We the Management Development Institutes in Africa;
INSPIRED by the tremendous progress made in regional and continental collaboration in Africa and the positive development results flowing from this collaboration and the objectives and principles laid down in the Constitutive Act of the African Union and desiring to entrench professionalism and ethics in African Public Administration;
RECOGNISE that African countries share a common aspiration to accelerate the socio economic transformation of their countries and the raising of the standards of living of their people;
CONSCIOUS that the public sector is critical to the qualitative and quantitative achievement of the goals of this transformation;
COGNISANT that a competent, ethical and professional public administration is a requirement for the public sector to effectively deliver services, uphold rights, protect citizens and facilitate the participation and contribution of all other sectors;
BEING CENTRAL to the capacity development, effectiveness and sustainability of public services in Africa;
RECOGNISE the importance of leadership and management capacity development to African public administrations leading transformation during a highly complex period in Africa’s history;
CONSIDERING the commonality of Public Administration Management challenges facing the different African countries;
FURTHER RECOGNISING the knowledge, resource and innovation limitations of individual Management Development Institutes and the value in pooling our knowledge and other resources;
RECALLING the watershed Declaration issued by the 5th African Conference of Ministers of Public Service in December 2005 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the African Union Executive Council Decision EX.CL/Dec.243 (VIII) on the Report of the fifth Conference of African Ministers of Public Service adopted in January 2006 in Khartoum, Sudan; and Article 21 of the African Charter on the Values and Principles of Public Service and Administration which calls for the strengthening of Management and Development and Research Institutes.