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1. As in previous meetings, the two co-chairs agreed to a division of labor whereby one led the discussion in the morning session and the second one took over in the afternoon. In his opening remarks, the Administrator took the occasion to thank Mr. Trevor Gordon-Somers, the outgoing Coordinator of the UNSIA for his excellent contribution in (i) guiding the work of the Secretariat; (ii) supporting the efforts of the programme/sector clusters in demonstrating the value-added of the Initiative, and iii) working closely with the co-chairs in leading the Initiative through its third year of implementation. Mr. Speth also introduced the incoming Coordinator, Mr. A. Babatunde Thomas, who he described as a highly successful senior UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator, who has done an outstanding job in Uganda. He then set the tone for the meeting by stressing the continuing relevance of UNSIA for the African continent and drawing attention to the first UN agencies regional meeting in Nairobi, presided over by the UN Deputy Secretary-General and the decision of that meeting to accord the UNSIA with greater recognition in coordinating the working of the UN system.

2. The Administrator expressed his appreciation for the consistent participation of United Nations agencies and organizations in the Steering Committee sessions both in terms of continued high-level attendance and the number of informative reports submitted. He also thanked agencies in those clusters where progress has been sustained such as education, health, governance and harnessing information technology for development. On education, he noted that 16 Low Enrollment Countries (LEC) were actively involved and in health, 46 countries will be covered by July 1999. By June when the third meeting on governance is held (AGF III) in Bamako, Mali 42 countries would have participated. After preliminary remarks, the Chairman turned the floor to coordinating agencies for brief presentations on their respective clusters. He also invited participants to review progress, challenges and opportunities and suggested that information be considered in relation to the UN Secretary-General’s reform agenda.

II. Agenda item 1:

a) Education

3. Education continued to spearhead the progress on the Special Initiative, as a result of effective leadership by the two coordinating agencies (UNESCO and the World Bank) and the collaborative efforts of the cooperating agencies (UNICEF, UNDP and UNFPA). The joint report prepared in harmonization of strategies highlighted the implementation progress as well as the remaining challenges facing Low Enrolment Countries (LECs).

4. At the field level the joint correspondence from UNESCO, UNDP, UNICEF and the World Bank to Resident Coordinators and respective UN country team representatives has proved useful in fostering collaboration. Meetings at sub-regional and regional levels have been equally satisfactory and helpful in building consensus to address policy impediments.

5. The World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF targeted the 16 LECs in order to reverse the downward trend of school enrollment rates. Despite significant investments in the education sector, enrollment rates are below its levels of two decades earlier. The UNSIA implementation strategy on education was articulated around collaborative actions to promote national ownership and capacity building for programme formulation and implementation. It also included coordinated action to encourage a wide participatory approach to address the challenges posed by major policy impediments such as teachers’ salaries. In some cases that represents up to 90% of the basic education resource allocation, preempting resources for investment and didactic materials.

6. The Technical Working Group on Basic Education involving coordinating and cooperating agencies in this sector has developed consensus on the LECs strategy. This includes: a) the development of a matrix of activities, key strategic actions to accelerate actions and mobilize donors and resources; b) agreement on the countries targeted for concerted effort; c) joint memorandum from the agencies to the LEC countries providing information and a common framework document; d) identification and financing of upstream activities; e) exchange of contact lists; f) involvement of UN Resident Coordinators and f) joint reporting to the ACC Steering Committee.

7. UNSIA support in overcoming the impediments to teacher financing is most evident in the Sahel countries, where national consensus among various stakeholders has been reached on policy directions. Similarly, efforts are evident in Ghana and Senegal, with respect to adult education. Additional country coverage is expected with the establishment of a trust fund. The financing of regional activities still remains a major challenge.

8. The meeting was also briefed on the outcome of the seventh conference of African Education Ministers during which high priority of basic education was reaffirmed. Emphasis was placed on the need to reinforce collaboration, avoid overlapping interventions, reach a common understanding among donors on reducing transaction cost and harmonize modalities of assistance to basic education.

9. The World Bank pointed to the satisfactory level of preparation of sector development programmes in ten countries out of which five are near completion. The Bank approval process is fairly advanced in these cases and donor meetings to ensure adequate support are under preparation. Some interest was expressed regarding the link of debt relief from HIPC to trust funds for the social sector as well as developing stronger relationships with non-governmental organizations, such as OXFAM. It is believed that a recent OXFAM report will give impetus to the focus on basic education and could pave the way for global action.

