October 2011, Geneva, Switzerland. The United Nations Development Programme – Regional Bureau for Africa (UNDP RBA) and UNITAR’s Public Finance and Trade Programme successfully conducted the skills-building workshop on “Négociations financières multilatérales: les défis pour l’Afrique” (Geneva, 20 to 21 October 2011). Fifteen (15) negotiators and officials from French-speaking Sub-Saharan African countries participated in this two-day event. The main workshop goal was to enable participants to effectively prepare and participate in multilateral financial negotiations such negotiations of loan agreements.

The workshop on “Négociations financières multilatérales: les défis pour l’Afrique” (20 to 21 October 2011), which was directed by Dr. Aboubacar Fall (former Principal Legal Counsel, African Development Bank) and Dr. Carlo Cattani (Senior international consultant on Finance and Development) had 15 participants from 12 Sub-Saharan African countries. Dr. Fall and Dr. Cattani both made several presentations on specific issues and shared their insights and experiences with the participants in the debates and discussions at the end of each module.

The following broad thematic areas were addressed in this workshop: Africa and the global financial system, the role of the African Development Bank Group as the largest multilateral financial institution of Africa, financing for public sector projects, public sector loan agreements, international financing for private sector projects, loan agreements for private sector infrastructure projects, and financial assistance facilities for negotiation of investment contracts in Africa.

The diversity of participants and countries represented rendered very lively and insightful discussions and debates. 10 of the 12 negotiators and officials who completed and returned the feedback questionnaire distributed at the end of the workshop indicated that that they will likely use the information acquired through the workshop in their job. Likewise, 100% of respondents indicated that they will recommend this workshop to a colleague with similar job responsibilities.

On the whole, participants provided very positive feedback on the workshop, below is a comment from a participant:

“A very enriching workshop which addressed themes that are at the same time interesting and extremely useful for promoting good governance in developing and emerging countries.”

(Anonymous comment received through the participant feedback questionnaire)

This workshop is part of a programme of training events organized under the partnership between UNDP RBA and UNITAR which aims to train African negotiators and decision-makers on key issues related to economic and social development. This partnership is expected to strengthen African ownership and leadership of continental capacity development initiatives by enhancing the ability of African officials to participate effectively in multilateral negotiations in the areas of financing for development, regional investment and integration, climate change, and peace and security.

Building on their respective comparative advantages, UNDP and UNITAR are organizing a total of 35 training and networking events in English and in French in 2011 alone. More than 1,100 African negotiators and officials will directly benefit from training and networking activities which incorporate UNITAR’s innovative methodologies and long-standing experience in knowledge transfer and executive learning.

Training will initially focus on four priority areas related to economic and social development of Africa: financing for development, regional investment and integration, climate change, and peace and security. In addition to face-to-face training and networking events, instructor-led e-Learning courses and e-Discussions will be organized to engage and train a wider audience of African officials. UNDP and UNITAR will also disseminate widely through the Internet selected knowledge products developed through the training activities.

It is hoped that his joint UNDP/UNITAR project will not only contribute to achieving sustainable growth and attaining the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the African region, but also provide a practical example of making use of existing synergies within the UN system with a view to “Deliver as One”.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research will organize the workshops and e-Learning courses below in October/November 2011 for the benefit of negotiators and  officials from Sub-Saharan African countries. For further information and online registration please click on the event titles below. The full calendar of UNDP/UNITAR workshops and courses is also available at
http://www.unitar.org/pft/UNDP.

Skills-building Workshops (October/November 2011)

E-Learning Courses(October/November 2011)

© Photos: UNITAR/Hatem EFE

 

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