DR NKOSAZANA DLAMINI-ZUMA COMING FOR COMAI V11 MEETING

MBABANE – His Majesty King Mswati III is expected to open the Seventh Conference of African Ministries in Charge of Integration (COMAI V11), an expert and ministerial meeting, starting on Monday.

Participants of the meeting to be held at the Royal Swazi Sun Convention Centre, Ezulwini, include African Union (AU) Commission Chairperson Dr Nkosazane Dlamini-Zuma, AU commissioners, ministers and experts from all African member states, ministers from Swaziland, the 54 member states of the AU and representatives of the African private sector and civil society among others.

expert

The meeting will start with an expert meeting from Monday July 14 to 16 and then move to the ministerial July 17 to 18.
According to Wynne Musabayana, Directorate of Information and Communications, African Union Commission, this will be a very big meeting whose theme will be ‘Infrastructure and Integration in Africa’.   The Ministry of Economic Planning and Development’s Colin Shabalala confirmed the meetings.

 The objectives of the meetings are to assess the progress made in implementing the Abuja Treaty by regional economic communities, evaluate the implementation status of the COMAI VI recommendations, and agree on recommendations of the current conference.

“The rationale behind the selection of this year’s thematic focus is to ignite debate and action orientated recommendations to address some of the most debilitating challenges constraining the effective acceleration and realisation of Africa’s economic integration agenda.
“While the potential for regional integration is recognised as a means of fostering common and broad based development, sharing of opportunities, managing of risks, reducing poverty as well as production and wealth creation, more decisive action is needed to turn such potential into tangible gains for African citizens and African economies. Gaps remain between promise and performance, with critical bottlenecks and a major one is the lack of adequate physical infrastructure,” reads part of the meetings’ concept note. In this context, the 18th AU Assembly adopted the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) to tackle these infrastructure challenges in the continent and to ensure a better continental interrogation.

“Indeed, PIDA’s overall strategic objective aims at accelerating the regional integration of the continent and facilitating the creation of the African Economic Community as set out in the Abuja Treaty. By improving access to integrated regional and continental infrastructure networks, PIDA will allow countries to meet forecast demand for infrastructure service and boost their competiveness by:

*    Increasing efficiencies;
*    Accelerating growth;
*     Facilitating integrations in the world economy;
*     Improving living standards; and
*     Unleashing intra-African trade.

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