Designating the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) as the African Union’s (AU) Specialized Agency for Capacity Development would help African countries to effectively implement Agenda 2063 of the AU, Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie, Executive Secretary of ACBF has stated.
ACBF’s current status would help in this regarding by enabling the Foundation to expand the various successful undertakings it has been implementing in its 48 members countries in the areas of capacity development and innovation to all African Countries, Prof. Nnadozie explained at a press conference on the sidelines of the 30th AU Summit underway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“The fact that ACBF is now a Specialized Agency of the African Union, will provide the opportunity to rigorously implement what we have already done [in 48 African countries in a wider scale across the continent]. We have used our 26 years of experience to do an assessment of the capacity development needed to implement Agenda 2063. Because as you understand we have had from the Lagos Plan of Action to NEPAD; to the MDGs and poverty reduction strategies so on and so forth. And when you look at all of these plans, one of the major hindrances that made them not to achieve the optimum level is simply the challenge of lack of capacity or inadequate capacity,” Prof. Nnadozie told journalists from around Africa and the rest of the world.
“So, this time around we have taken the initiative to painstakingly examine the capacity imperatives needed in terms of skills, institutions and change in mindset that is needed so that Agenda 2063 would finally be implemented,” he went on.
According to Prof. Nnadozie, ACBF has done the assessment following which it has come to know exactly what is needed now. ACBF’s position and experience in this regard would now enable it to implement and squarely address the capacity gaps.
That is why ACBF is putting in place a critical technical skills initiative and the skills revolution in collaboration with the AUC. Through these initiatives, Africa would upscale its agricultural modernization efforts, better tackle climate change and abate the serious problem of youth unemployment and poverty.