December 6, 2012, Saly, Senegal - A high-level forum on the Post-Busan Conference on Aid Effectiveness and the Post-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) kicked off today in Saly, Senegal with a strong call to clearly identify Africa's priorities for a post-2015 development agenda that will reflect the Continent's perspectives and needs.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of a regional meeting on development effectiveness, Florence Nazare, Head of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Capacity Development Programme said: “For impact, the post 2015 development agenda should take into account Africa’s own development effectiveness agenda and must therefore integrate the African Union’s and NEPAD’s development agenda alongside national visions and goals.”

As the 2015 deadline for achieving the MDGs draws near and new development frameworks have been created, the African Union Commission (AUC) and NEPAD Agency with support from the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the German Development Agency (GIZ), have begun to identify goals and issues for Africa’s development framework after 2015.   

The MDGs are a roadmap set by world leaders at the UN General Assembly, based on eight time-bound measurable goals to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015. As many of the goals will not been reached by all developing countries, world leaders are currently developing a new framework that will succeed the MDGs in 2015, known as the Post-2015 development agenda.

Ms Nazare highlighted that it is key to link the Continent’s development priorities with existing global agendas such as the MDGs, RIO+20 and Busan for a new 2015 development agenda that will inform Africa’s local, national and regional priorities. “Going forward it is evident that Africa needs an integration of all these agenda in a manner that fosters national development. We cannot afford to take them as separate agendas; connections need to be made,” she said.

Speaking on the 2011 Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, Mr Jean Yves Adou AUC Policy Officer stated that the AUC and the NEPAD Agency through the African Platform for Development Effectiveness (APDev) presented for the first time a common African position on the Continents priorities for development effectiveness. Key on the agenda in Busan was not the issue of how best to disburse aid, but the issue of how to effectively manage internal and external resources in order to reduce aid dependency of developing countries for effective development.

According to Mayacine Camara, Coordinator of the Ministry in Economic Planning of the Government of Senegal and host of the meeting, this was the first time that the focus of the global development agenda “shifted from aid effectiveness to development effectiveness, marking a critical turning point in international development co-operation.”

NEPAD, as the African Union’s development vehicle, was part of the negotiations to ensure that Africa’s interests and needs were represented. Through regional consultations across the Continent, the AUC and NEPAD are now working with Governments, Regional Economic Communities, civil society organisations and development partners to make sure that the Busan commitments are tracked and implemented, and reflected in the Post-2015 development agenda.  “It is now time to translate the commitments made by African countries into tangible results,” Mr Adou said.

The first regional dialogue was hosted last month in Central Africa in the capital Kinshasa of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It will move from East to West and South to North in order to define and implement Africa’s position on development effectiveness and the new development framework post-2015.

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For more information:

Abiola Ajayi, NEPAD Agency

Phone: + 221 77 134 3607

E-mail: Abiolaa@nepad.org