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TECHNICAL WORKING GROUP MEETING
ON
EDUCATION AND GOVERNANCE
24 SEPTEMBER, 1997
RBA, UNDP, NEW YORK
Introduction
The Technical Working Group Meeting of the United Nations Special Initiative on Africa was held on 24 September 1997 in the RBA conference room, New York. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Trevor Gordon-Somers, Acting Director, RBA, UNDP. It was attended by representatives from the UNDP, UNECA, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank. (See attached list.)
Mr. Gordon-Somers welcomed the participants on behalf of the co-chairs of the ACC Steering Committee Messrs. Speth and Amoaka. He stated that the objective of the meeting was to take stock of the progress achieved so far and devise specific ways to accelerate UNSIA activities following the 6th Steering Committee and the ACC meetings that took place in April 1997.
Mr. Gordon-Somers informed the participants that the next Steering Committee meeting is tentatively scheduled for 9 or 10 November 1997. He indicated that while the upcoming ACC meeting would not be discussing UNSIA as a specific agenda item, it was still necessary to prepare a report to the Organizing Committee that will be circulated as an information note to the ACC members. Participants were reminded that the initial skepticism about the effectiveness of UNSIA was yet to be fully overcome and this could only be achieved through demonstrated concrete results. It is not sufficient to present plans and state intentions, reports have to focus on the synergy that UNSIA has created throughout the system, rather than a listing of activities that each agency is carrying out independently. This technical meeting focused on the sectors of Education and Governance. The narrowing of the discussion to these two was prompted by the need to have an in-depth discussion and reach agreements on benchmarks, along a time line, that can measure concretely the progress achieved in each sector. Participants were urged to identify constraints and agree on practical actions to overcome them.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS:
The meeting recognized some progress had been made at the country level. Political mobilization efforts are bearing positive results, both in Africa and with the donor community. Illustrative of this is the reconfirmation of African ownership reflected in the OAU decision during its last summit in Harare. Positive reference were also made to the Initiative at the last Tidewater meeting and the Security Council meeting on 25 September. In addition the OECD/DAC has extended an invitation to build on UNSIA to foster coordination at the country level. Encouraging letters have been received from African and donor capitals and embassies. The participants agreed that all this support can be sustained if UNSIA can demonstrate concrete implementation at the country level, before the second anniversary of the official launch.
EDUCATION
The World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF provided a detailed update on their ongoing and planned activities in the education sector. In addition, the meeting reviewed progress made towards the recommendations of the 6 Steering Committee in the following areas:
1) African leadership and ownership continue to be demonstrated by African Ministers of Education working within the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). The results of the upcoming meeting of ADEA scheduled for 14-18 October 1997 could provide guidance for follow up action.
2) Efforts to bring the positive results and synergies arising from UN system collaboration, including Bretton Woods institutions, are progressively in evidence at the country level. For example:
Ethiopia: Following a successful CG meeting on the Education SIP, the UN agencies gave serious consideration to efforts to minimize the transaction cost of the government. In this regard issues such as harmonization of donor procedures on reporting, accounting and auditing requirements as well as coordination of activities were discussed. While many of these issues have to be resolved ink the long term, agreement was reached on a collaborative framework for each UN agency to support the Education SIP priority areas.
Senegal basic education programme: The July 1997 joint UNESCO, World Bank, UNDP mission has laid the ground for successful implementation of UNSIA in this country. Common understanding of the scope of assistance needed was reached following consultation between the Senegalese authorities, the mission,k other UN agencies in the country as well as the bilateral donor group led by France. A UNDP Special Services for Programme and Policy Development (SPPD) grant has been signed. The grant will support the country's efforts to reach national consensus on policy impediments and to finalize a ten-year development programme with the technical assistance of UNESCO,k the World Bank and some bilateral donors. A donor conference to mobilize funding for the development programme, once finalized, will be held during the first quarter of 1998;
Mozambique: Following UN country team consultations and the visit of UNESCO Deputy Director-General, a consultative meeting was held in Paris in July 1997. This provided the opportunity for an in-depth dialogue around different scenarios, laying the ground work for enhancing coordinated external support to the education sector strategy. Such external support will facilitate the finalization of the strategy, formulation and implementation of the education sector investment programme (SIP);
Zimbabwe: The Government has requested UNESCO and the UN country team to help organize a consultative group similar to the one coordinated by UNESCO for Mozambique;
Country Team Retreats: Within the UNSIA framework, retreats have been held in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Mozambique and agreement to take actions to accelerate the implementation in the priority sectors, including education, has been reached. The retreats identified best practices to be shared among other countries.
