Topic: 10.10.2005

Special Session

Oldřich Černý
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me now to introduce to you the Chairman of the next panel which is the panel on Africa. Mr Sasakawa is the Chairman of the Board of the Nippon Foundation, he is a renowned Japanese philanthropist and some of you know, together with Elie Wiesel and Václav Havel, he is one of the founding fathers of the Forum 2000. Now Mr Sasakawa has been very much involved in Africa. For over 20 years, he was involved in many projects involving food, hunger, public health and also one of his major concerns was his work on the eradication of leprosy. He was recently appointed WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. He has visited Africa countless times and he was involved in Africa many, many years before it became such a hot topic as it is today. Mr Sasakawa, I am glad that you are here with us today and you are willing to share your vast volume of experience in this particular field. Mr Sasakawa, the floor is yours.
Yohei Sasakawa
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today for this special session on Africa. Through my work at the foundation tackling such issues as agriculture and the public health I have visited more than 20 countries in Africa in the past 20 years. I have gained opportunities to observe actual situations. Africa has become a special and most intimate place for me. Since the second half of the 20th century, the international community and especially aid organisations have made exhaustive efforts to support the development of African nations. Their work has been conducted under such banners as “The Dawning (inarticulate) of the African Age.” People engaged in African aid have always worked out new strategies and worked diligently toward a new day. I believe that the efforts of these people, built up over time, have proven to be a great asset to the solving of Africa’s problems. In spite of the continued effort, however, Africa today is still grappling with many problems such as poverty, hunger, illness, a lack of infrastructure and civil wars. It will remain difficult for some time for Africa to solve these problems alone. Africa still requires aid and the international community is constructing plans to deal with this need. At present, we are witnessing a positive new trend in the efforts made by developed countries and international organisations such as debt reduction and an increase in ODA toward developing nations. There is no doubt that these measures will become a tailwind to enhance development and the poverty alleviation efforts by African nations. However, I’d like to ask frankly to those of you who are directly involved in African support one question. Do you sometimes feel, no matter how much you do, Africa will never change or there is no hope for Africa? To those who feel this way, I only have to say that if we take such a pessimistic attitude, we will never be able to truly support Africa effectively. But I am optimistic about the future of Africa. I find my hope in the strong will and eagerness on the part of the African people to improve their situation by their own efforts. This is something that I felt again and again during my association with the African people. For the past twenty years, I have worked in African agriculture in many Sub-Saharan countries. I have tried to help those who produce food at the subsistence level to achieve self-sufficiency. The majority of people living in African farming villages simply work to produce enough food for day-to-day subsistence. It is amazing how much farmers can increase food production by adding a little modern knowledge and technology to traditional small-scale farming methods. Farmers can stand on their own feet with confidence with such knowledge and technology. Without exception, all people who participated in our programme have been able to achieve small success through their own efforts. Africa has sometimes been depicted negatively as a land of hunger, poverty, war and disease. But this is only one aspect of the continent. African people have their own dreams and work hard to realise them. They have joyful smiles on their faces. Those of us working in the African department in both the public and the private sectors must think seriously about how we can help these people achieve their dreams. In order to help these people realise their dreams, we must deal with the many problems that Africa is grappling, with new approaches. If things did not work as we expected, we must ask ourselves what we have done. First, we are working for Africa in the international organisations, governments, and NGOs. They seriously review why things did not work successfully. Secondly, we must build partnership among international organisations, respective governments and NGOs. For this, the important things are the sharing of knowledge and information based on mutual trust and respect, and mutual collaboration and integrated efforts. Unfortunately, to date this kind of collaboration among different actors has not functioned sufficiently. It is crucial to create the new framework or mechanism in which these actors share knowledge and experiences in order to achieve common goals. Today, African people recognise the need for self-help and have a strong will to realise it. It is our responsibility to exercise the solidarity necessary to fully build on this will. Now, without further delay, I’d like to introduce our guest speakers. First, on our list is Professor Hiroyuki Ishi, professor of Hokkaido University in Japan. Professor Ishi most recently served as Japanese Ambassador to Zambia. Following Professor Ishi, we will hear from Mr Mats Karlsson. Mr Karlsson is an economist and Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone at the World Bank. Mr Petr Kolář is the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. He served as director of the third territorial department, ambassador to Sweden and ambassador to Ireland. Our last speaker is Mr Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, an independent Consultant on Preventive Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation from Ghana. Following their comments, if we have time, I’ll open the floor for questions. Now I would like to ask Professor Ishi to begin his address.