10. Early enthusiasm in this cluster for a systematic approach to health sector reform has been rekindled by the organization of two sub-regional meetings involving a total of 29 African countries and a total of 260 participants. The third sub-regional meeting is scheduled for July 1999 in Maputo. This will cover all 46 African countries in WHO-AFRO. All collaborating agencies in the health cluster, led by WHO and the World Bank, including UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNESCO, the African Development Bank as well as Norad, participated in these meetings. The African countries demonstrated ownership through the participation of senior officials of Ministries Health and Finance, private sector and civil society representatives. It became evident that African countries have internalized the need for health sector reform as a determining feature towards the goal of better health service. This confirms that health sector reform is an appropriate entry point of UNSIA in this cluster.

11. It is noted that all the countries presented varying degrees of progress in the implementation of health sector reform. They expressed unequivocal satisfaction at the opportunity offered to them by UNSIA for building greater awareness and insisted on the need to forge TCDC links among African countries to learn from each other’s experience and to help in advancing the respective national agenda.

12. As lead agencies within the UNSIA framework, ECA and UNDP have drawn on their corporate experience in building institutional capacity in the area of governance through coordinated and collaborative programmes at national, regional and international levels. The Africa Governance Forum (AGF), the centerpiece of this cluster, continues to be a vehicle for facilitating a consensus-building dialogue among governments and civil society organizations, capacity enhancement, more effective in-country coordination and greater mobilization of resources for governance programmes. Information exchange on best practices could ultimately contribute to the promotion of good governance throughout the continent.

13. The first AGF was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in July 1997 with an all-encompassing agenda. The AGF II convened in 1998 in Accra, Ghana concentrated on: accountability and transparency with special emphasis on the need to combat corruption. AGF III is scheduled to take place in Bamako, Mali in June 1999 on the theme of "good governance and conflict management for durable peace and sustainable development." It will bring full participants from eleven countries, and seven observers, 12 African NGOs with recognizable experience in conflict management, along with relevant UN entities and the donor community. Three research institutions have been selected to present issue papers at the Forum.

14. In addition to the national consultation and the annual AGF event, some follow up activities have been developing, notably, the Governments of Mali, Senegal and Zambia established direct link between the AGF outputs and the existing Consultative Group/Round Table exercise for resource mobilization. Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Madagascar, Mauritius, South Africa, and Zambia are preparing project outlines and funding proposals to donors.

15. At the regional level, the pilot phase of the Africa Governance Inventory Project, an integral part of the AGF process, is in the final stages of completing data collection and analysis of governance activities in eleven countries. The second phase, approved by UNDP in January 1999 will expand the coverage to twenty four additional African countries and provide training to national counterparts to update data and analysis periodically. This is expected to sustain the activity and build the capacity of the countries to coordinate governance programmes. Addressing specific recommendations made at AGF II, UNDP Africa has approved a study to be conducted by DESA on public ethics in Africa, covering ten countries in an initial phase.

16. After three years of the AGF series, some important lessons learnt include the following:

As part of the preparatory process, the consensus-building dialogue between government and civil society organizations in the identification and formulation of national governance programmes reaffirms Africa’s leadership and ownership.

The development of coherent programmes through wide consultations among many stakeholders, policy agreement and credible resource mobilization strategies are becoming more evident.

Partnerships involving Africa and the UN system and the donor community are being strengthened not only through dialogue at the annual event but also through the preparatory process that involves a series of consultations including task force meetings of various UN organizations, bilateral donors, African governments and selected NGOs and international organizations.

Enhancement of national capacity, in-country coordination and the burgeoning of partnership will eventually contribute to a culture of good governance throughout Africa.

17. This cluster lead by ECA has reported major progress in the context of implementing the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), adopted by the ECA Conference of Ministers in May 1996. Implementation of AISI has taken place at national, sub-regional and regional levels, with emphasis on the areas of information society awareness, infrastructure and connectivity, sector application, content development, national information and communication infrastructure policies, plans and strategies and democratizing access to the information society. The meeting was informed that ECA has throughout been advised by the African Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) on the AISI, made up of African experts in the various component areas of the Initiative. AISI implementation has been predicated on partnership with multilateral and bilateral organizations, non-governmental organizations and the private sector – initially through the Regional Coordinating Committee on the AISI, and since 1997 through the Partnership for Information and Communication Technologies in Africa (PICTA). PICTA has strengthened collaboration between key UN institutions including ECA, ITU, UNESCO and the World Bank on the one hand and non-UN partners on the other.

