Kigali forum marks a new development era for Africa.

Africa has exhibited extraordinary resilience while confronting the triple crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and economic recession. The continent has defied seemingly insurmountable yet diverse unnerving political, socio-economic, health and developmental challenges with notable fortitude.

Despite these successes, the continued economic impact of the pandemic is spurring African leaders to also reflect on strategies to revamp the development model that can help African countries collectively achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

These collective experiences shared across the continent make up the backdrop of the 8th African Regional Forum for Sustainable Development (ARFSD) scheduled for the Rwandan capital, Kigali from March 3-5.

ARFSD is a formal continental podium that derives its mandate from the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and acts as one of three multi-stakeholder platform mechanisms that follow-up on reviews and consolidates actions meant to achieve the SDGs.

The other three platforms complementing the regional forum are the voluntary national reviews (VNRs), undertaken at national level, the voluntary local reviews (VLRs) undertaken at city or local authority level and the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) at the global level.

Amalgamating and building up on the gains so far made in realizing Agenda 2030, which was adopted by the UN member states in September 2015, is an obligation of the ARFSD agenda. Now in its 8th year, this annual forum is co-organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), African Union Commission (AU), African Development Bank (AfDB), the host-nation and sister UN system agencies.

It brings together high-level decision-makers including ministers, experts, policymakers, academia, private sector, civil society and development partners to debate and deliberate on economic and social development progress in the continent.

Primed to include African priorities, the forum integrates the review of the SDGs alongside the AU's Agenda 2063 development blueprint. ARFSD further advances these two complementary development agendas by adopting a wholesome people-centered and inclusive model to stimulate the synergies and ambitions of sustainable development in the continent.

ARFSD is clued-up to reflect African-centric perspectives and adopts two main outcomes. The first, 'Summary and Key messages' is the collective input and deliberations of the...