Kagame calls for an integrated Africa

Team Work The ongoing 8th edition of the Leon H Sullivan summit has attracted international attention to the Tanzanian town of Arusha and crucial African issues like tourism, investment and unity are being discussed. The summit, an Olympic like ceremony for African humanitarian and development experts, was addressed by 6 African heads of state and leading influential US famous figures of African decent. The visiting presidents came from Mauritius, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Mozambique and Burundi’s Vice president Ivy Sayinguvu. President Paul Kagame chose to emphasize the need for African countries to put in place effective and speedy integration measures so that they can boot their volume of trade among themselves and the international community. Africa’s volume of trade amounts to a meagre 10 per cent between African nations and only 2 per cent of the total global commercial activity, the President explained. Kagame repeated his call for more efficient regional blocks as an effective measure for Africa to increase domestic investment and spur economic growth and development. The President first called for cross border reforms in customs operations in a speech he presented to the Commonwealth Heads of State’s meeting in Kampala in November 2007. He stated that Africa needs to adopt a new mindset and effect corrective and collective measures to move into value addition and achieving knowledge based economies. Productive activities on the continent will increase and Africans will become less dependent on conventional physical infrastructure, which in its current state is absurd, Kagame continued. The Eighth Leon Sullivan Summit, whose theme is “Tourism and Infrastructure Development”, is focusing on education, investment, environmental sustainability, energy, infrastructure and tourism. It aims at advancing physical and economic infrastructure, especially power, transport and information technology through regional economic community discussions. Especially power, transport and information technology through regional economic community discussions.Kagame was also given the torch as the host of the next Sullivan summit to be held in Kigali in 2010. While Rwanda is assured of hosting the next Leon H Sullivan, the country’s fate in regard to joining the Commonwealth is still in the balance. However, last week, there were reports of hope as a team of senior officials from the Commonwealth secretariat were in the country to asses Rwanda’s readiness to join the 53 brotherhood of nations largely united by their historical ties to Great Britain. The team held discussions with Rosemary Museminali the minister of Foreign affairs. Rwanda applied to join the Commonwealth in 1994. Hunger pains The global food prices crisis continues to make headlines in the international press; last week however, it was about an interesting dimension. During the UN food summit held in Rome last week to discuss the increasing food prices all over the world, the arrival of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was described as ‘obscene’ by a British minister. The Zimbabwean ruler is banned from travelling to many western countries and used the immunity of the UN to go to Rome, where it was also reported that his wife Grace Mugabe is addicted to shopping for designer clothes. This comes at a time when over 4 million Zimbabweans are starving because of the high inflation and an acute shortage of maize. Mugabe who is ruling a country currently devoid of food supplies addressed the summit saying his land reform policies which have caused his country a lot of suffering were part of his solution to provide more Zimbabweans with land so they can farm and be able to prevent famine. Mugabe suggested that he is a modern day Robin Hood for poor black Zimbabweans. In the conference itself, several world leaders stressed that western countries were largely responsible for the food crisis because they have imposed huge trade barriers between themselves and the poorer countries therefore thwarting agricultural growth. The barriers have ensured that farmers in developing countries do not have funds to access agricultural and animal fertilizers to increase production. It was also revealed that developed countries were dishing out incentives to their farmers to grow maize for biofuels like ethanol instead of food. For his part, UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon said, “If not handled properly, this issue could trigger a cascade of other crises - affecting economic growth, social progress, and even political security around the world.” Measures to improve access to food for vulnerable people include expanding aid, boosting smallholder production and minimising export restriction and import tariffs, he added. In Rwanda, the police arrested several agricultural traders who are accused of creating a cartel to fix high prices for food stuffs while the government had abolished all taxes on agricultural produce. Ends