RBA Director Ahunna Eziakonwa mission to Geneva

May 16, 2022

Visit of Ahunna Eziakonwa in Geneva — Ahunna met with a group of leading academics and civil society partners, exchanging thoughts around UNDP’s vision for the future of development in Africa.

Date

04 - 06 May 2022

Location

Geneva

5-6 May in Geneva - UN Assistant Secretary General, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Africa, Ahunna Eziakonwa , was on official mission to Geneva. In addition to engagement with the UNDP integrated office in Geneva, her mission was framed around five main pillars.

She first met with the international Geneva community in the Geneva Graduated Institute. The discussion was centered around the promotion of UNDP's offer for Africa 2022-2025. Mrs A. Eziakonwa she insisted on the importance of a new development paradigm for the continent.

"The priority is to change Africa's narrative focused on problems rather than opportunities. This storytelling will bring a whole different energy and drive the development."

The second pillar of Mrs. Eziakonwa's visit was trade and development. Together with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Director general of the World Trade Organization and Pamela Coke-Hamilton Executive Director of the International Trade Center, we advanced joint work on how UNDP can leverage the AfCFTA to empower small businesses, promote opportunities for women and youth, and advance regional integration and sustainable development.

With Geneva being the multilateral trade capital of the world, the African Union in Geneva also engaged in this visit, co-hosting a very well attended briefing with 30+ Ambassadors and Trade focal points from the African Group in Geneva, with the view to explore how to further embed development dimensions in trade negotiations and help support the voice of African countries in Geneva multilateral platforms.

After development and trade, it's towards security that the debate was oriented. In a close discussion with donors Mrs A. Eziakonwa provided concrete examples of nexus implementation in Africa and also shared visible results of UNDP’s stabilization facilities in the Lake Chad Basin and Liptako Gourma.

All this discussion happened in a particular context. All the engagements, as mentioned earlier, also constituted opportunities to discuss the impacts of the war in Ukraine on Africa with our various counterparts.

Ahunna Eziakonwa's visit was finally an excellent example of why Multilateralism matters and an occasion to strengthen the collaboration with the two key donors under the direct responsibility of the Geneva Office.

With the Swiss PR in Geneva and with the French DPR in Geneva, Ahunna presented results of stabilization work in the Sahel and how the UNDP Sahel Regeneration Programme aims to shift the narrative to promote “opportunities”, with Sahelians in the driving seat.