Global community urged not to let Ukraine crisis affect support for African nations

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ISTANBUL The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has been urged to ensure that the fall­out from the Ukraine cri­sis should not have an impact on glob­al sup­port for African nations.A joint state­ment released after a meet­ing of the Forum on Chi­na-Africa Coop­er­a­tion on Thurs­day held vir­tu­al­ly and addressed by China’s For­eign Min­is­ter Wang Yi, urged the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to “active­ly help African coun­tries address food secu­ri­ty, cli­mate change, ener­gy cri­sis and oth­er glob­al issues.”Expressing sup­port for a peace­ful nego­ti­a­tion between Rus­sia and Ukraine, the state­ment called on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty not to “lev­el down sup­port and input to Africa because of the Ukraine issue.”Russia launched a war on Ukraine in Feb­ru­ary of this year, result­ing in hun­dreds of deaths on both sides and mil­lions flee­ing the coun­try, affect­ing glob­al sup­ply chains, espe­cial­ly ener­gy and food supplies.However, thanks to the efforts of Türkiye and the UN, a grain cor­ri­dor with a coor­di­na­tion cen­ter in Istan­bul has been estab­lished, allow­ing food sup­plies from Ukraine and Rus­sia to reach the rest of the world.“The two sides urge the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to take seri­ous­ly Africa’s con­cerns on expand­ing devel­op­ment financ­ing and pro­mot­ing eco­nom­ic recov­ery, accel­er­ate the chan­nel­ing of Spe­cial Draw­ing Rights, in a bid to help Africa achieve inde­pen­dent and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment,” the state­ment said.Wang told the forum that Chi­na sup­ports the African side in imple­ment­ing the “Silenc­ing the Guns” ini­tia­tive as the two sides not­ed that the world is fac­ing grow­ing secu­ri­ty chal­lenges, con­demn­ing all forms of ter­ror­ism and vio­lent extremism.Reciprocal sup­port­Reaf­firm­ing their com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ple of non-inter­fer­ence in inter­nal affairs, the Chi­nese side urged the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to “pro­vide finan­cial and tech­ni­cal sup­port to counter-ter­ror­ism oper­a­tions led by Africa in accor­dance with the mech­a­nisms of the African Peace and Secu­ri­ty Architecture.”Expressing sup­port to uphold the pur­pos­es and prin­ci­ples of the UN-cen­tered inter­na­tion­al sys­tem, the state­ment urged uphold­ing “equal­i­ty among all coun­tries regard­less of their size, strength and wealth.”Without men­tion­ing any coun­try, the two sides opposed uni­lat­er­al­ism, pow­er pol­i­tics, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, the for­ma­tion of oppos­ing blocs, and divi­sion and confrontation.The state­ment reaf­firmed their mutu­al sup­port for ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty, sov­er­eign­ty, secu­ri­ty, and devel­op­ment inter­ests, say­ing “there is but one Chi­na in the world … Tai­wan is an inalien­able part of China’s ter­ri­to­ry, and the gov­ern­ment of the People’s Repub­lic of Chi­na is the sole legal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sent­ing the whole of China.”“The African side reaf­firms its com­mit­ment to the one-Chi­na prin­ci­ple, and its sup­port for China’s nation­al reuni­fi­ca­tion and China’s efforts to safe­guard the sov­er­eign­ty and ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty,” it added.China and African nations also said they will con­tin­ue to fight COVID-19 with “sol­i­dar­i­ty, deep­en prac­ti­cal coop­er­a­tion, pro­mote green devel­op­ment, uphold equi­ty and justice.”According to the state­ment, the two sides will syn­er­gize China’s mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar Belt and Road Ini­tia­tive, the Glob­al Devel­op­ment Ini­tia­tive with the African Union’s Agen­da 2063, and nation­al devel­op­ment strate­gies of African coun­tries, “in order to ele­vate Chi­na-Africa coop­er­a­tion to high­er levels.”

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UN Peacekeeping Troop Rotations to Resume in Mali

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Bamako, Mali —  The U.N. peace­keep­ing mis­sion in Mali, MINUSMA, is to resume con­tin­gent rota­tions start­ing Mon­day under fresh approval pro­ce­dures, the Malian for­eign min­is­ter and a U.N. spokes­woman have said. “MINUSMA agreed to the new pro­ce­dures and com­mu­ni­cat­ed them to all coun­tries con­tribut­ing troops. There will be no excep­tion,” For­eign Min­is­ter Abdoulaye Diop said Saturday,…

Chad’s Military Junta and Rebels Sign a Deal, but a Main Player Is Missing

African News Review, Central AfricaLeave a comment

The accord paves the way for nation­al rec­on­cil­i­a­tion talks and demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions. How­ev­er, it was snubbed by the main rebel group respon­si­ble for the death of Chad’s pre­vi­ous leader. DAKAR, Sene­gal — Chad’s mil­i­tary gov­ern­ment and more than 40 rebel groups signed a cease-fire agree­ment on Mon­day in Qatar, paving the way for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion talks…