18. The Global Connectivity for Africa Conference held in Addis Ababa, in June 1998 as a follow up to the June 1997 Global Knowledge Conference in Toronto, Canada was acknowledged as one of the key achievements of this cluster. During 1998 emphasis was also placed on sectoral applications such as distance education, electronic commerce and utilization of new information and communication technologies in improving health, statistics and agriculture. The potential for TCDC in this area was highlighted due to the varying degree of development among African countries. The success of this cluster is yet another demonstration of African ownership and leadership.

e) Trade Access and Development

19. UNCTAD as coordinating agency for this cluster briefed the well attended Technical Working Group in Geneva, in November 1998, meeting on the activities undertaken since the last Steering Committee. A review of an inventory of activities related to trade promotion received from participating agencies yielded the conclusion that while much is being accomplished, there is a need to strengthen collaboration to bring out more synergy. The TWG consensus was presented to the Steering Committee with recommendations that focus be given in three areas of UNSIA.

human and institutional capacity building: build on the Integrated Framework (IF) for LDC instruments, measuring progress against demand for assistance. Seventeen African countries have already benefited from this mechanism. A proposal to expand membership include FAO and UNIDO in the integrated framework to stimulate the effects of the supply side was beyond the scope of the core group, although closer collaboration was welcome. The meeting was informed of possibilities to expand the actions for African LDCs to the other categories of countries through UNDP funded programmes with UNCTAD as executing agency. The lack of appropriate financing mechanisms to support sub-regional and regional programmes including, for example, inter-country transport and communication infrastructure was also stressed.

promotion of small and medium scale enterprises: build on existing initiatives to promote small and medium size enterprise development through coordinated action to increase the supply side and improve market opportunities

strategy to remove transportation bottlenecks: drawing upon the experience of the two transport decades supported by the UN system, the first review was circulated by ECA. UNCTAD is also preparing a specific study on the situation with a view of coming up with a strategy to address this critical issue.

f) Poverty

20. The meeting was reminded by the ILO, lead agency for this cluster, that a Programme of Action was presented by the Task Force to the 7^th ACC Steering Committee meeting held in April 1997. The Programme of Action consists of six sub-programme areas which, to the extent possible, should be implemented simultaneously. These areas are: a) enabling environment for informal sector development; b) access to financial services; c) education and training; d) industrial and manufacturing activities; e) rural non-farm activities; and f) infrastructure.

21. ILO reported that following the recommendations of the 7^th ACC Steering Committee meeting, a Technical Working Group meeting to reach agreement on a realistic plan for implementation of the Programme of Action was held in March 1999 in Nairobi, Kenya. Representatives of ECA, ILO, FAO, UNDP, UNIDO, UNESCO, World Bank, WFP and DESA/OSCAL attended the meeting that resulted in the following recommendations: a) funding figures should be removed from the Action Plan to avoid unrealistic expectations and budgets can be determined on the basis of actual programmes in each country. Regional and sub-regional projects should also be formulated; b) the various sub-programmes, as much as possible, be linked and implemented together to maintain synergy and a holistic approach; c) the revised programme of action should be circulated to all heads of agencies and UN Resident Coordinators as soon as possible to mobilize support for its implementation at the global, regional and country levels; d) Resident Coordinators will organize sensitization workshops in 22 focus countries with financing from UNDP and the lead agencies; e) the Programme of Action should be presented to the ECA Ministers of Finance and Central bank Governors and Ministers of Economic Planning; and f) agencies should share information on sub-regional and regional meetings and invite Task Force members to participate as appropriate in regional studies and formulation missions to ensure coordination of resource mobilization activities.

