Pretoria, South Africa, 19 September 2025 (ECA) – The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in collaboration with the Department of Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (DPME) of the Government of South Africa, conducted a hands-on training workshop on the ECA developed Integrated Planning and Reporting Toolkit (IPRT). The workshop was held to facilitate the digitalization of the Government’s new Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) 2024-2029, its alignment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and Agenda 2063’s Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan (STYIP), and enhance reporting on national, continental and global agendas through the IPRT.
The workshop, held in Pretoria, South Africa, from 15 to 18 September 2025, with a virtual preparatory component from 19 to 21 August 2025 in response to the request of the DPME to use the IPRT to enhance its development planning processes, was a first in many regards. It was the first IPRT training for South Africa, and the first training to use the IPRT to align a National Development Plan with Agenda 2063’s newly implemented STYIP.
Notably, the mission was undertaken jointly by several ECA divisions and the Agenda 2063 Technical Working Group (TWG) which included partners from the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Union Development Agency, the African Capacity Building Foundation, the African Development Bank (AfDB), African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), ECA, the Joint Secretariat Support Office (JSSO) composed of AUC and AfDB, and the United Nations Development Programme.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Lindsay Martin, (Acting) Deputy Director-General, DPME, expressed his gratitude for ECA's ongoing support in helping South Africa’s development planning and emphasized the need to avoid duplication of reporting through an integrated approach. Ambassador Luvuyo Lonsdale Ndimeni, on behalf of the Agenda 2063 TWG, emphasized the need to align Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda under the principle of “Two Agendas, One Plan” to accelerate Africa’s development, focusing on industrialization, resilience, peace, and integrated reporting through tools like the IPRT. He expressed his keen interest on behalf of the TWG in supporting member states in domestication, data strengthening, and partnerships to ensure coherent implementation and measurable results.
Ms Oyebanke Abejirin, Officer-in-Charge of the Development Planning Section, in ECA noted that the training marked an on-going engagement between the Government of South Africa, the ECA and the UN at large. She noted that ECA had served on the Reference Group Committee for the Development of the MTDP, and was thrilled to continue the collaboration in digitalizing the MTDP, fostering its alignment to the SDGs and Agenda 2063 using the IPRT to support effective, data-driven planning and budgeting.
The event brought together over 80 participants from key ministries, and agencies, such as the Departments of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, Communications and Digital Technologies, Basic Education, Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Home Affairs, Higher Education & Training, International Relations and Cooperation, Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Transport, Department of Public Service and Administration, Department of Small Business Development, Sport, Arts and Culture, Government Communication and Information System and National Treasury, among others.
By the end of the workshop, participants expressed that the training was a good intervention, enhanced their understanding of the SDGs and Agenda 2063 and the need for different departments to align their priorities to the global and continental agendas, while working together in a collaborative manner. Mr. Martin noted that the support was highly valued and would enable better tracking of all development interventions made by the Government, development partners, and stakeholders.
The ECA remains committed to supporting African countries in developing technology-enabled, future-ready National Development Plans, as well as sectoral and subnational plans. Additionally, the ECA will assist in building robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks and advancing the implementation of Integrated National Financing Frameworks.
For further information on the workshop and IPRT tool, contact Oyebanke Abejirin at oyebanke.abejirin@un.org or visit https://iprt.uneca.org/.