Kuwait devoted to enhancing Afro-Arab cooperation: Envoy

Kuwait is committed to boosting Arab-African cooperation, Kuwait’s ambassador to Ethiopia and permanent representative to the African Union Rashed Al-Hajri said during a meeting held yesterday in Cairo to prepare for the next Arab-African summit.

Representing the Arab side to the summit preparatory meeting, Ambassador Hajri praised the outcome of the last such summit, the third, held in Kuwait in 2013, for having fielded a distinctive initiative by His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah aimed at buttressing growth, development, and investment in Africa. The initiative, the ambassador explained, consisted of allocating one billion dollars for development in Africa, another billion dollars for investment and one million dollars annually for research studies to boost economic development in Africa in the name of the Kuwaiti philanthropist Abdulrahman Al-Sumait.

Representing Africa’s side to today’s fourth Arab-African summit preparation meeting, Chadian envoy Amad Sekini acknowledged that the third Arab-African summit in Kuwait produced good results and that the African side was striving hard to put these results to use.

Even more so, the fourth summit will follow up the third summit’s resolutions on fighting terrorism, funding agricultural development and food security, dealing with immigration and setting up a fund for timely response to natural disasters, said Arab League representative to today’s preparatory meeting Zaid Al-Sabban.

The prep meeting will also select a motto for the summit and determine its core issue from two choices: funding economic growth and development or immigration, he said. Attending yesterday’s meeting were representatives for the Arab side from Kuwait, Egypt, Mauritania and for the Africa side from Chad, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, and Ethiopia in addition to those from the Arab League and the African Union.