Burkina Faso hopes AfCFTA will Make Africa a World Power (Minister)
Ouagadougou, May 20, 2023 (AIB)-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 Affairs Minister Olivia Rouamba said Friday evening in Ouagadougou that Burkina Faso has high hopes that AfCFTA will make Africa a world power.
“Burkina Faso nurtures the hope that the AfCFTA will make Africa a world power, as set out in Agenda 2063,” declared Olivia Rouamba, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Cooperation and the Burkinabè Abroad, on Friday evening, May 19, 2023.
Ms. Rouamba was speaking at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Ouagadougou on the occasion of the Africa Day celebration by the Group of Heads of African Diplomatic and Consular Missions accredited to Burkina Faso.
This year's celebration coincides 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 (the AfCFTA)”.
For Minister Rouamba, the choice of theme is pertinent, as through the AfCFTA, the African Union offers the opportunity to “create a vast common market for the whole of Africa by eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers”.
“We have no choice but to give ourselves the means to achieve this, because the AfCFTA represents 1.3 billion consumers with a combined Gross Domestic Product of around 2,500 billion dollars”, she asserted.
She went on to say that “Burkina Faso, for its part, is pursuing the process of operationalizing the AfCFTA through the adoption of a national strategy, the adoption and internalization of related texts, and its participation in the various meetings”.
However, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the many gains made by Africa, of which we are proud, must not blind the continent to the obstacles to its emergence.
Mrs. Olivia Rouamba deplored the fact that 60 years after the creation of the AU, Africa is still plagued by “internal divisions, interference, difficulties in managing various crises, insufficient financial resources, multidimensional crises and lack of solidarity”.
“We must commit ourselves and work to take our destiny into our own hands, taking into account the profound aspirations of the African people and its youth in particular, who are increasingly expressing their thirst for an independent and sovereign Africa”, she recommended.
In the opinion of the head of Burkina Faso's diplomacy, “the spirit of solidarity and unity must always guide our actions and our decisions. The Africa we want depends on each and every one of us.
Minister Olivia Rouamba stressed that “the crises we are experiencing are not insurmountable, provided we find endogenous and concerted solutions”.
She therefore invited Africans to “look in the same direction in the interests of our beloved continent, which has everything it needs to rise to the top and shine even brighter”.
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 greater interaction and cohesion”.
This is to pay “homage to the precursors of Pan-Africanism and the founding fathers” who signed the founding Charter of the OAU, now the African Union.
Youssef Slaoui maintained that “Africa Day is an annual celebration of Africa's achievements and potential, and a moment to reflect on the future of our Continent, its place on the international chessboard”.
“In this respect, we remain confident that the Chairmanship-in-Office held by the Union of the Comoros will continue to work for an integrated, prosperous Africa, with a dynamic force on the world stage”, he affirmed.
He noted that “many gains have been made on the road to unity, economic and social progress, with a firm commitment to inter-African cooperation based on solidarity”.
The Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco to Burkina Faso also took the opportunity to “express the wish that all capacities for adaptation and resilience be mobilized, so that together we can better confront the obstacles facing our Continent”.
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was created on 25 May, 1963 in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, by Africa's founding fathers. It was transformed in 2002 into the African Union (AU), with the AfCFTA launched in 2019.
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