NEPAD urges media to highlight Africa's positive developments

NEPAD deputy chief executive officer and head of delegation Dr Hesphina Rukato said journalists should also profile the continent's challenges appropriately in order to engage other developmental stakeholders actively.

Dr Rukato said this at the official opening of the Malawi National Stakeholders Engagement meeting for the media, civil society and diplomatic community interaction on Tuesday.

She said the media and other stakeholders should actively engage and acquaint themselves with the role of NEPAD on the continent since its formation seven years ago.

Dr Rukato noted that it is important for the media to develop keen interest in learning and understanding the role that the continental body plays.

She has also urged African governments to interact more regularly among themselves to enhance their marketing skills of the various developmental projects to their cooperating partners and donors.

She added that interaction between countries could also help harmonise developmental projects between countries for mutual development and help demonstrate ownership of the projects.

Dr Rukato said African countries should work towards achieving mechanisms to co-ordinate and expedite projects in individual countries.

She added that there is also need for African governments to set aside finances from annual national budgets towards the development of regional projects of mutual benefit.

Meanwhile Dr Rukato disclosed that NEPAD had discussed long-term solutions to mitigate the soaring food and oil prices on the world market and urged African governments to initiate mechanisms to cushion the looming global crisis.

She said individual countries should further prioritise food security in order to further cushion the impact.

Malawi's Economic Planning and Development Minister, Dr Ken Lipenga, called for intensified sensitisation programmes on the role of NEPAD in the development of Africa.

He noted that NEPAD remained critical to the transformation of Africa's development as it aimed at integrating the continent's development through integrating regional bodies in Africa.

In a speech read on his behalf by the acting permanent secretary in the Economic Planning and Development Ministry, Ben Botolo, the minister also urged the media to expose more information to enable various stakeholders to analyse and participate effectively in championing the NEPAD agenda of facilitating development on the continent.

He also noted the need to build more transport infrastructure such as roads to increase interconnectivity between African countries in order to ease and increase trade.

Other infrastructure that can be developed are rail systems and waterways, including harnessing the various potential water bodies for generating electricity to avert challenges such as the recent power outages recently experienced in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

NEPAD was initiated after the adoption of a document setting out a new vision for the revival and development of Africa at the 37th summit of the former Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now the African Unity (AU), held in July 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia.

Currently NEPAD consists of 53 African Union (AU) member states out of which 29 have acceded to it.

The five-day training for journalists and NEPAD meeting for stakeholders in Malawi has attracted journalists from southern African media organizations, the Malawian government and NEPAD officials among others.

By Chimwemwe Mwale courtesy of BuaNews