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| 2006 SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government
Address By
Abdoulie Janneh Your Majesty, King Letsie the Third, of the Kingdom of Lesotho ; I would like to start by thanking King Letsie the Third, the Government and the people of the Kingdom of Lesotho for hosting this Summit and for the generous hospitality accorded me and my delegation. I also want to thank Dr. Tomaz Salomao, the Executive Secretary of SADC, for inviting me to the Summit and presenting me with an opportunity to address this distinguished assembly. Excellencies We are gathered here today in furtherance of the SADC vision of a regional community that will ensure economic well-being, improved standards of living, freedom, social justice, peace and security for the peoples of Southern Africa . This is a lofty vision that the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) solidly identifies with. As part of your overall strategy for realizing this great vision, you have adopted the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan , which, when combined with the Strategic Indicative Plan for the Organ on Politics, provides a solid framework for the implementation of the development agenda of the Community. Your goal is consistent with the African Union 's vision of continental integration and in synergy with ECA's focus on facilitating policy harmonization for regional integration. It is a commendable foresight. Excellencies, ECA would like to join all others in congratulating the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo for the very successful just concluded election, which is an important milestone in the realization of peace and stability in the subregion. Allow me your Excellencies to also congratulate you as the SADC block for your collective effort to ensure a peaceful solution. Let me particularly thank President Thabo Mbeki for his sustained support to the process of national reconciliation and the strengthening of national institutions in the Congo . This positive development could not have happened at a better time in creating an environment to enable the subregion to now direct its resource and energy in addressing the national, regional and global development agenda. . Excellencies Against this background, we are meeting here at a time when the Doha Round of talks have broken down, shattering in its wake the hopes and dreams of a transformed multilateral trading architecture for Africa. When the negotiations began five years ago with record participation of African countries, we had hoped that Doha would erase the disappointments associated with the Uruguay Rounds in a new era of fairness. In Doha , African countries had expected a leveled playing field and real solutions to the plight of African farmers, who have been suffering from the effects of subsidies given to their counterparts in the rich nations. We were praying for a fair multilateral system where African countries could trade their ways out of poverty. Excellencies We are disappointed with the Doha breakdown; but let us not be heartbroken. Perhaps we can use this status of stalemate and minimal progress to reflect on the need to increase intra-African trade for sustainable development. If other countries are reluctant to open up their markets to Africa , let us do it for ourselves. Let neighbouring countries buy more from and sell more to each other. If our RECs remove their respective internal trade barriers, rationalize their operations and dismantle barriers that prevent one REC from trading with another, then they would have made a giant leap in the direction of an African Economic Community. And initiatives such as Doha would no longer determine our development future. This is why in repositio ning ECA; we have made regional integration one of its two key pillars, and the RECs its very foundation. Some of our regional offices are co-located with the operational headquarters of the RECs. Where this is not the case, we intend to a Senior Adviser to serve as ECA liaison. In this regard, I am happy to inform you that ECA proposed sending a Senior Adviser to Gaborone , to serve as our liaison with SADC and NEPAD Secretariat. That way, we will be able to work more closely with you on a day-to-day basis and respond more quickly to your immediate needs and challenges including capacity building. The renewed ECA will, more vigorously, focus on the specific needs of the RECs through a region-specific, multi-year partnership strategy with clear milestones. We will tangibly increase our technical support to the RECs and member States by increasing the technical capacities of our regional offices and substantially increasing their operational budgets. We will make special efforts to ensure that our sub-regional work programme is directly relevant to the priorities of the RECs. I believe that this focus will deepen our existing collaboration with SADC, especially in the development of policy frameworks and programmes for transport, ICT, mining, energy, gender, labour, agriculture, land tenure systems, HIV/AIDS and corporate governance. I would like to recall, with satisfaction, our collaboration with SADC in transit transport facilitation, road safety, implementation of the Yamoussukro Decision on air transport liberalization, and air transport communications and navigation systems. We also initiated the development of ICT policies in SADC member States and assisted in implementing the SADC protocols on mining and energy by developing frameworks for harmonizing policies in these sectors. In March 2003, ECA and SADC agreed to jointly address gender issues in the sub-region in order to avoid duplication of efforts and dissipation of resources. Since then, we have contributed substantively to various SADC initiatives on capacity building for national