Hiroyuki Ishi
Thank you, Chairman, and all participants to adopt the Africa issue to today’s agenda. That I believe is one of the most serious issues in this global co-existence. Simply because there is some part of the world now in a crisis of their existence. The discussion of Sub-Saharan African aid at the summit meeting held in July at Gleneagles clearly underscores the growing interest among the international community on how to provide support to Africa. I have been involved in African aid and several relief projects for over 30 years. Speaking from my personal experience, I would like to share my thoughts with you on African aid. In those 30 years that vast allotments of the budget advance as well as countless exports were sent to Africa, the aid programme had a poor performance rate. From my own comparisons, I would say that, of all our international projects that were turned over to local government, the chance of a project being viable after five years was less than half. Some countries, none. A textbook case is the digging of wells. When the well required repairs, the spare parts were not easily available. The majority of wells were not repaired and left idle. The main reason for this failure was lack of budget funds and human resources. The African countries are like a fragile instrument forced to perform on too many aid projects running the gamut from infrastructure to healthcare to education. Strung too tight, the programs meant to bolster Africa failed to realise their intended objectives. The United Nations human development index that grades countries on their national wealth, civic stability and general quality of life has shown that despite 40 years of African aid efforts, the African continent may contain the largest number of the lowest achieving nations with the lowest incomes, and the highest level of poverty and disease on earth. There are not enough words to convey that the most urgent aid to give Africa is to save its children. These children, the very future of Africa, are disappearing before our eyes from the face of Africa. AIDS has hit African children harder than any other place on earth. At the end of 2003, 25 million Africans were HIV-infected. This means that two-thirds of all those infected with HIV in the whole world are in Africa. Every day in Africa, 8000 people become infected with HIV. Every day 6000 perish from AIDS. In the last 20 years, more than 20 million died from HIV/AIDS. The picture becomes worse. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS – this is UNAIDS – states that there are 11 million African children under the age of 15 who have lost at least one parent from AIDS. I’ll repeat it – 11 million orphans in Africa. 80% of the orphans in the world are now in Sub-Saharan Africa. Please imagine if the entire population of the Czech Republic was populated by AIDS orphans. The suffering of AIDS does not end with the deaths of the parents, but it is passed on to their orphaned children. Losing a parent means either insufficient food or not enough money to attend school. Underlying this tragedy, is the fact that the largest segment of AIDS patients makes up the key working force of their society. Unabated, it is estimated that there will be more than 20 million AIDS orphans by the year 2010. The United Nations estimates that in the 12 African nations seriously affected by HIV epidemics, 15% of all children will become AIDS orphans in 2010. Put simply, in less than a generation, Africa will become a continent of orphans. I have visited many hostels in Africa, but the most heartbreaking scene I found was in the HIV baby ward. African mothers spread the deadly virus to their babies during pregnancy, childbirth and lactation. The babies lie in the bed alone waiting to die with no one to care for them because their mothers have already died. When these babies die, too often the mortuary has no space for them and the tiny corpses are just left to decompose. Parents infected with HIV/AIDS become weak, unable to work with the medical costs driving them further into poverty. Their children are helpless. Forced to bear the loss of their parents, the disintegration of family life, forced to leave school and bid farewell to any remnant of a normal childhood. Traditionally, it was the role of the grandparents and the family kin to raise orphans. With the onslaught of AIDS, this extended