November 12, 2012, Kinshasa - The New Partnership for Africa’s Development, NEPAD Agency and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo recently held a joint lecture on Development Effectiveness at the Protestant University in the capital Kinshasa.

Attended by more than 80 under and post-graduate students, researchers  and lecturers, the session  was held on the side-lines of on-going the consultations on the assessment of aid effectiveness and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by NEPAD and other development partners.

The lecture Panel, conducted by Florence Nazare, Head of Capacity Development at NEPAD, Mr. Alain Akpagi, Aid Effectiveness Expert of the United Nations Development Programme; Sebastain Tshibangu Expert in International Relations, Ministry of Planning - DRC and Mr Pial Mezala Romuold of the Cameroonian-based Pan African Institute for Development, focused on NEPAD and the Africa Platform for Development Effectiveness (APDev) agenda to put into effectively link with African Universities and the Continent’s renewal agenda.

The engagement with the university aimed to sensitise students on Africa’s development agenda, outlining the crucial role of universities in the effort to bridge the evidence-policy- practice gap for effective implementation and results.

The lecture also provided a platform for NEPAD to report on the progress made towards regional integration in the first 10 years of the Agency’s existence.  The lecturers and students expressed a strong desire to share their views on the various initiatives being undertaken by the African Union Commission and the NEPAD Agency on the continent and globally.

At the end of lecturer, the students signed up on APDev as a platform through which they will provide their voice on development effectiveness particularly on the Post-MDGs in 2015 and the implementation of Busan commitments.  These are a set of agreements made by ministers and representatives of developing and developed countries, heads of multilateral and bilateral institution and civil society, in Busan, Republic of Korea in 2011, to ensure that aid supports that attainment of the MDG’s by the set goal of 2015.

 The DRC students will be linked to other operational APDev University networks like the Wits Graduate School and Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute.

The lecture also included a guided tour by Professor Patrick Shamba who is head of the Congolese Centre for Micro Finance at the University, which is one of the Centres of Excellence on the Continent on micro-finance.