Date: 26 March, 2017

Time: 9:00 – 18:00

Venue: King Fahd Hotel, B12 + C12

Background:

Industrialization and infrastructure development are crucial for successful transformation of African economies. That is why the African Union and the Economic Commission for Africa have since the turn of the century dedicated significant efforts to advocate for innovative financing and policies for infrastructure and industrial development to speed up Africa’s Structural Transformation. Also, the third Industrial Development Decade for Africa (IDDA III) UN resolution, Africa Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize the role industrialization can play in meeting their objectives, with infrastructure development as a necessary enabler.  

This high-level side event, which takes place during the Africa Development Week in Dakar, is the first of two preparatory regional meetings in Africa proposed by ECOSOC’s President to gather views, best practices and recommendations to feed into discussions at a Special Meeting of ECOSOC on “Innovations for Infrastructure Development and Promoting Sustainable Industrialization” to be held at UN Headquarters, New York, in May 2017.

Objective

-          Engage actors and knowledge networks for sharing of experiences and expertise to develop regionally driven recommendations for accelerating integration and industrialization

-          Highlight infrastructure gaps facing the continent and focus on implementation of identified strategies

-          Identify opportunities to leverage development cooperation

-          Support infrastructure development and industrialization-promoting efforts, such as the AU Member States’ Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) aspiration

Target audience

-          Ministers and officials from Industry and Infrastructure Development,

-          Agencies responsible for investment promotion

-          Representatives from the AU, civil society and the private sector Representatives

-          UN Agencies, donors and development partners from African and other regions of the developing world.

Venue and date:

-          Dakar, Senegal - 26-28 March 2017 – exact venue tbc

For further information please contact:

-          Gatera Soteri,  GSoteri@uneca.org,: Tel.: +251-11- 5445449 Ext/Intermission: 127-35449

-          Allan Mukungu, AMukungu@uneca.org, Tel.: +251 11 544 5562 ext /intermission: 127-35562