On August 1-3, 2007, The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), in partnership with the Government of the Republic of Mozambique, will hold the Second Pan African Capacity Building Forum in Maputo, Mozambique under the theme “Towards Development Results for Africa.” The Forum is the second to the First Pan African Capacity Building Forum that was held by ACBF in Bamako, Mali on 22-24 October 2001. The result of the First Pan African capacity Building Forum was a proclamation by the First Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union of the Decade for Capacity Building in Africa (2002-2011). The Assembly mandated the Council of Ministers to review, each year, the progress made in the implementation of this resolution.

The first Strategic Medium Term Plan (STMP) 2002 –2006) fell within the first half of the proclaimed decade, while the second Strategic Medium Term Plan (2007-2011) with the driving theme. Towards the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa - will bring it to a close. The resolution by the African Union continues to find concrete expression within ACBF’s medium term plans, as it is one of the vehicles for its implementation. Maputo 2007 seeks to rejuvenate and reinvigorate commitment to capacity building on the African continent at the highest levels of policymaking; share lessons and best practices in capacity building; and raise further awareness about the ACBF, the continent’s premier capacity building institution that in January 2007 launched the implementation of its second Strategic Medium Term Plan, which will commit US$350million to capacity building on the continent over the period.

The SMTP II will seek to raise the level of effectiveness of the state in Africa in the design and management of public policies and programs; in the enhancement of the effectiveness of regulatory frameworks; in the efficient delivery of public service; and in promoting accountability and transparency in economic, financial and administrative governance; in strengthening interface among development stakeholders – the public sector, private sector, civil society and local communities – through empowering citizens, groups, communities and non-state actors with a view to improving the responsiveness and accountability of public institutions as well as enhancing the effectiveness of development policies and programs in achieving sustainable growth, poverty reduction and the attainment of the MDGs; in enhancing the capacity of Africa’s regional economic communities and regional networks in the implementation of regional cooperation and integration programs and in the management of regional public goods in the context of a fast globalizing world and strengthen interventions in the building of capacity to build and nurture capacity.

Maputo 2007 will be guided by three main objectives. These are to: provide a platform for Africa’s development stakeholders to discuss the Continent’s development challenges and their capacity-building dimensions; to share information on capacity-building results within the context of ongoing efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); and, to improve political and economic governance across Africa.

The themes and topics of the Forum will broadly reflect the current capacity and development management concerns and agenda facing the continent. They include among others, Africa’s Human and Institutional Capacity, Growth and Governance Performance; Capacity Utilization, Retention and the Use of African Diasporan Communities; Capacity Building in the Context of HIV/AIDS; Capacity Building in Post-Conflict African Countries; Recent Development Experiences from China, India, Malaysia and South Korea; Reforming of Technical Assistance and Strengthening Donor Coordination in the Building of Sustainable Indigenous Capacity in Africa; Knowledge Management and Performance Measurement in Capacity Building; and Gender Equity and Women Empowerment in Africa’s Development. The Forum is aimed at generating a renewed commitment to the development as well as effective utilization and retention of capacities required for the achievement of the MDGs in Africa and for addressing other development challenges facing the continent in a fast globalizing world.

The success of this Second Pan African Capacity Building Forum critically depends how effectively we collectively seek a way forward to capacitate our continent to cut a path to a prosperous future. This Forum, without doubt, provides the people of the Continent a unique opportunity to dialogue with one another as well as with their development partners and stakeholders on a number of key issues.

The Forum also offers a platform from which African governments, policymakers, and civil society organizations can actively engage and sensitize a wider section of the development community to the resource needs for effective intervention in Africa’s capacity needs.

Challenges remain, yet many lesson have been learnt over the past decade. The Forum will draw on this past experience to forge a way forward. To this end, the Forum will call upon African governments; policymakers and Africa’s development partners to rethink their approaches to capacity building and to broaden the dialogue and stakeholders to ensure such initiatives are locally owned, results-oriented and sustainable. This will require an improved environment for experience sharing, knowledge creation and a determined effort to drastically cut back on duplication of efforts while ensuring that the right people, have the right knowledge at the right time thereby ensuring that all decisions are premised on evidence-based facts.