Highway Africa News Agency (Grahamstown)
Wanjohi Kabukuru
8 February 2005
Geneva — Egypt has already laid out a red carpet for the forthcoming Afro-Arab summit to be held in preparation for the Tunis phase of WSIS.
Reiterating Egypt's proposal, which was originally floated last year, the Egyptian delegation here in Accra announced yesterday that plans have already been finalised for the high-level meeting.
The Afro-Arab summit is scheduled for this May in Cairo. It will be structured along the lines of the Pan-Arab regional preparatory conference on the WSIS which was held in Cairo in June 2003.
The Cairo summit will consider international developments pertinent to the second phase of WSIS, and will highlight the achievements of Afro-Arab nations in the field of communications and information technology.
It will examine regional action plans and carry forward the tasks of ensuring the effective participation of the private sector and civil societies in the Tunis phase of WSIS.
The focus of the Cairo summit is to pursue an Afro-Arab success agenda and position the two blocs together as a single, powerful negotiating front during the second phase of WSIS.
Afro-Arab cooperation is not new. At the African Union, the Afro-Arab Cooperation Department is responsible for initiating, facilitating, coordinating, and following up cooperation efforts between the African Union and the League of Arab States.
Last year President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and discussed the agenda of the forthcoming summit with a view to helping the continent reap the benefits of the WSIS process.
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