The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) was established in 1958 and serves 53 Member States which are organised in five sub regions: North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa.

In order to better serve its African Member States, the Economic Commission for Africa has opened, in 1963, a representation in each one of the five sub regions. Since then, to better reflect the changes introduced in the programme functions, these representations were successively renamed: Multinational Programming and Operational Centres (MULPOCs) in 1979; Sub-regional Development Centres (SRDC-NA) in 1997; and ECA Offices in 2002.
The ECA Office for North Africa is located in Rabat, Morocco, and serves seven Member States: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia, totalling 9.3 million square km2 and over 175 millions inhabitants. Its clients are Governments, Sub - regional organizations, research institutions and academia, private sector organizations, and non-governmental organizations.

The primary function of the ECA Office for North Africa is to promote regional co-operation and integration by providing effective technical support to collective approaches in tackling common development problems at the sub-regional level. It also facilitates networking and information exchange among development actors in North Africa as well as provide a link between these actors and ECA, thereby helping disseminate ECA's policy recommendations and technical publications.

The ECA Office for North Africa includes a Director and a team of experts and, when necessary, calls on the expertise of ECA Divisions. The decision making body of the Office is the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE).