On 9th February, 2011, the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) marked 20 years of capacity development in Africa.
Throughout the year, the Foundation will host a series of learning and knowledge sharing events, aimed at further positioning capacity as an integral part of Africa’s development. This year’s events follow the High Level Forums conducted in Harare, Accra, Tunis and Paris, last year.
Following two days of constructive deliberations in Kigali on 8-9th February, there was a general consensus on the guiding principles to inform future capacity building programmes across Africa, which are to:
1. Focus on delivering tangible results for economic prosperity, social inclusiveness and political stability for the benefit of all Africans;
2. Build long term economic, social and governmental institutions that transcend individual leaders, and operate independently and accountably for generations;
3. Align with and promote government’s own development priorities with capacity building an integral part of all implementation plans;
4. Drive change at all levels of society and embed the values of integrity, ambition and focusing on results involving citizens in decision making and empowering local communities to forge their own future with dignity;
5. Innovate and share lessons of what works across the continent to support Regional cooperation especially through trade, job creation and investment.
To ensure these principles become a reality there was a commitment, ahead of the African Union Summit in June 2011, for:
* African governments to set out their development priorities and identify the capacity gaps they have in achieving these and clearly set out the type of support they require. Governments are encouraged to prepare such plans by June 2011, with the ACBF offering support to those who need it;
* Development partners and capacity building institutions to align all their financial and technical support towards the priorities of African countries in advance of Busan in November 2011;
* Both African governments and development partners to harmonize capacity building initiatives under Government owned coordination mechanisms by the end of 2012;
* ACBF coordinate and integrate capacity building institutions across African countries beginning with the implementation of the Africa Capacity Indicators by June 2011.
The Kigali Resolution was adopted at the closing ceremony of the ACBF conference and will be presented to African Heads of State at the African Union Summit in June 2011 at Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
