By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Egypt on Wednesday emerged the new President of the Steering Committee aof the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Agency (NEPAD), succeeding Rwanda after the expiration of two-year tenure.
Egypt was announced the President of NEPAD at a virtual meeting which had in attendance Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Egyptian Presidential Spokesperson Ahmed Fahmy.
Earlier in the week, Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame handed over the NEPAD leadership to al-Sisi in a video conference in which Egypt is expected to chair the committee till 2025.
The conference according to the Egyptian presidential spokesman brought together several African heads of state as well as members of the steering committee.
In his acceptance speech, al-Sisi said his presidency of the NEPAD steering committee will accord priority to new and non-traditional financing resources, as a measure to mitigate Africa’s current continent-wide economic crisis.
He also stressed the need to settle Africa’s debt crisis, in order to aid the continent’s economic recovery.
Al-Sisi outlined several measures and projects Egypt will pursue in order to achieve the goals of the African Development Agenda 2063. With a total of 69 projects, the implementation phase will extend from 2021 into 2030.
He also emphasized on the need to make contributions towards infrastructure development, industrial transformation, and sharing African expertise across the board while calling for intensive cooperation between global and international financial institutions in order to facilitate sustainable development and reduce debt burdens.
Al-Sisi said he will “look forward” to hearing proposals and suggestions from heads of state and the NEPAD on how to move the body forward.
As part of the African Union (AU), NEPAD is in charge of financing and developing programmes for the Union’s sustainability goals.
The NEPAD strategic framework was developed in 2001, with input taken from five initiating states: Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa.
The document was a reactive composition, made to adhere to a mandate by the Summit of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which later became the AU.
