In some countries in Africa, all the UN agencies are taking steps to operate as one system by harmonizing related programmes and dealing with national governments as ?One UN?, and assisting AU (African Union) and its programme NEPAD. With an effective institutional framework, the CSD should be able to leverage the results of this new initiative of ?One UN? as a platform for building the needed synergy for a co ordinated sustainable development and easy implementation of programmes.

The framework should have a mechanism to identify the different agencies responsible, elicit their support and trust to provide timely and accurate information on their results on sustainable development efforts. It should also provide direction and rally these agencies to harmonize cross-cutting efforts, share experiences of best results and learn from each other so as to develop the desired synergies.

No, IMO has not been active in the creation of any NSDC. In principle, creating NSDCs would contribute to facilitating preparations for UNCSD ? because the NSDCs would serve as sector-specific technical advocacy bodies and therefore stand a greater chance of eliciting positive action towards the UNCSD.

Sustainable development strategies have been subsumed into broader national development plans that have not been effectively implemented in most developing countries. If national development plans could be subdivided into specific NSDS components with effective mechanisms for their implementation and monitoring, then better results could be achieved.
On the other hand, the NSDSs ensure that different groups are brought together in an integrated manner to discuss issues before decisions are arrived at.

At national level, there have been plans for environmental sustainability with roles assigned to sub-national and local governments. However, ineffective monitoring and poor budgetary support has hindered the achievement of desired results.

On the other hand, sub-national and local governments play a key role in reaching out to community-based groups, and cannot therefore be ignored.

Women ? Bringing women in the maritime sector together to share their knowledge on decision-making in the maritime field.
Non-governmental Organisations ? NGOs play a key role in the implementation of international agreements.
Business and Industry Participation of business and industries such as the oil sector, in various forums assist to shape the way forward and end result of negotiations

With specific reference to IMO?s experience in the field in Africa, professionally assessed capacity needs are addressed through an effective institutional framework. IMO does this through the Integrated Technical Cooperation Programme, providing technical assistance to developing countries. This has resulted in the passage and implementation of updated national maritime legislations, the establishment of functional national maritime administrations and maritime training institutions, the co‑ordination of national and regional efforts towards the establishment of regional mechanisms for maritime search and rescue, the development of regional strategies for oil spill preparedness and control contingency plans, the development of regional strategies for the control and management of ships? ballast water, the development of national capacities to establish port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and an improved port efficiency.
By pulling together institutions which are relevant in certain issues, quick results have been achieved bringing reasonable change to communities. However, this has in most cases been led by a particular agency in partnership with other stakeholders.

Yes, the lessons are relevant to the CSD. The effectiveness of the institutional framework for sustainable development can be enhanced by identifying key stakeholders and their individual as well as collective technical capacity needs, and then implementing concrete measures to meet these needs.
Institutions should be encouraged to work together by borrowing examples and best practices from the successful programmes.

Synergy and avoidance of duplication should always be a guiding tool in developing programmes and policy guidelines.

·         Effective sensitization highlighting concrete beneficial impacts of national sustainable development;
? Provision of the basic (financial, material, human and technical advisory) resources to support stakeholder groups to undertake sustainable development projects;
? Development of programmes through consultations.

Inadequate financial resources
? Poor political will by beneficiary countries;
? Institutions operating at the national level do not always see how things are on the regional level, and thus the vital identification of the core business that should be established in a country is sometimes lacking.

·  Same challenges as enumerated in 12 above;
? National institutions with their own agendas sometimes do not take into consideration the existence of other institutions, and collaboration becomes a problem.

Decisions should focus on:
? Identifying key partner institutions;
? Identifying sustainable sources of funding
? Developing mechanisms to elicit the committed political will by beneficiary countries and communities;
? Identifying core businesses that would achieve results in the most time and cost-efficient manner;
? Strengthening existing institutions.