| Overview : The goal of the UNDP Regional Project to Strengthen Institutional Capacities to Accelerate Pro-Poor Growth and Accountability in Sub-Saharan Africa (CD Project) was to strengthen the capacities of Africa’s apex institutions to promote pro-poor growth and accountability by addressing strategic capacity gaps of regional significance through selected “flagship” CD programmes. In addition, the project would strengthen partnerships at the regional level to facilitate concerted action to address CD needs in the region, and strengthen African ownership and leadership of CD initiatives. At the country level, strengthened regional mechanisms would reinforce capacities of key institutions, systems, and processes to assure the sustainability of development programmes.
The CD Project offered a good platform at the regional level for the coordination of multi-partner CD interventions in Africa, with prospects for leveraging technical and financial resources for a regional CD agenda. Therefore, from the beginning of its implementation the Project established a very strong partnership and collaborative relations with NPCA’s Capacity Development Programme, working together to identify key entry-points for holistically supporting capacity development needs in the region. Partnership with the NPCA was in recognition of its mandate as the “technical arm” of the Africa Union, and the central role that it could play in the implementation of the Project. In addition to being one of the key regional institutions and beneficiary of the project, being a continental apex organization gives the NPCA a unique comparative advantage: its ability to mobilize a broad range of actors at policy and implementation levels. |
