http://www1.uneca.org/ArticleDetail/tabid/3018/ArticleId/1425/ECA-and-World-Bank-Africa-Region-agree-to-enhance-partnership.aspx 1/1
© 2012 Economic Commission for Africa
ECA and World Bank Africa Region agree to enhance partnership
1 June, 2012 - The new World Bank Vice-President for the Africa region, Mr. Makhtar Diop paid a courtesy call on Under Secretary-General and ECA Executive Secretary, Mr. Abdoulie Janneh on June 1, 2012. In his welcoming remarks, the Executive Secretary congratulated Mr. Diop on his appointment and acknowledged his extensive experience in banking and finance in Africa; as well as his various roles as Director for Strategy and Operations in and out of Africa over the years. Mr. Diop is also a former Economy and Finance Minister in Senegal.
The Executive Secretary welcomed Mr. Diop’s interest in sharing views and establishing areas of bolstering collaboration between the two institutions and underscored expressed the hope that under Mr. Diop’s leadership in the Bank’s Africa Region, the relationship could be scaled up.
Mr. Janneh informed the Vice President that the ECA works very closely with the AU in light of its role as the agenda-setting organization for Africa. He underlined the joint Conference of Ministers of Finance and Planning as one of the key forums aimed at setting priorities for Africa’s transformation. As an example, approximately 49 ministers attended this year’s March Conference on the theme: Unleashing Africa's Potential as a Pole of Global Growth.
Mr. Janneh said that just like the World Bank, the ECA is a knowledge institution, and as such, plays a key role in consensus- building, providing advisory services across such issues as driving the regional integration agenda and developing a common voice to address common challenges. He noted that the ECA has worked closely with the AU to address the state of Africa’s integration, which led to the adoption of a decision on the Continental Free Trade Area at the January AU Heads of State Summit on Boosting Intra-African Trade. The AU, said Mr. Janneh, is providing an important platform that the ECA fully supports.
With respect to ECA’s consensus–building role, Mr. Janneh highlighted the African Development Form and said that in October 2012, the theme of ADF will be Governing and Harnessing Natural Resources for Africa’s Development. He noted that the timing of this Forum is right in light of the need for Africa to increase its domestic resource mobilization and move from the image of a continent endowed with resources but remains poor. He extended a warm invitation to the Bank to participate as it has extensive experience in this area.
For his part, Vice President Diop thanked Mr. Janneh for making the time to meet with him and noted that his office is interested in strengthening linkages between the World Bank Institute (WBI) and the ECA sponsored training institute –IDEP. He proposed that IDEP and WBI could run a joint course on natural resources contracts. This, he said, would fit in well with the focus of the two institutions on knowledge creation and capacity-building of policy makers.
Other areas of proposed collaboration include statistics indicators, mining issues related to climate change impacts on semi- arid lands; as well as deforestation in the Sahel region.
Issued by:
ECA Information and Communication Service P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa Ethiopia
Tel: 251 11 5445098 Fax: +251-11-551 03 65 E-mail: ecainfo@uneca.org
Web: www.uneca.org
For highlights and more, follow us on:
Related Articles
Africa needs a sound mainstreamed plan on Disaster Risk Reduction(7/19/2012)
ECA to Organize a Workshop on Trade Facilitation in Dar Es Salaam(4/23/2010)
Seminar to promote road safety in Africa as a development priority(7/8/2009)
ECA on Air with edgy Afro-FM 105.3 in bid to reach broader audience (4/19/2011)
UNECA and WTO Sign MOU Toward Better Trade Capacity in Africa(3/9/2010)
Janneh calls for Second Review of Aid for Trade to Ensure
Commitments lead to Action.
(7/3/2009) Fourth International Policy Conference on the African
Child and Launch of The African Report on Child Wellbeing 2011: Budgeting for Children(12/7/2010)
The AUC, ECA and key partners call for an institutionalized development dialogue (12/3/2009)
Current crisis could wash away years of achievements, says new report(6/24/2009)
ECA receives $ 16 million Swedish support towards 2nd joint financing agreement (11/4/2010)
