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 As part of the reform of the United Nation (UN), the UN Secretary General recommended in 1998 that regional consultations be convened on an annual basis to improve coordination and collaboration among UN agencies engaged in regional and inter-country activities. ECOSOC subsequently endorsed this recommendation in Resolution 1998/40.

Following the endorsement by the ECOSOC, Ms. Louise Fréchette, UN Deputy Secretary-General chaired the First Annual Regional Consultation of UN System Agencies Working in Africa on 5 March 1999 in Nairobi, Kenya. The meeting, attended by representatives of twenty-three agencies, reviewed the existing coordination mechanisms and discussed the priority regional and inter-country programs of the UN in Africa. On this basis, the Nairobi meeting concluded that the United Nations System-wide Special Initiative on Africa (SIA) was well placed to serve as the overarching framework for coordinating the UN System’s work in the region. It also recommended that the focus of the coordination under the SIA be on arriving at a shared vision of how agencies working within a collaborative framework at the regional level could support Africa’s development priorities, reinforce synergies, and bring greater coherence - all towards achieving greater on-ground development impact. In this regard, it was further recommended that the programmatic coverage of the SIA be modified to include other UN system agency work currently left out of the SIA cluster configuration.

The ACC Steering Committee on the SIA, at its eighth session held on 14 May 1999 in Geneva, discussed in some detail how the SIA could be modified to play this expanded coordination role. Based on the outcome of the Steering Committee’s discussion, the co-chairs submitted to the Deputy Secretary-General a report dated 11 June 1999 - Towards Enhanced Coordination for Coherence in UN System’s Work in Africa - detailing proposals on how the SIA’s expanded coordination role could be implemented. Based on submissions by the Deputy Secretary-General, ACC subsequently endorsed a set of recommendations aimed at promoting information sharing among agencies in the UN system, monitoring implementation progress of these agencies at the regional and inter-country level, and keeping member States systematically informed about the scope and impact of the UN system’s support to Africa’s development. The ACC also decided that the Annual Regional Consultations should take place at ECA Headquarters in Addis Ababa.

The ACC recommendations stressed:

• the importance of  the UN system’s work in Africa continuing to reflect Africa’s vision and priorities;

• the expanded coordination role of the SIA, and in this context, the need for the SIA framework to be inclusive of all UN system entities;

• effective and non-duplicative ways of monitoring and reporting on the development activities of the UN system in Africa, including the identification and sharing of best practices, the preparation of reports summarizing the lessons of inter-country experiences, and the evaluation of the outstanding implementation constraints;

• information sharing and communication, particularly through electronic means, on initiatives on Africa, both as a requirement to ensure overall UN system effectiveness and as a means to keep other development partners apprised of the UN’s work in the continent; and
• ensuring that the SIA and existing country level coordination tools (UNDAF, CCA, and CDF) are made mutually reinforcing and non-duplicative. (The PRSP, introduced by the Bretton Woods in September 1999, should be now be added to the list of coordination tools.)

The Second Annual Regional Consultation, planned to take place from 26 to 27 June 2000 at the ECA in Addis Ababa, is the first opportunity at the regional level to put in practice the ACC decision that gave the SIA an expanded coordination role.

Meeting Objectives: The two-day meeting is designed to take stock of the work of the UN system in Africa within the modified SIA framework, facilitate information sharing on SIA cluster activities through cluster reporting and identify a set of monitorable indicators and benchmarks on the basis of which systematic cluster-level reporting could be done on progress towards enhanced UN system-wide collaboration in selected areas.

Key aspects of this stocktaking will include goal setting and consensus building around programmatic content of the UN system’s collaborative work in priority areas. Equally important will be the assessment of how this work contributes to meeting broad international goals and specific region-level African priorities.

Meeting Content and Format: The content and format of the Second Regional Consultation will include plenary and breakout sessions designed to facilitate in-depth discussions on selected issues. To this end, a distinguishing feature of the Second Regional Consultation is that, in addition to providing an update on the activities of the UN system in Africa over the past year, the Consultation will include forward looking sessions that place emphasis on the activities to be implemented collectively over the coming year. The program will include: - i) breakout sessions focused on key SIA areas where significant progress has been achieved in implementing collaborative actions, ii) a plenary session featuring an area where significant advances have been made over the past year, plus iii) a special plenary session on a major regional development issue.

