On the occasion of the celebration of Africa Day by the Group of Heads of African Diplomatic and Consular Missions accredited to Burkina Faso, Foreign Minister Olivia Rouamba said Friday evening in Ouagadougou, that Burkina Faso harbors the hope that the AfCFTA will make Africa a world power.
"Burkina Faso nurtures the hope that the ZLECAf will make Africa a world power as declined by the 2063 agenda", declared on Friday May 19, 2023 in the evening, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Cooperation and Burkinabè Abroad Olivia Rouamba.
Ms. Rouamba was speaking at the premises of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Ouagadougou on the occasion of the celebration of Africa Day by the Group of Heads of African Diplomatic and Consular Missions accredited to Burkina Faso.
This celebration coincides this year with the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the African Union (AU) under the theme “Accelerating the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (ZLECAf)”.
For Minister Rouamba, the choice of theme is relevant because through the ZLECAf, the African Union offers the opportunity to “create a vast common market for all of Africa by removing tariff and non-tariff barriers”.
"We have no choice but to give ourselves the means to achieve this because the ZLECAf is 1.3 billion consumers with a combined gross domestic product of around 2,500 billion dollars", he said. she asserted.
She indicated that "Burkina Faso, for its part, is continuing the process of operationalizing the ZLECAf through the adoption of a national strategy, the adoption and internalization of the texts relating thereto and its participation in the various meetings". .
However, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the many achievements made by Africa and of which we are proud, should not make the continent hide the obstacles to its emergence.
Ms. Olivia Rouamba lamented that 60 years after the creation of the AU, Africa is still undermined by "internal divisions, interference, difficulties in managing the various crises, insufficient financial resources, multidimensional crises and the lack of solidarity”.
"We must commit ourselves and work to take our destiny into our own hands, taking into account the deep aspirations of the African populations and of its youth in particular, who are increasingly showing their thirst for an independent and sovereign Africa", he said. she recommended.
In the opinion of the head of Burkinabe diplomacy, “the spirit of solidarity and unity must always guide our actions and our decisions. The Africa we want depends on each and all of us as much as we are”.
Minister Olivia Rouamba stressed "that the crises we are experiencing are not insurmountable if we bring endogenous and concerted solutions to them".
She therefore invited Africans to "look in the same direction for the benefit of our dear continent which is full of all the assets to rise well and shine more".
On behalf of the Group of Heads of African Diplomatic and Consular Missions accredited to Burkina Faso, the Dean and Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco Youssef Slaoui, declared that "every year Africa Day is an opportunity for the Group to organize an occasional cultural and gastronomic reception for more interaction and cohesion”.
This in order to pay "homage to the precursors of Pan-Africanism and to the founding fathers" who signed the founding Charter of the OAU, which has become the African Union.
Youssef Slaoui maintained that “Africa Day is an annual celebration of Africa's achievements and potential and a moment of reflection on the future of our Continent, its place on the international chessboard”.
"In this regard, we remain confident that the Chairmanship-in-Office held by the Union of the Comoros will continue to work for an integrated, prosperous Africa, and representing a dynamic force on the world stage," he said.
He noted that "many gains have been made on the path to unity, economic and social progress as well as a firm commitment to inter-African cooperation in solidarity".
The Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco to Burkina Faso also took the opportunity to "formulate the wish that all adaptation and resilience capacities be mobilized so that together we can better face the obstacles facing our Continent. faces ".
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was created on May 25, 1963 in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia by the founding fathers of Africa. It was transformed in 2002 into the African Union (AU) and the AfCFTA was launched in 2019.
Source: Burkina Information Agency