22. In addition, ILO reported that some progress on the implementation of the ILO/UNDP "Jobs for Africa Programme" has been made. Work has already begun in ten African countries (Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Mali, Senegal, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe).

g) Water:

23. Although specific successes attributable to UNSIA were not reported, the meeting was advised that UNSIA has played an important advocacy role in promoting a number of water initiatives in Africa, including facilitating and coordinating various relevant agency activities. The UN Interagency Working Group on Water, co-chaired by UNEP, the World Bank, and WMO met in Rabat, Morocco in May 1998 during which representatives from ECA, FAO, UNICEF, WHO, WMO, UNHCR, UNFPA and UNIDO participated. The Working Group members have initiated a number of activities under four objectives: a) UNEP, UNDP and the World Bank in the area of assuring sustainable use of and access to fresh water; b) UNICEF, WHO and UNDP on household water security and drinking water and sanitation; d) WMO and UNESCO the assessment of freshwater particularly of shared river basins and e) FAO in water for food production focusing on freshwater and irrigated agriculture.

h) Population:

24. UNFPA reported that as the lead agency for this cluster, it organized a Technical Working Group Meeting in May 1998 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in which a number of UN organizations participated. The TWG agreed on priority areas identified for UNFPA leadership, including: (a) reproductive health, reduction of high maternal morbidity and mortality, prevention and control of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDs; increase in contraceptive prevalence, and addressing youth and adolescent reproductive health problems (b) Education: population family life education; information, education and communication in support of reproductive health, human rights including reproductive rights and gender issues, (c) formulation/revision of population policies and programmes; (d) collection of benchmark gender disaggregated basic social services and demographic data for planning, monitoring, and evaluation of programmes; (e) national capacity building, and (f) resource mobilization.

25. UNFPA reported that the above areas are being implemented at both country and regional levels in collaboration with ECA, UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, UNAIDS, ILO, FAO, UNIFEM, UNESCO, IOM, the World Bank and NGOs.

26. This has contributed to the improvement of partnership and collaboration for population interventions in the region and for achieving conference goals (regional and international) which are beyond the resources and mandates of any one UN agency. UNFPA highlighted a number of activities it is carrying out in collaboration with other agencies, e.g. the implementation of a new health policy in Cameroon, and the increase in successful male participation in reproductive health services as is the case in Uganda, Namibia, Ghana and Tanzania, and strategies for prevention and control of HIV/AIDS. The meeting also learned that UNFPA, in collaboration with UNDP, UNICEF, USAID, the World Bank, the governments of Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, France, Australian AID, SIDA as well as Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), European Union, and CIDA, is facilitating and supporting the planning, analysis and implementation of censuses in 26 African countries. UNFPA along with a number of other organizations is also supporting a network of African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians for the implementation of ICPD (International Conference on Population and Development) programme of Action and the Beijing Platform of Action.

27. The IMF delegation updated the meeting on the implementation of the HIPC Initiative. Special reference was made to the conclusions of the discussions of the Interim Ministerial Committee held in Washington some weeks ago and at the 1998 annual Bank and Fund meeting. During both these meetings calls were heard for greater flexibility in applying the eligibility criteria and the calculation of the threshold ratio.

28. The meeting was informed that the Fund is contributing approximately US $1.2 billion of the US $12.5 billion total HIPC requirements. With the introduction of more flexible selection parameters and the additional candidates that it will attract, the total financial requirements will be even higher, hence a bigger IMF contribution will be expected. The Steering Committee was informed that four African countries (Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Mozambique and Mali) are already benefiting from the HIPC framework and two more have reached the decision point namely Senegal and Benin. But it was later noted that these two countries could reach debt sustainability without HIPC. Another group of four African countries is about to reach the decision point.

29. The debate on this point raised concerns about the impact of the HIPC funding on new ODA and the need to avoid any substitution between the two if the African countries are to meet the need for basic social infrastructure and critical investment to restore growth on a sustainable basis. Participants cautioned exaggeration of the impact of debt relief and anticipation of greater release of resources for critical public expenditure. Attention was drawn to the fact that most countries are under chronic situation of arrears on debt repayment. Debt forgiveness may work on improving their creditworthiness but not necessarily result in availability of fresh money.

30. Information was provided on the ministerial statement on debt issued during the last ECA Finance Ministers meeting. This statement seeks to identify the best proposal with regards to the treatment of African countries’ debt. It calls for deeper and broader debt cancellation and will be sent to the G7 meeting in Cologne. The results of Technical analysis will be discussed in Addis Ababa in July 1999 in preparing for the African position for the September 1999 annual Fund and the Bank meeting. The Steering Committee also recommended that a strategy be examined looking beyond debt relief and taking be examined looking beyond debt relief and taking into consideration measures to avoid recurrence of the same situation that often results from weaknesses in economic governance.

