Président de la Commission de l’Union Africaine (depuis le 1er. février 2008)
Président du Ghana,
Président de l’Union Africaine (depuis janvier 2007)
A number of changes in the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) process were recommended by the NEPAD Gender Task Force at a meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa on 15-18 October 2007. The recommendations follow a gender analysis of five APRM Country Reports – Algeria, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa.
The in-depth gender analysis was commissioned by the NEPAD Secretariat to pull out key gender issues and identify the gender gaps including challenges highlighted in the Country Reports. It was also expected to propose interventions required to address the identified gender gaps and give recommendation to the APRM Secretariat for inclusion in a review of the APRM Questionnaire.
The NEPAD Gender Task Force, led by Litha Musyimi-Ogana, advisor on gender, parliamentary affairs and CSOs at the NEPAD Secretariat, consists of experts drawn from diverse gender backgrounds with representation from civil society organisations, Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and UN agencies.
The Gender Task Force recommended that :
The Head of State APRM Reports should include the implementation of the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (SGDEA), the Convention on Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and African Protocol on Rights of Women (Maputo Protocol).
The APRM reports should identify the proportion of the national budget allocated to implementing gender issues, with a component on the financial support for the implementation of gender issues.
The APRM report section on MEs and SMEs should have a significant place in the corporate governance section.
The APRM report should capture the progress made on achieving proportionate representation of women in Parliament. NEPAD, november 9, 2007
The Water and Sanitation Sectoral Committee (WSSC) of the African Forum for Utility Regulators (AFUR) held a workshop on guidelines on minimum quality of service for water and sanitation standards on in Pretoria, South Africa on 2-3 October 2007.
The major objective was to contribute to the revision and adoption of a draft document that can become a working tool for regulatory bodies, members of AFUR and emerging regulators on the continent.
AFUR was formally launched as a voluntary organisation in November 2002. It was envisaged that it would contribute towards the ideals of NEPAD and support the development of effective utility regulation within Africa by fostering co-operation between utility regulators.
Three sectoral committees have been established — the Water and Sanitation Sectoral Committee (WSSC), the Energy Sectoral Committee (ESC), and the Communications Sectoral Committee (CSC) — to broaden the participation of members in the programmes of the organisation. A transport sector is due to be activated in the near future.
The Pretoria workshop aimed to encourage the participation of various staff levels in member regulatory agencies in the programmes and activities of the organisation.
Exploring ways to address this challenge is crucial to the organisation for sustaining its programmes and ultimately realising the “vision” of being the African forum for effective utility regulation. This activity fits within the AFUR goal of harmonising, where possible, the practices of regulatory bodies on the continent.
Service quality is an important issue in the water sector. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target is to reduce by half the number of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation services by 2015. According to the United Nations, more than 1 billion people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water and 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation.
An estimated 12.2 million people die every year from diseases directly related to drinking contaminated water. As much as 80% of illnesses in developing countries is water related while Africa loses 5% of its combined Gross National Products every year due to dirty water. Therefore water regulators in Africa must put extra weight on improving service quality and coverage when evaluating sector performance.
Regulating service quality involves identifying the preferred level of service quality, designing a system for providing the operator with the incentive to offer this service quality, and developing a system for monitoring service quality and enforcing the standards.
Attendance at the workshop included AFUR members from The Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Niger, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia, as well as Mozambique as an observer member, representatives from NEPAD, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ), consumer associations and the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa.
The meeting resolved to organise an event on 26 April 2008 in Accra, Ghana, to celebrate the United Nations International Year of Sanitation. NEPAD, november 9, 2007