Following an invitation, from the African and Arab Affairs Association in the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate, a seminar was held with the presence of H.E. Amb. Abdel Hamid Bouzaher, head of the Permanent Delegation of the African Union, H.E. Amb. Abu Bakr Hafni, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for African Affairs in Egypt, with the participation of the Association President Ashraf Badr and moderated of the seminar DR. Ahmed Abd Allah Fares, Secretary General of the Association.

The Seminar was covered by many audio-visual media in the Arab Republic of Egypt, due to the importance of its topic and the approaching date of the 5th Africa-Arab Summit to be held in the first half of this year 2020 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The head of the Permanent Delegation of the African Union, H.E. Amb. Abdel Hamid Bouzaher reviewed the march of Africa-Arab cooperation by stressing that the Africa-Arab partnership is one of the oldest partnerships established by the African Union, as this strategic partnership and its mutual interests based on common denominators between the two regions have yet historical, geographical, and extended roots of the bonds of solidarity and brotherhood, blaming the media that this partnership was not given the entitlement it deserve, so that the 40th anniversary of the establishment of this partnership, which was celebrated in the Year 2017, did not receive sufficient attention and coverage by the media.

Amb. Bouzaher briefed the Audience about the upcoming summit which will discuss among other things, the joint Africa-Arab Action Plan that reached a degree of maturity after the previous summits, especially it will pay special attention to a topic that will be raised for the first time, the issue of combating terrorism.

After adopting this plan of action, and its implementation mechanisms, especially the financing mechanism, through which it will exit this partnership from the bilateral angle to the multilateral angle due to fact that the financing mechanism will achieve a qualitative development in this partnership.

In conclusion, Amb. Bouzaher made it clear that in order to achieve the Goals of this partnership, the Media must extend popular sentiments and enlighten the public opinion of what this partnership will achieve for both regions by leaving out the exclusivity of bilateral cooperation, to multilateral cooperation, in order to start financing joint projects as recommended by the 3rd Africa-Arab Kuwait Summit.

Also, by creating networks of civil society organizations, think tanks, and scientific and research centre to complete the link between all actors in the two regions, in order to revive the historical events of this partnership by organizing cultural, scientific and sports activities (for example organizing football matches for Arab and African football stars) and all other activities are considered as an imperative issue for both regions.

For further media inquiries, please contact:
Mrs. Esther Azaa Tankou | Head of Information Division | Directorate of Information and Communication, African Union Commission | Tel: +251911361185 | E-mail: yamboue@africa-union.org |
Mr. Gamal Ahmed A. Karrar | Senior Communication Officer| Directorate of Information and Communication, African Union Commission | E-mail: GamalK@africa-union.org

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