Activities of the Commissions

Abuja Declaration

In the Abuja Declaration adopted on 24-27 April 2001 at their Summit meeting, African leaders declared that “AIDS is a state of emergency in the continent” and pledged the following:

“To place the fight against HIV/AIDS at the forefront and as the highest priority issue in our respective national development plans.

To commit ourselves to take a personal responsibility and provide leadership for the activities of the National AIDS Commissions/Councils.

We therefore resolve to lead in the battle against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other related infectious diseases. We also commit ourselves to ensure that a leadership role is exercised by everyone in his/her area of responsibility in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other related diseases.

We commit ourselves to take all necessary measures to ensure that the needed resources are made available from all sources, and that they are efficiently and effectively utilized. We pledge to set a target of allocating at least 15 per cent of our annual budget to the improvement of the health sector. We undertake to mobilize all the human, material and financial resources required to provide care and support and quality treatment to our populations infected with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other related infections.

We resolve to enact and utilize appropriate legislation and international trade regulations to ensure the availability of drugs at affordable prices and technologies for treatment, care and prevention of HIV/AIDS, TB and other infectious diseases.

We commit ourselves to support the development of an affordable, accessible HIV vaccine relevant to Africa.”

Africa Knowledge Networks Forum is an initiative led by ECA to facilitate knowledge- sharing and research partnerships between professional networks, and between them and key knowledge end-users, including policy-makers, trainers at institutions of higher learning, civil society organisations and the private sector.

According to many indicators, Africa’s economic performance has improved over the last five years, although it remains fragile; and poverty is becoming deeper and more widespread. Despite the recovery since the mid- 90s, largely due to policy reforms and increased utilisation of installed capacity, the challenge of attaining and sustaining higher levels of growth to reduce poverty remains overwhelming. Sustained growth in the future will depend on new capacity being created, focused particularly on institutional development, skills enhancement, knowledge-production and application enhanced by modern information technology (IT), an area where Africa must make quantum leaps.

There are currently some IT-related initiatives sponsored by private and non-private organizations in different parts of Africa. But the lack of an effective networking mechanism to bridge those activities, and inadequacy of institutional arrangements to link various research institutions and organisations and centers of higher learning and public policy decision- making entities, have led to a number of shortcomings.

The Africa Knowledge Networks Forum will “federate” existing networks with the aim of strengthening indigenous policy-oriented research and analysis for more effective use by African decision-makers. The Forum provides a continuous link between African research networks, policy-makers and training institutions (mainly universities) and supports centers of African expertise and African think-tanks—tasks which are critical to the pooling of resources for effective knowledge production and use. The Forum will be particularly important for providing technical support for the African Development Forum process, the ECA partnership launched in 1999 to promote consensus building among Africa’s development stakeholders around key challenges, and to set priorities on which development assistance should focus. By creating feedback loops between knowledge-production and knowledge-use, AKNF will strengthen applied research and advisory services to African policy makers, civil society organisations and private sector entities. The Forum’s comprehensive database of expertise across disciplines will be pivotal to linking the supply and demand for knowledge- types in the continent.

ECA and the Netherlands’ Ministry for Development Cooperation, entered into an agreement on 9 August 2001 in Addis Ababa, which provides for support from the Netherlands to ECA of $2 million per year for the coming three years. The contribution is fully unearmarked and intended to support ECA’s extra budgetary funding requirements. The Netherlands’ support to ECA is firmly rooted in the Dutch Africa Policy, which attributes a lot of importance to regional co-operation in the continent. Also the OAU has benefited already from this policy with financial support to the tune of $ 1,6 million for the restructuring of the Secretariat.

By supporting and strengthening the ECA, the Netherlands hopes to strengthen the African voice in international fora, stimulate discussion on development issues and peer review amongst African countries and support processes of regional integration.

The African Development Forum, convened by ECA in Addis Ababa, has gained recognition as an effective forum for informed dialogue and consensus-building on key development challenges, and for agreeing on implementation priorities and strategies at national, subregional and regional levels. The first ADF, in 1999, focused on ways to accelerate the information revolution in Africa, and the ADF 2000, on Africa’s leadership challenge to manage the crisis of HIV/AIDS. The third ADF will focus on African integration.

The theme was chosen in light of the coming into force of the African Union (AU), which represents a historic opportunity to accelerate regional integration. The Forum will reflect on the experience in Africa as well as in other regions. It will identify the priorities and policy options for accelerating regional integration in Africa, and elaborate the necessary steps for economic and monetary union in the African setting.

Who is coming: ADF III will bring together a wide spectrum of stakeholders—government, parliaments, business, finance, labour, civil society, international organizations and the Diaspora. Experts from different parts of the world will also be invited to share their experiences.

Thematic clusters: The Forum will be built around five thematic clusters: Economic Policies for Accelerating Regional Integration; Physical Integration through Infrastructure Development; Regional Approaches to Regional Issues; Institutional Arrangements and Capacity; and Peace and Security Architecture.

What happens after ADF III: The conclusions and recommendations of ADF III will be conveyed, through the OAU, to the Summit of Heads of State and Government, due to be held in Pretoria, South Africa, in July 2002, to serve as a contribution towards concretizing the African Union implementation agenda.

Outcome document: ECA’s first Annual Report on Integration in Africa (ARIA) will be published, launched and disseminated in the first half of 2002. The Report will examine co-ordination of activities and synergy among institutions and member states in order to provide up-to-date information on integration efforts in Africa, ultimately leading to better, streamlined efforts towards setting up the African Union

For more information, please visit the ADF web site at www.uneca.org/adf2001 or contact: Ambassador Peter Robleh, Co-ordinator, ADF 2001 Secretariat, ECA

Africa gets a shrinking share of aid

To ensure that globalization is more equitable, wealthy nations must devote a greater portion of their foreign aid to promoting “pro-poor growth” in the developing world, argues the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the industrialized countries’ Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Yet in recent years the poorest developing countries have been receiving a shrinking share of such assistance, admits the DAC, which comprises the largest bilateral donors.

Between 1995 and 1999, the share of total official development assistance (ODA) received by the least developed countries (LDCs) declined from 28 per cent to 21 per cent, reports the DAC’s Development Cooperation 2000 Report. For sub-Saharan Africa—which includes 34 of the world’s 49 LDCs—it fell from 32.9 per cent in 1993-94 to 29.6 per cent in 1998-99. In absolute terms, net ODA receipts in sub-Saharan Africa declined from $18.4 bn in 1995 to $12 bn in 1999. Meanwhile, ODA to North Africa hovered around the $3 bn mark during most of that period, but dipped to $2.7 bn in 1999 (see graph).

The report acknowledges that the benefits of globalization “are far from automatic” and the process may even bring “inevitable inequity and vulnerability.” Therefore, trade liberalization must be accompanied by social policies in health, education and training, and by “an environment where the most vulnerable are protected by adequate social safety nets and efficient social protection measures.”

Donors, the report emphasizes, can help specifically by allocating more aid to health and efforts to promote gender equality, “two strategic policy areas” with strong potential to reduce poverty. Developed countries also should support “global public goods” by developing and making available medicines against malaria, AIDS and other diseases.

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reprinted from: UN Africa Recovery from OECD data