Shabait.com (Asmara)
25 March 2008
Asmara — The Minister of National Development, Dr. Woldai Futur, underlined the need for Eastern African countries to avoid continued dependency on foreign aid, become the masters of their policies and to formulate development strategies on the basis of the principle of self-reliance so as to overcome the existing economic problems in a short period of time. He made the remarks in a paper he presented at the regional conference on the Role of Trade Unions in Regional Integration in Africa, which is being held in Asmara.
Dr. Woldai indicated that although pursuing such development strategies would require expenses during a transitional period, it nonetheless would pave the way for a bright future to member states, in particular, and the region, in general. It is from this tangible fact that the Eritrean government is focusing on the principle of self reliance in exerting vigorous endeavors to promote economic development, and thus became the boss of its own programs and policies.
The Minister outlined that the main economic bottlenecks of the Eastern African countries rests on the prevailing political situation in the region, unstable economic policies, inefficient human resource capacity, low distribution of technology, spread of disease epidemics and poor economic management. In this regard, he explained that once these challenges are tackled, Africa has sufficient capacity to ensure economic and development progress.
In view of the fact that East Africa is endowed with a big market, rich natural resources, a strategic location and small-scale human resource capacity, these could provide additional impetus to accelerate the pace of economic-takeoff. Dr. Woldai Futur pointed out that despite the fact that half of the countries in the region registered improvement in their economy in the mid 1990s, almost half of their people are experiencing extreme poverty. As such, this constitutes the root cause of political and economic crisis (conflicts) in the region, he underlined.
Moreover, Minister Woldai called on trade unions to enhance their responsibility of protecting the rights of workers, so that they could enjoy a guaranteed and fair atmosphere in their workplace, and upgrade the skills of their members in order to produce maximum and quality outcome. He also replied to questions forwarded by conference participants.
Similarly, a study paper on the background of the role of trade unions in regional integration and conflict resolution in Africa was presented by Mr. Bobi Mari.
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