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In summary, under ECA’s repositioning initiative, and in line withits mandate and the African Union’s agenda, ECA will now focus onachieving results in two related areas: (i) promoting regional integration;and (ii) meeting Africa’s special needs and challenges.Under the first pillar, ECA will concentrate on fully supporting theAfrican Union’s efforts to accelerate the political and socio-economicintegration of the continent, promote and defend African commonpositions and establish the necessary conditions to enable the continentto play its rightful role in the global economy. It will do so bypromoting dialogue and undertaking analytical studies such as theseries on “Assessing Regional Integration in Africa (ARIA)”. It will alsovigorously promote the building of regional infrastructure. In addition,ECA will place a stronger focus on the specific needs of RECsthrough a region-specific, multi-year partnership strategy agreedwith each REC with clearly articulated results and milestones; andthe establishment of more empowered sub-regional offices (SROs),with increased access to the skills and resources needed to deliverthe agreed results.With regards to the second pillar - meeting Africa’s special needs andchallenges - ECA’s work programme will focus on achieving the mainobjectives of NEPAD. Here, ECA’s activities will include: social development,with special focus on the Millennium Development Goals;food security and sustainable development; emerging global issuesand economic development; harnessing information and communicationtechnology; and improving governance and developmentmanagement to enhance national capacity and capability and to supportthe APRM process.Your deliberations at this Summit are vital to the advancement ofthe continent’s integration agenda. The recommendations you makecould have far-reaching implications on the harmonisation and coordinationof the integration architecture as we work towards the creationof the African Economic Community. In this regard, you havebefore you various scenarios on the rationalisation of the RECs. Thefinal choice is one of sensitive political decision. We know we cancount on your wisdom, guidance and political courage to move therationalisation agenda forward and help build a strong African Union.74 Part Two