Calendar of events

 24 June - 1 July, 11th African Union Summit, Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Source : NEPAD News - june 27, 2008

NEPAD TV schedule

The next NEPAD TV programme on the SABC Africa channel (DSTV channel 407) is :

African Views
 2 July, 8pm-9pm (SA time)

This phone-in discussion will be led by a panel including Ambassador Olukorede Willoughby, Acting CEO, NEPAD Secretariat, Dr. Hesphina Rukato, Deputy CEO, NEPAD Secretariat and Gengezi Mgidlana, Special Advisor to the CEO, NEPAD Secretariat.

The topic : Integration of the NEPAD Secretariat into the African Union structures. Source : NEPAD News - june 27, 2008

NEPAD-Spanish Fund : call to acknowledge receipt

The NEPAD Secretariat would like to thank all the organisations that have acknowledged receipt of funding from the NEPAD-Spanish Fund for the Empowerment of Women and urges others to do so as soon as the funds have been recorded in their bank accounts.

Following requests made to the NEPAD Secretariat, the Development Bank of Southern Africa has provided proof of fund remittance to most organisations to whom disbursements have been made. That information has been forwarded to the organisations so they can follow up with their banks. The NEPAD Secretariat continues to liaise with the DBSA on proof of payment for all organisations.

If there are organisations whose allocated funding has not yet been reflected in their bank accounts, they are requested to contact Edwin Mununga, Financial Manager, NEPAD Secretariat at +27 (0)11 313 3467, or Kossi Toulassi, NEPAD-Spanish Fund project accountant, at +27 (0)11 313 3835.

The NEPAD Secretariat once again urges all organisations who have not yet responded to correspondence sent to them to do so immediately. This will enable the Secretariat to bring the first call for applications to a close, and enable the second call to begin.

The NEPAD Secretariat thanks all organisations for their cooperation. Source : NEPAD News - june 27, 2008

NEPAD-Spanish Fund support for women in Ethiopia

The Centre for African Women Economic Empowerment (CAWEE), an indigenous NGO for Ethiopian women, believes that “empowering women economically is key to development”.

With the support of the NEPAD-Spanish Fund for the Empowerment of Women, CAWEE is now ready to launch a series of advocacy/consultative forums.

The mission of CAWEE is to promote Ethiopian women entrepreneurs with a special focus on women exporters.

It aims to create a core group of businesswomen entrepreneurs who are globally competitive.

The major intervention areas include :

Capacity building and developing advocacy skills ; The promotion of export markets for women’s products such as handicrafts, pottery, textiles, household furnishing materials ; The organisation of African trade fairs, training, workshops and study tours ;

The creation and strengthening of South-South and North-South cooperation and networking among women entrepreneurs ; Providing web-based trade information ; Undertaking action-oriented research on issues related to women’s entrepreneurship development and gender equality. Women constitute more than 50% of the Ethiopian population. The majority are engaged in micro enterprises at survival level and few are involved in small and medium enterprises.

These women do not have access to adequate support services — finance, working premises, business information — which would enhance their entrepreneurial capacities.

Different types of research have produced lists of constraints that affect the development of enterprises owned and managed by women.

One of the studies, the International Labour Office/African Development Bank 2004 assessment of the “Enabling environment for growth-oriented women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia”, found that women are particularly disadvantaged in accessing credit, because they are less likely than men to be able to meet collateral requirements. Property ownership rights, coupled with women’s limited ability to build cash reserves in their small enterprises, eliminate commercial banks as a financial option.

It is against this background that CAWEE developed the idea of conducting a series of advocacy/consultative forums to discuss issues that affect growth and expansion for women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia and to propose policy ideas.

An event calendar is being prepared together with other promotional materials to be distributed during the consultative forums.

The first advocacy forum is expected to take place on 25 July 2008. The theme will be the “Provision of financial services to women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia”. About 150 participants are expected.

The proceedings of the forums over the year will be published in book form, to be submitted to policymakers and other concerned parties and also to serve as reference material for universities, colleges and research institutions. Source : NEPAD News - june 27, 2008

Indigenous focus is vital for African Renaissance in education

Delegates to the Pretoria workshop on teacher development were welcomed by Prof. Mzobz Mboya, advisor : education and training, NEPAD Secretariat, who officially opened the proceedings.

Professor Mboya made the following points :

What is meant by the African Renaissance in education is founded on the perception that the overall character of much of educational theory and practice in Africa is overwhelmingly either European or Eurocentric. In other words, much of what is taken for education in Africa is in fact not African, but rather a reflection of Europe in Africa.

The African Renaissance has also taken on a much greater significance in recent days with the call for the recognition of indigenous African knowledge systems. The inference here is the distorted view that Africans possess little or no indigenous knowledge of value that can be utilised in the process of educational transformation.

This same inference also presupposes that the norm for educational achievement and success for African children and students is that of Western European capitalist elitist culture, where the English language is sacralised and the internalisation of bourgeois European values is seen as the index of progress.

And it is in response to this state of affairs that the call for an African Renaissance in education goes out, a call which insists that all critical and transformative educators in Africa embrace an indigenous African world view and root their nation’s educational paradigms in indigenous African socio-cultural and epistemological frameworks.

This implies that all educational curriculums in Africa including teacher education should have Africa as their focus, and as a result be indigenous-grounded and orientated. Failure to do so, will mean that education becomes alien, oppressive and irrelevant, as is seen to be the case with the legacy of colonial and neo-colonial education systems in Africa.

The call for an African Renaissance in education, therefore, seeks to demonstrate how indigenous African knowledge systems can be tapped as a foundational resource for the socio-educational transformation of the African continent, and also how these indigenous African knowledge systems can be politically and economically liberating.

