Gaborone — Africa's Agenda 2063 aspires to an integrated prosperous and peaceful continent. A vision which experts say could be attained when institutions operating in Africa work together and ensure coherence and complementarity in the implementation of development projects.
"Working together is not ad hoc, it is the most sensible thing to do" says Anders Pedersen, Resident Coordinator, UN in Botswana. "We need to build on comparative advantage of each partnership to advance the cause of development on the continent", he said during the opening of the Stakeholders' Meeting on the Sub-Regional Coordination Mechanism for Eastern and Southern Africa (SRCM-EA&SA) taking place in Botswana.
The SRCM was established in November 2010 to identify opportunities for joint planning and implementing developmental programmes at the sub-regional level.
The two-day meeting co- organised by ECA offices in Eastern and Southern Africa is a platform for policy dialogues between UN agencies, Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs) to take stock of the implementation status of the planned activities within the context of the SRCM five year Business Plan.
Mr. Said Adejumobi, Director of ECA in Southern Africa said that the SRCM is in line with the major objective of the UN in "Delivering as one" with the aim to capitalize on the strengths and comparative advantages of the different organisations". "Delivering as one should not only be a country level activity, but must also be consummated at the regional and sub-regional levels", he said.
Antonio Pedro, Director of ECA in Eastern Africa highlighted the appropriate times for this meeting. He said that It comes at a very opportune time because of the Sustainable Development Goals that were adopted in September 2015. "SRCM business plan has to be aligned and reviewed in the context of this new development" added Pedro.
The SRCM has six projects' initiatives being implemented jointly between different RECs to address developmental challenges including Food Security, Tourism Development, Natural Resources, Energy Security, Value Addition on Agriculture and Intelligent Transport Systems.
On his part, Angelo Mondlane, Director of Research, Policy & Strategy at Southern African Development Community (SADC), delivering a keynote address on behalf of Executive Secretary, Stergomena Lawrence Tax said the SRCM should work on programmes beyond the business plan "it is critical to continue to work together on other programmes envisaged in the SRCM business plan, taking into consideration the recently adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals", he said.
Note to editors
The main aim of the Sub-Regional Coordination Mechanism (SRCM) for the United Nations (UN) System-wide Support to the African Union (AU), its New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is to bring together RECs, IGOs and UN agencies in order to work together in a coordinated manner with the view to generating scale and maximizing impact.
SRCMs are operational in all the five regions of Africa (Central, Eastern, Northern Southern and Western) and are at various stages of implementation. For purpose of efficiency and effectiveness, the Eastern and Southern Africa sub-regions jointly implement one SRCM, with the ECA Sub-Regional Offices in Eastern and Southern Africa serving as a coordinating secretariat.
