Africa gears up for a common position on aid reforms...

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(l-r) Dr. Mayaki, CEO of the NEPAD Agency; Mr. Otieno, Kenyan Minister and Mrs. Yak, Dep. Minister from South Sudan

Addis Ababa, 28/9/2011 - “At the heart of these regional engagements is the urgent need for Africa to address the current aid architecture and its implications for Africa’s development,” said Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, Chief Executive Officer of the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) at the opening of the third Africa regional meeting on development effectiveness. The meeting is taking place between the 28^th and 30^th of September 2011 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“From the first and second Africa regional meetings, through the launch of the Africa Platform for Development Effectiveness and also through this third engagement, Africa has articulated its priorities resulting in the African consensus and position in the run up to the upcoming 4^th High Level Forum on Aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea,” said Mayaki.

The overall objective of this third regional meeting is to validate the common African position on development effectiveness with regard to shaping the post-Busan agenda focusing on aid reforms.

In his remarks, Mr. Erastus Mwencha, Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) insisted on “the unequivocal inclusion of the regional dimension in the new global partnership for development effectiveness.”

He went on to remind the participants at the meeting that aid should be seen as one source of development finance which should complement our efforts at achieving growth and wealth creation in Africa.

It is also in this regard that Jennifer Kagrbo, Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA) called upon the meeting to adopt the “development effectiveness framework as an approach to help minimise aid dependence and to prioritise the investments that strengthen the national capacities and build on alternative sources of development funding”.   

In line with this appeal towards processes at the national level, Dalmas Otieno, Kenya’s Minister of State for Public Service emphasised that development effectiveness, aid effectiveness and any form of effectiveness must begin at the national level in order to ensure buy-in and broader success at the national and continental levels.

He also called upon the political leadership of the continent to collectively prioritise Africa’s needs and to get behind one vision as in the case of the African position on aid reforms.

Eugene Owusu, the UN Resident Coordinator and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative in Ethiopia reminded the gathering that in the process of building capacity for aid reform, Africa should “examine how support goes towards nurturing and strengthening the capacity of nations to plan long-term while allowing them to respond in the short term in times of crisis”.      

The third Africa regional meeting on development effectiveness is being co-organised by the AUC and the NEPAD Agency in partnership with UN-ECA, UNDP and the African Development Bank with the leadership of African Governments. GIZ, UN Women, Trust Africa, Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA) and Oxfam GB are supporting this engagement.