ECA Achievements and Challenges of 2012 and New Strategic Directions

1. ECA Achievements and Challenges of 2012andNew Strategic Directions Office of Strategic planning and Programme Management ECA February 2013

2. Achievements (1/6) • Macroeconomic analysis • Economic Report on Africa (ERA) 2012: Theme: Unleashing Africa’s potential as a pole of global growth • 2012 Africa MDGs report • Implementation of Istanbul Programme of Action Impact: • Outcomes of the reports used for training, policy advice and capacity building to member States • Food Security • 8th African Development Forum (ADF-VIII) on “Harnessing and governance of Natural resources for Africa’s Development” • 2nd Annual Conference Climate Change and Development in Africa and Africa Regional Implementation meeting for the 20th UN Commission on sustainable development. • 4th Sustainable Development Report on Africa (SDRA IV) Impact: • Increased awareness of member States on: • Climate Change issues • Natural resources contract negotiation • Implementation of Rio+20

3. Achievements (2/6) • Governance • 3rd African Governance Report (AGR III): Elections and the management of diversity in Africa • Report on Mutual Review of Development Effectiveness (MRDE) • High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) Impact: • Outcomes used in: • APRM • Election officials of member States • Policy advice • Information • First African Internet Governance Forum (AIGF) • Launched process of development of First Innovation Index Impact: • Increased awareness on cyber communication • Innovation prize awarded to African investors • Increased promotion of e-governance by member States

4. Achievements (3/6) • Regional Integration • 5th report of Assessing Regional Integration in Africa (ARIA V) • Workshop on Bioenergy development held in November 2012 • Study and workshop on trade facilitation Impact: • Continental FTA • E-Commerce strategy for SADC • Policy advice to member States on regional infrastructure • Gender • African Gender Development index (AGDI) • Guidelines on mainstreaming gender and household production into national accounts • E-discussion on gender mainstreaming • African Women’s Rights Observatory (AWRO). Impact: • AGDI used by member States for Policy making • Increased capacity for member States on gender statistics

5. Achievements (4/6) • Subregional Activities Impact: • Increased capacity building and technical assistance services to RECs and member States in the following areas: • Youth employment • Gender equality • Statistics, • Social development • Regional financial integration • IDEP • Policy dialogues as its contribution to the strengthening of an Africa research-policy nexus • Expanded training programmes • E-learning platforms created • Increased number of African policymakers trained

6. Achievements (5/6) 9.Statistics • Supported celebrations of African Statistics day on 18 November 2012 themed:Making every woman and man count: engendering statistics for better development outcomes • Training on Gender statistics, MDGs and National accounts • Developedcensus manuals on data processing and handbook on deriving MDGs indicators from census • 2nd conference of African Ministersresponsible for civil registrationheld • 5th joint African Statistical Year book (ASYB) and pocket book Impact: • National statisticians trained • Increased awareness on evidence-based policy making • Increased collections of various statistics for policy makers

7. Achievements (6/6) 10. Office of Strategic Planning and Programme Management • Prepare a revised Strategic Framework and Biennial Programme Plan for 2014-2015, which led to a revised Proposed Programme Budget • Reviewed and adjusted the Commission’s intergovernmental machinery to align it with the new programme orientation • Organized training workshops to establish a robust culture of results in support to ECA’s activities and in order to: • Promote organizational learning and a culture of results at all levels of the Commission; • Improve strategic planning and programme management, • Effectively monitor, evaluate and report on outcomes, • Strengthen its coordination role, and • Improve its capacity to raise fund

8. Creating, Sharing and Disseminating Knowledge Products African Knowledge for Development Networks • Platform that promoted knowledge sharing on Economic and Social Development of Africa • Providing knowledge services and products such as: • 31 indicators from ECA's African Center for Statistics covering socioeconomic data for 53 African countries from 2000 to 2011 • Country profiles and extensive economic reports on 53 of the 54 African countries (excluding Somalia) • Communities of practice and online fora focusing on different issue of pertinence in relation to Africa’s development agenda. • Strategic input into development policies of African member States and Regional Economic Communities • Mechanism to build relations among practitioners and Government entities

9. Creating, Sharing and Disseminating Knowledge Products (Cont’d) E-Learning • They include an e-learning platform that provides to policy makers, academia, CSO, Governments and centers of excellence online courses based on publications and research on tropical economic and social development issues of Africa. For example, (i) the Economic Report on Africa (2012): the potential of Africa as a pole for global growth, (ii) the fifth report on Assessing Regional Integration in Africa V (ARIA V): the continental regional integration agenda, and (iii) the African Economic Outlook (2012) on Youth Employment in Africa. Three online courses are now available: • 679 experts from various organizations including ECA, UN agencies, government institutions, civil society, academia and diplomatic corps registered and completed the course on the Economic Report on Africa 2012 • 742 experts from various organizations registered and completed thecourse on Assessing Regional Integration in Africa • 400 experts have registered for the course on Youth Employment in Africa

