Kigali Forum Reignites Africa’s Push For Sustainable Development

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – If the resolutions reached at the 8th session of Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD) which was held in Kigali, the Rwandan capital city, is anything to go by, Africa’s push for the realization of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and Agenda 2063, may have been re-ignited for the continent.

Unique to Africa, the ARFSD is the only Forum focusing on continental and global sustainable development goals. The Forum is an annual multi-stakeholder platform organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the government of the host country, in collaboration with the African Union (AU) Commission, the African Development Bank (AfDB), and other UN entities.

The ARFSD like all the other regional forums on sustainable development is mandated by the General Assembly of the United Nations. It brings together high-level decision-makers including ministers, experts, policymakers, academia, practitioners from UN member States, private sector, civil society and development partners to brainstorm on Africa’s pressing economic and development issues.

The regional forum is one of the three mechanisms mandated to follow-up, review and catalyse actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by UN member States in September 2015.

This year’s edition of the ARFSD which was convened from 3-5 March, under the theme, “Building Forward Better: A Green, Inclusive and Resilient Africa Poised to Achieve the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063”, heralds a new development era for the continent.

The event was preceded by a workshop of Major Groups and other Stakeholders, the fourth African Science, Technology and Innovation Forum, and a workshop on Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) and Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs).

Notably, the African forum was the first in a series of five regional gatherings for each group of UN Member States, in preparation for the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) holding in New York by July this year.

Moreover, the meeting culminated in adoption of the Kigali Declaration on ‘good practices and solutions to enhance implementation of the SDGs in Africa’, which will be presented at the HLPF.

Interestingly, the Kigali Declaration urges African countries to link mutually reinforcing policies for sustainable development and COVID-19 recovery and calls on African countries to build strong and resilience national statistical systems by leveraging new tools, innovative solutions, and technology, including through enhanced partnerships with other stakeholders.

It also reiterates the need for countries to utilize the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) to support the development of regional value chains, for example regarding the minerals used in the production of batteries and electric vehicles.

In his remarks at the opening ceremony of the Forum, President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame called on African countries to use the AU Agenda 2063 as a blueprint to overcome the challenges that have reversed Africa’s development gains. President Kagame urged countries to prioritize domestic resource mobilization to finance their health care systems and other areas of development.

Similarly, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said SDGs’ fate “will be decided in Africa”, adding that the region must have adequate financial resources to make needed investments in the future.

Mohammed noted that the three frameworks which include, Agenda 2063, the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, and the Secretary-General’s report on ‘Our Common Agenda’, are the best blueprint for facing current challenges.

She also harped on UNECA’s Liquidity and Sustainability Facility, a partnership with the private sector to facilitate sustainable investment. She further called for re-channeling special drawing rights to countries most in need and investing them in universal social protection and green aspects of the economy.

UNECA Executive Secretary, Vera Songwe observed that Africa is “protecting the world” by sequestering three years’ worth of carbon emissions, without which global temperature rise would have already surpassed 1.5 degrees Celsius. Africa, according to her, should be compensated for this, through market mechanisms.

“We must put a price to carbon because we have been good, because we have protected our environment”, she further stated.

UNECA’s Director of Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resources Division, Jean-Paul Adam noted that the 8th ARFSD will champion the continent as a destination of opportunity in line with the targets of the five SDGs on the agenda alongside corresponding continental aspirations.

“The ARFSD continues in the established tradition of harnessing Africa’s collective goodwill embedding all its constituencies to find practical solutions and scalable remedies for the continent’s development challenges”, he stressed.

One of the major outcomes of the Forum is the unanimous call for the Glasgow Climate Pact to establish an ambitious and reasonable price for carbon, aligned with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. This would allow developing countries in Africa and elsewhere to mobilize adequate financial resources.

This year’s Forum was essentially aimed at conducting in-depth appraisal on the implementation of five of the 17 SDGs namely, on quality education (SDG 4); gender equality (SDG 5), life below water (SDG 14); life on land (SDG 15) and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17).

It equally focused on Agenda 2063 goals, identify strategies and policy actions to build back better from COVID-19 and dramatically scale up implementation generally.

Subsequently, the 8th edition of ARFSD will carry out a regional integrated follow-up and review of the implementation of the selected SDGs and Agenda 2063 goals, facilitate learning, including sharing approaches, experiences and lessons learned from VNRs, VLRs and implementation efforts, deliberate and agree on Africa’ regional input to the 2022 meeting of the HLPF.

This is because for Africa, the two-pronged Agenda provide a synergistic framework for achieving inclusive and people-centred sustainable development in the region. The outcome document from the Forum consists of Africa’s priorities and policy recommendation to accelerate implementation of the two Agendas.

A concise synthesis of these outcomes will be presented to HLPF by the Chair of the Bureau of the ARFSD. Rwanda as Chair of the Bureau of the 8th ARFSD will carry the mantle of presenting the agreed continental outcome to the HLPF, for a global level review followed by a ministerial declaration that informs and triggers actions accelerating implementation worldwide

Meanwhile, experts say available assessments of the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 implementation progress indicate that most African nations are off-track to achieve the targets and set-goals of the two development blueprints within the set timeframe.

In May, the President of the UN General Assembly and the President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will also convene an event on implementing commitments for the development of Africa.