Africa Discusses Joining ALBA
CARACAS, June 9. — African Union Commission (AUC) Chairman Jean Ping spoke with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez about the interest of African countries to join the Bolivarian Alternatives for the Americas (ALBA), during a meeting in Caracas.
The two also discussed the Second Summit of African-South American Countries to be held in Caracas from September 14 to 19.
“We have important relationships with many ALBA countries, such as Cuba. We think that ALBA is a mechanism that could help us improve our healthcare and tourism sectors,” said Ping, as reported by AFP.
“Cuba and Venezuela lead the way in training healthcare professionals; an area where African countries lack the resources and infrastructure,” said Ping.
Ping stressed the importance of cooperation between South countries and of developing their own media resources. In this regard, Ping spoke about the experiences of TeleSur to broadcast the region’s own image, and the Bank of the South to foster financial cooperation.
The African representative also invited Chavez to visit UA headquarters in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, and other cities in the region.
Ping said that cooperation in health, education, energy, and communications, and ways to handle the current economic and financial crisis will be discussed at the meeting that will gather dozens of presidents from both regions.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro said that he was sure the next summit would be “of the peoples,” and spoke of his optimism of the success of initiatives to bring both regions closer together.
“These two continents are coming together to foster the development of a multi-polar world where balance and justice prevails, as Simon Bolivar once dreamt.”
The Africa – South America Summit is held every two years, alternating between the two continents. The first one was held in November 2006 in Abuja, Nigeria.
Venezuela has been an observer member of the UA since 2005. The UA works towards socio-economic integration and solidarity among African peoples.