Cluster Breakout Sessions on Four Key SIA Areas: In acknowledging the advances in collaborative efforts by the UN system in the education, health, governance, and information technology sectors, the SIA Retreat in February 1998 (New York) identified these sectors as the areas where lead agencies should focus on expanding country coverage and deepening field-level collaboration under the SIA framework. The need to focus the work of the UN on few priority sectors and regional concerns was also underscored at a recent meeting (8 April 2000, Rome) of the Executive Committee of the United Nations Development Group (UNDG). As such, it is the intention to include regularly reporting on the above mentioned four sectors in the program of all future Annual Regional Consultations. To this end, the Second Regional Consultation in June will include cluster breakout sessions on the education, health, governance, and information technology sectors.

"Issue Notes" - Scope and Content: The lead (or co-lead) agencies are requested to submit succinct "issue notes" that will serve as background documentation for the four breakout sessions. Given the importance attached to cluster-level reporting under the modified SIA, it will be the responsibility of lead (and co-lead) agencies responsible for coordinating the work under this cluster to ensure that the reports are prepared in consultation with the other partner agencies working in that cluster.

To facilitate focused discussions and action-oriented meeting outcomes, it is suggested to limit each "issue note" to no more than five pages in length. The "note" should briefly highlight the major issues and challenges and the common policy and programmatic objectives that the UN system as a group is trying to achieve collectively in the cluster. The "note" should indicate the few selected activities that agencies have agreed to implement collectively over the next one to two years in support of these objectives. Any institutional and operational constraints that need to be addressed should also be flagged in this regard. In addition, each "issue note" should provide suggestions on achieving value-added through intensified inter-agency collaboration and on practical approaches to addressing crosscutting concerns such as funding of cluster activities, gender mainstreaming, and strengthening networks for inter-cluster information sharing. The forward-looking nature of the issue notes for the Second Regional Consultation represents a departure from past reports to the ACC Steering Committee and/or the First Regional Consultation, which have tended to focus on past activities. The need to agree on monitorable indicators and benchmarks on the basis of which systematic reporting on cluster activities could be conducted assumes great importance in this regard.

A special plenary session to report on a selected area where advances have been made over the past year: Each Annual Consultation will include a special plenary session on an area where advances have been made over the past year in defining a clear way forward and/or in fostering collaborative actions. This year, the special plenary session will report on the water cluster.

It will be recalled that concerns have been expressed over the lack of a clearly coordinated strategy to achieve synergies in the four sub-components under the SIA water cluster. The related issues, including the fragmentation in UN system activities as well as the multiplicity of initiatives in the water sector, were discussed at the SIA Technical Working Group Meeting on Water, which was convened at the Hague on 20 March 2000 on the occasion of the Second World Water Forum. Drawing on the outcome of this meeting and the Ministerial discussions at the Second Water Forum on the paper The Africa Water Vision for 2025, the UN system agencies work in the water sector met from 4 to 5 May 2000 at UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi to develop a strategy for facilitating inter-agency collaborative action in the water cluster. The special plenary session on water at the Second Regional Consultation meeting will report on this strategy.

A special plenary session on a major regional development issue: It is also the intention to devote a special plenary session at each Annual Consultation to a major regional development issue. HIV is the topic we have selected for the special plenary session at the June Regional Consultation. The purpose of this session is to stimulate coordinated UN system response in support of HIV-related policies and programs at the regional and national levels. As such, it is hoped that the special session on HIV at the Second Annual Regional Consultation will deploy the SIA framework to catalyze collaborative UN system actions aimed at deepening regional policy-awareness on the HIV development challenge and mobilizing coordinated support for country-led efforts at addressing this challenge.

The recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the United Nations Development Group has also expressed the desire for the SIA to be more closely linked with the African Development Forum (ADF). As you know, the ADF is an ECA initiative launched last year to foster high level dialogue between African policy makers and stakeholders and their development partners on urgent development challenges facing the continent. The ADF process is designed to facilitate agreements around Africa-driven policy and program outcomes and to mobilize donor support for concrete country-led programs aimed at addressing these challenges. ADF I, convened from 25 to 28 October 1999 at the ECA Headquarters in Addis Ababa, focused on the Challenge to Africa of Globalization and the Information Age. I am pleased to inform you that preparations are underway to convene the Second African Development Forum (ADF II) from 22 to 26 October 2000 in Addis Ababa on the theme AIDS: The Greatest Leadership Challenge, which is the same topic that we have selected for the special plenary session at the Second Annual Regional Consultation. ADF II is a partnership effort led by ECA, UNAIDS, UNDP and the World Bank.