15-01675
African Union Retreat of the Coordinators of RCM-Africa Distr.: General
2 February 2016
Debre Zeit (Ethiopia) Original: English
11 and 12 February 2016
Draft aide-memoire
1. The United Nations system recognizes regional cooperation as essential for promoting region-wide awareness of the Organization’s global values, analytical and normative work, standards and commitments in the area of development. In the context of United Nations cooperation and partnership with Africa, the General Assembly has consistently accorded special attention to the needs of the continent. The United Nations has a strong and wide- ranging presence in Africa. It brings many assets and much expertise to the region and its member States. The multiplicity of United Nations agencies and organizations at the regional level necessitated the establishment of an institutional arrangement that would ensure effective complementarities and synergies, while building a genuine culture of cooperation among partner organizations.
2. Through its resolution 1998/46, the Economic and Social Council mandated the regional commissions to hold regular inter-agency meetings in each region with a view to improving coordination among the organizations of the United Nations system in that region.
Consequently, since 1999 the commissions have been convening such regional meetings, focusing on policy and programming issues of a regional nature and guided by regional priorities. This has led to the creation of a formal process for system-wide coherence, designed to further strengthen regional cooperation and coordination and to facilitate the adoption of more collaborative approaches in support of development initiatives, by taking advantage of the diverse technical capacities and knowhow of the United Nations system.
3. In Africa, the Regional Coordination Mechanism for Africa (RCM-Africa) and the subregional coordination mechanisms have become the framework for the United Nations family to work together in supporting the priorities of the African Union and its organs, the regional economic communities and other regional and subregional organizations. RCM- Africa was created with the aim of promoting and enhancing United Nations system-wide policy coherence, coordination and cooperation at the regional level, in line with the United Nations “Delivering as one” initiative and in response to identified regional priorities and initiatives of the African Union.
4. Similarly, the subregional coordination mechanisms serve as vehicles for United Nations agencies and organizations operating at the subregional level to work with the regional economic communities and intergovernmental organizations, with a view to reducing fragmentation in their operations and increasing coherence, coordination and cooperation in the support that they give to the programmes and priorities of those communities and of the intergovernmental organizations operating at the subregional level. There are four subregional coordination mechanisms currently operating in Africa covering North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Eastern and Southern Africa.1
1 As tripartite institutional arrangements linking the three regional economic communities of Eastern and Southern Africa – namely, the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – are already in operation, these two subregions are served by one subregional coordination mechanism. The work of this subregional coordination mechanism is facilitated by the ECA Subregional Office for Eastern Africa and the ECA Subregional Office for Southern Africa.
2 5. Accordingly, the raison d’être of both types of mechanism is to support attainment of this objective by performing the following functions:
(a) Coordinating United Nations system interaction with African Union organs and organizations, including regional economic communities;
(b) Providing a high-level policy forum for exchanging views on major strategic developments and challenges faced by the region and its subregions, and interaction of the region with bodies at the global level;
(c) Devising coherent regional policy responses to selected global priorities and initiatives, and presenting regional perspectives at global forums on major issues, such as the Millennium Development Goals and now the Sustainable Development Goals; climate change challenges and green growth; gender equality and the empowerment of women; the financial and economic crisis, etc.;
(d) Promoting policy coherence and joint programming in support of regional and subregional integration efforts and initiatives, such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the African Peer Review Mechanism; the African Union’s Agenda 2063, and others;
(e) Promoting inter-agency and inter-organization coordination and collaboration in terms of response to policy recommendations and analytical findings emanating from regional and subregional strategic priorities and plans, including through joint programming;
(f) Providing a forum for the exchange of best practices and lessons learned and for inter-agency and inter-organization analysis and the elaboration of inter-agency and inter-organization normative and analytical frameworks.