family system has become overburdened and the family simply are unable to take them in. Now they have nowhere to go and they become homeless street children. UNICEF estimates that there are more than 10 million street children in Africa. AIDS is destroying the African society in the south of Africa. Many young farmers are dying from AIDS, Agricultural yields plummet, spawning famine. Schoolteachers have not been spared and, with fewer teachers, the school system is failing. In Zambia, where I used to work, 2000 teachers or 5% of their teaching force die every year from AIDS. Armies have not been spared by AIDS either. The international labour organisation estimated that in Africa 48 million children between the age of 5 and 14 are forced to work fulltime. This means that 30% of all the children in Africa are working fulltime. Of the children, two million are engaged at work in the worst form of child labour, which I would define as slaves, child soldiers, in the sex trafficking industry, sold by parents or family as bonded labour to pay off debts. Homeless children are abducted off the streets as well as refugee children. And the children of poverty stricken farmers keep feeding them maggots. These children work in hazardous conditions; they work in mines, working with chemicals, pesticide, working with dangerous machinery or are forced into debt bondage or other forms of slavery, prostitution or are abducted into serving armies. I met in Africa the youngest prostitute – we say now a sex worker – she was an eight-year-old girl. Child labour is cheap and expendable and often the child labourers are horrified into obedience. Thousands of children die from exposure to agricultural chemicals or hard labour under severe conditions. Unable to go to school, they are left with few alternatives to eke out an existence, let alone escape poverty. A child soldier is exposed to the worst danger and the most horrific suffering, both physical and psychological. According to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (inarticulate) in 13 African countries, some 10,000 children under the age of 18 are actively fighting, and the soldier with a gun and armed (inarticulate) The child soldier is a relatively new phenomenon born after the end of the Cold War when civil conflicts intensified all over Africa. As guerrilla wars become prolonged both sides use children to replenish their ranks, often recruited or abducted to join their armies – some under 10 years of age. They are placed in the line of fire, witnessing and taking part in unbelievable acts of violence. Not properly trained, physically immature, not resistant to disease and the terrible living conditions, they suffer higher casualty rates than their adult counterparts. But armies have learned that children are cheap and expendable and they are easily brutalised into fearless killing and unquestionable obedience. They are physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, making them easy targets for brainwashing. Only a child soldier would agree to serve as human detector! You understand, a human detector” To blend into the general populace, act as a spy, send messages. The tragedy of the child soldier is that the child soldier is left physically disabled, psychologically traumatized, frequently denied an education or opportunity to learn civilian job skills. Or he or she may never find a way to join peaceful society. We have a duty to foster the global society that will nurture the safeguards of African children. We must make a society that can contribute to rebuilding their society. For example, when I was ambassador to Zambia, I created a day-care centre where orphans and street children could go and receive training. Children grew maize in the backyard, and they learned how to sew, do carpentry, pottery and saw that they could make a living. With the cooperation of local NGOs, this project had a positive result. Up to now, amid famine, poverty, civil wars and AIDS epidemics, solving the plight of the African children has not been tenable. But we must rekindle the fires of humankind to create a living ethical and modern code of behaviour so that these children are given the seed of a future to create a new and healthier society. Unless we do, there will be no new life to sustain Africa and, with it, no children and no future in Africa. Thank you for your attention.