31. The resource mobilization issue was discussed in the context of cluster presentations and in general terms. A consensus emerged on the need to address this issue more systematically as it continues to contribute to lingering skepticism. It was recalled that a common strategy was recommended by the 5^th Steering Committee in order for all participating agencies to have the same stand in addressing this issue. The resource mobilization effort related to UNSIA should address several aspects ranging from support to upstream activities including, national consensus building; capacity building for programme formulation and implementation; inter country cooperation and sub-regional meetings to programme financing. Greater efforts on meeting the need for financing upstream activities, exploring all possibilities including of trust funds, World Bank project development facilities at the country level, as well as UNDP support for project and programme development facility SPPD, were encouraged.

32. The reports revealed that the main ingredients for successful implementation are embedded in the cluster arrangements agreed at the 4^th Steering Committee when they were charged with the responsibility of laying out their implementation strategy, e.g. focus of activities, division of labor, action programme incorporating benchmarks to measure progress, reporting arrangements and resource requirements as well as a strategy for mobilization are designed to demonstrate the added value of UNSIA. This has been illustrated in education, health, governance, information technology and trade. The agencies under those clusters have successfully established collaborative arrangements that have fostered synergy. Evidence is mounting showing that leadership by Resident Coordinators is ensuring that UNSIA is an instrument to strengthen coordination mechanisms, joint work plans and programmes. Developments in these clusters must be sustained and replicability encouraged in others.

need to emphasize upstream activities where most UN organizations are focussing their interventions. It is through these activities that country leadership and ownership can be reinforced by greater coordination. In this way, UNSIA’s role in promoting capacity and ownership of sound development programmes will be enhanced and contribute to overcoming absorptive capacity problems;

extend the excellent cooperation emerging from the LECs to some of the more advanced countries;

explore possibilities of cooperation with OXFAM and other organizations to reach an agreement on a global action plan in support of basic education;

collaborative activities on SIPs processing schedule need to be more evident, including joint appraisal missions, donor consultations, common reporting requirements and harmonization of procedures in general;

the notable and improving collaboration in the health cluster among the relevant organizations at the regional level should penetrate the country level. Therefore, senior management in all participating organizations are requested to send instructions to their field representation urging joint follow up to these sub-regional meetings. This should be reinforced by WHO representatives briefing the UN country teams and sharing information with Governments;

build consensus among all national stakeholders, civil society and private sector and donors;

help develop closer cooperation between Ministries of Health and those of Finance and Planning;

assist in the effort to articulate the linkages between poverty alleviation and health sector reform for greater equity;

facilitate exchange of visits among countries on specific dimensions of health sector reform;

assist in human and institutional capacity building;

all North African countries should be included thereby introducing continent-wide coverage of UNSIA;

develop a complete implementation strategy including indication of work programme, division of labor and benchmarking;

define a common strategy to help remove transport bottlenecks drawing upon the experience of the two transport decades supported by the UN system. Such a strategy should be defined on the basis of preliminary assessments of these two decades by ECA and the study that is underway by UNCTAD;

finalize the collaborative arrangements with UNDP to cover non-LDC countries;

finalize the work programme and action plan and circulate them to ACC/SC members;

finalize a comprehensive implementation strategy reflecting the agreed focus areas, schedule of activities, division of labor and strong collaboration with various African stakeholders. Prepare a work programme reflecting schedule of meetings of the various sub-components, and their strategy for resource mobilization. Reach an agreement on benchmarks to measure progress. How this cluster as a whole can build on international agreements to support African countries as discussed at the 7^th Steering Committee need to be articulated.

building on the excellent presentation of this cluster’s activities, emphasize the joint action in the census exercise. Identify other collaborative experiences that have been successful in specific countries for replication in others.

