The first decade coincided with the independence of the majority of countries in Africa. It was thus a decade when special emphasis was placed on laying the foundations for institutional and human resource development across the region. Besides setting up the administrative framework of the secretariat, ECA focused its initial programme on the compelling development issues of the time: building capacities for development through training in development planning, agriculture, industrial development, transport and natural resources management. These were underpinned by the development of statistics for social and economic research and development planning.