Meeting of the Ambassadors of African Countries
Meeting of the Ambassadors of African Countries
Cairo – 27/2/2012
Speech of Mr. Nouri Abdul Razzak
Acting President and Secretary General of AAPSO
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Your Excellency Ambassador / Mona Amer – Representative of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt,
Your Excellency Ambassador of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Dean of the African Diplomatic Corp,
Mr. Representative of His Excellency Secretary General of the league of Arab States,
Your Excellencies Ambassadors and Representatives,
Masters and friends,
I would like to express my thanks for responding to this joint invitation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt and the Afro-Asian Solidarity Organization. In this respect, I do care to extend a special thanks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt for bearing troubles of preparing to this meeting and making it successful. Such a meeting may be a one of the rare moments expressing the cooperation of governmental diplomacy with public diplomacy. Our meeting puts things in the right path which determined by the common wish and responsibility in activating the public opinion together with governmental activity to face the challenges that encounter our continent.
Solidarity Organization, since it has been founded, adopted the strife of most the African countries which were in the phase of liberation from colony in order to gain their political independence. Their offices and leaderships were here with us in Cairo. This building witnessed various African leaders working under the leadership of the Solidarity Organization and the majority of the African leaderships in pro independence phase. They were working together side by side with the permanent secretariat. I will not go into details of history, but I must say that Egypt under the leadership of the late President Gamal Abdul Naser adopted our organization on its land since 54 years as well as the African strife in the north and the south of the Sahara to attain independence and for the prosperity of Africa.
In this context, I would like to mention that the Solidarity Organization, since its establishment convened eight conferences, six in Africa, three in north Sahara and three in South Sahara.
Africa was always the focus concern of Afro-Asian solidarity movement. We all know historical developments witnessed by the world and Africa since independence phase. In the stage of economic independence and facing the new colony, Africa encountered problems of development and economic independence determined by the First African Summit held in Cairo in 1964. Africa entered the problems of territorial and regional disputes and disagreements. The Organization of African Unity and the African Union exerted continuous efforts to solve these disputes and disagreements. After globalization, with all its momentum entered with the information and communication revolution, the world changed and Africa was affected by these accelerated developments accompanied by thoughts , believes and systems.
The challenges facing the African continent are so much and saturated and need concentrated efforts to defeat them. I am not here to evaluate the role of the African Union, the economic African groupings and others as COMESA and SADC which we hope its role to be enhanced. However, I would like to concentrate on the role of the public diplomacy with its meaning of the contribution of NGOs and civil community organizations in supporting developmental programs of African countries to surpass great obstacles as poverty, illness, debts, immigration, environmental disorder, desertification, education and unemployment. All are issues that face our continent and they are getting complex every day. We all know that many organizations with humanitarian aspects perform projects in the continent and activate mobilized work. From our part we suggest that this meeting should conclude a draft or a mechanism that enables our organization to introduce more effective support to solve the problems of the continent.
We tried and are trying to obtain the position of observer in the African Union. But we did not succeed up till now, although we enjoy this characteristic in the non – alignment movement and in the UN and its specialized agencies. Awareness of public opinion is a very important issue in mobilization and positive work to surpass the challenges.
The economic crisis overlooks the entire world even the civilized countries as USA and Western Europe have been affected by this crises either in 2008 or the recent crises. Africa, although its wealth and potentials is still captivated by the global economic that dominates its economies and puts hurdles in front of its independent economic development. Important and effective phenomena appeared in the international activity which is convening international popular conferences side by side with the UN conferences. These conferences have an effective voice that may affect formal conferences. In this meeting I call the Ambassadors to enhance our call through supporting the principle of the public diplomacy as an integrating activity and supporting the governmental one.
Finally, a reiterate the complete commitment of the Solidarity Organization in supporting the African countries for settlement and economic progress and solving various complicated problems facing African communities.
We hope that rational governance in Africa and North and South Sahara will enable the African people to begin the first step in the ladder progress, prosperity, science and knowledge.
Thanks