The 25th Africa-France Summit
Early this week, a high level delegation led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi participated in the 25th Africa-France Summit, held in Nice in the south of France. Items on the agenda included Africa’s Role in Global Governance; Strengthening Peace and Security; and Climate and Development. With respect to Africa’s role in Global Governance, the summit discussed the need to increase Africa’s representation at all meetings on global governance issues. This included the need to reform the United Nations with a view to increasing Africa’s representation in the Security Council and in other multilateral forums. Prime Minister Meles noted that the Security Council needed immediate reform: a continent which provides nearly 30% of the UN membership cannot continue without proper representation. French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, promised that France would support international discussion of seats in the Security Council for Africa and proportional representation in other international organizations, and that it would begin at the next G8 and G20 meetings. The next G20 meeting is to be held in Canada from 26th to 27th June; Malawi, as Chair of the African Union, and Ethiopia, with Prime Minister Meles in his capacity as Africa’s representative on Climate Change issues, have been invited.
The Nice summit also discussed the need to strengthen peace and security in Africa, and France has promised to provide some 300 million Euros to help the establishment of an African standby force and other related institutions.
On Climate and Development, Prime Minister Meles, in his capacity as representative for Africa, had an additional role in summarizing the discussions on Climate and Development. He underlined that although there might be limitations with regard to the Copenhagen Accord, nevertheless, it was in Africa’s interest to sign up to the Accord, and that the African Union had accepted the accord during its last summit held in Addis Ababa. Pointing out that only 29 countries had yet signed up to the accord, he urged all African countries to do the same. Prime Minister Meles underlined that climate change would make development in Africa more difficult and expensive, and the commitment of the developed countries to provide funds for adaptation and mitigation of the problems associated with climate change were a necessary assistance for Africa to offset the added costs of development. The Prime Minister also called on the developed countries to come up quickly with the Fast Start-up Funds, amounting to 30 billion US dollars which had been pledged during the Copenhagen summit. In that regard he called on France to take the lead, and President Sarkozy agreed to deliver on its pledge to collect 400 million Euro from EU countries, and committed France to encourage others to fulfil their pledges.
The Heads of State and Government represented at the 25th Franco-African summit issued a final declaration calling for urgent reform of the United Nations Security Council, for the reform of global governance, and for better representation for the African continent in international forums. It emphasized that the Copenhagen Accord on climate change marked a first step towards the conclusion of a comprehensive agreement in Cancun at the end of 2010. The final declaration asked all member states of the United Nations to commit themselves to that Accord, and called on the developed countries to deliver on their Copenhagen pledges to finance early action over the next three years.
During his visit to France, Prime Minister Meles also met with the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick. In their discussions, the Prime Minister briefed the president on the main objectives of Ethiopia’s next five year plan; Mr. Zoellick confirmed the World Bank supported the objectives of the Government. They also discu_ssed ways to increase World Bank participation in construction of hydro-power projects.