" [1]ECA Press Release No. 44/2012
Addis Ababa, 28 March 2012 (ECA) – “If there were no NEPAD, there would be need to establish one” said a participant at today’s colloquium and congress organized by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in collaboration with partners including the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) as part of activities assessing the achievements and challenges of the pan-African initiative over the past 10 years.
Organized at the new African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa under the theme: “Africa’s Decade of Change: Accelerating NEPAD implementation through Domestic Financing”, the events pulled together a diverse panel made up of political leaders, scholars and development practitioners, according to the Information and Communication Service of ECA.
With one of NEPAD’s founding father (former President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria) present, the current Chairperson of the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee (Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia); and the outspoken former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings ready for frank talk, NEPAD successfully set the stage for the kind of soul-searching questions that progressive organizations engage in.
Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, the UN Under-Secretary General set the tone earlier on in the dialogue when, introducing himself as “as one of the earliest believers in the NEPAD” said that it is remarkable how things have changed for the better in Africa in the 10 years of NEPAD.
“Only 10 years ago, The Economist news magazine reported that Africa was a hopeless continent. Ten years later; ten years after NEPAD, the same journal is screaming “Africa is rising”, Mr. Janneh recalled, praising NEPAD for having played a key role in this reversal.
He said that he was all the more delighted because of the effective contributions of UN agencies, working within the framework of General Assembly Resolution 57/7 which mandates UN agencies to support NEPAD.
“The UN coordinated support to the AU and NEPAD works through nine clusters which are jointly coordinated by a focal UN Agency and the African Union Commission”, he told the session, explaining that they were designed to address all AU and NEPAD priorities.
These include the Infrastructure Development Cluster which is led by ECA; the Governance Cluster is led by UNDP, the Social and Human Development Cluster is coordinated by WHO; the Environment, Population and Urbanization Cluster is led by UNEP; the Agriculture, Food Security and Rural Development Cluster is led by FAO; the Science and Technology Cluster is led by UNESCO, the Advocacy and Communication Cluster is coordinated by OSAA; the Peace and Security Cluster is led by the UNOAU while the Industry, Trade and Market Access is led by UNIDO.
He called on the UN system to consider the next decade as a period of consolidation and deepening of its support to the African Union and its NEPAD programme.
President Obasanjo traced the conception and early establishment of NEPAD, admitting the several inevitable challenges they encountered. But he said that judging from what we see of NEPAD today, it was a worthwhile.
Former President Jerry Rawlings challenged Africans to speak the truth to each other and be courageous enough to tell the rest of the world what they see as the root causes of their developmental problems, drawing several rounds of applause in between his interventions.
As far as engaging African stakeholders and partners towards enhancing ownership and the implementation of NEPAD as a flagship programme of the African Union at all levels; and at aggregate the viewpoints of African stakeholders on the strategic approaches and resources required to scale up the delivery for NEPAD, the colloquium and congress were highly successful, said another participant.
Several African youths were awarded prizes for their ingenuity, on which Africa will have to depend to harness its own transformation.
:: Statement by Mr. Abdoulie Janneh [2], UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA
Issued by:
ECA Information and Communication Service
P.O. Box 3001
