African Ministers and BADEA agree to support AUC effort to implement the Pan African Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Campaign (PATTEC) Initiative

Khartoum, Sudan, 15 – 16. June 2013 - African Ministers and representatives of 13 countries including; Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Niger, Senegal, Soudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, officials of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa led by the Director General, Mr Abdelaziz Khelef and African Union senior Staff led by Mrs Rhoda Peace Tumussiime, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, who is also the head of the delegation, met on Sunday 16 June 2013, in Khartoum Sudan to discuss the support BADEA will provide for the implementation of the PATTEC Initiative in Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Affected countries.
The Director General of BADEA, Mr Abdelaziz Khelef in his presentation welcomed the Honorable Ministers, Commissioner and experts to the Bank. He stressed that since its establishment in 1975 has been to reinforce its working relation with the continental Organisation OAU/AU. He said that BADEA is fully aware about the seriousness and social destruction caused by the spread of Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis has responded positively to a technical assistance‘s request in favor of capacity Building in 2009 and 2010. The Director General of BADEA, said that in the presence of tsetse fly, neither human being nor livestock wealth can be developed. In that context, BADEA as a development institution will spare no efforts for the implementation of the PATTEC initiative and efforts of the African union in that direction.

The representative of Ministers participating in the mission, Honorable Bright Rwamirama’s in his remarks thanked the Government of Sudan, BADEA and the Africa Union PATTEC Coordination Office of hosting this important BADEA, African Union Members States and AU Commission Officials to discuss a framework of BADEA’s support to the Initiative.

Commissioner Tumussiime expressed appreciation for the commitments made by the Honorable Ministers, AUC Officials and BADEA which she said, is a demonstration of the significance of the mission to enhance partnership arrangements between participating parties for the achievement of our share goal to eradicate Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis in this region so as to unleash the region’s development potential. She recalled BADEA’s support to AU-PATTEC in activities that have assisted to build capacities of African countries to implement their Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis (T&T) interventions and stressed that affected countries represented at the Khartoum ministerial Meeting as well as others have committed own resources and support from partners to the implementation of the PATTEC initiative, but resources are inadequate owing to the multiplicity of other competing priority areas in our development realm.

The AUC Commissioner expressed 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.
She stated that 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 Sub-Saharan 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. Therefore, eradicating this scourge will unlock energies and resources towards agricultural production, productivity, food and nutrition security as well as poverty eradication” the Commissioner noted.
During the opening ceremony, two presentations on BADEA and PATTEC’s activities were made by Dr. Hassan Wadatallah, Senior Economist and Dr. Hassane H. Mahamat, AU-PATTEC Coordinator respectively.
In their statements, the honorable Ministers stressed the importance of the implementation of the PATTEC Initiative for their respective countries and the continent. They thanked the BADEA and the AU-PATTEC Coordination office for the Initiative and requested the Bank to provide Technical Assistance for the countries and AU-PATTEC Coordination as well as loans/grants to fund their respective projects for the eradication of Tsetse and Trypanosmiasis.
The Director General of BADEA in his concluding remarks committed BADEA to contribute to the implementation of the PATTEC initiative as well as also to engage the Arab League and other Arab funds to support this worthy Initiative.