Development Initiatives In Africa: Evaluation of the Implementation of African Union’s Agenda 2063 In Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2020-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The status of implementation of African Union’s Agenda 2063 in Ethiopia was studied. The primary data for the study were collected by interviewing officials of the Ethiopian National Planning Commission which is the relevant government body that deals with the priority areas of the African Union’s development roadmap (Agenda 2063). Moreover, interviews were held with officials of the Directorate of Strategic Planning, Policy, Monitoring, Evaluation and Resource Mobilization of the African Union Commission (SPPMERM), which is mandated to oversee the implementation of Agenda 2063. The primary data were complemented by secondary data extracted from official publications of the Ethiopian Government and the African Union. The findings of this study revealed that Africa as a continent is a marginal player in the global economic system and that economic cooperation and integration was believed to be a move in the right direction to enhance the negotiation power of the continent and make it an active participant in the global arena. Towards this end, various initiatives including the Lagos Plan of Action, the Treaty for the African Economic Community (AEC) were adopted and implemented. Regional Economic Communities (RECs) were to be established as building blocks of the African Economic Community, which provides the overarching framework for continental economic integration. Consequently, RECs were established across the continent and have been contributing to the various transformative programs of the continent with varying degrees of success. Drawing from the lessons learnt over the past 50 years and in a quest to bring about real transformation and economic cooperation and integration on the continent, the African Union Member States adopted Agenda 2063 in January 2015. Agenda 2063 was developed and adopted as a strategic framework for the socioeconomic transformation of the continent over the next 50 years. In fact, Member States were expected to align their development policies and strategies to it. However, this study showed that whereas the UN Sustainable Development Goals were integrated in Ethiopia’s Second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) which was prepared for the five years (2015/16–2019/20) after the adoption of the African strategic development framework plan (Agenda 2063), there was little or no reference to it in GTP II . In a nutshell, the findings of this study revealed that the continental integration and transformation that Agenda 2063 proposes wouldn’t be materialized unless there is buy-in from Member States and the latter align their respective development plans and strategies to Agenda 2063. This study showed also that Agenda 2063 identified and implemented 14 continental flagship projects which were considered to be instrumental in accelerating Africa’s economic growth and development. These projects are now at various stages of development and the progress made in their implementation was reported to be encouraging.
Key Concepts: Agenda 2063, African Integration, African Economic Community, Flagship Projects, Global Economic System, Regional Economic Communities
Description
Keywords
Agenda 2063, African Integration, African Economic Community, Flagship Projects, Global Economic System, Regional Economic Communities