THE name of Africa illuminated the Foreign Ministry’s iconic Lotus-shaped premises overlooking the River Nile in central Cairo last Wednesday evening, marking Africa Day. The scene was a reminder of Egypt’s time-old and multiple bonds with the continent and also symbolised the country’s current engagement with Africa’s concerns and aspirations for the future. And the occasion was indeed lofty, given that it was on that day fifty nine years ago that the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was created to reflect and further African peoples’ longing for achieving development through co-operation. It was the birth of the continent’s first ever institutional framework for pan-Africanism – an event that represented a milestone in promoting unity and co-operation between countries of the continent as President Abdel Fattah El Sisi noted in a message of greetings he posted on his Facebook account last Wednesday. Over the years since then, the organisation which was launched by the 25 then independent states has developed into an African Union that now groups all the 55 countries of the continent, ushering in the process such specialised bodies and structures as are needed for enabling collective African action to encompass almost all areas of common concern.
As part of Egypt’s marking of Africa Day, the Foreign Ministry invited the ambassadors of African countries to visit the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC), which contains rare monuments and artifacts that depict the progress of civilisation along the banks of the River Nile since ancient times. In the meantime, Egyptian joint pilot farm projects with African countries stand as a concrete evidence of the country’s genuine orientation to bolster developmental co-operation between countries of the continent. According to the Agriculture Ministry’s Audiovisual Information Centre, ten such farms have been launched in African countries. In addition to the symbolic message that illuminating the Foreign Ministry’s high-rise headquarters with the name of Africa beamed, those concurrent examples reasserted the deeply-rooted and multi-faceted political and cultural ties that bind Egypt and Africa.
Emanating from such a rich history, Egypt is now actively engaging in promoting development co-operation with and between African countries, seeking to join hands with African countries in building Africa as a stable continent capable of ensuring a decent life for its peoples and beaming the culture of tolerance and affinity to the world, as President Sisi underscored in his May 25 message of greetings to the brotherly peoples of Africa.
An overview of the march of joint African action since the founding of the OAU and through to the launch of the AU indicates that the shared success in fostering multi-faceted pan-African action provides solid grounds for countries of the continent to deal with the more recent challenges which have been amplified by the global Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, global economic crises, food insecurity and malnutrition, as the UN General Assembly president observed in a statement he delivered to the assembly on May 25.
Much of the continent’s accomplishment in responding to such challenges lies in its capacity to reinvigorate collective action in the same spirit that characterised the common move to launch a pan-African organisation some six decades ago. The chances are indeed promising, given the continent’s abundant human and natural resources and particularly given Africa’s remarkable population structure which includes more than 400 million youths with a considerable potential to pursue innovativeness and active engagement in development. On Africa Day this year, the Vision Africa 2063 retains worthiness and even acquires mounting value.
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