Articles
Speech of H.E. Ambassador Mona Omar
Meeting of the Ambassadors of African Countries
Meeting of the Ambassadors of African Countries
Cairo – 27/2/2012
Welcome note by H.E. Ambassador Mona Omar-Assistant of the Foreign Affaires Minister for the African Affairs and African Union
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Your Excellency Mr. Nouri Abdul Razzak
Secretary General and Charge D'affaire of the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization,
Your Excellency Dr. Helmy Al Hadidy
President of the Egyptian Committee of the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization
Your Excellency Ambassador Aron Maboyi Ncube
Ambassador of Zimbabwe and Dean of the African Ambassadors in Egypt,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to express my utmost honor to be here today between our African fellow brothers in the headquarter of the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization. This Organization was the right arm of the popular movements of our African leaders in fighting colonialism and establishing the non alignment movement.
This Organization, as early mentioned by the secretary general, succeeded in helping our people to fight colonialism, neo-colonialism and to put an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa, maintaining the independence of various African states.
Excellencies,
I would like to show my deep appreciation to the secretary general of the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization to hold this meeting with the African ambassadors accredited in Egypt, in order to think closely together about how to revitalize the role of this organization in this critical time of our history to achieve the goal of our countries in being strong emerging economies away from any Western domination.
The proposal submitted by the organization to the representatives of the African countries, the African organizations of civil society and the African intellectuals aims at exchanging views about how to effectively deal with the different challenges that our continent is facing. We all convene here with the spirit to learn from each other and to comply with the demands of the donors and stakeholders to integrate the civil society in the development process in our Continent.
Excellencies,
In this context, I would like to mention that Egypt has its own national committee associated in the organization. The committee is composed of intellectuals, former governmental officials as well as representatives of the civil society. This committee discusses the challenges facing our country and how to deal with them efficiently. After the revolution of the 25th of January, and the major role played in it by our civil society organizations, social movements and intellectuals, this committee needs to be given utmost attention due to its increasing timely importance.
The initiative of the AAPSO to encourage the African countries to create their own national committees, comply with the new trend in all our countries to let civil society carries its responsibility side by side with the government to achieve sustainable development. In addition, this initiative respects the confidentiality of every state and its own discretion in dealing with the various challenges it faces.
It is worth mentioning that the affiliation of the different national committees in the AAPSO, offers a good opportunity to organize a meeting under the auspices of the organization to the different national committees to share and exchange their experiences in combating the different challenges in the areas of peace and security, democracy and good governance, sustainable economic development, poverty reduction, climate change and capacity building.
We also seize this opportunity to reiterate Egypt’s long-standing readiness to assist and cooperate with our African brothers both on bilateral bases and within the Afro-Asian peoples solidarity organization itself.
I would like in conclusion, to once again express the gratitude of the government of Egypt and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to all present audience and to wish for this meeting every success in its deliberation and endeavors.
Thank you.
