Abstract
The African Community of Practice was established in 2007, by a community of English and French speaking practitioners on Managing for Development Results (MfDR). It is a voluntary CoP, with membership drawn from civil servants, NGOs, private sector and individual professionals with a passion for results oriented development in Africa. The AfCoP’s goal is to build African MfDR capacity through sharing experiences and development solutions for results, networking and building strong learning relationships with MfDR practitioners in Africa and around the world.
The AfCoP is led by a Core Management Team (CMT), which is supported by a Secretariat at the African Development Bank (AfDB) in partnership with the Africa Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). ACBF is responsible Knowledge Sharing activities and management of the AfCoP platform.
Drawing from the global consensus on MfDR, African governments have increasingly adopted Results Based Management in their national planning processes and strategies. Governments and the public sector are viewed as the main drivers for development of a results culture in African economies. Many governments have shown some commitment to implementing results frameworks and monitor public service delivery. Other non-state actors and stakeholders play a critical role in working together with governments in ensuring that public services and public goods are successfully delivered. Where such delivery is lacking, non-state actors facilitate the demand for, protection and fulfillment of the citizens’ rights and access to public services and goods. AfCoP membership draws from all such actors and stakeholders. Practitioners utiliseMfDR as a change management process, through knowledge management, information and experience sharing, with a view to changing behaviours, attitudes and approaches that militate against the achievement of results.
While Africa cannot be treated with homogeneity, the fundamental MfDR principles of leadership, ownership, management, monitoring and evaluation, data management, inclusiveness and accountability apply to all situations irrespective of historical, political and economic backgrounds.
AfCoPsmodus-operandi is the promotion of national chapters on MfDR, and these cascade upwards to the sub-regional levels through a results initiative, the Africa for Results Initiative (AFriK4R) initiative. A total of nine national CoPs have been established to date. For the time being, COMESA and WAEMU are the only two established AfCoP regional economic communities of practice, with a view to promoting regional integration.
Colleagues at ACBF who are not yet members of the platform, are invited to join the community on this link http://www.cop-mfdr-africa.org/ and through sharing experiences and knowledge from various work streams at ACBF, we all contribute towards strengthening transformative leadership in Africa.
