PAP meeting Speech
- Honorable Zehara Mohamud:- Deputy Speaker of the House of Federation
- Honorable Doctor Ashebir W/Giorgis:- Acting President Of Pan-African Parliament
- Honorable members of the Pan African Parliamentary CommitteeHonourable members/ladies and gentlemen Dear all participants..
Ladies and gentlemen: First and foremost, I would like to thank you all of here for taking this opportunity to talk about Africa, and PAP. As we all know, Africa is the cradle of human beings, the mother of mankind (Alkebulan), and the origin of world civilizations. As we all know. the archaeological findings have demonstrated that Africa is the origin of humanity and the source of world civilizations with its anceinet civilizations as in Ethiopia, Egypt, and Libiya in North and East Africa, with the civilizations in West Africa that included Ghana, the Mali Empire and in Senegal, the Songhai civilization, and also southern African civilization that stretched to Zimababawe with its kingdom that ruled over a large chunk of modern-day Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique can be a few to mention. Africa has been the meeting point of the rest of the world, and along with its being the origin human beings, and being endowed with its rich history. The classical Nile valley civilizations of Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, with Kush, and Axum; and the spread of Islam through African societies, and to the Middle East can tell how Africa has been the meeting point of the world, and hub for the world’s civilization and development with its huge potential to growth and prosperity. Even today Africa is the source of world’s development having its rich mineral and natural resources as it was the origin of the development of the world. Honourable members/ladies and gentlemen Despite all its glorious past civilizations and Africa’s huge potential for growth and development, the challenges and the problems the continent has faced today are vast. Mainly, the problems and the challenges that entrenched it due to poverty and low development level has brought other set of problems that range from migration, human rights problems, and unstable governments due to conflicts and civil wars that have made us witness anti constitutional changes in governments in many parts of the continent, which have in turn, led the continent be characterized as land of violence, misery and impoverishment. Consequently, there are many woes of the generations of Africa in their strong wish to put an end to all the the problems and challenges that crumbled Africa, by working on and wiping out all the hurdles circumvent it in political, economic, social and historical spheres. Honourable members As we all know, our forefathers struggled to establish the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 eminently for bringing African unity by putting and end to poverty and underdevelopment, by laying the ground for the brotherhood and sisterhood of all African countries and stand together for prosperous s Africa, and stopover all sorts of misery. For this no one would forget the founding fathers, what Haile Sillasie, Kuwame Nukuruma and Nererer played in bringing united, free and prosperous Africa in control of its own destiny as 32 Heads of independent African States at the time met in Addis Ababa Ethiopia and signed the Charter creating Africa’s first post-independence continental institution, The Organization of African Unity (OAU), which was the manifestation of the pan-African vision for an Africa was solemnized in the OAU Charter recognizing the freedom, equality, justice and dignity of Africans as essential objectives for the achievement of the legitimate aspirations of the African peoples and promoting the understanding among Africa’s peoples and foster cooperation among African states in response to the aspirations of Africans for brother-hood and solidarity, in a larger unity transcending ethnic and national differences. The OAU was established with the objective to promote the unity and solidarity of the African states; to defend their sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, to eradicate all forms of colonialism from Africa, and to promote international cooperation,coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for the peoples of Africa. In all the efforts played in the due course, the contribution of Ethiopia in realizing AOU was undivided and immense. Moreover, in our later continental efforts to from AU was also championed by Ethiopia and all African brothers and sisters in the continent. Despite all the efforts played long by our forefathers and mothers of Africa, and as well today there are many things left to give answers for what remain in the political, economic and development agenda, led to the formation of the African Union (AU) in the new Millennia. With the decision made for the formation of AU by 32 Heads of State and Government on September 9, 1999, and issued the Sirte Declaration calling for the establishment of an African Union, AU was official launched in July 2002 in Durban, South Africa, with the view to accelerating the process of integration of the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy while addressing multifaceted social, economic and political problems compounded the continent. Thus, as part of the mission and efforts of the AU, and our adherence to the vision to see a united, just and prosperous Africa, built on the rule of law and good governance, ought to be well cherished by the the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) member states, for the economic development and integration of the continent. As we all agree, the PAP is intended as a platform for people from all African states to be involved in discussions and decision making on the problems and challenges facing the continent. As the one of the organs of the African Union (AU) as set out by the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (Abuja Treaty, the Pan-African Parliament (PAP)) is intended as a platform for people from all African states to be involved in discussions and decision-making on the problems and challenges facing the continent as the first Parliament was inaugurated on the 18 March 2004, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ethiopia here as well has played a magnificent role along with other member states of Africa in making PAP as a strong instrument in uniting Africa, and bringing African dream into reality. In similar way, the Joint Workshop of Permanent Committees that we have started today as PAP members for addressing the continental problems and challenges that overarching in relation to migration, human rights and anticonstitutional changes in governments is pivotal to emphasize and work on the problems that our continent has faced. Consequently, the roles, responsibilities and the legislative actions for Pan-African Parliamentarians in our efforts to lessen the problems and challenges resulted in due to those problems, need to be addressed by our parliamentary diplomatic efforts. As we can figure out from the problems countries face today, the issue of illegal immigration is currently shaking up countries as they cause human tragedies that are unacceptable to the conscience of humanity. Especially, the problems we observe with successive waves of young migrants has been a liability for our continent as it is a loss of able-bodied people for development of Africa.
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