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The Seventeenth Session of Regional Coordination Mechanism for Africa (RCM-Africa) will take place on 2 -3 April 2016 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the UNCC on the margins of the Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development. The theme for this year’s session is “United Nations Support to the AU for the Implementation of Agenda 2063 and Sustainable Development Goals”
RCM-Africa, is a platform for the UN system to support the African Union (AU) and its organs in the implementation of appropriate policies to promote Africa’s development in accordance with the purpose and principles of the Constitutive Act of the AU and its NEPAD programme. Furthermore, through the mechanism, the UN supports the AU and its member States in building the capacity to implement global, and continental development goals.
The years 2015 and 2016 are unique in that several agreements around which RCM-Africa operates have come to an end or are coming to an end. These include the Millennium Development Goals which ended in 2015 and the UN Ten-Year Capacity Building Programme for the AU which will end in 2016. As a result, the African continent through a consultative process has established its own development agenda called Agenda 2063, whilst globally the Millennium Development Goals have been replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals also known as the 2030 Agenda for Development. In July 2015, the world met in Addis Ababa to discuss the means of implementation of the SDG at the UN Conference on Financing for Develop. In addition in December 2015, at the COP21 Meeting in Paris, the world finally agreed on an action plan for mitigating climate change.
In support of these developments and the need to be proactive, in 2015 RCM-Africa made several restructuring proposals in order to make the mechanism more effective, efficient and more agile including proposing a new framework for UN support to the AU and its Member States called the Partnership on Africa’s Integration and Development Agendas (PAIDA).
The expected outcomes of the session are:
(a) Consensus on the United Nations support to the African Union in the implementation of the SDGs and Agenda 2063;
(b) Consensus on a mechanism for implementing the framework on United Nations-African Union partnership on Africa’s integration and development agenda (PAIDA);
(c) Consensus on the alignment/reconfiguration of the RCM-Africa to the Agenda 2063 and the SDGs and its operational modalities to effectively implement the goals, targets and priority areas.
This sessions of RCM-Africa will be co-chaired by the UN Deputy Secretary General and AUC Deputy Chairperson demonstrating a clear commitment of the leadership of the two institutions to the mechanism. Given the importance of strengthening the relationship between the AU and the UN, participation and contribution at the highest level of representation is of utmost importance as the tone for engagement and effectiveness will be set for the coming years.
High level officials from the African Union Commission (AUC), African Development Bank (AfDB), NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA), African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Secretariat, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), East African Community (EAC), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), UN system agencies and organizations working in support of Africa, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as Partners and friends of RCM-Africa, including bilateral organizations will be attending. For security, logistics, and visa purposes all participants are requested to register for both the Conference of Ministers and for the RCM Session.
All CoM2016 accredited media attending the conference are welcome only to the opening of the session.
For more information, please contact members of the RCM-Africa secretariat:
1. Ms. Rawda Omar-Clinton
E-mail: romar-clinton@uneca.org
E-mail : Jatta-mensah@uneca.org
Email : nyekye45@gmail.com
E-mail : nsimelane@uneca.org