Malabo Summit to reiterate ACP
partnership and solidarity
Heads of State and
delegates from the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries will come together
from December 10-14, 2012, in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial guinea, for the
7th Summit for African Caribbean and Pacific Heads of State and
Government (ACP).
President Obiang Nguema
Mbasogo, along with African, Caribbean and Pacific group leaders will meet to
strengthen South-South solidarity and collaboration, Millennium Development
Goals, sustainable development programs in ACP communities, and to enhance ACP
countries role in the global arena. This is another effort by the government to
strengthen its cooperation ties with the international community.
“This is a great
opportunity to show the world our organizational capacity, and also for those
who visit our country for the first time, to see the true reality of Equatorial
Guinea,” said Vicente Ehate Tomi, Equatorial Guinea Prime Minister.
This year’s ACP Summit
theme will be “the future of the ACP group in a Changing World: Challenges and
Opportunities,” and will focus on the future of ACP-EU relations, opportunities
for ACP partnerships with emerging economies, intra-ACP trade, energy and
sustainable economic development, and peace and security issues. The previous ACP Summit was held in
Ghana in 2008 with a focus on the impact of the international financial
hurricane of oil and food prices.
“I am convinced that the 7th
Summit of ACP Heads of State and Government which will take place very soon in
Equatorial Guinea will give us the chance to reaffirm this solidarity. I have
no doubt that this meeting will, for us, be an opportunity to express our faith
more strongly in the capacity of our Group to make the best of its partnership with
the European Union, in defining more timely and innovative orientations for the
Group,” said H.E Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon.
ACP is an association of
African, Caribbean and Pacific countries formed to coordinate the agreements of
the Lomé Convention of 1975, later included in the context of the objectives of
the Cotonou Agreement, signed in 2000. Its objectives are to coordinate the
activities of the ACP States, in the framework of the implementation of that
agreement, and to define common positions of member countries in relation to
the European Union (European Development Fund).
Sipopo has also hosted
events associated with the African-South American Summit. It was the host of
the African-South America Forum, at which ministers of foreign affairs from 65
countries came together, and it will host the summit at a later date this year.
In June and July, Equatorial Guinea hosted the African
Union Summit, and in August the country was also the host of the 9th
Leon H. Sullivan Summit, in Sipopo.
