The third edition of the Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development kicked off on Tuesday.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi addressed the participants via videoconference, urging African countries to join hands to address the current challenges facing the continent, including food insecurity and terrorism.
The two-day event is held under the theme, “Africa in an era of successive risks and climate vulnerability: Paths to a peaceful, resilient, and sustainable continent.”
Sisi enumerated a number of challenges facing the continent, including terrorism.
He said Cairo established the Sahel-Sahara Center to Combat Terrorism to help people confront the negative repercussions of this phenomenon.
It also seeks to build the capacities of African institutions in the affected areas, especially in the Sahel region by providing training courses for the forces participating in African peacekeeping missions.
Egypt also inaugurated the African Union Center for Post-conflict Reconstruction and Development (PCRD) to play an effective role in preparing programs and activities to support countries post conflicts, maintain stability, security and development, and prevent the reemergence of conflicts on their territories.
Sisi affirmed that African countries were affected by the food and energy security crises, in addition to the health, social and economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic, appealing for concerted efforts to address these challenges.
He underlined the African food crisis as a result of the Russian war in Ukraine and called for adopting urgent and active mechanisms, in coordination with international partners and the international community, to help African countries contain its repercussions.
He proposed diversifying food sources and securing supply chains for African countries, as well as taking sustainable measures to maintain food security by giving them access to advanced technology in the field of agriculture and intensifying efforts to increase agricultural crop production resulting in self-sufficiency.
Sisi said that this year’s focus on increasing resilience in the field of food security reflects the great importance the continent attaches to resolve this matter, in light of other related challenges such as water scarcity and price hikes.
He pointed to the other challenges the continent still faces, including maintaining peace and security, achieving sustainable development, confronting terrorism and its affiliated phenomena, such as arms smuggling and proliferation, organized crime, human trafficking and illegal immigration.
African ministers and senior officials from the African Union and the United Nations have participated in the event.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said the Forum represents a key opportunity to develop visions to address all the challenges facing African countries.
He added that the third edition provides a space for an in-depth dialogue on the intertwined challenges that threaten Africa’s security and stability, with a focus on finding innovative solutions that achieve the goals of the AU’s 2063 Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
