Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, who assumed the chairmanship of the 53-member Organization of African Unity at its 33rd summit in Harare, said the establishment of the highest organ of the community constituted a standard by which Africa's future economic policies would be judged.
The event was witnessed by 28 heads of state and government and three prime ministers. Mugabe said the occasion crowned efforts stretching several decades made by the O.A.U., resulting in several resolutions and declarations which laid a firm political foundation for the establishment of the community.
Mugabe, speaking on the second day of the summit, emphasised that the pillars of the community were the African regional integration bodies specified in the Abuja Treaty adopted June 1991, which came into force in 1994.
Mugabe said the entry into force of the Abuja Treaty, establishing the AEC, vindicated the vision and commitment of successive generations of African leaders who believed that the continent could never be independent unless it took responsibility for its economic and political destiny.
What African countries are now required to do, Mugabe said, was to integrate their markets and transform their economies currently characterised by low levels of industrialisation, high dependence on international trade, extremely low levels of intra-African trade and small markets.
The community, he said, should make it possible for African countries to produce competitive products that would enjoy preferential treatment in African markets.
He noted that Africa faced a hostile external economic environment induced by forces outside its control. For example, he said African countries continued to be exporters of raw materials and minerals whose prices they did not control.
Over the years, he added, the value of exports had been declining and yet the cost of importing manufactured products had been on the increase.
Africa and the entire developing world, he said, were subjected to hostile policies by the World Trade Organization and international financial institutions.
It would appear that there is a coordinated political agenda by the north, which controls these institutions, aimed at suppressing the development of developing countries, he said.
Africa must build bridges of solidarity with other affected countries in the ACP, group of 77 and the non-aligned movement, Mubage said. Together we must resist the recolonisation of our countries under a facade of programmes to safeguard the global environment or globalisation.
Through the inaugural session of the AEC, he said, the continent had sent a strong signal that it was now empowering itself to defeat the indignities of poverty, hunger and disease through targeted joint actions in social, economic and political spheres.
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source: Newswire