The participants identified a number of factors delaying timely implementation, including the tendency to have an "agency focus," inadequate support and lack of specific guidance from agency headquarters to country offices. Recalling the coordination at the country level called for in UNSIA, consensus was reached on actions to achieve more synergy and monitorable progress. To that effect, the following were agreed on:
Benchmarks:
As agreed at the various UN conferences, all countries should strive to ensure the complete access to primary school or an equivalent level of education by both girls and boys as soon as possible and in any case by the year 2015. Following this global goal and UNSIA's political mobilization effort, specific benchmarks to measure progress are slowly emerging. The meeting recalled earlier decisions of the ACC Steering Committee that there is need to identify benchmarks and agreed that it was necessary to define these benchmarks as clearly as possible. The meeting reaffirmed the already agreed eligible criteria for countries to participate in the UNSIA i.e. all countries are entitled to participate in the Special Initiative and assistance will be provided in all categories: sustainable Sector Investment Programmes (SiPs); SIPs-capable but requiring advice and support to overcome policy impediments; weak institutional capacities, and countries in crisis and civil strife on the basis of requirements determined through consultation with governments, civil society, donor partners and the UN system. Bearing this in mind, the meeting reached consensus on the following action plan:
As proposed by the World Bank, action programmes to improve the enrollment rate in at least 12 countries (Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, Niger) will be initiated. Action programmes well be presented to the ADEA meeting in October 1997. All these countries have the common characteristic of enrollment in basic education being less that 50%. The figure for males ranges from 23% to 49% at the highest level. The situation is even worse for females ranging from 13% to 31%. A final agreement on countries on which to focus will be reached taking into consideration concrete proposals and views of other participating agencies ink the cluster. The support for these countries will be provided parallel to countries with SIPs under preparation.
Coordinated financial and/or staff time by all concerned agencies and organizations (World Bank, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF) for the quick implementation of this programme will be finalized as soon as possible. UNDP, through its national development programmes and Special Services for programme and Policy Development (SPPD) mechanism, and the World Bank, through its newly established Norwegian Trust Fund and the mechanism of project preparation facility, will provide the necessary support for programme development. The UNDP support of US$260,000 for Senegal's basic education development programme is an example of such assistance.
Support will be provided to regional level activities such as regional seminars to review various country experiences in dealing with policy impediments. In this regard, arrangements are underway to hold regional seminars and workshops on issues such as financing of teacher salary and learning languages. These workshops and seminars will facilitate the exchange of ideas on best practices that can help build national consensus and sustainable improvements in the sector.
In order to design a global strategy on the sector, a comprehensive inventory of the status of basic education in all countries should be finalized, in close collaboration with African authorities. The inventory should include information on the status of policies, programmes, existing resources, external partners, and required assistance. The twelve low enrollment rate countries listed above will be the first priority.
Governance
UNDP reported on the background and conclusions of the Governance Forum held in Addis Ababa 11-12 July 1997, co-sponsored with ECA. Twelve countries (Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Togo and Uganda) presented national programmes that were formulated with UNDP assistance. The Forum was attended by African ministers from 14 countries, donor representatives, civil society organizations, 29 observers and 21 international organizations. The World Bank made a detailed presentation of its activities in this area. The meeting agreed on the following plan of action:
Support the annual organization of the Forum and pursue preparatory arrangements for the 1998 event to be held in Ghana, with support from the Government of Switzerland.
Country level inventory of governance activities including coordination arrangements, resource commitments and financing gaps, to be prepared by the Resident Coordinator and the UN country team -- Questionnaires have already been dispatched to the Resident Coordinators in the twelve countries which presented programmes at the Forum.
Make necessary contact at the regional level to support and strengthen regional and sub-region African organizations' role in peace building, conflict resolution, and promotion of a conducive environment for sustainable development.
An inventory of activities related to communication for peace should be finalized by UNESCO on the basis of information collected from other UN agencies and organizations. A comprehensive plan of action will then be formulated in 1998 as per the recommendation of the successful Addis Ababa regional meeting organized by UNESCO in June 1997 on communication for peace building.
Encourage countries to hold constructive discussions with their national constituencies including Civil Society Organizations and NGOs.
UNDP and the World Bank should identify areas of collaboration for capacity-building assessments. This should be open for others to participate in as appropriate.
Closing Remarks:
In closing, Mr. Gordon-Somers thanked all the participants for their contributions and echoed the sense of the discussions that the meeting had achieved its objectives. He acknowledged that some progress had been made and urged all to do their best to continue to demonstrate concretely the synergy and value added of UNSIA. He stressed the importance of the UN country teams and the challenge of continuously searching for creative ways of collaboration. Finally, the participants expressed their expectation that the conclusions reached at this meeting particularly with respect to benchmarking will stimulate further discussion an action in the other priority cluster areas.