The Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA), last week hosted a meeting with its various stakeholders from the region on the finalisation of its 2012-2016 operational plan.
The meeting held from 16-17 February, 2012 in Lusaka Zambia, was meant to get inputs from ACTESA’s stakeholders from the region in order to develop an operational plan that will forecast ACTESA’s activities going forward and will also incorporate the needs of its various stakeholders and beneficiaries, the small scale farmers.
The operational plan comes in the wake of the approval by the COMESA Policy Organs of the ACTESA Five Year Strategy last year in October.
The COMESA Council also decided that ACTESA should develop a Charter that would guide the implementation of the Strategy and a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework that would guide the monitoring and evaluation of interventions.
Earlier, the Strategy’s three focus areas had been endorsed by the COMESA Ministers of Agriculture and Environment meeting held from 21 to 22 July, 2011, at Ezulwini valley in Swaziland.
The Ministers approved three focus areas of the ACTESA Strategy as follows:
- Improved policy research, outreach and advocacy;
- Market facilities and trade expansion; and
- Capacity building for commercialization.
Speaking at the meeting, acting ACTESA Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Chungu Mwila commended the stakeholders, who included development partners like USAID, for their unwavering support and assured them that ACTESA would come up with a solid operational plan to be tabled before a meeting of development partners, member States, the private sector and other stakeholders around April this year.
…….and the institution undergoes organizational assessment
Last week, ACTESA, undertook an organizational assessment in order to determine how the key areas of the Alliance are functioning, as well as what functions need to be prioritized for maximum effectiveness. The assessment was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). As ACTESA prepares to implement its five year Strategy, the assessment was conducted at a cardinal and opportune time.
The evaluation, facilitated by Africa Lead, was meant to help ACTESA improve its performance and learn about the opportunities it has for change and provides specific recommendations about where to put resources and activities to achieve its objectives.