Follow up to the last session of ECA’s Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and Annual Report on ECA’s Work since the last session of the Commission Urbain Zadi Director, Office of Strategic Planning and Programme Management Addis Ababa 26 March 2008

Outline Follow-up to Major Decisions Major Achievements Partnerships Improving Organisational Effectiveness Enhancing Results-Oriented Culture Conclusions

Follow-up to Major Decisions : Intergovernmental Machinery 1 st Joint Meetings of Conference of Ministers organised by AU and ECA Efforts to elevate ICEs of SROs to ministerial conferences began in 2007 Some of the revised subsidiary bodies met to consider and adopt their new mandates

Follow-up to Major Decisions: Strengthening the SROs SRO financial resources increased during period under review Human capacity has been significantly increased through a decision by GA (Additional Professional posts and General Staff posts provided) Enhanced ICT support to the SROs for better cooperation with RECs

Follow-up to Major Decisions: Revitalising ECA’s Statistics Programme ECA’s Statistics Division (ACS) has been strengthened, resulting in the doubling of its staff complement ACS expanded the scope of its work, increasing capacity of African countries to compile economic and demographic data ACS mainstains an authoritative source of data in Africa and coordinates the harmonisation of statistical activities in Africa

Follow-up to Major Decisions: Review of IDEP External Review Panel has completed and submitted its report Special meeting of IDEP Governing Council fully endorsed recommendations of the Panel Recommended that the ECA Executive Secretary, in capacity as Chairman of the Governing Council, be given mandate to implement recommendations of Panel

Major Achievements: Meeting Africa’s special needs ECA monitored and tracked progress towards the MDGs (developed the MDG Mapper) Promoted statistics and statistical capacity- building for meeting the MDGs Helped African countries and RECs to define national and regional Aid for Trade framework Successfully conducted survey of African countries on the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus

Major Achievements: Meeting Africa’s special needs (con’t) Helped African countries/RECs initiate or consolidate national ICT policy processes and programmes Supported good governance including the APRM process Addressing the challenges of climate change, with the proposal to establish a Centre (ACPC) at ECA Working closely with AU and AfDB on “Climate Information for Development in Africa” (Clim-Dev Africa) programme Jointly organised Science with Africa Conference with several partners

Promoting Regional Integration in support of AU vision and priorities Significant contribution to ongoing efforts to rationalise RECs through ARIA Collaboration with AU and AfDB to organise ministerial meeting on regional integration Assisted RECs to promote greater coordination of their transport policies and programmes Also assisted African countries to conduct studies on mineral clusters and coordinated activities of UN inter-agency collaboration in water and energy sectors

Programme Performance for Biennium Repositioning exercise already paying dividends 93% output implementation rate recorded in IMDIS for biennium, which is an improvement from past biennia SROs had particularly impressive performance with 95% implementation rate in , surpassing ECA average Encouraging to note that improved performance is across 5 SROs

Leveraging Through Partnerships Cooperation with AU and AfDB  Joint AUC/ECA/ADB Secretariat revitalised  Series of MoUs signed to serve as basis for cooperation  Joint production of flagship publications such as ARIA, ERA, AEO  Joint organisation of conferences

Leveraging Through Partnerships (con’t) Cooperation with RECs  All SROs made progress in developing multi-year programmes and signing MoUs with RECs  ECA in the process of assigning senior Liaison Officers and Regional Advisors to major RECs and NEPAD Secretariat

Leveraging Through Partnerships (con’t) Cooperation with other UN organisations  Coordination of UN activities enhanced through the RCM, now including AU and RECs  Participation in the Global Regional Directors Team (RDT) of UN specialised funds and programmes  Participation in UN Development Group mechanisms and UNCT activities through SROs

Leveraging Through Partnerships (con’t) Cooperation with bilateral partners  ECA made extra effort to mobilise resources during the period under review  Organised 5 Partners Forums  Signed MoU with Pool Fund Partners (Denmark, Sweden and UK)  Further support received from Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Finland, India, Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Japan, France, and EU

Improving Organisational Effectiveness ECA has recently undergone internal and external evaluations, which informed reforms in it’s organisational processes and culture Six new management committees have been established or re-activated, including the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Matters and the ITC Committee Knowledge Management Initiative: prepared foundation for ECA to operate as a knowledge- based organisation ECA continues to strengthen its IT networks with a view to integrating in a common network with AU and major RECs

Improving Organisational Effectiveness (con’t) Timely recruitment and placement of staff: tremendous effort made to fill vacant posts Vacancy rate dropped from 16.7% in 2006 to 8.5% in December 2007 In 2007, 45 professional posts were filled It is envisaged that the vacancy rate target of 5% will be met by end of 2008

Enhancing Results Culture ECA continued to entrench result-based management (RBM) in its programme delivery To that end, ECA faces the challenge of effectively monitoring results associated with its work ECA therefore requires the support of member States in timely provision of relevant data, needed to monitor and evaluate programme implementation Feedback from beneficiaries is key in ensuring that ECA is assisting member States in meeting their development needs.

Conclusions Following-up the implementation of the decisions of the last session of ECA’s Conference of Ministers has resulted in a deepening of ECA’s repositioning ECA needs to be supported in mobilising additional resources through the UN and through partners

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