Yohei Sasakawa
Thank you, Professor Ishi. Mr Karlsson, please…
Mats Karlsson
We must pay attention to Africa. And I would like to thank you, Mr Chairman, and Forum 2000, and all of you who are here for this hour for the attention you pay to Africa. We must listen most of all to what Africans are telling us. We are not good at listening to what Africans are telling us. We, most of the time, hear the stories about what is bad in Africa and how Africans are victims. Those stories are very often true, but the most important thing is to listen to the Africans who want to change their own environment. I’ve worked for 20 years professionally with Africa and, as true as I am sitting in this room, I have gotten more from them than I can possibly ever in my profession have contributed. We have to turn the tables on our relationships with Africa. We can never help Africa by looking at Africa as victims. We do not need to give them ethical codes. They know what is right and wrong. We need a much better dialogue with Africa and to come together and do with Africans exactly that which we know is right in our own countries and elsewhere. Africa will not develop differently and beat poverty differently than did my own country Sweden, when we were a dirt-poor country a hundred years ago. Or than did Asia when it was dirt-poor. This is no mystery. We just need to do it. We need to get together and do it concertedly with high volumes and big scale for 20 years and Africa will be a different partner to all of us. In the few roundtable minutes at my disposal, let me do a very quick “Where are we, where do we want to go, and how shall we get there?” Everyone gets through media the troubles in Africa, and I would highlight that a third of the African population lives in countries directly or indirectly affected by conflict. But the most important message is that Africa is transforming. Some 16 countries in Africa have growth rates of around 5% or more and have had it for 10 years. That’s enough of a growth rate to transform a country in a generation. In 1960 Africa had the same per capita income as perhaps Korea and other countries in Asia. Within a generation or two, they transformed. We know a lot of why this did not happen in Africa. But the positive side of that story is that it can happen in Africa, too. In a generation or two, if we just engage in the proper way. And I would put it to you that it is happening in a number of countries. Not everywhere and not necessarily sustainable yet, but things are changing. In the country I happen to live in now – Ghana – telecommunications telephony has reached 12% of the population within three years because they did some basic things right. That’s up from 3% just three years ago. Can you imagine the transformational power of a tripling of the availability of mobile telephones in a country in three years? The access to each other, the quality of dialogue you can create? The country has had four elections on the basis of a democracy. The openness and accountability and leadership that can come out of that is very different from the past. And even on conflict, though we are very well aware of the eruption of conflicts in Africa, if we look back at the last 10-20 years with all the tragedies that have been playing out there, we have put the Apartheid struggle behind us in South Africa, after the huge wars of central Africa erupted they have been put under control. And now just recently in Sudan, we had an agreement after 40 years of conflict. It is possible there to change things as well, even though we know by history that half of the conflicts in Africa come back to haunt us if we don’t do it right. So can we put a strategy in place? Do we know where to go? Well this year has actually been an extraordinary year vis-a-vis Africa, because the attention to it has risen. Wherever you want to start, I want to put the point of departure when the African Union was formed and the NEPAD programme – the New Partnership for African Development – was put in place a few years ago. Now, recently we’ve seen the Commission for Africa come out with its report, the Millennium Review, which focused a lot on Africa, the G8 summit in Gleneagles and, of course, the UN Summit in New York just a few weeks ago, and the World Bank/IMF meetings in Washington. They are all basically aligned. This is not a mystery. We know what we want to do; the strategy is there. But most importantly we need not the global strategies but the national strategies. The strategies within countries born out of dialogue internally, reflecting choices on what’s more important, what’s less important. Such national development strategies are now commonplace in Africa. And they can be put to work. And even on conflict, which is the biggest risk. I would put it to you that we know what to do. Gareth Evans this morning was as explicit and as clear as anyone I’ve ever heard – that dealing with conflict is no mystery and not a lose game. The instruments are there and we need to apply them. The only thing that I’d perhaps like to augment what Gareth said this morning is that we need an extra focus on economic governance – the core economic management tools in a government. Because we know that conflict is perpetuated by two things: huge inequalities and corruption. And corruption is rooted in the mismanagement of natural resources. These are the things that lead to the constant exploitation of Africa. And