The ECA Conference of Ministers, the African Development Forum, and the Special Initiative on Africa, are all modalities for regional priority setting and policy coordination. The ADF offers a particularly unique opportunity to translate this regional priority setting to country activities. Through the ADF, ECA facilitates consensus building around an Africa-driven agenda focused on priority development issues facing the continent. ADF is also designed to mobilize UN system support for follow-up country-level activities based on the policies and approaches endorsed by the Forum. For effective and coordinated UN follow-up, efforts must be made to incorporate and fund within the UNDAF context the country-level activities that have been agreed upon in the context of ADF.
Regional CCA. ECA should consider preparing a regional CCA (regional economic report). Such a document could provide a strategic regional orientation for the UN's work in Africa, and also a framework for forging partnerships between UN and non-UN partners. The ongoing analytical and policy work of ECA associated with the publication of the annual ECA Economic Report on Africa offers a potentially strong basis for preparing a regional CCA for Africa.
Assisting UN country teams to leverage the intellectual and technical capacity within the UN system in CCA/UNDAF process. ECA is well positioned to use its regional mandate to facilitate systematic knowledge networking within the UN system and help strengthen the analytical content of the UN's work at the country level. To do so effectively, ECA will need to take measures to strengthen the quality of its regional advisory services, enhance the dissemination of its analytical and policy work, and establish a mechanism to provide a knowledge networking and clearinghouse function. The launching of the African Knowledge Network Forum by ECA is pertinent in this connection. The above measures should afford ECA a stronger foundation to provide analytical backstopping to UN country teams in the CCA/UNDAF process.
Strengthening the link between ECA and the Resident Coordinators is essential in this regard. At the beginning of each year, ECA and UNDP could jointly agree on a list of selected countries in which ECA’s input to the CCA process would be sought by the UN country teams. There may also need to establish a small unit within the Office of Program Planning and Resource Management (OPRM) to co-ordinate UN country team requests for ECA assistance and to ensure appropriate ECA response to such requests. There many also be a need to review the skills-mix of ECA staff at the Sub-regional Development Centers (SRDCs) to better equip SRDCs to participate in country team activities.
Statistical Capacity building. Through the UNDAF, UN system partners should be encouraged to identify national capacity-building strategies, particularly statistical capacity building, and to draw on ECA’s expertise in this area.
CCA/UNDAF linkages with other instruments. Building linkages between the CCA/UNDAF and other instruments such as the CDF and PRSP is necessary to promote strategic alliances and synergies between the UN system and non-UN partners working in Africa. ECA’s work in the area of PRSP is important in this regard.
Regional UNDAF. Given the regional dimension of issues such as integration, HIV/AIDs, conflict, information technology, and transport, consideration should be given to developing a regional UNDAF to chart a coordinated programming framework for UN support in these areas. The role of SRDCs will be important in this regard.
Sub-regional institutions and CCA/UNDAF. There is scope to mobilize existing institutional frameworks such as ECCAS, ECOWAS, COMESA, SADC, and IGAD to help define the sub-regional and regional scope of the CCA/UNDAF and prepare Sub-regional Economic Reports.
VI. Way Forward: Concluding Remarks by the Executive Secretary
19. In closing, the Executive Secretary identified two broad issues. How ECA can use the CCA/UNDAF to strengthen the impact of its work (drawing on the Commission’s comparative advantage) at country level? How the Commission can work within the system to make the UNDAF system more coherent, bearing in mind that this is the main purpose of this exercise. He offered the following suggested.
The concept and applicability of a Regional UNDAF deserves more consideration. Partnership with sub-regional institutions will be key in this regard. For instance, ECA will be working in collaboration with the Southern African Development Center, to prepare an economic report for the sub-region.
On the question of ECA providing analytical backstopping in the CCA/UNDAF process, the challenge for ECA is two-fold:- first, to develop user-friendly analytical tools drawing on the policy and research work we have done; and second, to promote the application of such tools at the country level. A good example is the Population-Environment-Development-Agriculture (PEDA) model developed by ECA’s Food Security and Sustainable Development Division. The Commission is developing indicators to assess gender mainstreaming, progress towards African integration, and governance. ECA’s work is advanced in developing country methodology of indicators for monitoring good governance. This ties to the role of the ECA Regional Advisors whose work programs have to be better linked to the UNDAF process at the country level
In a knowledge-driven society, credibility hinges on quality and effective dissemination of ECA’s work. Improvements in these two areas are therefore paramount. In this connection, it is also important for ECA to make available to key ministers and policy makers in Africa periodic policy briefs on topical development issues of importance.
Given the importance of developing stronger operational linkages between the regional priority-setting function of ECA and the country programming function of the Resident Coordinator System, we need to identify mechanisms and entry points to work more closely with the Resident Coordinator System. Regional programs, which were hitherto implemented by ECA, are now being managed altogether by UNDP. Our task now is to find a partnership framework in the context of regional programs. The Executive Secretary observed that it would be worthwhile for ECA and UNDP to convene joint Conferences of Ministers of Finance and Planning, given that the same ministers constitute the legislative arms of ECA and UNDP.
20. In closing, the Executive Secretary stated that the Workshop had been extremely useful as a first step to sensitize ECA staff to the importance of the UNDAF process as the center piece of the UN reforms at the country level. The Workshop has given ECA staff a fuller appreciation of the critical role of the Regional Commissions in the UN’s work and, in this regard, how the ECA has emerged as a strengthened development partner in the Africa through the ECA reform started four years ago. He urged the ECA staff to continue their reflection on the issues raised during the Workshop. He suggested that given the relevance of many of these issues to the wider UN system, it might be helpful to organize further consultations around these issues through follow-up workshops involving DGO/UN Staff College.
21. The Executive Secretary expressed appreciation to Mr. Brendan O’Brien for sharing with ECA his intimate knowledge on UN Reform, the CCA, and the UNDAF process. He said that Brendan’s outstanding skills as a facilitator were indeed key to the success of this Workshop.