UN Partnerships with AU and NEPAD

(BuaNews)-The United Nations will strive to tie inter-agency collaboration and partnership with the AU and the NEPAD to support the continent’s development, says UN Deputy Secretary-General Dr Asha-Rose Migiro.

She was addressing the 8th Regional Consultation meeting of UN agencies and organisations working in Africa in support of the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) on Monday.

Dr Migiro said the UN could better support post-conflict reconstruction efforts as well as efforts of African states to achieve durable peace, sustainable development and human right for all their people.

The deputy secretary-general, who said the UN was closely working with NEPAD to strengthen the partnership, added that the UN and AU had already signed an agreement which would enable the latter to build its capacity in the next ten years.

The capacity-building programme was aimed at ensuring peace and security in the continent, she said, adding that a task force had already been established and was supporting the AU’s African’s peacekeeping activities.

She said the UN was actively involved in supporting the establishment of an AU early warning system, a crisis centre and the African Standby Brigade.

The brigade will consist of military personnel drawn from the member states, who will be assigned to quell disturbances and maintain peace and stability in trouble areas within the SADC region.

She said UN programmes of support for the AU also addressed peace, development and human rights which were inter-linked and mutually reinforcing pillars of the UN’s work since the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were also progress towards peace, security and respect for human dignity.

Although many African states had made good progress towards the MDGs, she said the continent was not on track to reaching these essential development targets by the year of 2015.

The eight MDGs are:

- eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

- achieve universal primary education

- promote gender equality and empower women

- reduce child mortality

- improve maternal health

- combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases

- ensure environmental sustainability

- develop a Global Partnership for Development

The MDGs represent a global partnership that has grown from the commitments and targets established at the world summits of the 1990s.

Responding to the world’s main development challenges and to the calls of civil society, the MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases.

Dr Migiro said that in order to achieve the goals, a strengthened global partnership was required and shared responsibility, including on the part of the UN system, and the implementation of all existing commitment on the parts of developed and developing countries alike was vital.

The consultation meeting of UN agencies and organisations working in Africa in support of the African Union and NEPAD would help design effective strategy and implementation, she said.

The two-day meeting is expected to come up with resolutions on ways of implementing NEPAD in better ways.

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