we need much stronger tools to prevent these resources being misused by African elites and by international elites. And that’s why anti-corruption and economic governance tools at the very centre of public management is perhaps the most neglected element of conflict prevention and conflict management. So if we understand the situation, and are able globally and nationally to articulate our strategy and where to go, how do we get there? What’s most important? What do we do first? I’ll put it to you that they are encompassed in three elements and this is what African nations are focusing on today. The first is about open and accountable government nurturing democratic culture, democracy if you will. And Mike Moore made that point so eloquently last night and it’s come out very strongly during our dialogue here. But democracy is not just a form. Democracy is about content. Democracy is about what at the very core? It’s about the power over the public purse. How is your national budget being managed? How are you using you national resources? So it’s about budgeting, everyday boring stuff about public financial management, procurement, audit – these central things that a minister of finance, like Anwar Ibrahim was, will know everything about. That is the core of democratic reality. Dialogue, yes, but dialogue about what? And so managing budgets are the most important thing in my view. Secondly, growth –we know we need to get to higher levels of growth; even 5% growth is not enough. 7% or something like that would really transform things. And we know we need to move on agriculture, we need to move on infrastructure, competitiveness of private firms. Unless these things come together and create jobs, we will not make a difference. And thirdly, it’s about human development, education and health. I hardly need to say it, but I do want to say that equity is a more important issue than we have perhaps realised. For sustainability of economic transformation, you need equity, and I would please – and I’ll only do this little pitch for my own institution – please have a look at the World Bank World Development Report of this year, which is focused on equity. So these are the three most important things in my view: Managing the budget, an economic policy for jobs, and a focus on equity. Now how can we support them? Four things: First of all, with higher aid levels. You cannot get anything for nothing. We must put up the money and increase the development assistance available. But it’s already been committed to now in this extraordinary past year that we have had. That aid to Africa should double from 25 billion to 50 billion a year. It must happen. The commitments are there and we cannot do it without money. Secondly, debt. We’ve talked about it for years. Now the commitments are there and we shall deliver on a 100% debt relief for the poorest countries. Third is trade. And I hesitate to speak to it because Mike Moore is here and I should probably have put it first. But if you want to be an independent sovereign person, you want to earn your own money and you can only do it if you want to engage in trade. And we face in December in Hong Kong the summit towards which Mike worked for so strongly for years – the summit on world trade. Unless we deliver change there, nothing will happen. And I know that, you know, you from Japan – and I know that the European Union is here as well and America – the three big powers have to come together and make a big compact that it is not in their interest not to create an environment for particularly Africa, but for all the developing world. Unless we do that all our words will be for nothing. And I appeal to you all to make the Hong December meeting of the World Trade Organisation a transformational summit. It is absolutely unacceptable to stay with the levels of protection and subsidies that prevent the developing world from earning its own keep. Fourthly, foreign direct investment and Africa can make it there just like everyone else when they do follow through on their own internal reforms. So let me wind up there. There is in Africa a new generation that is trying to change the wrong choices. There is a possibility to put together a package of trade, investment, aid and debt relief to support them. And we can make it work for them just like elsewhere in the world. What are the biggest risks? One is that we are not moving fast enough. So that the young people growing up in the suburbs of Accrah or Nairobi don’t have jobs and start looking for other identities, as we talked about this morning, and making poor choices for them and their nations. And secondly, the other big risk is that we don’t get on top of the conflict agenda. We need to pay attention to these risks. Look at the opportunities. If we do not this, one cannot live in Prague in security. It will travel in various ways that are bad or challenging. We look at communicable diseases. HIV/AIDS is there. But look to SARS and the Avian Flu. Both had their origins in Asia. Now, if we do not get on top of them, imagine if they struck Africa and their closeness to Europe. It’s health issues. It’s environmental issues. It’s conflict issues, as I spoke about, and migration was raised previously. We cannot afford to not pay attention to Africa, and the Africans will lead the way if we pay attention to what they say to us. Thank you.
Yohei Sasakawa
Thank you, Mr Karlsson. Mr Kolář, please.
