When the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission on Africa "KY" Amaoko dimmed the lights and switched on the power point slides a few minutes into his opening address we knew we were in for a different kind of conference.

Most UN staff panic when they are told they have to find an overhead projector, let alone when the most senior UN bureaucrat announces that he doesn't intend to read from a ponderous speech. "KY", as the new broom in the ECA is otherwise known, set the tone for the rest of the proceedings which saw a sea change in approach to conferencing that augurs well for the post Beijing initiatives.

Countries were asked to prepare their reports well in advance: 43 out of 53 did so. This gave the African Centre for Women a chance to synthesize the inputs into one report, so that we did not have to listen to individual countries droning on about their achievements. Of course, the irresistible temptation by country delegates to do so surfaced often in the workshops. But skilled chairing and facilitation kept the discussions on course.

In addition to the synthesis, country reports were analyzed thematically by independent consultants who were instructed to pull out the achievements, constraints and recommendations according to the twelve areas of concern. Most unusually for a UN conference, these themes were further interrogated in workshops attended by experts, government and NGO representatives, tasked with answering a focused set of questions. Apart from the need by facilitators to declare from time to time that the workshops were for working and not for shopping, they appear to have achieved the objective of "an in depth analysis."

The fact that NGOs attended as full delegates for the first time was key to the process. As one NGO representative put it, governments and NGOs talked "with each other, rather than at each other." NGOs also brought their special gift of encouraging participation, debate and interaction in a way that can only lead to more creative solutions.

Accountability was the underlying theme: governments, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations all accounted in their written reports for what they are doing. And the assessments offered by independent consultants pre-empted some of the inevitable grand standing. A victory, as one participant commented, for a more feminine approach to conferencing that emphasizes substance over style; and outcomes over fancy speeches.

From Addis Ababa, Africa will carry away a Regional Plan of Action that contains- in the words of the AWC - "adjustment strategies to accelerate the implementation of the Platform for Action during the remaining half of the decade"; in other words a more focused shopping list. Africa will also now feed its inputs into the global processes as follows:

Feb/March: Prepcom for the Beijing + Five Review
March: Meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women
10-15 May: Third Global Women Entrepreneurs Trade Fair and Investment Forum in Florida being co- organized by the Association of African Women Entrepreneurs (AFWE) who are suggesting that the forum be used to launch the Africa NGO report
June: Global Mid Term Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing + Five) at United Nations New York headquarters
September: Millennium Summit

May the breath of fresh air experienced at Addis Ababa sweep us forward in the new millennium.