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The African Regional Workshop on Effective Governance for Sustainable Development: Putting Principles into Practice took place in Pretoria, South Africa from 30 October to 1 November. Organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the African Union/African Peer Review Mechanism in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, the workshop constituted a clear milestone in Africa’s sustainable development journey. 84 senior public officials, close to half of them female, from twenty APRM member states including eleven Least Developed Countries, engaged in vibrant discussions. The focus was how to operationalize the ECOSOC-endorsed Principles of effective governance for sustainable development on the continent.
Developed by the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) to help interested countries, on a voluntary basis, the principles aim to build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. They apply to all public institutions. Their promulgation in Africa, through APRM’s support in its capacity as a regional mechanism for SDG16 follow up, can be a game-changer. The principles can not only concretize SDG16, but they can also strengthen the synergies between Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the global 2030 Agenda.
Principles are not recipes but helpful guidelines. As such, they shaped the core strength of the workshop, which transpired in two of its defining attributes. First, its collective approach. English, French and Portuguese speakers joined each other in one common language of human development. Civil society, research institutes, international organisations across Africa and beyond including the European Union participated. Ecuador presented inter-regional comparative perspectives from the Latin American and Caribbean region. Second, its evidence-based core. Participants agreed on a handful of concrete decisions that can put Africa’s imprint on the sustainability map for generations to come.
One such concrete output of the workshop was a joint CEPA, UN DESA, APRM and AU SDG16 monitoring and evaluation tool for Africa. Built on the Principles of effective governance, this tool could constitute a baseline for the region, and could potentially be launched at the 2020/2021 African Union Summit.
Workshop also culminated in several mutually supportive ideas to accelerate action towards sustainable development. For instance, conducting qualitative citizen reviews of public services, separate from and in addition to quantitative citizen satisfaction surveys, were proposed. Drawing on non-official data sources related to the Aspirations of Agenda 2063 and the Goals of the 2030 was encouraged. Workshop participants urged for creating spaces around contextualizing and localizing indicators such as those by g7+ on evaluating fragility and access to informal institutions of justice.
The most exciting development of it all, however, was Africa’s resolve to tackle its challenges through African solutions. The integration of the principles of effective governance into the African governance landscape and institutional frameworks will surely strengthen regional and national SDG implementation thereby opening the way for the principles and their collaborative applications to reinvigorate global processes such as the Voluntary National Reviews of the High-level political forum.
Ms. Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, CEPA Chairperson