Ad-hoc Expert Group Meeting – Kampala, 17-18 October 2007
ECA Press Release No. 15/2007
Addis Ababa, 9 October (ECA) – The Trade, Finance and Economic Development (TFED) division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is organizing an “Ad-hoc Expert Group Meeting” on “Policy targeting to accelerate growth, create employment, and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa” from 17 to 18 October 2007, at the Speke Resort and Conference Centre, in Kampala, Uganda.
The meeting will discuss the need for more focused macro and sectoral policy frameworks to increase growth, create employment and accelerate progress towards achieving the MDGs, and the role of employment creation to reduce poverty. It will provide senior officials from Ministries of Finance and Planning, as well as researchers from Africa and other regions the opportunity to share and discuss their experiences in this regard.
Discussions will focus on the need to generate policy advice on how to target high-employment generating activities using the tools of monetary and fiscal policy, as well as the role of research centres in developing analytical tools (e.g. models) and generating evidence-based advice for policymaking.
Despite sustained improvements in economic performance in recent years, progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remains limited in Africa. Africa’s recent economic performance is characterized by high commodity-dependence, high within-region variation and low impact on employment creation. Moreover, economic growth remains below the level necessary for achieving the MDGs, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where measures of poverty have remained virtually unchanged over the past decade. SSA lags behind all developing regions regarding progress towards universal primary education, gender equity, access to clean drinking water, and environmental sustainability.
In that context, the meeting hopes to strengthen collaboration between research centers and policy makers to develop more effective pro-poor strategies. It is part of a UN development project that aims to strengthen the research capacity of selected research centers and to facilitate exchange of experiences among researchers within Africa and with their counterparts in Latin America.
Issued by the ECA Information and Communication Service P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa Ethiopia
Tel: 251 11 5445098 Fax: +251 11 5510365 E-mail: ecainfo@uneca.org Web: www.uneca.org
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