/ 31 January 2005

Annan sees 2005 as ‘turning point’ for Africa

This year could be a ”turning point” for Africa, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Sunday at a summit of the 53-member African Union, urging pan-African cooperation to resolve conflicts on the world’s poorest continent.

”Africa has an indispensable contribution to make in ensuring that 2005 becomes a turning point for the continent, the United Nations and the world,” the Ghana-born Annan told the gathering of about 40 heads of state.

”It can bring to the process a deep understanding of the hopes and aspirations not only of Africa but the whole developing world.”

Heads of state — including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, attending his first African summit in a decade — were to have devoted much of the summit to debate rival proposals that would expand Africa’s leadership role at the United Nations, under a prospective revamp of the powerful Security Council.

But after clear disagreements emerged on the issue during three days of preliminary talks by foreign ministers, forum organisers opted to convene a separate meeting.

Representatives from 15 countries will gather in Swaziland from February 20 to 22 to discuss the two options: Whether Africa will pitch for two permanent seats on the council or for four seats with three-year rotating terms, AU officials said.

Working behind closed doors, the heads of state turned their focus to the long-running conflicts that have hamstrung development for the 830-million people on the continent, 300-million of whom live in abject poverty.

”Africa has a disproportionate share of the world’s poor and lags behind other parts of the developing world in achieving the Millennium Development Goals as it continues to suffer the tragic consequences of deadly conflict and poor governance,” Annan said.

Without bold development strategies and the fulfillment of existing financial assistance compacts, few countries on the continent will meet the goals laid out in 2000 to halve the number of people in poverty and improve access to water and sanitation by 2015, he said.

”If security does not improve, development is impossible,” said AU commissioner Alpha Oumar Konare in his keynote address.

Eradicating HIV/Aids and other diseases such as polio and malaria also figures on the agenda of the fourth summit of the body created in 2001 to replace the unwieldy and ineffective Organisation of African Unity.

HIV/Aids kills about 6 000 people per day on the continent and has reduced the average life expectancy to 40 years in nine African countries. The figures for malaria, and polio — virtually eradicated in the rest of the world — are equally sobering.

”The poverty and infections diseases such as Aids which affect so many millions every year in Africa are among the gravest threats to international peace and security,” Annan said.

The heads of state grappled with the problems gripping Sudan, as they have for more than two decades. Although the conflict between northern and southern Sudan appears to have been resolved, a second war has devastated the country’s western Darfur region for the past two years, claiming about 70 000 lives and causing an exodus of 1,6-million people in the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

The rebuilding of post-anarchic Somalia, instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo more than two years since a peace pact was signed to end five years of civil war, and restive Burundi were also key topics of discussion.

”Let us show to the world that we can really tackle and solve African issues,” Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, chairperons of the AU, said in his keynote speech.

Côte d’Ivoire’s two years of crisis again took centre stage at the AU meeting, following an inconclusive result from the January 11 meeting in the Gabon capital Libreville of the body’s Peace and Security Council.

Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo and the AU-appointed mediator to the West African state, South African President Thabo Mbeki, held early morning talks and were expected to meet again before the summit wrapped up on Monday.

”Other heads of state are trying to soften the ground for the mediation so that the options will be clearly presented to Gbagbo,” a UN official said on condition of anonymity.

”This is really a last chance for Ivory Coast, because they have exhausted all of their options, and the heads of state are growing tired of this.”

The summit opened with a minute of silence to remember the more than 280 000 victims of the December 26 earthquake and tsunami disaster, which claimed about 300 lives in the Horn of Africa state of Somalia. – Sapa-AFP