Your Excellency, Chairperson of the PRC,
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Members of the PRC,
Dear Colleagues,

Today’s launch of the project for the computerization of meetings of the AU Commission marks a new era in the working methods of the African Union Commission. It is a turning point, a date which is a milestone in the history of the African Union. Today, we are proud to say that, with regard to conference management, the Commission is at the forefront, comparable to other international and continental institutions as the United Nations and the European Union!

The road has not been smooth, owing to often inadequate means, but the results achieved are proof that armed with the will, hard work and perseverance, nothing is impossible.

This achievement is a major step in the modernization process initiated by the Directorate of Conference Management and Publications in 2008. Starting from a situation in which virtually all of its activities were manually executed, the Directorate has worked relentlessly over the last eight years to modernize its tools and working methods, in order to respond in the best way possible to requests from the Commission and Member States and to serve them with a focus on the main objective of ensuring high quality, speed and excellence.

In fact, if we take, for example, only the area of documentation and translation, the Directorate has developed an electronic document management system which allows other Departments requesting translations to upload their documents and monitor the processing thereof online, up to the final stage of downloading the translated documents in the working languages they had requested. This system was fully designed and set up using in-house human resources within the Directorate and entailed no extra cost to the Commission. It not only ensured greater transparency and speed in translation, but also helped to codify and classify the working documents of the Union, by department and by language, as well as electronically storing and classifying them, thus creating a sizeable electronic documents database.

This database also contains, in addition to all documents of the 17 AU Summits held since 2008, the full texts of all Declarations and Decisions of the Assembly and the Executive Council of the AU since 2002, as well as all Decisions of Summits and Council of Ministers meetings of the OAU since 1963. All of this documentation, which totals 16,000 in the four working languages, is accessible to Member States and the AU Commission through the smart conference devices made available to you. This database is updated in real-time, as even draft documents of current Summit are being posted as soon as they are finalized.

Moreover, since 2010, we systematically digitalized all working documents of the Commission, which is an immense effort that has resulted in the establishment of a document database comprising 48,000 official documents. This electronic database is updated regularly as new documents are added. We plan to continue updating it with documents created before 2010, but progress is slow because it requires human resources which the Directorate currently lacks.

The procurement of smart conference devices to equip AUC meeting rooms will help to greatly facilitate the work of the various organs of the Union since all participants will have the possibility to access within the room all working and reference documents. They will be able to consult, download, transmit immediately by email or transfer the said documents to USB and take notes, etc... The PRC Report as well as Council and Summit decisions will be posted in real time without waiting to be printed. Imagine the time saving that this represents! Not to mention the saving on paper consummation! A minimum of copies will be reproduced either at the request of a Member State or because of the strict confidentiality of the document itself.

We started thinking about introducing this project since 2008, but it was not possible to implement it due to lack of funds. It was not until 2013 that the DCMP efforts were rewarded through the success of its initiative with the World Bank. The World Bank, which has invested heavily in its conference department which it considers as the core of its activities, and has a highly developed computer system, showed great interest in the project and agreed to fund it as part of the African Union / World Bank agreement signed in April 2014. The funds allocated to the Directorate of Conference made it possible to obtain 989 990 smart conference devices for USD 1.5 million as part of the USD 12 million released by the World Bank to date. The smart conference devices are intended to equip twelve meeting rooms as well as their interpretation booths, including that of the Chairperson and the future Conference Centre of the Peace and Security Department.

At this point, I would like to express our sincere gratitude to the World Bank for its financial contribution, especially Mr. Waleed Haider Malik, Project Leader, for his encouragement and unfailing support.
Before concluding, on behalf of the staff of the Directorate of Conference and on my own behalf, I wish to thank the staff of the Directorate of Administration and Human Resource Management headed by the Director Mr. Amin Idris Adoum, who provided technical support and worked hand in hand with us, which greatly speeded up the process of acquiring these devices for which funding was released in September 2015. In fact, thanks to the Procurement Division (Procurement and Stores), and that of Management Information Systems (MIS), these smart devices were acquired, installed, configured and secured in record time.

I am convinced that this innovation will make an important contribution to our Member States and the Commission. You will find on the devices a link enabling you to share your comments and observations that will help us to improve and innovate to better serve you.

With your permission, Mr. Chairperson, Mr Merga Deressa, documentation and computer expert of DCMP will now explain succinctly the use of the devices and the systems put in place to secure them. A computer expert will also be at your disposal for the duration of the Summit to assist you whenever the need arises.

I thank you for your attention.

Nedjat Khellaf
Director of Directorate of Conference Management
and Publications (DCMP)

Addis Ababa, 18 January 2016