Activities of the Regional Commissions

Activities of the Regional Commissions

Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)

The African Development Forum

"Information and communication technologies are not a luxury, but rather a tool for economic and social development", the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ms. Louise Frechette told participants at the African Development Forum (ADF) held by ECA from 24-28 October 1999, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The Forum, which is part of a process of well-defined steps, focused on addressing the Challenge to Africa of Globalization and the Information Age in light of the bleak disparities in the spread of information technology between the first world and Africa. Some 750 participants from African governments, civil society, the private sector and the development community took part.

The Forum also sought to enhance the implementation of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), an action framework for building Africa’s information and communication infrastructure. It provided space to the private sector, governments and civil society to demonstrate products, services and applications that promote and extend the information society in Africa.

The core input for the Forum consisted of background papers on four themes:

Strengthening Africa’s Information infrastructure;
Africa and the information economy;
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) for improved governance; and
Democratizing access to the information society.

The following concrete partnership initiatives emerged in the course of the first African Development Forum.

Schoolnet Africa: A working group has been established to move forward the implementation of Schoolnet Africa, a continent-wide initiative aimed at an African generation of critical thinkers who will play a major role in the global information society. The working group agreed to meet within six months to review a concrete programme of action.

Biz2BizNet: A group of 15 representatives of companies, business associations, and chambers of commerce have agreed to launch a Biz2Biz network initiative, which commits itself to advancing the interests of small and micro-enterprises in Africa.

Beijing+5 Women’s Networking Activities: An electronic discussion forum has been formed to focus on the impact of ICTs on women in Africa (to be launched at the 6th African Regional Conference on Women in Addis Ababa on 22-27 November 1999).

Civil Society ICT Network Initiative: Over 40 non-governmental and community based organizations made a firm commitment to set up a civil society network in ICT.

Telecentre Network: People from six African countries agreed to build a network of telecentre operators and supporters to develop a manual, computer recycling strategies, identifying e-commerce opportunities at community level, improving services for disabled people and sharing evaluation methodologies and outcome.

Diaspora Database: The Diaspora group will create a database of diaspora groups already active and working for Africa’s development as a means of linking needs to sources of support.

ECA’s Sixth African Regional Conference on Women

The month of November 1999 will mark five years since the adoption of the African Platform for Action for the Advancement of Women. On this occasion, ECA, through its African Centre for Women will host the Sixth African Regional Conference on Women in Addis Ababa from 22 to 27 November, 1999, in keeping with its mandate from the General Assembly and African member countries to monitor the implementation of regional and global conventions for the advancement of women in Africa.

There are several expected outcomes of the meeting. Firstly, it is hoped that a Plan of Action for the next five years will be adopted, which would provide appropriate adjustment strategies and re-direct efforts towards greater achievement of the targets set out in the Platform for Action. Secondly, it is hoped that a Declaration of Commitment by all actors to the implementation of the Platform for Action will be adopted. Thirdly, it is anticipated that modalities will be elaborated for Africa’s effective participation in the June 2000 Global Review (Beijing +5).

Subregional Follow-up Conferences to the World Summit for Social Development: 15-17 March 1999, Nairobi; 23-25 March 1999, Marrakech; and Ouagadougou, 28-30 September, 1999

Following the World Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen in 1995, ECA held subregional meetings in Marrakech, Nairobi, and Ouagadougou to assess the commitments made in Copenhagen, and to provide the necessary information for decision makers and development actors to design interventions and strategies to speed up progress towards the targets.

Specifically, the conferences focused on monitoring progress in the following thematic areas: poverty reduction; employment creation; achievement of social sector objectives pertaining to education and health; establishing enabling socio-political environments; and good governance. Special events were held for the Civil Society forum (in Nairobi) and the Youth (in Marrakech).

Participating countries, at these meetings, resolved to:

Institute instruments for measuring and monitoring levels and progress made in poverty reduction;

Identify the poorest segment of the population in their countries to be targeted by special poverty programs;

Mobilize financial resources required for micro-credit and safety nets;

Prioritize creation of productive employment in the development agenda;

Reinforce training and human development programmes to suit the labour market and continuance of efforts to reform and improve the labour market and its structures;

Establish integrated information networks and databases;

Improve health-care financing, integrated problems solving approach, and health-care reforms;

Intensify the campaign against HIV/AIDS endemic;

Provide free and universal primary education and reduce gender imbalances.

HIPC Review Phase II: Experts meet to sharpen poverty focus

A two-day seminar to discuss Phase II of the review of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt Initiative was held on 29-30 July 1999, under the theme "Strengthening the Link between Debt Relief and Poverty Reduction". The seminar, organized jointly by ECA, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, brought together debt specialists from non-governmental organizations, governments, the United Nations, as well as multilateral financial institutions. Invitees included experts from least developed countries outside Africa that are also classified as highly indebted poor countries.

The HIPC Initiative was jointly put together by the IMF and the World Bank in September 1996 with the aim of building on instruments available to the international community to deal decisively with the debt problems of the low-income countries and to allow them to exit from the rescheduling process. Uganda has been the only African country to fully qualify for debt relief under HIPC, although negotiations are ongoing with several other countries in the region.

ECA and civil aviation in Africa

ECA organized a regional meeting of African Ministers in Charge of Civil Aviation on 13-14 November in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire. The theme was "Adapting African Air Transport to the needs of a Changing World".

The objective of the Regional Conference of African Ministers responsible for civil aviation was to consider the air transport sector in Africa in the overall context of globalization and "internationalization" of services, and to take appropriate juridical measures towards the gradual liberalization of market access for Africa’s air transport sector. The conference provided an opportunity for African States and their partners to exchange views on cooperation among the various regions of the world; air transport services in the context of trade in services; the financing of air transport operations; and air transport safety and security. The American initiative dubbed "safe skies" was at the heart of the debate in the exchange of ideas and experiences.