Marrakech, April 19^th – After three days of intensive consultations, peer discussions and parallel meetings, the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD5) concluded its activities by the adoption of Marrakech Declaration for Climate Action and key messages concerning the implementing of the Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development and Agenda 2063 in Africa. The forum urges African governments to take bold actions for the execution of national plans and programs. Approximately, 1000 participants, 43 countries and more than 25 ministerial delegations took part in the AFRSD5. UNECA announces at the closing session that the 6^th session of ARFSD will be organized in Zimbabwe by 2020 and the session’s theme will be decided after the HLPF 2019.

The Key messages focused on the five SDGs that will be addressed at the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) in July 2019, New York under the theme ‘Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality’ including SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), SDG 13 (climate action), and SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). The most important messages are highlighted as follows:

1.  Great mobilization of resources in needed to catalyze, strengthen and increase the number of productive individual and concreted actions aimed at achieving the SDGs and Agenda 2063. Also, the goals of both agendas must be fully integrated by countries into their national policies, plans, budgets and approaches to investment and private sector engagement.
2. Stronger action by countries and their countries and development partners is encouraged to ensure that an integrated and coherent approach in taken I the efforts to mobilize resources and financing of the significant regional global frameworks including the Agenda 2063 and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area.
3. Deeper and stronger dialogue is required between stakeholders including global, regional and national institutions, including the African Peer Review Mechanism to promote the development and apply appropriate monitoring and evaluation frameworks for the targets and indicators of SDG 16.

Marrakech Declaration reaffirmed, on another hand, the need for taking further measures to mitigate the global warming consequences. It also stressed on the African Countries’ commitment to continue the implementation of SDGs while recognizing the difficulty African countries face in reporting on the SDGs. The declaration anticipates a call for the establishment of a new ‘Solidarity Fund for Statistical Development’ to support AU member states in collecting the necessary statistical data. The declaration also calls for fostering innovation and technology, strengthening South-South cooperation and the sharing of experience among African countries to ensure the desired development that leaves no one behind.

UNECA also organized a side event to discuss the findings and recommendations of ‘Africa Sustainable Development Report 2019’ which has been collaboratively drafted by UNECA, UNDP, AUC, and APRM. UNECA officials expressed appreciation to the APRM for its collaboration and contribution in the mentioned report, particularly drafting the SDG 16 Chapter. The APRM engagement in the forum entailed familiarizing international and regional stakeholders with the APRM mandate and inputs for promoting good governance at a continental level including ‘’the Africa Governance Report, following up with  African states the progress in preparing their National Voluntary Reviews (VNRs)  for the HLPF 2019 and the in-depth discussion on SGD 16 progress in Africa.

Please find the forum’s key documents in the link below:

https://www.uneca.org/arfsd2019/pages/documents

For more details,  please contact;

Sara Hamouda, SDGs &Agenda 2063 Expert, APRM

Julia Kiguru, Agenda 2063 team, APRM.