Accra, 4 October 2022 (ECA) – The Economic Commission for Africa's (ECA) applied training workshop on the Integrated Planning and Reporting Toolkit Plus (IPRT+) is underway in Accra, Ghana. The event, taking place from 4 to 7 October 2022, is organized by the ECA's Development Planning Section located in the Macroeconomics and Governance Division, in collaboration with the National Planning Development Commission (NDPC) of Ghana and with the support of the United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office (UNRCO).
The overall objective of the training is to enable Ghana’s development practitioners learn the functionalities of the IPRT and use it in the planning and alignment of the Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs), Agenda 2063 and the country's national development plans. It also seeks to enable participants understand its monitoring and evaluation platform and automated reporting functionalities.
Speaking on behalf of the Director-General, Director of Research and Innovation for the NDPC, Richard Tweneboah-Kodua highlighted the enormous potential of the IPRT and noted that “at a time when global economies, especially those in Africa have been hard hit by the ravages of the pandemic and other geopolitical developments like the Russia – Ukraine conflict, the need for such a tool to gauge with precision how to prioritize its national development aspirations in a sustainable manner is important.”
Mr. Tweneboah-Kodua also noted the tool would help the country to respond to its global and regional commitments including the Sustainable Development Goals, the African Union Agenda 2063 and the Economic Community of West African States’ Vision 2050. He also noted that the training would enhance the capacity of the National Development Planning Commission to train the decentralized planning authorities at the sector and district level.
The Chief of the Development Planning Section of the Macroeconomics and Governance Division at ECA, Bartholomew Armah emphasized that the recently developed Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF) feature of the IPRT will provide evidence of the extent to which the finances of the country are aligned with its national, continental and global targets.
“In an era of fiscal constraints, this is particularly important as it ensures close alignment of development financing with development priorities. In this way, it provides an invaluable tool for evaluating the commitment to the development priorities of a country and the effectiveness of committed resources in delivering results.”
Charles Abani, the Representative of UNRC, Ghana reiterated the importance of the IPRT in supporting macroeconomic forecasting and planning. In this context, he noted that “integrated planning and reporting toolkits provide the requisite framing and inter-linkages of sector goals and targets to enable analysis and tracking of positive and negative impacts of shocks on plans for the right policy response and interventions.”
This four-day event is a follow-up to a virtual preparatory training session on the IPRT organized by the ECA in collaboration with the National Development Planning Commission of Ghana from 25 to 29 July 2022.
Issued by:
Communications Section
Economic Commission for Africa
PO Box 3001
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Tel: +251 11 551 5826
E-mail: eca-info@un.org