West Africa bloc chair says Guinea accepts two-year transition | Military News | Al Jazeera

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In July, bloc lead­ers met in Accra, Ghana to dis­cuss tran­si­tions to civil­ian rule in Guinea, Mali and Burk­i­na Faso.The chair of the West African region­al bloc has said Guinea will cut the time­line of its planned tran­si­tion to civil­ian rule from three to two years.
Speak­ing along­side French Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron at a media brief­ing in Bis­sau, Guinea-Bis­sau Pres­i­dent Umaro Sis­so­co Emba­lo, who is chair of the Eco­nom­ic Com­mu­ni­ty of West African States (ECOWAS), said he had recent­ly con­vinced Guinea’s mil­i­tary gov­ern­ment to short­en its timeline.
“I was in Conakry with the pres­i­dent of the com­mis­sion (of ECOWAS) to make the mil­i­tary jun­ta under­stand the deci­sion of the sum­mit of heads of state that the tran­si­tion can­not exceed 24 months”, Emba­lo said.
“They had pro­posed 36 months, but we suc­ceed­ed in con­vinc­ing them,” he added.
Ous­mane Gaoual Dial­lo, a Guinean min­is­ter and spokesman for the tran­si­tion­al gov­ern­ment, told AFP that “nei­ther the gov­ern­ment nor the pres­i­den­cy con­firm this infor­ma­tion about the dura­tion of the tran­si­tion in Guinea”.
An ECOWAS offi­cial told AFP on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty: “The prin­ci­ple is accept­ed but we were wait­ing to for­malise it … before announc­ing it.”
Last Sep­tem­ber, sol­diers led by Colonel Mamady Doum­bouya over­threw Pres­i­dent Alpha Conde and in May, the mil­i­tary pledged to hand over pow­er to elect­ed civil­ians with­in three years.
But region­al pow­ers reject­ed this time­line, with ECOWAS sus­pend­ing Guinea after the coup.
Last week, West African medi­a­tors met Guinea’s rul­ing mil­i­tary gov­ern­ment for talks on a return to civil­ian rule, accord­ing to ECOWAS and state media. Emba­lo, Gam­bian diplo­mat Omar Alieu Touray, who is the pres­i­dent of the ECOWAS com­mis­sion, and Benin’s for­mer pres­i­dent Thomas Boni Yayi, the ECOWAS medi­a­tor for Guinea, were all present.
Ear­li­er in July, ECOWAS lead­ers had met in Ghana’s cap­i­tal Accra to dis­cuss tran­si­tions to civil­ian rule in Guinea, as well as Mali and Burk­i­na Faso, which togeth­er have under­gone four coups since August 2020.
They lift­ed tough sanc­tions that had been imposed on Mali’s mil­i­tary regime, accept­ing a March 2024 return to civil­ian rule.
And they agreed to allow Burk­i­na Faso two years for its tran­si­tion back to democracy.
But dis­cus­sions until then had been trick­i­er with the rulers of Guinea, where the gov­ern­ment had announced a 36-month tran­si­tion – a peri­od that African Union chair­man and Sene­galese Pres­i­dent Macky Sall described as “unthink­able”.
On Thurs­day, protests against Guinea’s mil­i­tary lead­ers brought Conakry to a standstill.
The Nation­al Front for the Defence of the Con­sti­tu­tion (FNDC), a coali­tion of polit­i­cal par­ties, trade unions and civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions, called the demon­stra­tions to denounce the government’s “uni­lat­er­al man­age­ment” of any return to civil­ian rule.
Oth­er par­ties and coali­tions joined the protests.
In May, the gov­ern­ment banned pub­lic demon­stra­tions, and Thursday’s protests led to spo­radic clash­es between demon­stra­tors and police.

Hundreds Protest Tunisian Referendum

African News Review, VOA News AfricaLeave a comment

Tunis —  Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers gath­ered in cen­tral Tunis on Sat­ur­day to demon­strate against a ref­er­en­dum to be held on Mon­day on a new con­sti­tu­tion that they reject as ille­gal. Pres­i­dent Kais Saied pub­lished the draft con­sti­tu­tion, giv­ing him­self far more pow­ers, reduc­ing the role of the par­lia­ment and judi­cia­ry, and remov­ing most checks on…

Strengthening Sudan’s fragile peace: A Resident Coordinator Blog

African News Review, North AfricaLeave a comment

The killing of pro­tes­tors by secu­ri­ty ser­vices dur­ing large-scale demon­stra­tions in Sudan’s cap­i­tal Khar­toum in June under­scores the ongo­ing polit­i­cal ten­sions in the coun­try. Against this back­drop, the UN is com­mit­ted to sus­tain and build peace in Sudan, say UN Res­i­dent Coor­di­na­tor Khardia­ta Lo Ndi­aye, and Eliz­a­beth Spe­har, Assis­tant Sec­re­­tary-Gen­er­al for Peace­build­ing Support.