Focus on sustainable development, President Mugabe says

ZIMBABWEAN President Dr Robert Mugabe says the new African Caribbean Pacific group needs to concentrate its efforts on clearly defined perimeters and domains for sustainable development.

Mugabe said the ACP-European Union partnership of more than 40 years had regrettably created a typical donor-recipient relationship and a dependency syndrome.

“The year marks 41 years since the signing of the Georgetown Agreement by which we committed ourselves to a relationship with the European Union,” he said. 

“With the birth of an ACP-EU partnership came the evolution of a largest inter-continental body of developing countries whose vision then was to enhance the political identity of the ACP group to enable it to act and speak with a united voice in all international forums and to contribute toward the realisation to a new fairer and more equitable world economic order.

“The question that confronts us today is have we lived up to that vision as an ACP family and what impact has ACP-EU partnership had on our wellbeing.

“As the Cotonou partnership agreement nears its end in 2020, we commend the initiative of ministers who established the ambassadorial working groups on future perspectives and the Eminent Persons Group to intensify reflections on the future of our organisations.”

Mugabe said the new ACP should avoid duplicating activities being carried out by other regional and international organisations which the countries were already party to.

“The fight to eradicate poverty remains protracted daunting and demanding that we all should marshal our actions towards the promotion of the sustainable development goals and agenda 2030,” he said. The National/PNG Today/ Photo by: Justin Tkatchenko