Third Africa Regional Meeting on Development Effectiveness

The Third Africa Regional Meeting on Development Effectiveness (ARM-DE) took place from 28-30 September 2011 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia under the auspices of the African Union (AU). The Meeting was co-organized by the AU Commission and the NEPAD Agency, in partnership with UNDP and UNECA, with country leadership of the Governments of Kenya and Ghana.

Prior to the APDev launch, two regional platform consultations were co-organized by the NEPAD Agency with the Government of South Africa and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Pretoria and Tunis, in March and November 2010, respectively. These consultations brought together African stakeholders and partners towards a common front in the paradigm shift from AE to Development Effectiveness (DE).

The ‘Pretoria Outcomes’ and ‘Tunis Consensus on Development Effectiveness’ and the recent dialogue during the “APDev Week” have contributed to shaping the African Position on AE within the framework of DE and are milestone events in seeding and shaping the Beyond Aid agenda. Explicitly, the common message is that Aid should assist Africa move to sustainability. In practice, this means that investments through Aid should guarantee and achieve capacity development outcomes, as standard. CD should therefore be a core measure in assessing the impact and results of Aid in Africa.

The 1st Africa Regional Meeting held in Pretoria, March 2010 emphasized the importance of embracing an all-inclusive dialogue involving various constituencies toward strengthening and use of country systems for aid effectiveness. The consultations further emphasized the role of capacity development as critical in promoting African ownership and leadership of aid management processes in order to realize development effectiveness in Africa. These sentiments were reiterated during the 2nd Africa Regional Meeting in Tunis, November 2010.

The Tunis meeting emphasized the need for development cooperation that focuses on unleashing country or endogenous capacities and resources for development. It stressed the need to adopt the DE framework as an approach to help minimize aid dependence and to prioritize the investments that strengthen the national capacities and build on alternative sources of development funding. Both meetings further emphasized South-South Cooperation (SSC) as a promising mechanism and framework for promoting economic self-reliance based on shared objectives, equality and mutual respect, trust, benefit, accountability and transparency.

Lead Responsibility:
AUC/NEPAD

Agency Action/Output:
African countries, RECs, stakeholder task teams engage on final Busan preparations and Consensus Position