Online Reporter
Kudakwashe Mugari in ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
PRESIDENT Mnangagwa is expected to join his counterparts at the African Union’s 39th ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government meeting in Addis Ababa, which starts on Saturday.
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Professor Amon Murwira is attending the preceding meetings, whose recommendations will be presented to the African leaders. Prof Murwira attended the Ministerial Session of the 48th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council that began yesterday.
The summit is running under the theme, “Assuring sustainable water availability and safe sanitation systems to achieve the goals of Agenda 2063”.
In his address, Prof Murwira said Africa must be built by Africans, without depending on external funding.
“On financing the needs of our motherland and achieving every aspiration of our Agenda 2063, we must continue to leverage on our abundant resources to fund ourselves,” he said. “Africa is built by its own people and no one outside the continent of Africa will address our challenges better than ourselves. We must not tire in our quest to find lasting solutions to a domestic financing model for all our programmes, including our peace support operations.”
Prof Murwira added that the importance of African solutions to African problems cannot be over-emphasised.
He explained that dependency compromises principles and integrity as most partners come in with their own priorities, which most of the time differ from Africa’s goals and aspirations.
The African Union head of media and communication Mrs Wynne Musabayana said they expect Heads of State and Government to start arriving today.
“Our theme will be discussed; so, only after it has been adopted by the Heads of State does it become the official theme for 2026.
“So, it is going to be launched by the Heads of State when they meet. The other issue is peace and security on our continent. A lot of unrest is happening.”
Mrs Musabayana said issues of the relationship and the collaboration between the AU and the regional economic communities will also come under discussion. “These are organisations such as SADC, such as ECOWAS, such as EAC and so on. So that is also going to be under discussion. Then the Heads of State are expected to consider the report on the institutional reforms,” said Mrs Musabayana.
Meanwhile, Prof Murwira held bilateral engagements with his counterparts from Gabon and Algeria.
He met them on the sidelines of the 48th AU Council of Ministers meeting and discussed political, economic and trade as well as diplomatic issues.
Said Prof Murwira: “Zimbabwe and Algeria share very close political relations and close economic relations. In other words, our relations span a whole spectrum, from bilateral to the multilateral world.
“We were just having a discussion to update on the state of our excellent political relations and our shared positions in the international arena. We always enjoy our discussions because we share a lot in common. As you know, for Zimbabwe to be independent, it was closely supported and practically supported by Algeria.”
Prof Murwira said those relations continue to grow in all spheres of development, from political to social and economic.
