The Preparatory Meeting of the Core Working Group (CWG) for the Africa region consultations on South South Cooperation and Aid Effectiveness in the context of Capacity Development was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 4-5 November 2009.

This Meeting assembled the Africa regional core working group responsible for preparation of the March 2010 High Level Event in Bogotá on “SSC and Capacity Development”. Originally conceived to focus on the regional case studies needed for Bogotá, the group demonstrated its collective ability to think independently and strategically and carried the discussion well beyond that of the case studies.

Among the Meeting's main conclusions is that Africa intends to influence and shape the SSC debate, relationships and policy through the sharing of SSC experiences in Africa, for mutual respect and accountability, ownership, quick responsiveness and managing for results based on sustainability considerations. In addition, Africa will further shape the content and process of North/South Cooperation by sharing successes in the African SSC context, while at the same time use the experiences to address the challenges in the current SSC dynamic by learning from North South experiences.

Another important point made was that the TT-SSC's Call for Cases should be more applicable to the African context. Some changes were made to the TT's Application form and Call for Cases, which include new criteria. The Call for Cases will be therefore revised by the Analytical work team and launched again, taking into account the conclusions dressed in Addis Ababa.

If you want to have an in-depth reading about the Addis Ababa lessons, please click here.

-This blog post has been outlined thanks to OECD James Hradsky's Mission Report and NEPAD Secretariat's debriefing of the Meeting-