Addis Ababa, 25 October 2021 (ECA) - The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)’s Macroeconomics & Governance Division in collaboration with Gambia Ministry of Finance & Economic Affairs has concluded a four-day training of Gambia team on Applied Training on Integrated Planning and Reporting Toolkit (IPRT) in Banjul, The Gambia.
The main objective of the training, which took place on October 18 -21, was to enable member States know the functionalities of the IPRT and use it in planning and alignment of 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 with the national development plans (NDP) including the concomitant monitoring of the progress of the two agenda towards their implementation.
Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, Juldeh Ceesay thanked ECA for organizing the training for the Gambia team.
“As the country gears to formulate successor medium and long-term development plans in this pandemic era characterised by economic downturns and tight fiscal space, this training cannot come at a better time for us,” said Ms Ceesay.
“I challenge you the national experts to take this training with all the seriousness it deserves in order to help our country mainstream integrated evaluation and reporting in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, African Agenda 2063 as well as the upcoming medium and long-term development plans.”
The aim of the training was to equip planners and experts of the Gambia with the applications of integrated planning and reporting toolkit. The toolkit has been designed to improve development planning capacities of member States through the application of the IPRT.
Bartholomew Armah ECA’s Director of Macro-economics and Governance said the IPRT seeks to support countries planning processes by making it possible to align national plans with national priorities as well as regional and global commitments like Agenda 2063 and the 2030 development agenda.
“The timing of this training is therefore ideal since you are nearing the end of your planning cycle it offers an opportunity to evaluate your plan from the perspective of alignment with your national priorities and regional and global commitments,” said Mr Armah.
The IPRT, he said, is being configured to make the tracking of performance on the indicators of National development plan more user friendly. So on one platform you can see the level of alignment and the performance of your plan.
“We are also working on including a module on the sources of financing for the NDP in the context of Integrated National Financing Frameworks. This way you can link your IPRT priorities to the sources of financing. This will make it possible to assess whether resources are appropriately deployed to national objectives,” noted Mr. Armah.
The ECA director said the unprecedented events caused by the pandemic makes it even more important to strengthen our planning capacities.
ECA developed the IPRT to support member countries to align continental and global development agendas with NDPs as well as assess the progress made by member States towards the achievement of SDGs and Agenda 2063 goals.
The IPRT has already been deployed in some member States like Burkina Faso and efforts are being made to include other member States. The toolkit has been designed to improve development planning capacities of member States through the application of the IPRT.
Issued by:
Communications Section
Economic Commission for Africa
PO Box 3001
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Tel: +251 11 551 5826
E-mail: eca-info@un.org