UNECA to assist African development planners launch community of practice platform

Abstract

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), has reiterated its commitment to help African countries to fill capacity deficits in development planning in Africa. According to the Information and Communication Service, the commitment came at the end of a workshop that ended in Mombasa, Kenya. Experts from governments, development agencies and independent policy analysts determined that governments urgently need to fill existing institutional, human, financial and coordination gaps in order to render development planning more efficient. Responding to that call, ECA’s representative at the workshop reiterated the Commission’s commitment to assist in the establishment of a network of development planners and to develop an electronic platform that will build capacity of development planners through knowledge and experience sharing. These development plans are often focused mostly on diverse objectives or development frameworks adopted at the global or continental level, such as the MDGs, with minimal consideration for the role of the State. The Workshop found that multiple capacity gaps exist at the design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation phases of these frameworks, namely institutional, human resource, financial and coordination gaps.