Meeting of the Committee of Experts of the 2nd Joint Annual Meetings of the AU Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance and ECA Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development
Cairo, Egypt
2-5 June 2009
1. Introduction
1. Through successive system-wide initiatives, the United Nations has continuously demonstrated its commitment to support African countries, guided by and large by the developmental priorities of the continent. Convinced that a coordinated approach by all United Nations agencies and organizations will improve the support provided to the continent, the Secretary-General of the United Nations launched, in 1999, a reform agenda to improve the activities of the various United Nations agencies and organizations at the regional level. Building on this reform agenda, the Economic and Social Council, in its resolution 1998/46, called for the establishment of regular regional consultative meetings among United Nations agencies and organizations working in each of the five regions of the world. The resolution also recognized the leadership role of the regional commissions in this regard. The overall purpose of the consultative meetings is to promote synergy and coordination among the agencies and organizations of the United Nations system, so as to improve the collective response by the United Nations system in addressing priority needs of the regions.
2. In the Africa region, the consultative meetings are held under the auspices of the Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM), which calls for United Nations agencies and organizations to coordinate their activities in support of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) to ensure maximum results and to align their activities with the priorities of Africa as articulated in NEPAD. So far, nine meetings of the RCM have taken place with the aim of ensuring greater coordination, coherence, effectiveness and impact in the delivery of United Nations support to Africa.
3. The RCM also serves as a means of improving cooperation and collaboration between United Nations agencies and African continental organizations such as the African Union Commission (AUC), the NEPAD secretariat, the regional economic communities (RECs) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
4. With regard to the African Union (AU), the Declaration on enhancing UN-AU cooperation signed in November 2006, by the then chief executives of the two organizations established the Framework Agreement for the United Nations Ten-Year Capacity-Building Programme for the AU. The agreement serves as a basis for United Nations-African Union cooperation, taking into account the needs and strategic priorities of the AU. The implementation of the agreement is coordinated through the RCM.
5. As for cooperation and collaboration with the RECs, the seventh meeting of the RCM emphasized the importance of developing a mechanism for subregional coordination of United Nations support to AU/NEPAD and recommended that ECA, in consultation with other United Nations agencies, the AU Commission and the NEPAD secretariat, should coordinate discussions on the needs of the RECs for a better alignment and better targeting of United Nations support to the AU/NEPAD priorities and vision at the subregional level.
6. Against this background, this paper presents, in part 1, an update on the United Nations system-wide support to the AU and its NEPAD programme. In part 2, it provides an overview of United Nations support to the AU and its NEPAD programme by the RCM and its clusters, including support pertaining to the Ten-Year Capacity-Building programme and subregional support through the RECs. Part 3 shows ECA support to the AU and its NEPAD programme. Part 4 highlights the main issues and recommendations of the ninth meeting of the RCM. Part 5 offers a number of proposals on the way forward for consideration and endorsement by the Conference of Ministers, with a view to providing effective support to the AU and its NEPAD programme.