Petr Kolář
Thank you very much. I’m afraid that Mats Karlsson has already said everything important so my remarks could be only like summing up everything that has been said here, but I’ll try to give you some Czech approach towards Africa and our possible cooperation with others to help and to cooperate there. I would start with saying that, for the Czech Republic, our commitments, which are linked to our membership of the European Union, something which we take seriously, and despite the fact that our neighbourhood is very important for us – I mean the EU neighbourhood here. Something that is also part of our foreign policy and for us the priority is the Balkans and Eastern Europe. This is, of course, very important but at the same time we take very seriously the fact that in Africa the situation is not pleasant and we understand that not all countries are in one shape, but we want to really help there. The question is how and actually why? We need to explain it to our public. We are living in the heart of Europe and our people need to know why they should, as taxpayers, support Africa and what it means for Europe if Africa is underdeveloped even in the future. So there are a few factors, which I would like to touch upon during my hopefully brief remarks. First, explaining the reasons, it is, of course, first of all a moral imperative and our solidarity with countries which are suffering because of different diseases and because of poverty. We never – the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia or Bohemia as it was before – we never colonised anyone, but at the same time we feel that we should help because we lived in oppression and we know how important it is to support freedom, democracy and the prosperity of countries even if they are far away from us. By the way that’s another argument which we have to take seriously – In today’s globalised world, Africa is the closest continent to Europe. If I don’t speak about Asia, Africa is on the doorstep of Europe and the European Union. We need to take it seriously and what is our responsibility not only towards Africa but also towards our own citizens is to explain to them this imperative that, in the global development, poverty is something that produces instability and if it is on our doorstep it could seriously influence the situation in Europe, and things like illnesses and pandemics don’t respect any borders and they could very seriously affect life in Europe also. So we have to take it seriously even from this selfish point of view. If we don’t first take the moral imperative seriously then we have to take our own situational interests seriously. We quite often hear some arguments that for Africa, the best way to help is not to provide aid but trade. I would argue a little bit with that. I can share this idea very much, but it is only half of the truth. If we want to do trade with Africa, we need to help them first to produce something that could be able to compete on our market. And then we have to also realistically admit that here in the European Union there is probably protectionism towards some products, which are agricultural products, which may exist even in the future. If we have strong lobbies among our farmers in some EU countries, I can’t seriously imagine that those lobbies and very powerful groups would suddenly change their mind and allow the market to open for products from Africa (I mean for agricultural products). So this is the half of the truth. I am saying we need to cooperate with African countries and we need to help them to build their own capacities, to build their own skills to produce something which is then possible to be sold abroad and which would be able to succeed in this competitive market in Europe. I would use another remark to strengthen the previous one. Say that for debt, if you want to cooperate you need a partner. And who could be the partner in African countries? It must be the local government for our government. This is the best way how to do it. But then you need to have a responsible government. You need to have someone who – as Mats Karlsson says – is really working in the sense of good governance, so that there is control of their use of natural resources, there is control of how aid from abroad is used and how the administration works with that in terms of whether it is not abused, but really used as it should be. So this is quite an important factor in our strategic thinking about Africa and about cooperation and it is one of the reasons why we still don’t follow some other EU countries, which decided to go down the way of so-called direct budget support and other things. We still prefer concrete projects with Czech participation on the ground. But this doesn’t mean that in the future we wouldn’t support local budgets directly. We shall see… So I would conclude that for us it is very important to somehow interlink our activities abroad in Africa and our public support. I’m pleased to say that for our public it is quite natural that the Czech Republic is in first place among the new EU countries in terms of development cooperation. I’m pleased that we now have 19 projects in Africa in 10 countries. Of course, we have only two priority countries – Zambia and Angola – but we also have other projects there. And we want to do it even in the future. What is very important for Czech development cooperation is that we very much rely on cooperation between government and NGOs and this is something we also want to do in the future. We know that our public sector and NGOs are very effective on the ground. And speaking about subjects where we think it is most important for us to help is to focus on education, capacity building, investment in human resources and the health sector as well. We learnt in the past how great a help it could be to give education to someone and to first of all help them to build the self-confidence that they could do some things by themselves. So that’s the end of my remarks. Thanks.
Yohei Sasakawa
Thank you, Mr Kolář. Mr Addai-Sebo, please.
