The African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (AMCOMET) is participating at the inaugural Conference of the African Union (AU) Specialised Technical Committee (STC) holding in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to push for the inclusion of Meteorology (Weather and Climate) as an additional sector component of the STC whose current sectors includes, Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment.
The African Union Assembly of Heads of State and Government had, in January 2009 and July 2011 respectively, adopted the configuration of the Specialised Technical Committees (STCs) and the modalities of their operationalisation as Organs of the Union. Composed of Ministers or senior officials responsible for sectors to provide support in their respective areas of competence, the STCs are responsible for preparing projects and programmes of the Union and submitting them to the Executive Council mad up of Ministers of Foreign Affairs.
The STCs have also the duty to ensure proper supervision, follow-up and evaluation of the implementation of decisions taken by the organs of the Union and the coordination and harmonisation of projects and programmes of the Union. The STCs are further expected to carry out any other functions assigned to them for the purpose of ensuring the implementation of the provisions of relevant AU Acts. They are also are expected to meet at least every two years in order to discharge the responsibilities vested upon them by the AU Assembly.
The overall objectives of the Inaugural Conference of the AU Specialised Technical Committee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment is to review relevant strategic goals, facilitate mutual accountability and Identify synergies, linkages and complementarities in ongoing agriculture, rural development, water and environment related initiatives, and their implications on the achievement of the overarching goals of Africa Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation (3AGT) agenda for attaining food and nutrition security, reduce poverty, boost intra-African trade, and enhance resilience of production systems and livelihoods to Climate Change and related shocks.
More specifically, the Inaugural Conference of the AU Specialised Technical Committee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment aims to attain the following objectives:
a. To review and adopt the Rules of Procedure of the Specialised Technical Committee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment;
b. To facilitate broad-based consultation and dialogue among all relevant stakeholders on mutual accountability, mutual learning and biennial reporting on previous commitments;
c. Consideration of various strategic documents related to Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment;
d. To identify synergies, linkages and complementarities in on-going agriculture, rural development, water and environment initiatives and agree on areas of follow up actions at various levels; and
e. To examine and internalise the strategic and operational modalities for coordination mechanisms between the relevant sector ministries at Member State level, which are also linked to those at the Regional Economic Community (REC) level.
The Inaugural AU STC Conference will, therefore, provide a peer environment for exchange and learning to support the achievement of individual and collective responsibilities for targets set by relevant sector ministries.
