An integrated effort is significant to curb negative impacts of prevailing financial crisis, food shortage and increasing cost of petroleum in Africa, a United Nations official said here Tuesday.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said more effective cluster coordination is crucial to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals.
Migiro was speaking at the opening of the ninth meeting of the regional consultation mechanism of UN agencies and organizations working in Africa in support of the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa's Development.
Migiro, who is from Tanzania, said the UN must be more coherent, more accountable and more effective in how it works with countries on the ground.
She said the thrust is to assist countries to put together their own national strategies to meet the needs of their citizens. It is essential therefore that "we strengthen our partnership with key organizations on the African continent," she said.
Abdoulie Janneh, UN under-secretary-general and executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, said this meeting of the regional consultation mechanism, the ninth in the series, reflects the common commitment of the UN system to supporting Africa's regional aspirations in a coherent and meaningful manner.
"We are meeting at a time of serious concern about the global economic outlook. Our apprehensions about the impact of high food and oil prices on African countries have now been compounded by worries on how the global financial crisis will impact on African economies, which have grown steadily in the recent past and seemed on the cusp of sustained economic take-off," said Janneh.
"It is difficult to judge the full extent of the impact of the financial crisis on African economies if only because of the rapidly changing nature of events in global financial markets and differing degrees of exposure to them by African countries," he said.