Madam Chairperson,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen. 

Mine is a pleasant duty to welcome you here on behalf of the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Mr. K.Y. Amaoko, and the Commission.  So I am not going to emulate my friend, Sam Ibok, and make a speech.  But I would like to make a few remarks about this meeting this morning. 

Last week here at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), we hosted with the OAU, in collaboration with the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a meeting entitled the “First Regional Consultation on Conflicts, Peace and Development Cooperation”.  Let me share with you some of the issues discussed at that meeting: 

The first issue we discussed was the foundation for peace building, good governance and civil society.  We further discussed regional and subregional approaches to conflict prevention and peace building.  We also looked at the influence of aid in situations of violence and conflict and the use of development assistance incentives and disincentives for influence in conflict development.  I am mentioning these because as the Chair has alluded earlier, we have had a number of these conferences. In fact last Thursday the OAU hosted another meeting between itself and its partner countries and institutions on the strengthening of the capacity of the OAU mechanisms for conflict prevention, management and resolution.  In June in Bamako, Mali, the OAU together with UNDP and ECA hosted another meeting, which was actually called “Good Governance and Conflict Management for Durable Peace and Sustainable Development.”  Among the topics that were discussed at that meeting were the following: 

• Economic and financial management

•  Reform of the administration

• Strengthening of civil society

• The resolution of conflicts

•  The strengthening of democracy

Now, let me conclude by saying that it seems to me that we need the truth on conflict and we should say: no more conflict.  We need to do something different.  Something more creative.  I think we have a set of issues that have been discussed and now we need time to digest them instead of holding another conference on democracy and conflict.  I think we have enough material out there and we believe it is time to move to action.  Let me conclude with one suggestion, which I think I should share with you.  ECA has been mandated by the UN Secretary General to come up with an incentive scheme on post-conflict recovery.  Work has just started on this and we believe that this is an area that needs urgent attention as to what can be done on the ground in terms of post-conflict recovery.  We hope some of you can help us in sharpening this initiative and making it a workable one.   

With this, and your remarks chairperson, once again I wish to welcome you all to ECA and hope you have successful deliberations. 

I thank you.

Back to Publications page