At a momentous time for Africa, Cesar Augusto Mba Abogo assumes control as director of the Joint Secretariat Support Office (JSSO).
In May 2011, it was established as an interactive strategy among the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). The JSSO’s intention is to generate a harmonized African policy standpoint on key global problems such as climate change, infrastructure, and economic integration, ensuring alignment among the three institutions.
When the office was first established, from then till now, those problems are increasing even more. Climate change has expedited, with its impression amplifying felt in ultimate weather events occurring in loss of lives and demolition of property. This is the demand for green structure boost for the territory to promote acclimatization and endurance.
African economies will profit from closer unification, which became low in the wake of covid-19 and the global political system fraying at its edges, empowering harmonization and boosting local important connections. After that, reforming the global financial architecture, there’s the matter of conversations; in there, Africa could profit from having an aligned voice and appreciation. The emergence of these problems calls for immediate and coordinated action.
When Abogo sits down behind his desk in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, at that time these and others will be in the in-tray. A former minister of finance and economy in his endemic Equatorial Guinea and, more recently, country manager for the African Development Bank Group in Mozambique, Abogo comes to the job clear-eyed about the task.
Abogo’s second item on his list is priorities to set out some focus areas for his next three-year term. Several focus areas mean the secretariat can have much more effort on those specific areas than it can while it expends itself too thin. Among three organizations, Abogo is looking at publicizing expanded synergy.
Enhanced synergy means, for example, in the future the AUC will not have to combat to get the information it needs to evaluate the effectuation of its ongoing Agenda 2063 when Africa Development and UNECA have so much of it.
In 1989, at that time, the idea of having a joint secretariat was first mooted, although until 2010, the three organizations determined to execute it wasn’t fully.
Harmoniously effort for higher effect, which will reduce replication and assure a coordinated. Certainly, abstractly, three agendas are harmonized; the African Development Bank’s High Fives are a catalyst for both Agenda 2063 and the SDGs.
The secretariat executes through five technical working groups. They feature one for agriculture, food security, industry, and trade, Agenda 2063, and another for infrastructure and energy. All these working groups cooperate with the relevant units from three principal organizations to ensure they work off the same page.
Abogo assumes agreements are possible as “they all speak the same language and operate in pretty much the same environment.”
Across the continent would serve as another sign of improvement, which Abogo assumes is developed domestic resource mobilization. However, depending on international organizations to fill the gap in their allocation and fund development, African nations have long sacrificed to generate sufficient local resources. The obstacles are highly attributed to illicit financial outflows, which prevent countries from fully capitalizing on their resources and inhibit governments.
Eventually, he desires his leadership to convey synergies and a convergence of different viewpoints.
Source: African Business