budget lines need to be specified in all agencies and organizations to further the implementation of UNSIA. The importance of seed money is demonstrated by the recent progress made in the health cluster with the availability of resources for the organization of sub-regional meetings;

as reflected in the consensus emerging from the meeting, a strong common statement and advocacy strategy should be launched to increase the level of ODA. In this context, the high level panel structure needs to be revisited to ensure that it can assist in this regard. This strategy should not be linked exclusively to ongoing efforts to obtain debt reduction, as it may not necessarily translate into more liquidity for financing development activities;

the meeting also agreed that any strategy to attract more resources must be supported by tangible results emerging from the African countries themselves. In this regard, the mobilization of sufficient internal resources both public and private and the rationalization of public expenditures remain critical. The move from balance of payments support to budgetary support under discussion at the SPA should be encouraged and where justified, the financing of recurrent cost duly captured in the financing plan of programmes;

agencies and organizations should designate focal points and ensure continuity in coverage of ACC Steering Committee meetings;

a working group on debt strategy was proposed, paying special attention to economic governance;

33. The ECA Executive Secretary chaired the discussions on this agenda item emanating from the First Annual Regional Meeting of UN agencies in Africa chaired by the Deputy Secretary-General. The meeting was convened in response to the Secretary-General’s recommendation and ECOSOC’s approval for the convening of annual interagency consultations, on a regional basis, on the activities of the UN agencies. The first Regional Meeting on Africa, convened in Nairobi, Kenya on 5 March 1999, concentrated on two areas: (1) an overview of the existing mechanisms for coordination and consultation among entities of the UN system at the planning and implementation stages; and (2) a discussion of the priority regional and inter-country programs and activities.

34. A major outcome of this meeting, attended by twenty-three UN agencies working in Africa, was that UNSIA could provisionally constitute an appropriate mechanism for coordination of the UN system’s work in Africa. Through this enhanced role, the Initiative is expected to promote more collaborative actions, reinforce synergies, avoid overlap, and bring about coherence in UN System’s work in Africa. To this end, the Initiative is also expected to i) review and augment existing sub-themes/clusters to include other priority areas as desirable; ii) facilitate the sharing of information among agencies; iii) establish goals and identify priorities; and iv) periodically track/monitor achievements of targets;

35. As a first step in this direction, the meeting requested the co-chairs of the ACC Steering Committee on the UNSIA to prepare a report containing detailed proposals on how the UNSIA could play this enhanced role. The report to be prepared in consultation with the participating entities would be submitted to the Deputy Secretary-General for approval within three months. This enhanced role of the UNSIA would be subject to review after two years. Towards this end, in the proposal for revision of the UNSIA clusters, there has been an attempt to be mindful of the need to achieve a prudent balance among the somewhat competing demands implied by the new UNSIA mandate. Namely, the need to:

build on, and not replace, the current UNSIA cluster grouping;

make the UNSIA an inclusive Initiative for information sharing, monitoring, and reporting on the UN family’s work in Africa;

include as explicit clusters the cross-cutting issues of gender and population mainstreaming that were elaborated after the launch of the Initiative;

have UNSIA promote follow-through on the recommendations of the Secretary General’s Report; and

have the UN system draw on the strengthened mandate for country-level UN coordination through the UN Resident Coordinator system.

36. ECA was commended for submitting a first draft of UNSIA revisited. The meeting agreed that:

This echoes the view expressed by the UN Secretary-General in a March 1998 interview with Africa Recovery when be stated that through pooled resources the UN can help Africans help themselves;

the Nairobi mandate to UNSIA should be limited to post conflict reintegration, reconstruction and development while establishing reporting arrangement under the leadership of OCHA/UNHCR on humanitarian situations;

attention should be focused on follow up to the Nairobi meeting, providing a response to the Secretary-General’s call for harmonization of the various Africa Initiatives, demonstrating that UNSIA can offer an operational basis for UN as well as non UN initiatives, such as UN-NADAF, OECD/DAC, TICAD and others;

positive achievements in education, health, governance, HITD, should be sustained and replication of best practices in other clusters should be pursued;

UNSIA’s mandate should be broadened by strengthening coordination and harmonization at sub-regional and regional levels. Information dissemination will be a key element in this aspect, allowing cross-fertilization among clusters and providing a global picture of the UN, Bretton Woods institutions and other development partners working together in Africa. Available public information media such as Africa Recovery and the UNSIA WEB page should be used to reinforce information dissemination;

the present clustering of priority areas should be maintained and the means found to accommodate other organizations e.g. Habitat in the poverty cluster;

the Nairobi meeting and decisions further confirm of the leadership being provided to UNSIA by the UN S-G and the DS-G. The observation of the SG that " UNSIA will ultimately be judged through its contribution to poverty eradication in Africa" remains a challenge;

