[Title] REPORT ON THE SESSION"INCLUSIVE AND RESILIENT SOCIETIES"

The Chairman of the « Inclusive and Resilience Societies » session recalled the overall theme of building resilient and inclusive societies, with the three sub themes, namely Millennium Development Goals, Environment and Climate Change, Disaster Risk Reduction serving as entry points to guide the reflexion of the working group.

He also recalled the importance of these sub themes with regard to the challenges African countries face and stressed that the impacts of internal and external shocks must be addressed with structural response through middle to long term development plans and strategies.

In addition, addressing resilience demands the adoption of a systemic approach and should build such society upon practices and experiences of communities knowledge which have faced these challenges for many decades.

On MDGs, while progress have been made by many African countries, progress are not yet sufficient to achieve the MDGs by 2015. A consensus has emerged on the need to accelerate progress towards the MDGs by the set target and beyond.

Climate Change impacts negatively on economic growth and erodes the gains from African countries development. Therefore, in line with the Rio+20 recommendations, an approach integrating the environmental, economic and social issues is to be promoted.

Increasing intensity and frequency of natural disasters affect the resilience capacity of communities. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the prevention and integrated risk management of disasters.

Following recommendations have been made by the Working Group:

Millennium Development Goals

* Continue the efforts to achieve MDGs, while consolidating the achievements and progresses made.

* Support integrated reproductive health services, in particular for women and the youth through effective family planning policies.

* Support African countries in formulating and/or implementing national plans for integrated water resources management

* Scale up actions aimed at improving quality of education through better training of teachers, installation of school canteens and the improvement of school infrastructures

* Promote the mutual recognition of diplomas and professional qualifications as well as student mobility and young working people through south to south partnership.

* Improve the school enrolment and completion rate, particularly for girls

* Strengthen capacity of water services, and support technically and financially solid waste management, rain and used water management, and related training needs in urban areas.

Environnent and Climate Change

* Pay special attention to the fight against desertification and land degradation, which remained as one of the main concerns of African Countries during the Rio Summit

* Strengthen climatic database and information systems as well as promoting the use of climatology and meteorology in multi-sectoral planning and the setup of Early Warming Systems.

* Promote an integrated approach on environmental issues in particular articulating climate change adaptation as well as disaster risk reduction efforts.

* Recognize adaptation as one of African priorities in face of climate change.

DisasterRiskReduction

* Support the implementation of the Disaster Risk Reduction African Strategy and Plan of Action in line with the Hyogo Framework and its reviews in 2015

* Improving Disaster Management governance and coordination mechanisms

* Given the impact of disasters on our economies and societies, increase the focus on disaster risk prevention, short and long term planning

* Integrate disaster risk management and climate change adaptation into sustainable development

* Develop a common and accessible database on disaster prevention in Africa with the aim to facilitate exchange of information and best practices

* Strengthen the capacities of national and sub-regional institutions in charge of disaster prevention and support the preparation of multi-risk contingency plans

* Include urban risks dimensions into development planning, in the light of the fact that 41% of African population lives in urban areas.

* Support resilient agricultural methods by developing infrastructures less vulnerable to disaster risks.