Opening Remarks by the Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission,

H.E Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa.

First African Union-United Nations Periodic Coordination Meeting of the AU-UN RCP-Africa,

Held virtually on 23 June 2022

“Strengthening AU-UN collaboration towards the accelerated implementation of Agenda 2063 and 2030 Agenda”

Your Excellency, Moussa Faki Mahamat, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission,

Your Excellency, Amina Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General,

Excellencies, Vera Songwe, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the ECA,

                      Ahunna Eziakonwa, UN Assistant-Secretary-General and Director of UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa,

Your Excellencies, Commissioners of the African Union Commission,

Dear Colleagues & distinguished participants,

On behalf of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, I am thrilled to see our annual Session of the African Union & United Nations Regional Collaboration back in motion, thus setting the tone of our common commitment to take both our agendas to the next level.

As our organizations and countries are thriving to reopen doors to the world amidst the continued Covid 19 pandemic, we commend the global efforts that led to the slowdown of infections, as we continue to work hand in hand to completely free ourselves from this pandemic and its impacts. 

Distinguished participants,

Ladies and gentlemen,

The last two years have been a serious test to our global community, our development aspirations, our economic growth model, our health systems, our raison d’etre, our resilience, readiness and eagerness to address together modern days’ challenges and threats.

The realization of such, has seen compelling appeals and engagements from both our leaders, HE Moussa Faki Mahamat and HE António Guterres, calling for critical shifts in our operations for an effective and inclusive growth towards a true Africa’s transformation within the joint sustainable development, peace and security frameworks. However, these plans are witnessing other setbacks for our continent with the Russia-Ukraine crisis, for which we have urged for quick de-escalation.

In recent years, the AU-UN collaboration has seen significant changes in it modus operandi, underscoring the need for us to keep the pace to meet our development needs and the race to completely eradicate conflicts across the African continent.

The newly established Regional Collaboration Platform, provides us with the opportunity to tailor our efforts to collaboratively infuse within our developments programs, the necessary tools and key drivers to leverage on our tremendous resources. The need for focused, targeted and measurable programs must lead our new platform, with an evaluation mechanism to consistently track progress made.

Under this new collaboration, I must commend our technical teams that have work consultatively and tirelessly to identify and co-create action plans to be jointly implemented by both our institutions. This exercise looked at mapping our institutional strategic and thematic areas of focus within the existing UN-AU development and peace & security Frameworks in alignment with AU Priorities.

These jointly agreed-upon Opportunity and Issue-based Coalitions (OIBCs) thematics will serve as our building blocks to optimize and revitalize our cooperation which should be as dynamic as possible in order to deliver better and stronger.

Excellencies,

It is therefore our duty to support these efforts with appropriate guidance and direction; it is my hope that the deliberations of this meeting will allow us to refine our joint plans and kick start this new journey with a compelling development narrative. 

I would like to end my remarks by challenging ourselves to further commit to effectively translate these plans into concrete actions. I wish all of us fruitful deliberations and a pleasant session.  

I thank you!