| Overview : With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015 and the Agenda 2063: the Africa We Want in 2013, Africa has important foundations for promoting sustainable development, regional integration as well as peace and security. Since 2017, the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the United Nations Development Programme - Regional Bureau for Africa (UNDP-RBA) have been preparing annual reports on Africa’s progress with respect to alignment of the agendas into national development strategies and implementation. These annual reports have followed the themes and select goals of the High-Level Political Forum, with the 2019 report completing the first cycle of reviewing all the 17 Goals in a phased approach. This sets the foundation for baselines on most indicators, identifies areas with data gaps and emerging challenges, setting the stage for a comprehensive reporting on the SDGs and Agenda 2063 in 2020. Noting that the initial reports focused on benchmarking on Africa’s performance on most of the goals, the 2020 report seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of Africa’s progress by analyzing underlying issues, interlinkages between goals and policy options for accelerating progress going forward.
From available evidence, Africa’s progress is mixed. The continent has recorded sustained economic growth rates ranging between 3-4 percent per annum over the last two decades, poverty rates are declining and access to primary education, health, and electricity are improving. Gender parity at lower levels of education continues to improve while women representation in national parliaments has shown significant positive change. Africa’s contribution to material consumption is relatively low; all African countries have signed, and 48 countries ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change action. However, progress is insufficient on many goals, variations across and within countries are large, and so are the additional financing requirements. Although poverty rates are declining, the absolute number of people living in poverty is rising (from an estimated 413 million in 2015 to 422 million in 2019) due to high population growth rates, lack of opportunities for decent jobs, and the lack of access to quality education and health services. Unfortunately, many Africans, particularly youth and women, continue to be left behind – despite the many opportunities. A worrying sign of persistent inequalities on the continent. Data gaps on many of the indicators are a challenge to setting baselines and measuring progress.
The inclusiveness, indivisible and integrated nature of the SDGs and Agenda 2063 and the large gaps towards many of the targets call for heightened levels of ambition to motivate a step-change in implementation and reporting of the two development agendas. The year 2020 is an important milestone for the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 for many reasons: first, it marks five years since
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the adoption of the global goals; second, several targets were set to be achieved in 2020; third, only three years remain to the completion of the first Ten-Year Implementation Plan of Agenda 2063 and finally, the world as whole will only have ten years to 2030. In addition, 2020 coincides with the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, which has already been titled the ‘decade of action’ poised to bring a lot of the global issues to the fore.
It is therefore an opportune time for a comprehensive review of progress on the two Agendas at country, sub-regional and regional levels paying particular attention to their domestication and implementation; and the achievements on the various targets so far. It is a critical time to reflect back in order to look forward at how success will look like and identify areas for emphasis at the regional and national levels given the trends and projections to 2030. The next ten years 2021-2030 must be a decade of action to realize the SDGs and set a firm foundation for realizing the longer-term goals of Agenda 2063.
Five background thematic papers based on the different dimensions of sustainable development: Social (people); Economic (Prosperity); Environment (planet); Governance; Peace and Security (peace) and Means of Implementation (partnerships), integrating key elements from Agenda 2063, will be prepared. The background thematic papers will describe Africa’s progress in the implementation of the SDGs and Agenda 2063 over the past five and seven years respectively, while looking ahead to policy options towards achieving the targets set for 2030. The papers will also identify gaps that need to be addressed over the next decade to the achieve Agenda 2030 and Agenda 2063 goals and targets.
It is this context, a seasoned consultant is being sought to serve as a lead consultant for the consolidation of the 2020 Africa Sustainable Development Report drawing from the background thematic reports and other key sources of information. The overall report will be forward looking with succinct policy recommendations targeted at key national actors including governments, private sector, civil society organizations, academia, pan-African Institutions/regional bodies, development partners and other key stakeholders. |
