Nairobi — The Economic Commission for Africa will continue to work hard to support member States in their goal to ensure Africa owns, plans, manages and ultimately funds it's own development.
This was said by Sylvain Boko, the ECA's Principal Regional Advisor on Development Planning at the end of a six-day training workshop on "Strengthening the Capacities of African Governments for Integrating Accountability in Development Planning" that was held in Nairobi.
"Accomplishing this goal requires greater ownership of countries' development agendas at the national level. To do so calls for the availability of robust and reliable data and information for leaders and policymakers to make informed and evidence-based policy choices," he said.
Mr. Boko said the training aligns perfectly with the new strategic framework of the ECA; to help build the analytic capabilities of member States; support member States in formulating macroeconomic and sustainable development policies; help member States to design innovative funding mechanisms; support regional integration, including regional and sub-regional transboundary initiatives; and to advocate continental ideas at the global level.
For his part, acting CEO Daniel Osiemo of NEPAD/APRM Kenya said the training was important particularly for Kenya as the nation pushes to become a middle income country by 2030.
"The training has really been great for the participants from the various government departments represented here and also civil society. Sustainable economic growth and development requires a proper framework for planning based on evidence. Linking that to statistics as we have seen over the past few days is crucial," he said while emphasising the importance of integrating accountability in national development plans.
Representing the Permanent Secretary of the State Department for Planning, Mr. Benson Kimani thanked the ECA for the training he said was crucial in capacitating planners and statisticians within member States.
"The initiative to strengthen the capacities of Africa's planning and statistics institutions has come at the right time when countries are implementing Agendas 2030 for sustainable development and 2063, the Africa We Want," he said.
The overall objectives of the training project were on one hand, to strengthen the capacity of African national planning institutions to integrate accountability frameworks and evidence-based policymaking in their development planning processes, and on the other to strengthen the capacity of African national statistics institutions to collect, compile and produce the data necessary to inform and support development planning.
The training also allowed dialogue amongst these institutions so they can continue to work together to implement, monitor and evaluate their national development plans and programmes.