10. Challenges • We are spreading ourselves thin as demands from member States exceeds our capacity • Resources remain challenge for some sub-programmes. Mobilization and disbursement of XB should be timely. • Programmes and activities needs to monitored and evaluated. • Dissemination of our products remains a challenge

11. New Strategic Orientation • Africa First: A reflection aimed at unpacking the “African Moment” to determine transformative development priorities of ECA members States. • ECA to be retooled and its programmes to be recalibrated, based on its differentiating factor, so as to make significant contribution to the transformative agenda of the Continent and the World • ECA new organizational structure

12. The world is changing • New phase of globalization – accelerated economic integration, higher value- addition from knowledge, global industrial chains. • Reconfiguration of economic powers and increasing South-South flows. • Mega trends include: • amazing shift in demographic profiles, • rapid urbanization, • global civil society movement, • bigger middle class in Southern countries with historical poverty reductions, and • acceptance of limits to current consumptions patterns affecting the planet’s renewal capacity • The liberalization of markets and the dismantling of the regulatory capacities of the State have been celebrated. However, the experience has also been accompanied by a number of deficits including: • Deepening inequality; • Persistence of poverty; • Jobless growth; • Constraint to human mobility.

13. Africa is changing • With the turn of the century, Africa began to experience significant economic growth. Many African countries are now amongst the fastest growing countries in the world • This is influenced by: - Overall demographic advantage which presents the continent as a market full of potentialities; • Youthful population and the accompanying dividends associated with the youth bulge; • Burgeoning middle class and the current & expected growing purchasing power; • Enormous natural resource wealth; • Overall improvements in governance and in the macro-economic fundamentals • Massive process of urbanization that is underway across the continent; • Growing strength and dynamism of the local private sector; and, • Increased ease with which business can be undertaken on the continent. • As a result it is said that the rates of return on investment in Africa are the best in the world; rule of law and respect for private property rights are spreading, there are improvements in the financial sector, stock market activities have increased, cross-border transactions have been eased, telecommunications has witnessed a revolution and Africa IT innovation has taken the world by surprise

14. Africa is changing(Cont’d) These changes led Africa from an era of Afro-pessimism to a new age of effusive Afro-enthusiasm. However, amidst the celebration of Africa's return to the path of growth and its prospects, African need to be cautious. Important challenges remain and must be urgently and effectively dealt with, including: Quality and sustainability of growth; Lingering problems of maladjustment; Massive degradation of production structures; Deficits in State and institutional capacities; and, Vulnerable employment and huge urban unoccupied youth. These deficits partly contribute to deep domestic inequality, persistent poverty, continuous informalisation of economic activity and eroded political legitimacy. 14

15. Priorities for an accelerated transformative agendafor Africa The current growth trends must become a platform for broad structural transformation. The world may have its own particular interest in a rising Africa, but the growth that must matter for Africans is one which is primarily anchored on their interests and concerns, is driven by them on the basis of their priorities and is capable of delivering structural transformation. A structural accelerated transformation must respond to the following key priorities: Strong focus on economic advantages of the continent such as natural resources endowment and demographic advantage; Significant and coordinated expansion of investments in infrastructure; Speedy creation of productive employment on a large scale; Promotion of domestic entrepreneurship as part of a strategy of job and wealth creation; Assuring basic element of food and nutritional security; and, Major revival of social policy. 15

16. ECA must change • Many big issues confront the African continent today. • Each of the big issues merits a proper focus. • We have dealt with these issues before: • At the opening of the 14th session of the Commission in 1979, most of the challenges facing Africa today were identified and the role ECA was to play in clarifying issues and recommending policies was highlighted. • A perspective study was conducted in 1983 with the view to validating the proposals of the Lagos Plan of Action and anticipating the role of the Economic Commission for Africa after 25 years of service to the African region. • A report prepared by ECA in 2001 stressed the need of African economies to achieve structural transformation if they are to meaningfully reduce poverty. • Lastly, the repositioning of ECA, which was operationalized in two consecutive business plans, emphasized the importance of focusing on few major development challenges in Africa relating to regional integration and emerging issues. • ECA must retool itself and recalibrate its programmes to: • take a frontline role in generating necessary original data and knowledge; • ground its policy research and advocacy on clear and objective evidence; and, • promote policy consensus and offer meaningful capacity development, and advisory services in key thematic fields

18. Thank You