MINISTER for Natural Resources and Tourism, Pindi Chana has urged members of Parliamentarians for Global Actions (PGA), to step in and help promote improved biosecurity and public health within their countries to combat biological threat.
She made the remarks on Monday in Dar es Salaam at the opening of the two days PGA Regional Africa Parliamentary Workshop, meant to promote universality and implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 1540 (2004).
The workshop has attracted members from Togo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Somalia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe and United States of America.
Minister Chana said it was imperative for the countries around the world to put in place measures to promote biological security and public health and implementing them effectively.
"It is equally important that we also do this at the regional level, to ensure the genuine success of such steps ... that is why, your deliberations over the coming two days hold such importance. I am also pleased to hear that you will adopt the traditional PGA Plan of Action," said the minister
Minister Chana expressed her confidence that, working together, consulting and coordinating will make it easy to achieve collective goals.
Among issues that are being discussed at the workshop include the challenge posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) including chemical, biological, and radiological agents with the potential to indiscriminately inflict widespread death and destruction.
The severe threat to humanity posed by the acquisition, possession and use of WMDs by hostile state and/or non-state actors, combined with the onset of more sophisticated and complex terrorism threats and actions in recent years, has renewed interest in and commitment to ensuring greater global participation and implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 1540 (2004).
Opened for signature on April 10th 1972 and entered into force on March 26th 1975, the convention on the prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of bacteriological (Biological) and toxin weapons and on their destruction, also known as the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) or Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), was the result of prolonged efforts by the international community to establish a new instrument that would supplement the 1925 Geneva Protocol.