Akyaaba Addai-Sebo
Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. I am here representing myself and I know a lot has been said about Africa. I think all ears are now on me. A lot has been said also about the validity of tolerance and respect. But where I am concerned and where Africa is concerned, we would like to reinforce respect with tolerance and reinforce tolerance with respect. We are gathered here in the hope of a new world order of peaceful coexistence. We see no reason why we cannot create paradise on earth. Our concerns for the state of our world today are a deep reflection of our fears for tomorrow. We are here because we do not like what we are witnesses to. We do not like what we see in the global crystal ball. Disasters that confront us have become two-dimensional, natural and human. But what is more disastrous is the disaster of not accepting the consequences of some human action on natural order. If, as humans, we still consider ourselves as the highest form of life, if we do consider ourselves as being the highest form of life, why do we not take responsibility for environmental changes brought about by our own hands and brains? Growing up, I saw my grandparents offer prayers in solemn tribute to their surroundings. Before they killed for meat or felled a tree to build they would first propitiate the spirits by pouring libation. They linked their existence to the sanctity of all that is of creation – the environment that they saw themselves as an embodiment of. The sense of spirituality and religious sanctity of my grandparents and their ancestors have been ridiculed and stereotyped as animistic. They held the earth as their sacred mother. That cannot be parcelled out as private properties by which governments are formed to protect. In two years time, 2007, some sections of the world will be marking 200 years since the abolition of the slave trade, when my ancestors were goods and chattels – personal properties. By the consequences of imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and globalisation in a unipolar world have consigned the values and wisdom of my grandparents and ancestors to anthropological footnotes. What we witness today are human and natural disasters from weapons of mass destruction in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan or Colombia to quakes and hurricanes from the bowels of the oceans in Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India or the United States. Natural disaster like nuclear fallout is no respecter of frontiers. Global coexistence rests on the foundations of tolerance and respect – tolerance and respect between the natural and human order of things, tolerance and respect between individuals, families, clans, ethnic groups, societies and communities of nations and their relations with one another and their environment in an abiding faith. Our world cannot be created in the image and values of any superpower of the day. The validity of creation lies in the strength of its diversity for variety is the spice of life. Our purpose as the highest form of life is therefore to constantly affirm each other by holding and respecting each other as sacred, for life is sacred. Above all else, we are humans first in all our abiding faiths. Conflict and strife continue to tear Africa apart. Earth at its centre cannot hold. Africa has become a television spectacle that makes children in the developed world cringe. But with the benefit of hindsight and informed reflection, I can see a future in the present. There exists now a veritable opportunity for war-torn countries in Africa to reorganise their own societies in their collective self-interest with the benefit of hindsight. With the support of the international community, there is a growing desire for an inclusive peace process that will engender a national sense of hope, confidence, and the essential feel-good factor. The challenge facing the African Union and its associated sub-regional groupings now is how to establish an all-inclusive transitional power-sharing arrangement in the war-torn countries that will immediately reverse the current state of insecurity and political tension, restore full human and political rights and ensure equal opportunity and access in the exercise of state power. The future of Africa is therefore hanging on the question of transition. The answer must be found in a healing process that will ensure a root and branch restructuring of society in order to restore that collective national pride, identity, and sense of industry. There is the need therefore for a conceptual framework to address the core of the Africa peace problematic: Democratic control and exercise of state power in relation to equitable distribution of resources. The future can be assured in the present only if the ruling elite of Africa will stop mimicking Western values and way of life, and instead have confidence in themselves as Africans who have given birth to great civilisations in the past. And therefore it is within them to change Africa for the better so that the conscience of the world can be stimulated by Africa’s rebirth. As I cast my eyes across Africa, from Sudan to Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire, I sit here and want to appeal to the Judaeo-Christian and Muslim worlds to respect my identity as African. Thank you.
Yohei Sasakawa
Thank you very much Addai-Sebo, and I’d like to speak in Japanese from now. It’s OK?
It was of great interest to examine the question of Africa from a different angle. The participants thought and reflected on what they can do for Africa, how can they help – and with regard to this theme today of co-existence, they examined how we and Africa can work together. This is a very important issue. There are many problems facing Africa. This is the reality, and although there may not be that many, there are a few countries in which we can be really hopeful about the future of Africa and, moreover, the African people are there. They want to take a stand, and they have a very strong will to bring about change, to bring about positive changes. I hope that all of you can understand that there is a strong will on the part of the African people. Each government and international organization is trying to strengthen the systems that they provide to Africa. I believe in Africa’s potential, and in order to realize this potential, I think that each and every one of us must recognize once again that there is this continent Africa, this very large continent, and on the global map we have to take note of Africa’s existence and work towards improving the lives of the African people. Thank you very much.
Oldřich Černý
Thank you, Mr Chairman. Coffee break.