6. RCM-Africa and the subregional coordination mechanisms have been supporting the African Union and its organizations, including the regional economic communities, through the implementation of global, continental and subregional programmes and priorities, in particular the Millennium Development Goals, NEPAD and the Ten-Year Capacity-Building Programme for the African Union. RCM-Africa and the subregional coordination mechanisms have been particularly effective in terms of deepening consultations and refocusing on ways of strengthening the United Nations-African Union partnership and the scaling up of United Nations support for the African Union and its organizations, including the regional economic communities.
7. The annual meetings of RCM-Africa and the subregional coordination mechanisms provide an opportunity to take stock of achievements during the year, share experiences and good practices, identify and address challenges, and agree on ways further to improve United Nations support for the African Union and its organs and organizations.
8. At its fourteenth session, RCM-Africa recommended that the mechanism’s annual meetings should be held in the margins of the Joint Annual Meetings of the Economic Commission for Africa Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and the African Union Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance.2
2 In 2015, the African Union Conference of Ministers was re-designated the African Union Specialized Technical Committee of Ministers of Finance, Monetary Affairs, Economic Planning and Integration.
Accordingly, this arrangement was formally set in place at the fifteenth session of RCM-Africa, which was held in Abuja from 28 to 30 March 2014, and the practice was further consolidated at the mechanism’s sixteenth session, held in Addis Ababa on 28 and 29 March 2015.
9. The purpose of the joint conduct of the two sets of meetings is to provide an opportunity for senior United Nations officials to engage directly with ministers responsible for finance, planning and economic development on issues relating to Africa’s development agenda. At its sixteenth session, RCM-Africa was requested to carry out a number of activities with a view to further strengthening the coordination mechanism and rendering its support for the African Union more focused and meaningful. Their recommendations were as follows:
(a) RCM-Africa shall maintain the status quo of the clusters until the June 2015 session of the Assembly of the African Union and shall meet thereafter to align the clusters with the ten-year implementation plan of Agenda 2063. The timelines of all the relevant global and African Union plans and processes should be synchronized;
(b) The RCM-Africa clusters must maintain their focus on the strategic flagship programmes of the African Union Commission;
(c) The subregional coordination mechanisms should align their programmes with the priorities of the regional economic communities. To this end, the subregional coordination mechanisms should develop their work programmes on the basis of the priorities of the regional economic communities;
(d) The African Union Commission and the United Nations system should develop strategies for the domestic mobilization of resources and for overseas development assistance in support of the implementation of Agenda 2063. In this regard, RCM-Africa should explore the possibility of tapping into potential resources committed in the context of such process as the Sustainable Development Goals, climate finance and the International Conference on Financing for Development;
(e) The RCM-Africa secretariat should develop a monitoring and evaluation framework for tracking and assessing implementation of the programmes and projects of the clusters, and also the implementation of the RCM-Africa recommendations;
(f) RCM-Africa should develop a communications strategy for submission at its seventeenth session.
10. In pursuit of these and other goals, the Capacity Development Division of ECA, which hosts the RCM-Africa secretariat, in collaboration with the African Union Commission, the regional economic communities and United Nations agencies and organizations, is organizing a coordinators’ retreat as a preparatory forum for the seventeenth session of RCM-Africa. The retreat is intended to make a meaningful contribution to the process of continuously refining the support provided by RCM-Africa to the African Union organizations, by ensuring their greater effectiveness and better results, and by setting in place effective modalities of support that respond to continental priorities in the most cost-effective and efficient way, based on building synergies and capitalizing on the comparative advantages of all partners and effective mechanism for communication and information-sharing. To this end, the retreat will give particular attention to reviewing the state of implementation of the above recommendations, and will seek agreement and consensus and will provide guidance as to the way forward.
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II.
