AU Consultative Meeting on STC

The UCLG Africa secretary general facilitated a consultative technical meeting called by the Department of Political Affairs of the African Union Commission on the reconfiguration of STC, in particular the planning and operationnalization of the STC on Public Service, Local Government, Urban Development and Decentralization.

The meeting was held from 18 to 20 August 2014 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, AU Headquarters and attended by the representatives of the Bureau of AMCOD (All Africa Ministerial Conference on Decentralization), AMCHUD (All Africa Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development), CAMPS (Conference of African Ministers of Public Service) as well as the Commissioner for Political Affairs, Dr Aisha Abdullahi, and the UNDP régional director for Africa, Mr. Brian Kagoro.

The statement by Chairperson of CAMPS, HE Mr Guy-Brice Parfait Kolelas, insisted on the need to boost performance on governance and public administration. The aim of CAMPS is to tackle results based management, benchmarking, State reforms, and good public management practices.

The vice Chairperson AMCHUD, Minister of Urban Development and Housing from Uganda, Mr. Sam Angola, stressed the need to address the challenges of Urban development and Housing. Despite resource challenges AMCHUD has succeeded to hold 5 regional conferences focusing attention on addressing rapid urbanization and sustainable cities and housing development, land and territorial planning, and on innovative  and appropriate solutions. He called for enhanced partnership with UN Habitat, AMCOW, AMCOD, AMCHED. A AMCHUD secretariat was established in Nairobi with the support of the government of Kenya. The DPA should support the AMCHUD program and take it to another level.

In his statement, the AMCOD President Mr Isidore Gnolonfon, Minister of local Government of Benin, represented by the Chairperson of the AMCOD Experts Group, highlighted that AMCOD held its third meeting on 11-13 August 2014. AMCOD is committed to work with the other Ministerial conferences included in the STC in order to build consensus on the work of the new STCs.

Mr. Brian Kagoro, UNDP Regional Office for Africa, insisted on the leadership of AU on normative frameworks in various areas. A lot has been done in setting the agendas. The normative framework shows that the process must be guided by African ideas and commitments. The Africa Governance Architecture is the framework within which the STCs are grounded. UNDP sees the integrated planning, mutual support, shared learning, as a way to shy away from silo work in a new merged STC. Change is never easy. Managing change is about prioritization. This is the challenge of the meeting.

Ambasssador Aisha Abdullahi, Commissioner for Political Affairs, welcomed the delegates. She reminded that several ministerial conferences were put in place, some operating within the AU governance architecture (such as AMCOD and CAMPS) while other operated under the UN (such as AMCHUD). These conferences have contributed a lot to building the norms and guidelines for the improvement of the public governance, public service delivery, human settlements and urban development on the continent. The nexus between peace, security, and development will only be supported through the restructuring of ministerial conferences as AU specialized committees, hence translating the resolve of the African Union to work towards better serving   the African people. All the STC should be operationalized between January and December 2015 as decided by the last AU conference of Heads of State and Government meeting in Malabo in June/July 2014. They are important pillars on the African Governance Architecture (AGA).

The meeting conducted its proceedings during three days in plenary as well as group sessions.

Please click here to see the outcomes of the meeting.