Addis Ababa, 29 Jan. 2018 (ACBF) - Designating the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) as the African Union’s (AU) Specialized Agency for Capacity Development would help African countries to effectively implement Agenda 2063 of the AU, Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie, Executive Secretary of ACBF has stated.
ACBF’s current status would help in this regarding by enabling the Foundation to expand the various successful undertakings it has been implementing in its 48 members countries in the areas of capacity development and innovation to all African Countries, Prof. Nnadozie explained at a press conference on the sidelines of the 30th AU Summit underway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“The fact that ACBF is now a Specialized Agency of the African Union, will provide the opportunity to rigorously implement what we have already done [in 48 African countries in a wider scale across the continent]. We have used our 26 years of experience to do an assessment of the capacity development needed to implement Agenda 2063. Because as you understand we have had from the Lagos Plan of Action to NEPAD; to the MDGs and poverty reduction strategies so on and so forth. And when you look at all of these plans, one of the major hindrances that made them not to achieve the optimum level is simply the challenge of lack of capacity or inadequate capacity,” Prof. Nnadozie told journalists from around Africa and the rest of the world.
“So, this time around we have taken the initiative to painstakingly examine the capacity imperatives needed in terms of skills, institutions and change in mindset that is needed so that Agenda 2063 would finally be implemented,” he went on.
According to Prof. Nnadozie, ACBF has done the assessment following which it has come to know exactly what is needed now. ACBF’s position and experience in this regard would now enable it to implement and squarely address the capacity gaps.
That is why ACBF is putting in place a critical technical skills initiative and the skills revolution in collaboration with the AUC. Through these initiatives, Africa would upscale its agricultural modernization efforts, better tackle climate change and abate the serious problem of youth unemployment and poverty.
ACBF is pursuing these initiatives in tandem with its 2017-2021 Strategy toeffectively use the knowledge and experience it has to help in building capacity everywhere, whether it is in public sector, private sector, civil society or in supporting public-private partnerships to deliver on national, sub-regional and continent development agendas.
At the end of the encounter with the press, Prof. Nnadozie outlined five ways in which ACBF would support Africa’s transformation agenda :
- Working with the AU, the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and the countries, ACBF would strive to mobilize resources for capacity development;
- ACBF will continue to invest in capacity development projects and programs through grants and other mechanisms to make sure that capacity development projects are viable and functional;
- ACBF will provide capacity development and advisory services to governments, to the African Union, RECs and other entities including multilateral organizations helping them to remove the bottlenecks that prevent them from achieving their goals;
- The Foundation will provide knowledge services to the African Union and its Regional Economic Communities, member States and institutions. In this regard the ACBF is developing a help desk which will quickly equip end-users with important skills such as how to set up a research unit or how to establish or strengthen a TVET system. ACBF can provide the necessary knowledge based on the studies and analyses it has done on what works and what doesn’t work;
- The AU’s Specialized Agency for Capacity Development will promote innovation in capacity development undertakings. This is critical because achieving the results Africa wants in such a short period of time, would require thinking out of the box and doing things innovatively.
-ENDS-
For more information, please contact:
Abel Akara Ticha – Senior Communication Officer
The African Capacity Building Foundation
Harare, Zimbabwe
+263 7+263-4 304663, 304622, 332002, 332014; Ext. 279
Email: A.Ticha@acbf-pact.org
ABOUT the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF)
Having spearheaded and robustly coordinated capacity development programs worth over 700 million US dollars across 45 countries and 8 regional economic communities (RECs) in Africa since 1991, ACBF has gathered the requisite experience that makes it the go-to institution for expert knowledge and human resources to advise and support African countries, regional economic communities and institutions on decisive steps to take to develop the practical skills urgently required for the continent’s economic transformation.
Evidence from our cutting-edge work (constituting hundreds of knowledge publications) and the work of several partners show that Africa's development efforts are being hobbled by severe capacity deficits often in the form of shortage of critical skills, deficits in leadership, inhibiting mindsets and weak institutions. The continent’s practical skills shortage is acute in key areas such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Agriculture.
At ACBF, we will continue using our unmatched track record in managing financial facilities for development, our vast knowledge gathering experience thanks to the exceptional skills mix of our core staff as well as our strong strategic partnerships and networks to help countries and institutions identify their capacity needs, advise them on how to plug these capacity weaknesses and on where to find the knowledge and resources to develop the requisite capacity resources, effectively use them and retain them to achieve their short and long-term development objectives.
ACBF’s vision is an Africa capable of achieving its own development.
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