Washington, DC — Following a visit to New York, where he attended the United Nation's Special Session on AIDS, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade came to Washington today for talks with President Bush. At a press conference before the meeting, he talked about some of the issues under discussion with US officials such as bilateral relations and the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone. But his emphasis is promoting African development through the 'Omega Plan', an initiative loosely modelled on the Marshall Plan for reconstruction in Europe after the Second World War.
"The first postulate of the Omega Plan," Wade said, "is that in dealing with the issue of African development, we should move from the national level to the sub-regional level so that all development projects are conceived, financed and executed sub-regionally".
As an example of this, he cited a highway project for linking Tangiers, in northern Morocco, with the Senegalese capital Dakar through Mali and Mauritania. "No one can stay confined within his own national borders and succeed," he added,"because the market is very small". Developped nations too will be called upon to help finance such projects, though through loans and investment not aid, he said.
About the differences that may be exisit between this initiative and the Millenium Africa Plan (MAP) put forward by South African President Thabo Mbeki, and supported by Nigeria and Algeria, President Wade was categorical. The Omega Plan, he said, is a practical initiative for overcoming Africa's economic difficulties. MAP is "more of a manifesto, a historical declaration...that draws attention to the gravity of the situation on the continent." The most important aspect of this declaration, according to Wade, is that it combines a focus on background problems such as colonization with a call for solutions to Africa's many problems such as AIDS.
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But while the two plans may be different, they are also complimentary, he pointed out, before announcing that both the Nigerian and Algerian governments now support the Omega Plan. "The Senegalese delegation to the UN's Special Session on AIDS this week met with its counterparts from Nigeria, Algeria and South Africa and decided to work towards a joint document".
According to the Senegalese president, a meeting to that effect will take place this week in the Nigerian capital Abuja and he will personally meet with President Thabo Mbeki on 7 July to work out a joint position. Whatever comes out of that meeting, he said, will be tabled at the next summit of the Organization of African Unity in Zambia later the same month before being submitted to the UN in September. Wade sounded confident the joint initiatice will be approved all round.
