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Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso Holds Municipal Elections 24 September
OUGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (PANA) - Burkina Faso is to hold municipal elections on 24 September 2000, according to a Presidential decree issued in Ouagadougou Thursday. The election had been postponed twice obliging the National Assembly to set up a special team to run the town councils.
The municipal polls were initially scheduled for 31 July but were later postponed to 22 August before being pushed to 24 September. Because of these changes, the National Assembly was also compelled to extend the mandate of the special teams, first to 12 February and then to 31 December 2000. According to the decree issued at the end of the weekly cabinet meeting, revision of the voters’ register should be completed by 25 August.
Bamako To Host Afico-Mali Fruit Juice processing Plant Bamako,
Mali (PANA) - The Afico-Mali investment company, a branch of the Libyan foreign investment outfit based in Mali, is to establish a fruit juice and syrup production plant in Bamako, estimated to 1.5 billion CFA francs. The company’s board of directors has signed the contract for the venture, following the completion of technical and financial feasibility studies.
Afico-Mali was established in May 1999 and by November had taken over the Amitie hotel, one of the biggest in Bamako, which it intends to refurbish. Other Libyan companies have acquired shares in state-owned companies such as the National Tobacco and Match Company, Sonatam, and the Malian Insurance Company, Cnar.
The Bamako fruit factory would depend on local fruits, especially mangoes and oranges that would otherwise go rotten in the country.
Space Engineer On Capacity Building For African Development
PARIS, France (PANA) - Africa should in the new millennium focus its efforts on capacity building as a means for achieving its development goals, UNESCO’s goodwill ambassador Cheick Modibo Diarra has said.
In an interview with PANA, the Malian-born space engineer said Africa should strive to provide its youth with the right technological tools for competitive development in the 21st century. Diarra sees the new information and communication technologies as some of the instruments that could enable Africa to be a major player on the global scene at a cost- effective manner.
Lamenting that Africa had not fully exploited its abundant natural wealth to enhance its own development, Diarra said: “In order to compete on the global market, Africa must as a matter of priority seek ways to begin to build it’s human capacity to a level where it can acquire the skills to add value to its raw materials endowed by nature before exporting the products.
“When we talk about globalisation, we are in effect talking about adding value to products. Nobody who puts out raw materials on the global market will ever win as long as buyers get together and decide what to do in order to bring prices down”. Africa should strive to process its raw materials into finished products that meet quality standards and needs of consumers as products from other parts of the world do. Only in that way, Diarra sees African countries capable of entering the global market at a fair level so that whenever the price of a product was fixed it would apply to everybody. “When Africa continues selling raw materials, it limits its bargaining chances for better prices”, he said.
According to Diarra, capacity-building efforts should focus more on the civil society to ensure entrepreneurs and community leaders were well equipped to rise up to the challenge to garner the available resources for Africa’s development. For African countries to realise development gains, unity of purpose centred on common projects was vital, Diarra said. As an example, he cited the European Union saying when the 15-member organisation was first mooted, it began with a coal and steel project which built up to other unifying sectors.
In the case of Africa, he cited the need to identify common projects such as the development of alternative energy sources or the mastering of various technologies with which the continent could identify itself. “It is through working to promote common projects that people can become united and see each other as members of the same team. This would in turn ensure that political unity becomes a reality,” he said. In his opinion, the continent is considered “weak” because it’s political leadership is divided.
“Africa as it stands today has so much of the world’s resources under it’s control that could be harnessed for the continent’s good if only it’s leaders put aside some of their egoistic problems and begin to tackle urgently the pressing development issues”. He said Africans should have a “common voice” on issues that would boost their weight on global affairs.
Diarra said creation of an African Space Agency was a vital project through which the continent could quickly acquire the first African communication satellite. “Lack of space technology in Africa has contributed to huge spending of the otherwise limited (financial) resources on purchase of capacity to communicate among ourselves or to fulfil some of our basic needs which could be done at less costs,” he added.
Diarra commended the efforts made by UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan to set up an independent commission for Africa whose task is to come up with ideas that could enable the continent to emerge strong in the new millennium.
It was during the commission’s recent meeting in Dakar, Senegal, that the idea of creating an African institute of technology was mooted. Diarra said the envisaged three branches of the institute are the African space Agency for communication purposes, an information and communication technology department and biotechnology department.
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