Objective of the retreat
11. The retreat is intended to review and reach consensus on the following specific matters:
(a) The General Assembly has recently adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, to the formulation of which the African Union contributed through its common African position. In its communications, the African Union has indicated that the goals espoused in Agenda 2063 are fully compatible with the Sustainable Development Goals: hence the need for harmonization, synergy and convergence between the two processes. Accordingly, the retreat will discuss the alignment of the ten-year implementation plan of the Agenda 2063 goals with the Sustainable Development Goals;
(b) Alignment of RCM-Africa with the African Union and global agendas:
discussions under this item will focus on the proposed reconfiguration of the RCM-Africa structure and the importance of joint programming, focused on strategic flagship programmes and agendas of the organizations of the African Union. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) have already embarked on a process of joint programming and planning involving programme managers from which interesting lessons could be drawn. The meetings by UNFPA and UNAIDS have led to clear understanding and agreement among partners, including the African Union Commission and ECA, on priorities and common areas, which helped in formulating a focused action plan for 2016–2017 with shared responsibilities, resource windows and a time frame for implementation. Discussions under this agenda item are crucial, because RCM-Africa must find a practical way to engage all its partners to work together in a harmonized, realistic and effective way with increased commitment from all;
(c) The RCM-Africa secretariat has developed a monitoring and evaluation framework for tracking and assessing implementation of the programmes and projects carried out in the context of RCM-Africa and the subregional coordination mechanisms. The retreat will be requested to review and validate this framework;
(d) The RCM-Africa secretariat has developed a communications strategy and the retreat will be requested to review and validate this document.
(e) Consultations will be held on the theme of the seventeenth session of RCM-Africa and guidance prepared as to the issues and content to be considered at that session.
III. Agenda of the retreat
12. The agenda proposed for the retreat is as follows:
1. Opening.
2. Alignment of the ten-year implementation plan of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 with the post-2015 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.
3. Alignment of RCM-Africa with the African Union and relevant global agendas and joint programming initiatives.
4. Review and validation of a monitoring and evaluation framework prepared by the secretariat of RCM-Africa.
5. Review and validation of a communications strategy developed by the secretariat of RCM-Africa.
6. Theme of the seventeenth session of RCM-Africa and issues to be considered at the session.
7. Other matters.
8. Summary of conclusions and the way forward.
9. Closing.
IV. Format of the retreat
13. The retreat will be conducted in plenary through a succession of lead presentations and detailed discussions on each item of the agenda. The session will be led by the co-chairs. Details will be provided in the programme of work.
V. Expected outcomes
14. The following outcomes are expected at the end of the retreat:
(a) Participants more knowledgeable about RCM-Africa, its objectives and engagement;
(b) Greater awareness and knowledge of the priorities of the African Union and its organizations;
(c) Greater awareness and knowledge of the global priorities.
VI. Outputs
15. The retreat aims to achieve the following outputs:
(a) Alignment of the ten-year implementation plan of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 with the Sustainable Development Goals;
(b) Alignment of RCM-Africa with the global, regional and subregional strategic flagship programmes and agendas;
(c) Validated monitoring and evaluation template to be used by partners of RCM- Africa and the subregional coordination mechanisms for the implementation, appraisal, and monitoring and evaluation of their programmes in support of the priorities of the African Union and its organizations;
(d) Validated communications strategy to be used by partners of RCM-Africa and the subregional coordination mechanisms;
(e) Report of the retreat.
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VII. Dates and venue of the retreat
16. The retreat will be held on 11 and 12 February 2016 in Debre Zeit, Ethiopia.
VIII. Participants
17. The retreat will be attended by the Deputy Chair of the African Union Commission, the Deputy Executive Secretary of ECA, all RCM-Africa coordinators, senior officials from United Nations system agencies and organizations and African Union organs such as the African Union Commission, the NEPAD Agency and the regional economic communities, members of the RCM-Africa secretariat, staff members from the Capacity Development Division and the subregional offices and other relevant experts from the United Nations and the African Union.
IX. Contact
18. For further information please contact Ms. Rawda Omar Clinton (romar- clinton@uneca.org) or Mr. Joseph Atta-Mensah (jatta-mensah@uneca.org).
