AUDA-NEPAD Delegation Engages in Panel Discussion at Pardee Institute on Africa's Development Agenda

Coordination, the right systems, and partnerships are all needed to propel Africa’s development agenda, offered Florence Chidamahiya Nazare, head of knowledge capitalization & management for the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD. Nazare shared these insights during a panel discussion hosted by the Frederick S. Pardee Institute for International Futures at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.  

This event was part of a series planned of activities for a delegation of AUDA-NEPAD senior representatives visiting the Pardee Institute that week. The Pardee Institute has maintained a long-standing partnership with AUDA-NEPAD to assist the organization in creating a comprehensive growth and development strategy for countries within the African Union (AU). 

During their visit, the delegation participated in training sessions to use the Pardee Institute’s signature tool, the International Futures model (IFs), to inform their work and enhance engagement among AU member states in various development initiatives and their implementation. 

The panelists highlighted AU progress and challenges in achieving its long-term vision of inclusive growth, sustainable development, and regional integration. To kick off the panel discussion, Simon Kisira, the head of monitoring and evaluation, presented the transformative goals outlined in Agenda 2063, which includes seven broad aspirations and twenty goals designed to position Africa as a prosperous, integrated, and peaceful continent. 

The agenda is operationalized through five Ten-Year Implementation Plans. The first plan covers the years 2014 to 2023 and the second spans 2024 to 2033. This second Ten-Year Plan emphasizes “acceleration of implementation, building on the first that primarily focused on convergence.” According to Kisira, the first plan faced challenges, including insufficient awareness and limited implementation at the national level. The second decade marks a period of speed and scale and is structured by “ambitions beyond the ordinary.” 

The AUDA-NEPAD panelists highlighted how the model is the only one with features that are essential to the second Ten-Year Plan’s success, citing IFs ability to both “domesticate” the second Ten-Year Plan down to national and regional levels using a systems-wide approach and to aid evaluators with retrospective monitoring. “The beauty of IFs model looks at targets in an integrated manner. We need a system that looks not just at education but also health and everything it touches,” observed Gideon Nimako, one of the panelists.  

However, challenges remain. Nazare underscored the difficulty of harmonizing national plans with regional and continental goals while addressing specific country needs. “We need African solutions for African problems,” she stressed, adding that sustainable livelihoods and more robust domestic private sectors are key to success.   

During his closing remarks, Jonathan Moyer, the director of the Pardee Institute, reiterated the importance of knowledge transfer, noting that it is a two-way street. Moyer commended the representatives from AUDA-NEPAD for their continuous collaboration with the Pardee Institute and offered that the Institute continues to apply learnings from its ongoing work with AUDA-NEPAD in ways that strengthen the reach and impact of this tool and the research it informs.   

The event underscored the vital role partnerships like AUDA-NEPAD and the Pardee Institute play in advancing Africa’s development agenda, integrating cutting-edge tools like the IFs model with localized knowledge and innovative thinking. 

The event also provided a platform for engagement between students and faculty from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, along with staff from the Pardee Institute. Attendees had the opportunity to listen to and interact with representatives from AUDA-NEPAD, enhancing their understanding of key issues regarding the African development agenda and fostering meaningful dialogues on the topic.