ACBF's development partners meet in Nairobi,to discuss ways to safeguard Africa’s natural resources

By Eric Akasa

On the fringes of the 21^st Annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the African Capacity Building foundation (ACBF) in Nairobi last Thursday hosted by the Government of Kenya, ACBF hosted round Table Panel Discussions on two topical capacity development themes and signed capacity building grants, valued at SD16, 456,550.00 with four national and regional institutions.

ACBFs Board of Governors (BoG) which comprises representatives of African governments and all ACBF donor countries, as well as the World Bank, UNDP, the African Development Bank and the IMF, meets annually and hosts learning events, in different member locations. The meetings bring together the highest governing body of the Foundation, including Ministers of Finance and Economic Planning, Directors-General and Permanent Secretaries of core Economic Ministries or Agencies. Nigeria’s Minister of Economy and Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-lweala, currently chairs the Board of Governors.

Speaking ahead of the panel discussion, ACBF Executive Secretary, Dr Frannie Léautier said that she expected the discussion to improve the design and implementation of policies in the context of increased decentralized governance and the pressing demand to create jobs and reduce youth unemployment.

“After decades of experimenting with different levels and types of roles of the state in development in Africa, there is now a paradigm shift and a rekindling of the importance of the guiding hand of the state in the development process. Indeed challenges facing Africa have highlighted the need for a more capable public sector able to plan ahead but also adjust flexibly to emerging issues.” Says Dr. Leautier

“Indeed, there is a renewed sense of urgency for creating an effective public sector in African countries at both the continental and national levels. Discoveries of vast amounts of natural resource wealth and the need for effective management of such wealth for future generations and when depletion points are reached demand a more effective public sector in Africa for the continent’s development. Yet the sectors have been plagued by challenges of unaccountable governance, implementation bottlenecks, inefficiency, and setbacks.” She adds.

 She said that many African countries with the support of international donor agencies have experimented with various reform strategies. While, there has been limited success in some countries; overall, the reforms have been unable to deal sustainably with the problems at an appreciable level.

Central to mapping the renewed interest in the role of the state is how Africa can better manage its vast natural resources (water, land , forests and extractive minerals and gas); and, how African states can better align public sector reforms to their development needs? It is within this context that the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) is responding favourably to requests by its stakeholders and partners to lead the discourse and bring together a wide range of lessons and international best practices on the issues of natural resources management; and public sector capacity development.

Dr. Roger Atindehou who manages the East and southern African region commented that the grants to be signed in his region include FEMNET, which is the African women’s Development and Communication Network, aims to enhance the institutional and managerial capacity of the network and strengthening networking and information sharing between and amongst the focal points, whereas CMAAE II , the collaborative Master’s Degree Program in Agricultural and applied economics, is designed to support countries in further building capacity for agricultural economic analysis and policy through graduate training and contributing to the improvement of policy making in the agricultural sector in Eastern and Southern Africa. One of our flagship projects, IPAR RWANDA, the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, which was recently mentioned in the Global Go-to think Tanks Report, has a goal of improving Rwanda’s economic performance in achieving the development objectives defined in the country’s vision 2020. MISA, the Media Institute of Southern Africa, is a slightly different initiative, aimed at supporting the institute’s national chapters and media practitioners in providing reliable information services on development issues”.

Turning to the West and Central Africa, Dr Coffi  Noumon, the Manager for this region highlighted the four grant recipient projects as Center Mauritanien  D’analyse Des Politiques (CMAP); Projet de Renforcement des Capacités en statistiques de la République Centrafricaine (PRCS-RCA); Projet d’appui la formation des Agents de I’administration Publique au Tchad (PROFAP) and Projet de Renformement des capacités en Statistiques, Etudes Prospectives et Planification Pour la Lutte contre la Pauvreté en Republique du Congo (RESPEC II).  Respectively, these projects and programs aim to improve the resilience of economies to internal and external shocks; improve Government’s decision-making at the central and local levels for economic growth and poverty reduction, by developing and consolidating national statistics system; improve the effectiveness of the civil services to manage the development agenda, and improve economic management and planning for sustainable economic growth.

ACBF’s grant signings signal the importance and relevance of capacity building to development in general and reinforce the critical need to partner with national and institutions across various geographies and themes. Over the next five years, ACBF, working with its partners will focus on enhancing critical capacities to promote political and social stability for transformational change; enhancing capacity  to engage and regulate the productive sector enhancing capacity to track policy impact.