African ownership of UNSIA should be strengthened by offering an observer status in the ACC Steering Committee to regional organizations such as the Organization of African Unity and the African Development Bank;

The urgency for reaching agreement on a clear strategy for resource mobilization was reaffirmed;

3.3. Conclusions and Recommendations of Agenda Item 2.

37. The ECA Executive Secretary introduced the second agenda item. He gave a brief account of the tenor, scope and conclusions of the Nairobi meeting by way of presenting the draft report to the D S-G that had been requested of the two co-chairs. As many participants had not seen the report prior to the Steering Committee meeting additional time was given for members to send written reports. Nonetheless, it was agreed that the draft report should take account of the following:

emphasize the need for a vision of what UN is doing in Africa and how UNSIA can contribute to the attainment of that vision. The UN S-G’s statement at the 1998 Spring session of ACC as well as recommendations in his report on Africa to the Security Council stressing poverty reduction, peace and stability are essential to that vision;

UNSIA has clearly defined objectives that are relevant to the global objectives of the UN;

take up CPC’s recommendations to put in place clusters covering economic diversification and regional integration;

population is already a cluster on its own, gender mainstreaming need to be more evident;

indicate how the Initiative would continue the good work being done at sector level and replicate the same in clusters lagging behind on implementation;

stress clusters’ obligation to develop an implementation strategy including work programmes, division of labor, targeted objectives, benchmark to measure progress, monitoring and reporting with a view to enhance coherence;

ensure linkages of cluster and country level coordination mechanism, instruments, and tools such as CCA, UNDAF, CAS and CDF. Promote a sector wide approach as a means of enhancing coordination, country leadership and ownership in programme formulation and implementation through upstream level support, predictability of resources for SIPs through appropriate follow up to the outcome of round tables and Consultative Groups;

incorporate the recommendations to invite OAU and AfDB as observers to the ACC Steering Committee with a view to reinforce African ownership. ECA is well placed to initiate this;

ensure that UNSIA clusters are not expanded but rather reassessed with a view to be more inclusive of UN agencies activities in Africa in the identified priority areas.

Resource Mobilization

regional programmes of agencies and organizations should be re-examined with the view to ensuring coordination and responsiveness to global objectives of Africa and mobilizing adequate funding of regional priorities;

financing of regional and sub-regional activities need to be addressed more adequately in the procedures and lending instruments of financial institutions;

global advocacy for more ODA resources must be intensified, including use of high-level personalities;

at cluster level, financing strategies building on best practices emerging from education, health education, governance and information technology must be devised;

modalities should be developed to mobilize Africa’s own internal resources (public and private) for development;

maintaining UNSIA in the agenda of the ACC has proven helpful providing an opportunity to the SG, DSG and Executive heads of all agencies and organizations to provide guidance and leadership for timely implementation of programme activities. The Spring 1998 session of the ACC agreed to continue to discuss substantive issues requiring guidance and leadership of ACC members; and maintain UNSIA on its agenda;

the ACC Steering Committee should continue to play a major role in the oversight and coordination of the Initiative through its annual meeting and reporting to the ACC. Overall cluster progress will be reviewed at this level allowing for cross-fertilization through sharing of experiences on best practices. The co-chairs of the Steering Committee are to continue to brief ACC on new developments;

cluster technical working groups will continue to discuss details of work programmes and modalities of implementation;

regional consultation meetings held once a year, will be briefed on the overall coordination aspects and progress in harmonization with other initiatives;

the report should be finalized by a task force led by the UNSIA Secretariat branch in New York with the participation of New York based organizations such as UNICEF which offered to contribute to this undertaking;

consideration should be given to producing a comprehensive document on UNSIA reflecting the experience of implementation, e.g. African ownership, cluster organization, achievements and illustrations of UNSIA’s value;

38. On behalf of ACC the Steering Committee members, Mr. K.Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary of ECA, thanked Mr. Speth for his commitment to Africa’s development in general and for his continuous leadership as the co-chair of UNSIA Secretariat. He added that the Steering Committee will continue to work hard to meet the high standard he set in forging coordinated action of the UN system, including the Bretton Woods institutions working together for a new partnership that would "help Africa help itself".