Rabat, 1st June 2015 (ECA): The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) office for North Africa, and the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) will organize a North Africa Sub-Regional Coordination Mechanism meeting on 3-4 June 2015 in Rabat (Morocco).
Several international organizations, including AfDB, FAO, UNDP, ILO, UNIDO, IDB, UNESCO ISESCO, ICDT and IOM will take part in this event. Participants will take stock of actions undertaken since the Mechanism was set up in 2014, identify projects for the 2015-2016 period and consider options to strengthen it further.
RCM-Africa was set up in accordance with the UN General Assembly’s resolutions A/RES/57/2 and A/RES/57/7, which call on the international community, including the UN system, to support African development efforts by combining efforts to achieve NEPAD objectives (New Partnership for Africa's Development). RCM-Africa’s mission is to strengthen synergies between UN agency activities and those of other structures, lenders or donors in support to NEPAD. ECA was entrusted with the RCM-Africa coordination and secretariat.
In North Africa, partner institutions have set up a regional platform to support UMA, in seven cooperation areas: 1) Strengthening institutional capacities; 2) Trade, industry, market access, economic integration; 3) Agriculture, food security, rural development; 4) Environment, population and urbanization; 5) Human resource development, employment, public health; 6) Water, energy and transport infrastructure development, ICTs; 7) Science, technology, knowledge product promotion.
A sub-regional section of RCM-Africa, SRCM-AN was created to facilitate collective decision-making and collaboration between international and regional institutions supporting UMA and its member countries.
Since its creation in June 2014, SRCM-AN has initiated a new collaboration dynamic between institutions supporting the UMA-led regional integration process. « Activities carried out until now have already revealed significant partner commitment. This meeting will be an opportunity for UN and non UN partners to strengthen coordination in their support to UMA”, explains Mrs Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane, Director of the ECA Office for North Africa.
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The Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) is a North African economic union created in 1989, which includes Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia. ECA is one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Its Office for North Africa aims to support the development of seven countries across the sub region (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia and Sudan) by helping them formulate and implement policies and programs that support their economic and social transformation. ECA’s partnership with UMA dates back to the cooperation agreement both organizations signed on 27 December 1994 in Algiers.