Nagoya Headquarters

Vacancy announcement

The UNCRD Africa Office was closed at the end of December 2014. UNCRD express our deepest gratitude to all the related agencies involved in the Africa Office and its wide-ranging activities, also to UNCRD Africa staff members who contributed to the development of countries, regions, and localities through central and local governments officials' training, research, and preparation of regional development plans.

The UNCRD Africa Office, established in 1992, is mandated to carry out training-cum-research activities, advisory services, and information exchange related to local and regional development in African countries. The main objectives of the Africa Office are to assist African countries in designing and implementing effective and innovative regional development policies to address their needs and problems, develop case studies on good practices in regional development and disseminate the information, and assist African countries in building up local capacity to solve pressing socioeconomic development and environmental problems.

The Africa Office aims to:

1. Clarify the nature and causes of the economic and social crises affecting the African continent, and their impacts on subnational regions and local communities;
2. Seek ways of revitalizing regional economies and strengthening local capacity to cope with, and grow out of, these crises in a sustainable manner;
3. Provide a forum for African professionals, scholars, and administrators to share their experience with regard to the above and to strengthen the exchange of necessary information, primarily with one another, and also with those from other regions, particularly from Asia;
4. Strengthen the indigenous knowledge base of African countries through information-gathering and dissemination of good practices in regional development to foster self-reliance and mutual interaction among the countries and communities in the continent;
5. Foster research and training programmes to meet the needs of regional (local) economic revitalization in Africa; and
6. Promote South-South cooperation by establishing and strengthening institutional linkages between African and Asian research and training institutions.

FOCUS ON ACTIVITIES

In promoting these objectives, the Office emphasizes partnerships with other international and national organizations, universities, research and training institutions, and relevant governments. A package programme has been developed which aims at capacity- building for local and regional development planning and management in Africa through human resources development (HRD). The programme�s components are: (a) training; (b) research; (c) country-specific programmes for technical assistance; and (d) policy seminar for information exchange and dissemination.

Training

The office conducts two types of training: (1) the Africa Training Course on Local Regional Development Planning and Management (ATC); and (2) in-country training courses (ICTs) organized as part of the country programme for technical assistance. UNCRD Africa Office has initiated and successfully implemented in-country training programmes in Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya and Namibia on regional development planning as well as on project planning and and management and research design and data collection analysis. In 2014, UNCRD will initiate and implement a project titled �Strengthening Capacities of African countries for Effective In-country Regional Development Policy Formulation and Planning towards Sustainable Development.� The target countries will be Ghana and Kenya.

Research

The current research activities of UNCRD Africa Office focus on human security and conflict in Africa. More specifically, UNCRD Africa office conducts a research-cum-capacity building project titled �Human Security in Africa: Assessment and Capacity Building to Promote Sustainable Peace and Development� in Kenya, Liberia, Rwanda and South Sudan. The project aims at promoting and disseminating the human security concept, norms and practices to deepen the understanding and acceptance of the concept among the target African countries with the aim of achieving sustainable peace and development. Within the framework of human security, UNCRD Africa Office also undertakes a project entitled �Capacity Building Programme for Somali Refugees in Kenya Aimed at improving their Capabilities for Self-Reliance and to Help them Return to their Country to engage in Economic Activities� since March 2012 in Dadaab refugee camp and its environs to improve the technical skills of both the refugees and the host community and enhance their socioeconomic conditions and self-reliance. UNCRD designed and implemented this project to complement humanitarian assistance with long-term development projects to boost their self-reliance and improve their sustainable livelihood.

Senior Policy Seminar

Senior policy seminars are a key component of UNCRD Africa Office�s activities. The main objective of the policy seminar is to promote open discussion on current and emerging issues in regional and national development policies and practices at the regional and national levels. Senior African policy makers are provided with the opportunity to exchange information and ideas and also to learn from successful regional development experiences through the seminar. Recently, UNCRD Africa Office, in partnership with UNHABITAT, conducted a Forum for Mayors and Senior Urban Officials on Sustainable Urban Development and Management in Africa. The Forum which was organized from 27 - 29 November 2013 in UN Complex in Nairobi aimed at enhancing the capacities of African mayors and senior city officials in urban planning and implementing an integrated set of policies and measures to meet challenges of sustainable development and poverty reduction within the context of the outcomes of Rio+20.