Of
africa meet in khartoum
AFRICAN UNION
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UNION
AFRICAINE
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UNIÃO
AFRICANA
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STATEMENT BY
H.E. Mrs. Tumusiime
Rhoda Peace,
Commissioner for
Rural Economy and Agriculture,
on the occasion of
the visit by the
Ministerial Delegation of AU Member States and AUC Officials to the
Headquarters of the Arab
Bank for Economic Development
in Africa (BADEA) on issues pertaining to the Pan
African Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Campaign (PATTEC),
Khartoum, Sudan,
15-16 June 2013.
Thank
you Master of Ceremonies,
Good
Morning
The
Director General of BADEA
Honorable
Ministers
Distinguished
Ladies and Gentlemen
I have the
honour and pleasure to be participating in this important meeting.
On behalf
of the Honorable Ministers and the rest of my delegation, I would like to
express our appreciation and thanks to the Government and the People of Sudan
for the warm welcome and great hospitality, we received. The audience accorded
to us by Dr. Nafi of the Office of the President was instructive in forging the ideal of African
Renaissance and Pan Africanism in the spirit that Sudan hosted the 35 African political parties in Khartoum that established a
Council of African Political Parties to
fast-track Africa’s political and economic integration, as the continent
marks 50 years since the founding of the Organization of African Unity,
predecessor to the African Union.
Special thanks go to Dr. Hassan Faisal, Minister of Livestock, Fisheries
and Range Land, who received the delegation on arrival up to the wee hours of
the night and with his team offered the delegation a Nile cruise and a
sumptuous lunch. Shukran to the Honourable Minister and to Sudan Government!
The cruise on the Nile was a stark reminder of our unity and our mission for
integration and sustainable natural resource management. I must also commend
the Government of The Republic of Sudan, the staff and management of the
SAFARI, Sudan Institute for Animal Reproduction Technologies which we also
visited yesterday and we noted it among Arica’s success stories in livestock
development as well as technical cooperation open to other AU Member States.
I would
like, at this juncture, to thank H.E Mr Abdelaziz
Khelef, the Director General of BADEA
for accepting to receive the Delegation, despite his busy schedule. You are
here to receive us and we appreciate that. We consider BADEA as not only a
driver of Africa’s development but also
a key factor in Africa-Arab Cooperation which as you know has been growing from
strength to strength especially with the last Summit of Heads of State in Libya
in 2010 and the preceding Conference of Ministers of Agriculture in Sharm el
Sheikh. In fact, preparations are in advanced stages for the next Ministerial Conference later this
year to be again followed by the Summit of Heads of State and Government on
Africa-Arab Cooperation.
The fact that the
planning of this particular mission to Khartoum has spanned over a relatively
long period is indication of the thoroughness with which all parties committed
attention to it.
I would like, in the
same vein, to express appreciation for the commitments made by Hon. Ministers
from AU Member States, AUC Officials and BADEA which is a demonstration of the
significance of the mission.
We will all of us
present here use the opportunity to enhance partnership arrangements between
AUC, AU MS and BADEA for achievement of our share goal to eradicate Tsetse and
Trypanosomiasis in this region so as to unleash the region’s development
potential.
May I, at this
juncture, emphasize that AUC recognizes the transformative power of
partnerships as they lead to sharing of responsibilities, resources, competences
and benefits.
I take the same
opportunity to brief the DG and Hon. Ministers on the Department of Rural
Economy and Agriculture’s overarching agenda which is to provide leadership in
coordinating continent wide policies, programs and efforts towards addressing
challenges facing the African Agriculture, Food Security, Rural Development and
the Environment Management.
The strategic
intervention areas of the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture which I
head at the AU Commission include animal production and productivity, crop
production and productivity, environment, natural resources management,
including land, and climate change, rural economy and diversification of
livelihood systems.
Top on the agenda is
the need to address food and nutrition security on the African continent which
we consider to be pivotal. It is the basis upon which we can pursue peace and
security, regional integration, human resource development and other ideals.
To achieve the above
mentioned goals, DREA’s activities are carried out by three divisions;
1.
Agriculture and Food Security,
2.
Rural Economy, and ;
3.
Water, Environment and Natural Resources,
as well as six specialized technical offices
spread across the continent:
o
Pan-African Tsetse & Trypanosomiasis Eradication
Campaign (PATTEC); Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
o
Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (IBAR),
Nairobi, Kenya;
o
Inter-African Phyto-sanitary Council (IAPSC), Yaoundé,
Cameroun;
o
Pan-African Veterinary Vaccine Centre (PANVAC), Debre
Zeit, Ethiopia;
o
Semi-Arid Food Grains Research and Development
(SAFGRAD); Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso;
o
Fouta Djallon Highlands Integrated Natural Resources
Management Programme; Conakry, Guinea
We are aware and
grateful that in the past four years, BADEA has supported AU-PATTEC in
activities that have assisted to build capacities of African countries to
implement their Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis (T&T) interventions
We recognize that PATTEC activities contribute
to all the four pillars of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development
Programme (CAADP), that is sustainable
land and water management, be it market access and private sector engagement, e
it combating hunger and malnutrition especially for the vulnerable sections of
the population or e it research and technology generation and dissemination.
The Tsetse and
Trypanosomiasis affected countries some of which are represented here as well
as others have committed own resources and support from partners to the
implementation of the PATTEC initiative as you will hear as we progress in the
discussions, but resources are inadequate owing to the multiplicity of other
competing priority areas in our development realm.
This mission presents
an opportunity to a selected a number of AU MS to highlight the impact of
Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis in their respective territories and plans to address
the scourge against the background of resource limitations and with governments’ and partners’ determination to eradicate this problem.
I wish to once again
express gratitude to BADEA for demonstrating willingness to provide more
support to the PATTEC Initiative, AU-PATTEC Coordination Office and other
development initiatives on the African continent in a true spirit of
constructive partnership.
Further, on behalf of
the Commission of the African Union, I would like to thank BADEA for supporting
other Departments at the AUC including the Department of Economic Affairs
(Capacity building), contributing to the Afro-Arab disaster response fund and
investment promotion held in 2009.
As I indicated
earlier on, DREA has a number of priority areas, but this mission is dedicated
to seeking partnership arrangements to address the T&T problem that is one
of the major constraints in Agriculture and Rural Development in much of
Africa. Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis decimate or weigh down the livestock sector
which is both for food and incomes. Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis also affect
human beings and when people are sick they are unable to be productive and this
undermines economic development including tourism as well. Therefore,
eradicating this scourge will unlock energies and resources towards
agricultural production, productivity, food and nutrition security as well as
poverty eradication.
We look forward to
working closely with BADEA in order to formulate a comprehensive programme on
BADEA’s future sustained support to Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis interventions
including other areas such as Sustainable Land Management (SLM), among others.
On behalf of the
Delegation of the African Union Commission, I wish to register our appreciation,
once again, to the Bank and its leadership for its support to contribute to greater
development of the continent, food security and poverty alleviation on the
African continent especially so in this year of Pan
Africanism and African Renaissance when we commemorate the OAU/AU 50th
Anniversary, and as we also plan to mark the 2014 AU Year of Agriculture and
Food Security.