This means that the influence of Western Eurocentric culture on Africans needs to be forcefully arrested by all critically conscious African educators in the struggle for the establishment of an African identity in educational theory and practice.

The Second Decade of Education for Africa (2006-2015) demands that Africans begin to examine seriously the future of education in the continent.

Critical questions need to be raised about the organisation, form and content of teacher development as politicians, administrators, teachers and students embark on a search for relevancy.

I am hopeful that this workshop will provide an opportunity for us to rethink the fundamental precepts and the self-understanding necessary to realise African Renaissance in teacher education on the African continent. And that the strategies adopted be guided by NEPAD principles of African ownership and leadership, anchoring development on African resources and resourcefulness of African people and that partnerships be between and among African people.

Such principles then would assist us in linking teacher development to the vision of the African Union of “an integrated, peaceful, prosperous Africa, driven by its own people to take its rightful place in the global community and the knowledge economy. Source : NEPAD News - june 27, 2008

Strategy for teacher development

Experts map way forward for Second Decade of Education for Africa The NEPAD Office of Education and Training hosted an AU workshop of experts and partners in Pretoria, South Africa, from 17-19 June 2008 to finalise an implementation strategy for teacher development in the Second Decade of Education for Africa. The meeting focused on two areas – the teaching of science, mathematics and technology, and the use of open and distance learning (ODL) for teacher development.

Participants included representatives from teacher education institutions, universities, ministries of education in African Union member states, as well as partner institutions including the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa, Association for the Development of Education in Africa, Pan African Teachers Centre, Education International, Regional Economic Communities and others.

A number of documents were presented and discussed by the meeting, including :

Plan of action for the Second Decade of Education for Africa ; Draft implementation strategy for teacher development in the Second Decade of Education for Africa ; Commonwealth protocol for teacher recruitment and mobility ; Strengthening the teaching and learning of science and mathematics for Africa ;

Developments in the teaching and learning of mathematics ; Teacher development through open and distance learning. In the animated, insightful and fruitful discussions, participants contributed effectively to implementation strategies in the two identified areas : teacher development for science, mathematics and technology ; and teacher development through ODL.

In recognition of the need for Africa to speak with one voice and to work together for the achievement of Africa’s collective vision, the participants reiterated the position of the plan of action for the Second Decade of Education for Africa as an African framework solution to African challenges in the area of education.

In order to ensure strategic partnership and successful conclusion of the Second Decade of Education for Africa, the participants recommended :

Alignment of education programmes with the plan of action for the Second Decade of Education for Africa, in line with the January 2008 decision of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union ; Sharing of work programmes and schedules of activities in order to open up opportunities for systematic collaboration, optimisation of synergies and efficient utilisation of resources, and avoid unnecessary duplication of initiatives ;

Provide data and information to the African Union Commission (AUC) on the progress in the implementation of activities and programmes that are in line with the plan of action, in order to support regional and continental education management information systems ; As far as possible, advocate for the plan of action in every forum ; Lobby for recognition of education as a core sector for the attainment of Africa’s vision for peace, integration and prosperity, and for appropriate allocation of resources, commensurate with the importance of education. Finally, the meeting adopted the following documents :

Report of the AU meeting of experts and partners on teacher development in the Second Decade of Education for Africa ; Implementation strategy for teacher development for science, mathematics and technology ; Implementation strategy for teacher development through open and distance learning. Source : NEPAD News - june 27, 2008

Donors increase financial support for NEPAD infrastructure facility

Donors at the 8th NEPAD Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility oversight committee meeting in Libreville, Gabon, on 10-11 June 2008 have pledged to contribute more than US$10 million, to the facility to support its capacity building activities for the Regional Economic Communities (RECs).

During the two-day meeting, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) announced it was contributing US$5 million for the operationalisation of the African Union Commission’s coordination mechanism, while Germany is considering contributing more than 2 million euros pledged last year.

Their endeavour surpasses clear commitments made during a meeting in Tunis in December 2007 where Norway vouched for US$8m ; DFID US$12.4m, and Germany US$2.9 million.

It came on the heels of key achievements scored by the African Development Bank (AfDB), host of the facility since 2004.

According to NEPAD-IPPF’s task manager, Mike Salawou, disbursement has increased this year and 22 regional infrastructure projects have been approved for a total commitment of US$13.7 million.

The facility is increasing its staff, scaling up investment in infrastructure, as demonstrated by the recent record level increase in the ADF XI, and using a database to manage projects. Capping its recent achievements is AfDB’s contribution of 6,3 million UA to the special fund.

After welcoming the increase in pledges and acknowledging the Bank’s progress, the oversight committee, under the chairmanship of Aboubakari Baba Moussa, Director of Infrastructure at the African Union Commission, praised the AfDB for the progress.

The committee urged the Bank to increase support to regional infrastructure project preparation and capacity building for RECs, reinforce regional and continental coordination, hire more staff for the facility and mobilise more resources.

Delegates discussed an initiative to strengthen management and governance of the fund, particularly representation of donors on the committee. They also considered actions recommended at the 7 th oversight committee meeting — the AfDB to propose staffing options and mobilise additional funds into the IPPF ; the committee to invite the private sector and potential donors to future meetings ; increase collaboration with EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund ; address clean energy and climate change issues ; and make commitments above US$1.827 million.

The meeting announced the election of the DFID as chair of oversight committee meetings until 2010, and scheduled the 9th meeting in Tunis in December 2008.

The bi-annual event was attended by representatives of the Canadian International Development Agency, DFID, Danish Government, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, AU Commission, NEPAD Secretariat, the AfDB, Germany, Regional Economic Communities, specialised agencies, private sector and a variety of stakeholders from the NEPAD IPPF focus sector. Source : NEPAD News - june 27, 2008

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