11th Session of the Regional Coordination Mechanism: Simplification and harmonization of the UN in Africa

ADDIS ABABA 12 Nov 2010 - High level officials from the UN, African Union Commission (AUC), NEPAD Coordinating and Planning Agency (NPCA), Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and other international, regional and sub-regional organizations will meet in Addis Ababa on 14-15 November for the 11th session of the regional coordination mechanism (RCM- Africa).

The participants will discuss ways to strengthen coordination and coherence on how UN agencies in Africa should operate as one entity when supporting the African Union and its NEPAD programme. The meeting which will be co-chaired by Dr. Asha-Rosa Migiro, the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN and the Deputy Chairperson of the African Union, Mr. Erastus Mwencha. This will also provide a platform to consider Africa’s sustainable development agenda.

UNISDR, Regional Office for Africa and several UN agencies are members of Cluster Four on Environment, Population and Urbanization. The two-day meeting will be to discuss emergent issues impacting Africa’s development. UNISDR will attend the meeting to promote Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and to mainstream DRR with climate change adaptation into national development policies and programmes.

Speaking during the pre-RCM meetings, Pedro Basabe, Head, UNISDR Regional Office for Africa expressed that DRR should be considered as a cross cutting theme in the Cluster 4 business plan. He also expressed appreciation to UNEP, Regional office for Africa for the substantive annual progress report. The annual progress report for Cluster Four includes inputs from clusters members and the Africa Strategy and Programme of Action for DRR adopted at the 2nd African Ministerial Conference on DRR.

RCM-Africa has nine clusters focusing on AU–Infrastructure Development; Governance; Social and Human Development; Environment, Population and Urbanization; Agriculture, Food Security and Rural Development; Science and Technology; Advocacy and Communications, Peace and Security and Industry, Trade and Market Access and a number of sub-clusters created to provide sharper focus and greater effectiveness.

RCM-Africa was established as part of a UN reform to improve coherence, promote synergy and coordination among UN agencies and organizations and strengthen their collective response in addressing Africa’s priority needs at regional level and sub-regional levels in relation to the ten-year Capacity Building Programme to support the African Union.