Harnessing knowledge expedites attainment of Agenda 2063

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Harnessing of knowledge, data, and expertise is important within the Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan (STYIP) (2024–2033) implementation phase to accelerate the attainment of Agenda 2063.

This came to the fore during the Agenda 2063 Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan: Knowledge, Data and Technical Expertise Needs Scoping Exercise that kicked off today 3 March 2025, and will run until 7 March 2025 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

In her remarks, while introducing the topic, Florence Nazare, the Head of Knowledge Capitalisation and Management of the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), underscored the need to support the strengthening of Africa’s emerging knowledge economies by enabling African researchers and experts, as part of the knowledge workers to effectively collaborate in the development of new technologies and to facilitate trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

“At the end of the five days, we expect a substantive scoping of stakeholder needs outlining areas where knowledge for application and data, as well as technical expertise, is inadequate to support the effective implementation of the STYIP. We also expect a full understanding and mapping of existing data and sources, knowledge-sharing infrastructure, and technical exchange facilities, as well as, identification of needs and gaps to help strengthen and connect national, regional, and continental repositories for efficiency.

“We expect to come up with responsive initiatives to enhance critical knowledge, data, and technical capabilities tailored to Africa’s needs. We also expect the development of an agreed clear and joint roadmap with actionable outcomes to feed into the development of the Work Programme addressing the identified knowledge, data, and technical requirements and gaps,” Nazare said.

Prof Ereck Chakauya, the Manager for AUDA-NEPAD Agency’s Southern Africa Network for Biosciences (SanBio) emphasised the need for coming up with a pool of knowledge that is relevant to be understood by the community for innovations to work in pursuit of attaining Agenda 2063.

Muhammed Abdulsalam, the AUDA-NEPAD Director of Strategy said reforms in the second ten-year implementation plan have to be more efficient, resilient, responsive, and people-centered.

“As we are all aware, now we are in part of the second ten-year implementation plan and we are trying to embed resilience as one of the key paths. Why resilience? Because we know that there are a lot of transitions and megatrends that can have impacts on our development path. Climate can be, geopolitics can be, you know, there are several transitions and megatrends. And we are already seeing that as we speak today.

“So we are trying to engage deeply with our new states and work with them, you know, and make sure that their plan is aligned with the continental plan. We provide the necessary support, specific support that the countries require to achieve their targets,” he said.

Simon Kisira, AUDA-NEPAD’s head of Monitoring and Evaluation said embracing knowledge, data, and development of technology is important in accelerating the attainment of Agenda 2063.

“Can we afford to proceed with a second plan without paying attention to the issues of data and technology? Are the investments that we have today enough? Is the level of usage and generation adequate to propel Africa? The second plan and the successive plans that we have are meant to achieve Africa’s social and economic transformation,” Kisira said.

Dr. Gideon Nimako, AUDA-NEPAD’s Lead of Strategic Planning and Programming said it is difficult to advance Africa’s social and economic transformation without embracing technology and innovations.

“Can we afford to go into climate change financing issues without the knowledge and the data? Can we afford to go into negotiations also without a good knowledge base, without a technical expertise? We need knowledge and data as well as technical expertise and architecture to address these challenges,” he said.