Governing and harnessing natural resources for Africa's development : concept note

Abstract

The African Development Forum (ADF), an Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) flagship biennial event created in 1999, is a multi-stakeholder platform for debating, discussing and initiating concrete strategies for Africa's development. It is convened to establish an African-driven development agenda that reflects consensus and leads to specific programmes for implementation. The theme of ADF-VIII is "Governing and harnessing natural resources for Africa's development". This theme could not have been placed on the ADF agenda at a more appropriate time. It builds on the outcome of the Fifth Session of the Joint AUC-ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development held in March 2012 in Addis Ababa under the theme "Unleashing Africa's potential as a pole of global growth". The Conference endorsed the decision to focus the theme of ADF-VIII on "Governing and harnessing natural resources for Africa's development". The platform offers as much an opportunity to build partnerships as for the occasion to further deepen discussions on implementation of: the Africa Mining Vision (AMV); the AU Declaration on Land; the Framework and Guidelines for Land Policy in Africa (F&G); the Implementation Strategy for the Accelerated Industrialization Development for Africa (AIDA); Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests; and other frameworks for best practices in the management of mineral, land, fisheries and forest resources.