Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, CEO of NEPAD Agency on Tuesday called on Africans to use the celebration of African Union (AU) Day to take stock of their achievements and genuinely re-focus their energies on addressing the challenges facing Africans.
In an Africa Day Statement, Dr Mayaki said “On May 25, 2011, I and my colleagues at the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) will join the African Union (AU), the entire continent and indeed the Diaspora in celebrating yet another ‘Africa Day’ on the theme: “Accelerating Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development”.
“In thinking about ‘Africa Day’ and indeed the related theme for this year it is clear that we should all use this Day to take stock of our achievements and to genuinely re-focus our energies on addressing the challenges that we are faced with as Africans.”
“The recent uprisings by our youth in some parts of the continent should work to remind us that we need to use this Day to critically look at our past in order to make a better tomorrow for all our people.”
“This particular ‘Africa Day’, is a rather special one for us as it falls in the 10th year – 2011– of NEPAD.”
“It is in this regard that I and my colleagues at the NEPAD Agency will use this Day to reflect on the role of NEPAD in Africa – past, present and future. The Day and indeed the entire week will also be used to kick-start a series of year-long events and engagements that are being organised to mark the 10th Anniversary of NEPAD.”
The statement said it must be said that the 2001 formation of NEPAD as the Development Programme of the African Union and its African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), had helped to enhance the growth of the continent and its political and corporate governance.
Since the adoption of NEPAD, it said the Heads of State and Governments had used it as an entry point in their engagements on Africa at the global level and they had also used it as a platform for the coordination of development priorities at the continental level.
“NEPAD has focused on priority areas and has spearheaded the development of strategic frameworks in areas such as the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in agriculture, to the Short term Action Plan and Middle-to-Long-Term Strategic Framework in Infrastructure – that are crucial to enhance regional integration and development.
“Critically, NEPAD has also provided us all with the vision, platform and vehicle for domestic and external resource mobilisation for the development of the continent.”
“In 2010, the relevance of NEPAD took on new impetus when the NEPAD programme was fully integrated into the AU at the 14th AU Assembly. Now, for the first time, an African regional initiative has been institutionalised to establish a development agency within the AU family – the NEPAD Agency. The Agency, which I lead, implements the AU’s NEPAD development agenda.”
“The myriad of crises, particularly the escalating oil prices, the high food prices and subsidy distortions in the global market, may make it look like as if things are beyond our control.”
“However, as we celebrate ‘Africa Day’, I would like to call upon all Africans to remember that through NEPAD we have our home – grown frameworks, such as CAADP, which posses practical solutions and corrective policies that can be used to address some of these challenges and bring about genuine socio-economic transformation.”
“My fellow Africans, NEPAD is at the fore-front of pushing for the appropriate development policies and decisions that have been taken at the continental-level. Again, we cannot do this alone.”
“In fact, now more than ever is the time for us all to live up to the courage of our convictions for a great Africa and a new reality of a vibrant and resilient people - as is espoused by NEPAD,” he added.
The celebration is in consonance with the AU Declaration adopted at its 12th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in 2009 to make 2009-2018 the Decade for Youth Development in Africa.