gender machineries and parliamentarians in the SADC region. We also facilitated the revision of the SADC HIV/AIDS framework to apply a gender-response approach, which was adopted by the SADC Summit in August 2003. I am glad that this Summit is taking place in Lesotho , where ECA has been offering various technical services, especially with regards to the development of the Kingdom's Science and Technology policy. We have rendered similar services to many other countries in the SADC region, including Botswana , South Africa , Namibia , Mozambique , Angola and Swaziland and will extend the services to other countries upon request. Excellencies Following our multi-year study of the impacts of HIV/AIDS on governance in Africa, we have been working, in partnership with the World Health Organization and the World Bank, on what it takes to accelerate HIV treatment in Africa, using three pilot countries – Mozambique, Ghana and Burkina Faso. We are also giving serious thoughts to the question of long-term health financing with a continuation strategy so that our vast populations infected with HIV can have the benefit of treatment for as long as they need it. Excellencies Because of the implication of land for food security, housing, urban development and peace, ECA is collaborating with the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank, and the RECs, on an ambitious project to develop a Pan-African Framework for Land Policy. In the near future, we will be seeking broad stakeholder participation through sub-regional workshops and consultations. In this regard, I would like to acknowledge the support of our development partners and in particular the collaboration between ECA and the SADC Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Directorate in facilitating Southern Africa 's participation in this project. We are also building a facility, the African Centre for Statistics, to upscale our statistical capacity to better assist member States with evidence-based planning, sound decision making, and identification of best courses of action in addressing problems. As you know, Excellencies, these elements are essential for effective delivery of basic services, and are indispensable for accountability and transparency. They are also essential for providing a sound basis for the design, management, monitoring, and evaluation of national policy frameworks such as the Poverty Reduction Strategies and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They, therefore, are part of the enabling environment for development. The encouragement of the group of countries that constituted themselves into “Friends of ECA” contributed to the process of re-launching statistics as an important development requirement. Several SADC countries were member of the group. Excellencies At the margins of the Banjul AU Summit, I held bilateral discussions with the Chief Executives of NEPAD and some of the RECs on how to strengthen collaboration and partnership between ECA and their respective institutions. Subsequent to this meeting, a NEPAD delegation, led by the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, visited Addis Ababa to discuss and prepare the framework for collaboration between NEPAD and ECA, drawing on each institution's comparative advantage in the implementation of the NEPAD agenda. A formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two institutions is being drawn up to be signed by the Chief Executive of the NEPAD Secretariat and myself in the next few weeks. These are initiatives we hope to build on in addressing the many development challenges facing our continent. In the case of SADC, our sub-regional office in Lusaka is preparing a proposal on a Cooperation Agreement, based on the outcomes of your Consultative Meeting in Windhoek, and the Integrated Committee of Ministers Meeting in Johannesburg this year. The Agreement will specify areas for cooperation, incorporating regional integration, capacity building and human resources development, as well as resource mobilization for regional multi-sectoral projects and programmes. The modalities for developing the collaboration will include joint missions, dialogue, research, training initiatives and joint mobilization of resources for programs in SADC member States. I have agreed with the Executive Secretary of SADC to send a delegation of senior ECA officials immediately after this Summit , to the SADC Secretariat to discuss the operationalization and finalization of this agreement, which could form the basis for a Memorandum of Understanding between our two institutions. In this context, I would like to appeal for an enhanced participation and leadership of SADC in the deliberations of ECA's Intergovernmental Committee of Experts, which, as you know, is drawn from your various government institutions. We should exploit this forum fully as an instrument for policy dialogue in defining the priorities and needs of the subregion. Excellencies Your deliberations at this Summit are vital to the advancement of the development agenda in the SADC region, in particular your decision to establish a Science, Technology and Innovation Unit as a catalyst for sustainable development may be a beacon for the rest of Africa. ECA's participation at this Summit has provided us with a deeper perspective of the regional integration challenges and special needs facing the subregion. In this regard, I want to assure you that ECA will continue to work diligently, in close collaboration with the African Union, the African Development Bank and other partners, to translate your vision of integrating Africa into a strong competitive continent, into reality. Again, I thank you for this opportunity and bring you warm greetings from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who sends his best wishes for a fruitful and successful Summit . |