By Leah Mitaba

What does civil society want to see as a result of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development? How does Agenda 2063 and the SDGs come together, and what do we need to deliver them both? Will the Join Vision for 2030 from the recent EU-AU Summit achieve its aim of renewing partnership between the EU and AU?  And finally, what kind of partnership does civil society want with countries in the global north to deliver sustainable development? 

As countries prepare for the forthcoming eighth session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD), there is deep concern at the likelihood of achieving the widely accepted global development goals under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a successor of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Seen as a broader and more encompassing successor set of goals, the SDGs, have collided with two key disruptions to human development in recent years. Humanity has gone through a deep economic recession and the advent of the Covid19 pandemic. The two disrupters worked to reverse and frustrate global effort towards development and retarded the march towards a more just and equitable society for all. 

 The 2022 ARFSD regional forum, which is the eighth session since its introduction, is an annual multi-stakeholder platform organized jointly by the United Nations Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) and a host Government in collaboration with the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank and other entities of the United Nations System. 

 It is a high level platform that enjoys the representation of Government Ministers, other senior government officials, Subject Matter Experts (SME) and practitioners from UN Member States. Equally, the platform gets representation from the private sector, civil society, academia, and the UN organs. In 2022, the forum will be organized jointly by the ECA and the Government of the Republic of Rwanda in collaboration with the partners outlined above.  

 On their Website, the ECA describes the ARFSD regional forum as; “one of the three mechanisms mandated to follow-up, review and catalyse actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by UN Member States in September 2015”. Along with other mechanisms on sustainable development, the Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) and the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) at the global level, the ARFSD is mandated by the General Assembly of the United Nations to track progress on the member states implementation of the goals. In 2015, Africa, along with the 193 United Nations member states committed to the SDGs with a benchmark of achieving the set goals by 2030.  

However, Africa is particularly interested in the ARFSD as the mechanism undertakes integrated follow-up and review of the SDGs and goals of the African Union Agenda 2063. This makes it a unique mechanism that allows for a combined follow up of the globally and African Union set goals. The mechanism is perfect for an integrated African driven agenda that is uniquely placed for coordinated and collaborative support and accountability. In agreeing with the ECA position, the two Agenda provide a synergistic framework for achieving inclusive and people-centered sustainable development in the region. 

For Africa and southern Africa in particular, the continent is faced with a gloomy reality of once again failing to achieve the goals unless critical and clear catalytic steps are taken to accelerate their achievement. The world bank describes Southern Africa as home to more than 1 billion people, half of whom will be under 25 years old by 2050. The Southern Region is further asserted as diverse, offering human and natural resources that have the potential to yield inclusive growth and eradicate poverty in the region. It further boasts of the world’s largest free trade area and a 1.2 billion-person market, a reality that would allow the continent to create an entirely new development path, by harnessing the potential of its resources and people.  

However, despite having this rich natural resource base with potential to spur socio-economic growth, the region is struggling to reduce poverty and tackle existing inequalities. The economic impact of the COVID-19 shock in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been severe, however economic growth in SSA is set to emerge from the 2020 recession and expand by 3.3 percent in 2021. This rebound, currently fueled by elevated commodity prices, a relaxation of stringent pandemic measures, and recovery in global trade, remains vulnerable in light of low rates of vaccination on the continent, protracted economic damage, and a slow pace of recovery. Growth for 2022 and 2023 will remain just below 4 percent, continuing to lag the recovery in advanced economies and emerging markets.  A key example of this stark reality can be drawn from Zambia one of the countries in the region which had a positive economic outlook with an average potential economic growth of 7% until Covid19 hit. Zambia however, has one of the highest levels of inequality, ranking the fourth unequal country globally. The country has a gender inequality index of 0.540 placing it at 134 out of 162 countries (UNDP HDR 2020). Furthermore, Zambia is the most underperforming country in terms of women participation in political office in the South African region with 18% of female representation at parliamentary level (far below the region’s average of 25%). The health sector has positively improved with Zambia’s life expectancy now standing at 63.9%. In terms of education, Zambia has an average of 11.5 years in school (HDR 2020). 

This picture is counter-intuitive to the achievement of the SDGs and calls for urgent action for the world to accelerate implementation of reluctant actions for a better outcome. It further makes the upcoming regional forum a critical one for each of the players in the chain to reflect, be held accountable and commit to playing their individual and collective roles to address the world’s social economic challenges.  

Agenda 2063 and the SDGs are important mechanisms for the preceding to happen and this is why civil society organisations in the global South are especially expectant that the summit will not be diplomatic rhetoric but rather a critical time for Governments and partners alike to be held accountable. In line with the thread of the SDGs of “not leaving anyone behind,” it is important for the world to acknowledge that many critical players such as women, rural based communities, persons with disabilities and minority groups have been left behind in so many SDG priority areas of economic growth. These players have also not enjoyed positions of decision making, decent jobs and other important human rights related benefits. It is discouraging that people still live in countries where they cannot fully participate, much less assemble, associate and express themselves. According to the Forus study on civic space, it is documented that the world is far from achieving a key SDG, goal 16 and 17 which, because of its cross cutting nature, would work to catalyse the achievement of the SDGs as a whole. 

It is also important to highlight here that a Forus report noted that SDG 16 looks at the civic space situation but only in a very limited way through monitoring the killings, kidnapping and forced disappearances of journalists and human rights defenders among others. The report therefore sounded a clarion call to the world for additional reflection on how to successfully monitor civic space within goal 16. The report was shared at the 2021 HLPF through a side event hosted through a panel discussion. The report, entitled “Realising the potential of Goal 16 to protect civic space” shared (20-30) case studies of national civic space contexts. It proposed various ways of monitoring the situation adequately including through the use of nationalized indicators to monitor goal 16 responding to specific contextual situations, as well as providing suggestions for a new global civic space indicator. 

It is therefore necessary that the following recommendations are embraced by the forum; 

• G7 commitment to invest 0.7% to overseas development – This investment is critical to facilitate the operation of the watchdog functions of civil society, implementation of innovative initiatives to inform government direction. It also apprises advocacy goals for governments to meet the various progressive legal and policy pronouncements in local legislation 
• Domestic resource mobilisation space being invaded by International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) – while joint action is important INGOs and local Civil Society Organsations (CSOs,) it must not be at the expense of stifling the growth of local CSOs. It is widely accepted and embraced globally that local level driven initiatives have a better chance at success and sustainability. We have seen this from the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic when many international development players have evacuated while local actors remained working on the ground to provide the much needed development activity at a critical time. In addition, the discussion on inequality must be echoed and addressed even at this level given the current scenario in which we see more and more INGOs being better resourced and capacitated than local CSOs. This is inimical to the implementation of the Agenda 2030. Rather, partnerships should be encouraged at equal footing. It is necessary to appreciate that for development to happen in the global South, countries in the global North to deliver sustainable development, ought to walk the talk in the commitment to support the localization agenda. This would mean an increased investment in a landholding capacity development support to CSOs and support towards institutional strengthening as opposed to the seemingly increasing attraction for funders to project type funding. This kind of assistance only leaves out core support required to run an effective and sustainable organization. In order to achieve the preceding, we should see more of clear roles between INGOs’ role vis-à-vis local CSOs which currently is blurred. Currently, INGOs take on an implementing role in recipient countries, competing for funds with local CSOs, which gives them advantage because they are able to attract, poach, and pay staff better as well as fund raise through their headquarters. In some instances, unfair practices of INGOs that are both implementing and funding have overshadowed local CSOs initiatives, which are entrusted to them through proposal submissions. It should be made necessary for INGOs to choose either of the roles not both. 
• Finally, with decreased available funding for local CSOs, INGOs’ move towards exploring the domestic fundraising space is worsening local CSOs’ capacity to raise resources. As such sustaining their operations is becoming more challenging. It is therefore our expectation that financing requirements will be made more available, flexible and where capacity building is required, given to allow local CSOs to be better equipped to respond to available calls. The global discussion on the localization debate needs to be made a reality as this is necessary for the achievement of the SDGs. 
• Another critical expectation from African CSOs is for the forum to look at the closing Civic Space arising from the agenda on Anti- Money Laundering/Combating Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) process which has been used to justify restrictions on civic society and in effect, resulting in the closing of civic space.  It is important to note that since inception, the recommendations have been revised, many African countries among them Zambia, Uganda, Nigeria and Tanzania to name but a few have developed restrictive legislation that have resulted in draconian NGO laws. To local CSOs misfortune, the implementation of these laws is being supported by some named local bilateral partners. This is a double standard to achieving open civic spaces. 
• We also note with concern that as the shift towards private sector development agenda increases between Africa and other continents, even development direction is shifting more towards direct budget support. This effort is meant to soften African Governments towards pushing relevant supporting government agendas to the exclusion of civil society. It is important to realise that this is contrary to the achievement of the SDGs. Sadly, the UN country systems are also embracing this approach to the exclusion of local CSOs which includes competition for domestic resources in some instances. The UN in doing this is actually frustrating the achievement of its coordinated SDGs.  The UN, a development partner, needs to be alive to this bad practice and work to address it.
• Technological advancement: While Africa remains behind in this critical dimension, this is another area that we hope the forum will look at. Arising from the negative impacts the COVID-19 pandemic, CSOs in Africa have had to embrace virtual platforms to carry out many of their activities. Sadly, few local CSOs have been able to use online working spaces even then, at a high cost as internet access remains a challenge for Africa. According to Aljazera, "with 170 million users, internet penetration in Africa is at 18 percent, which is significantly lower than the global average of 30 percent, and only one in 10 households is connected to the net3."  This becomes worse for rural based CSOs whose access is either nil or limited in the backdrop of poor connectivity and associated costs being unsustainable. It is therefore the expectation of African CSOs that the forum places this on the agenda and proposes practical solutions to ensuring that the digital space is a right that Africa alongside the rest of the world enjoys and has full access to. The need for Africa to benefit from strong and effective digital connectivity at local, sub-national, regional and international levels is a necessary and catalytic element to the achievement of the SDGs. This is given the fact that most of the socio-economic challenges that would give a threat to the achievement of Agenda 2030 are in Africa. In a related reality, African countries that went to the polls in recent years have developed an affinity to restrict internet access in their countries before/during/after election especially in countries where there are disputes. It is necessary that the countries in the global North assist the global South to remain connected especially in times of national emergency & crises.
• As funding becomes restrictive, it is critical for the forum to table funding for civil society and in particular local CSOs and open civic space enabling operating environment for civil society in development programming & funding instruments going forward. The Forum must discuss how, countries in the north and better support programming and funding to help build a more positive public narrative, about the role of civil society and the public value of its work in the region. In the same vein, participation at the forum must ensure adequate support for all key stakeholders which include civil society for effective and inclusive participation. Similarly, all SDG related fora such as the sub regional forums, the Voluntary National Review and High Level Political Forums must ensure local CSOs participation and be clear in the linkage into local, national & regional policy & decision making linked to the 2030 Agenda. 

Photo credit - Mars - UNSPLASH