UN Economic Commission for Africa Executive Secretary Claver Gatete met0020with President Abdelmajid Tebboune at the start of his first work visit to the country, to strengthen cooperation with Algeria and identify priorities for bilateral cooperation.
 
During the meeting, President Tebboune expressed his strong intention to strengthen cooperation with ECA, with a focus on strategic priority areas including statistics, public policy monitoring, digitalization, governance, and South-South cooperation.
 
Africa is capable of achieving extraordinary results, including in manufacturing and high-technology, said President Tebboune, who stressed the importance of industrialization in helping to reduce unemployment and dependency on imports. He also stressed that development must go beyond macroeconomics and should include human development and income redistribution.
 
The ECA Executive Secretary Gatete is currently on a work visit to North Africa, to meet with government officials in Algeria, Mauritania and Morocco, for a deeper firsthand understanding of their countries’ development priorities, needs and areas of support and to explore shared opportunities for increased South-South cooperation.

Project ECHO at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center has launched an innovative initiative that aims to significantly strengthen infectious disease collaborative surveillance in seven African nations: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Zambia. Project ECHO and partners will support ministries of health and national public health institutes through learning and knowledge exchange to strengthen the detection and response to disease outbreaks — all while making the countries’ health systems stronger and more resilient.

The new collaborative surveillance initiative contributes to Project ECHO’s mission to democratize knowledge and expand access to best-practice health care around the world. The work is supported by a two-year, $2.2 million grant from the Gates Foundation.

“Health workers and public health professionals need up-to-date information to respond quickly and effectively to disease outbreaks when time is of the essence. We’re here to help bring them the training they need,” said Dr. Caroline Kisia, Project ECHO’s Africa director. “This work is incredibly urgent. Africa CDC reported 242 outbreaks on the continent in 2024, a steep rise from previous years. If we contain outbreaks quickly, we reduce the risk of future epidemics.”

City leaders and finance officials from across the continent gathered in Addis Ababa for a day-long regional peer learning and action plan progress review workshop, organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in collaboration with UN-Habitat, UNCDF, and the Addis Ababa City Administration.  

Held on 22 January, the meeting brought together mayors, technical experts, and representatives from the Ministries of Finance and Planning of six cities — Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Kigali, Nairobi, Lusaka, and Yaoundé — under the ECA-led project titled, “Expanded and Resilient Urban Fiscal Space for an Inclusive and Resilient COVID-19 Recovery in Africa.” 

The initiative, supported through the United Nations Development Account, aims to help local governments mobilize and better manage financial resources to support inclusive and sustainable urban transformation. It demonstrates the ongoing efforts made in selected cities to strengthen municipal finance systems and build fiscal resilience following the economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic.