联合国文件/第949部分 (共1000部分)

In response to the demands of the new United Nations-African Union cooperation framework, the regional consultation mechanism of United Nations organizations and agencies working in Africa has been expanded to include the Commission of the African Union.

The meeting also recommended that the United Nations system should maintain regular consultations with the Commission.

Conclusions and recommendations

In the past year, Africa's development partners have made progress in delivering on their promise to cancel the multilateral debt of qualified African countries.

However, lack of progress in the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks remains a major problem.

The international community needs to make dramatic progress on its pledges, while African countries should continue to take steps to effectively implement the many NEPAD projects and programmes they have already adopted.

Member countries of the Group of Eight should take urgent and collective action to substantially increase their aid, in order to deliver on their commitments of doubling assistance to Africa by 2010.

They should also design a series of innovative financing arrangements to make up for any shortfalls in core budgetary provisions.

With the rise of new aid sources and the subsequent proliferation of aid channels, there is a need for the international community to develop a new aid architecture, based on closer coordination with aid activities among the wider donor community, greater harmonization, less fragmentation and better allocation of aid, as envisaged in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

The international community should also ensure that multilateral trade agreements, including the final Doha Round, prioritize Africa's needs and incorporate appropriate developmental provisions.

Lack of progress in negotiations on issues of interest to Africa is a serious concern.

The Aid for Trade initiative is expected to assist African countries in implementing various trade arrangements, including the Doha Round and the economic partnership agreements, by addressing the many constraints that they face.

In this regard, efforts should be made to ensure that the initiative is well formulated, adequately funded, efficiently managed and effectively implemented as quickly as possible.

Resources granted to the initiative should be additional, predictable, adequate and sustainable.

These new and additional resources should finance new, not recycled or existing, technical assistance and projects.

While the United Nations system has taken important steps towards providing increasingly focused and coordinated support to the African Union and NEPAD, it is important to further strengthen the clusters and the regional consultation mechanism by organizing more frequent and regular meetings, particularly at the senior level, in order to further enhance coordination and joint programming.

At the same time, the United Nations system should place increased emphasis on monitoring and evaluating the impact of its activities in support of the African Union and NEPAD.

African Governments need to continue prudent borrowing policies and to further strengthen their capacity to monitor and manage their debt.

They should also be vigilant about loan conditions, such as mortgaging future exports earnings for repayments.

With an unprecedented amount of debt relief and promises of increased development aid, African Governments should further strengthen their public finance management practices in order to ensure that the freed-up resources are used to effectively support their efforts to implement NEPAD and to attain the Millennium Development Goals.

Six years after the adoption of NEPAD, African countries should further enhance public awareness and commitment to NEPAD and its programmes through, inter alia, effective and comprehensive communications and outreach strategies.

See Paris Club website: http://www.clubdeparis.org.

Sixty-second session

Agenda item 13