Update on African Common Position on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

Photo Credit: emansion.gov.lr
Photo Credit: emansion.gov.lr

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p dir=”ltr”>Following several consultation processes with African Union (AU) member states, regional economic communities, development and research groups and civil society organizations including youth and women’s organizations, academic institutions, and the private sector, African leaders adopted the African Common Position on Post-2015 Development Agenda, whose High-Level Committee was chaired by Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. (ECA, 2014).

(Click here for the full text in English, and here for the full text in French).

The AU Assembly that met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last month for the 22nd Annual African Summit endorsed the articulation of the African development goals consistent with the existing continental frameworks and to serve as milestones for tracking and monitoring progress towards Agenda 2063. (AU, 2014)

H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a co-chair of the High-Level Panel (HLP) on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

To read more on HLP on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, click here.

The key finding of the four consultations held from 2011 – 2013 is that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) should be reformulated after 2015; because as currently constituted, the MDGs:

  • Have limited focus on economic growth and transformation;
  • Do not sufficiently emphasize the role of domestic resource mobilization in Africa’s development agenda;
  • Tend to neglect issues relating to the quality of service delivery;
  • Are silent on inequality including spatial and horizontal inequality

  • Disproportionately focus on outcomes with limited consideration of the enablers of development, thereby excluding the role of factors such as infrastructure and peace and security in facilitating socio – economic advancement.

The following are key recommendations from Africa on post-2015 development agenda included the following:

– a need for structural economic transformation and inclusive growth,

– focus on innovation, technological transfer and research and development,

– focus on human development and

– strong financing and partnerships

To download and read detailed summaries of African Common Position on Post-2015 Development Agenda, click here.

The African High-Level Committee on post-2015 development agenda has also outlined the following preconditions to achieving and sustaining the outcomes:

• Peace and security

• Good governance, transparency and fighting corruption

• Strengthened institutional capacity

• Promoting equality and access to justice and information

• Human rights for all

• Gender equality

• Domestic resource mobilization

• Regional integration

• A credible participatory process with cultural sensitivity

• Enhanced statistical capacity to measure progress and ensure accountability

• Prudent macro-economic policy that emphasizes fair growth

• Democratic and developmental state

• An enabling global governance architecture

(Summaries are Adopted from United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA))